independent school, work with your state board of health, figure it out, seems a wasted effort. i say that because children play such a role in both protection of disease, spread of the zeeds, et cetera. so your thoughts on that because really it seems that's the one setting where you can have -- not cookie cutter but certainly a pattern which could be followed. >> senator, i must have been misunderstood. when i was talking about differences, i was thinking about the difference between an elementary school, high school, college in terms of how at trade school there may be differences in how you integrate a testing strategy but i do think having a testing strategy with different options for people to evaluate on different principles will be important for guidance. >> dr. fauci, you persuasively argue that the risk of reopening prematurely is great. but i think the frustration -- if i think of children in

particular, the benefit/risk ratio for a child because of school and die care and without monitor that sometimes occurs from perhaps child abuse but most importantly for all children the opportunity cost of a brain which is forming and not having access to the information that will help that brain form optimally. now, has there been any kind of risk/benefit ratio for the child? yes, they're at risk for kawasaki's but particular risk for missing out of a year of education, particularly those from less enriched backgrounds. i guess i'm very concerned about that tension. what are your thoughts on that? >> no, you make a very good point, senator cassidy. this is a very difficult of the unintended consequences in trying to do something that is important for the risk of having

a resurgence of an outbreak and unintended consequences of having children out of school. i appreciate that. but i don't have an easy answer to that. i just don't. we have to see on a step-by-step basis as we get into a period of time in the fall of reopening schools and where we are in the amex of the outbreak. i will point out throughout some of the questions we have a very large country and the dynamics are different in different regions of the country. it will be different in one region versus another. so it's not going to be universal or homogenous. but i don't have a solution for what happens when you close schools that triggers a cascade of events and has adverse circumstances. >> mr. chairman, i will close by asking the permission of the

chair to submit for the record an article that just came out in the journal of pediatric nursing, children are at risk for covid-19. >> so ordered and it will be included. thank you, senator cassidy. senator warren. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. i hope everybody is staying safe and healthy. in the past 16 weeks, over 1.3 million americans have been infected with coronavirus. we now know about 80,000 people have died and 33 million people are out of work. dr. fauci, you have advised six presidents. you have battled deadly viruses through your career. i would like to hear your honest opinion. do we have the coronavirus contained? >> senator, thank you for the question.

right now it depends what you mean by containment. if you mean do we have it completely under control? we don't. if you look at the amex of the outbreak, we've seem a demination of hospitalization and infection in some places such as new york city, which plateaued and started to come down and new orleans. but other parts of the countries, you are seeing spikes. so when you look at the dynamics of new cases, even though looks like it's coming down, the curve looks flat with slight coming down. i think we're going to the right direction. but the right direction does not mean by any means we have total control of this outbreak. >> right direction as i understand it we have about 25,000 new infections a day and over 2,000 deaths a day? i think those are the right numbers. and some are estimating we could be at 200,000 new cases a day by june. is that right, dr. fauci? >> i don't foresee that as

200,000 new cases by june. i'm hoping and looking at the dynamics for things starting to flatten off and come down that we will be much, much better than that, senator. >> just so i understand, we are right now at 2,000 new infections a day, and 25,000 new infections a day, and 2,000 deaths a day? >> right. >> that's where we are right now? >> yes. >> let me just ask, we know that it is possible to get this virus under better control. other countries have done it like south korea, but we're now three months into this pandemic and basically we've continued to set records for the number of people who are diagnosed and the number of people who die. dr. fauci, you recently said a second wave of coronavirus in the fall was, quote, inevitable. but that if american, quote, puts in place all of the

countermeasures that you need to address this, we should do reasonably well. and the countermeasures you identifies are things like continued social distancing, significantly more testing, widespread contact tracing. you also said if america doesn't do what it takes and this is your quote, we can be in for a bad fall in a bad winter. right now we're about 16 weeks away from labor day. that's about the same length of time since the virus was first detected here in the u.s. don't we have enough robust counter measures in place that we don't have to worry about a bad fall and winter? >> right now the projection as you heard from admiral giriou for testing and other elements needed to respond, the projection is by the time we get to the end of the summer and early fall, that we will have

that in place, that projection. >> we don't have it in place now but we are projecting it will happen in place. let me ask the other side of this, if we don't do better on testing, on contact tracing and on social distancing, will deaths from coronavirus necessarily increase? >> of course. if you do not do an adequate response, we will have the deleterious consequence of more infections and more deaths. that's the reason why you quoted me, senator, quite correctly everything you say, and i will stand by that. if we do not respond in adequate way when the fall comes there will be without a doubt infections in the community, we run the risk of having a resurgence. i would hope by that point in time in the fall we have more than enough to respond

adequately. but if we don't, there will be problems. >> i appreciate your hope. i wish we can tell the american people that the federal government has this pandemic under control, but we can't. and in fact, it's said the virus is not under control in the u.s. we have not yet taken the measures necessary to present a second wave of death and we know the people who will be most effected will be seniors, essential workers, people who are out on the frontlines. the president needs to stop pretending that if he just ignored bad news, it will go away. it won't. the time for magical thinking is over here. president trump must acknowledge that the federal response has been insufficient and more people are dyeing as a result. we are running out of time to save lives. and we need to act now.

so thank you, dr. fauci, for all you're doing. i appreciate it. but the urgency of the moment is not over. thank you. >> thank you, senator warren. senator roberts. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and thanks to all of the witnesses. you all are like the fab four. i guess it was a fab five back in the day. but you're shining the light of truth in the darkness of individual flashlights for sure. thank you, mr. chairman, for emphasizing we have to be bipartisan in this approach or we're not going to get anywhere. and that is in the eyes of the beholder. i'm happy to say we have a great relationship with senator kelly and her emergency management is spot on.

this morning i talked to lee. the situation in kansas is very good. i'm reading here kansas receives 7,000 new covid tests for food processing facilities. you see this mural behind me. that is a stage coach coming into dodge, as opposed to getting out of dodge. and dodge city in my hometown. and wire the hot spot because of two packing plants. we have five that's 26% of the cattle market. at any rate, kansas is going through a tough time. we shouldn't be worried about the safety of the food supply chain i think nationwide is under a great deal of stress. we see that in dairy. we see that in poultry. we see that in pork. they're euthanizing pigs and opposite the livestock mystery. sonny purdue of the agriculture

culture stepped up, as well as the president, declaring these packing plants are a national asset. we pledged, dodge city, when we first started out had five tests. that's between four and six, five. it's not 50 million as we hoped and has been said by one of the witnesses. the really i'm really harping on all of the problems we're having on that factor and on top of the fact the relationship with china and first breakthrough with regards to trade with china seems to be on hold now. and that is price affecting. and we are below our production. people are figuring out food doesn't come from groechry stores and i'm very worried the harm to the food value chain is very real, not to mention the financial situations our

farmers, ranchers and growers all face. having said all of that, i want to ask, admiral giriou, you spoke about the diversity of tests available, the five packing plants we have in kansas, if we can get a rapid test, and we can get it as we poor the asphalt because of the hot spots doing great harm to the assets and food chain, that would be really wonderful. if you could speak to that, sir. >> yes, sir, dr. redfield and i have been very actively involved getting strategies for the industry, particularly in kansas. we are supplying very heavily the public health labs with rapid diagnostics as well as surging them to areas like that. the one tradeoff, however, is that the rapid -- quote rapid point of care diagnostics are

very slow. so each machine can only do four per hour and that's very, very slow. so it's a mix of testing that you need in these kinds much situations at the sort of high through-put tests that are available at a major quest lab right there in kansas as well as a mix of the rapid testing. and that's what we're supplying in order to provide a comprehensive, holistic solution. i believe cdc is on the ground as well in kansas supporting that. >> i appreciate that. if you're only doing four an hour, that's not a rapid test. we say rapid slow test? i'm not quite sure how you define that. i for one thing as we reopen, and by the way, governor kelly started the opening process the first of this month. and may 18, and then we go to june. and the hope is we can open up. but we have contingency plans if

that doesn't work, as aptly described by dr. fauci, i think we will be all right. but this is going to be a tough go. i have to tell you in terms of agriculture, we're not in good shape. i appreciate everybody and the job that you're doing. we will stand beside you when you're taking the boos and behind you when you're taking the bows. >> thank you, senator roberts. senator tim kaine. >> thank you, mr. chair, for the leadership and witnesses for calling this hearing. i have a slide i want to put up that has shown what happened in america since march 3. the chart compares the experience of united states and south korea on three dates. january 21, both nations experienced their first case of covid-19. at that time the unemployment rates in both countries were essentially identical. march 3 when the witnesses were

last year, south korea expressed 28 covid-19 deaths and u.s. nine. again, economies of both nations as measured by the unemployment rates were nearly identical. but now the story changes. as of yesterday more than 81,000 americans have died and u.s. economy experienced job losses not seen since the great depression. meanwhile, the economy of south korea has not changed dramatically at all. and the death toll is now at 256. south korea's smaller than the united states, one-sixth of our population, but even if you bulk up the dwej toll to reflect the difference, the per capita of the death toll is 45 times the rate than south korea and the health care karnen in that south korea is managing it correctly. i could have done this chart with other nations. the u.s. has the seventh highest per capita death rate in the world. our death rate is off the charts from that of india, australia,

new zealand, mexico, twice as high as canada's rate. the question is why? if we want to open up our economies and schools, we have to learn the lessons of nations that managed this well. hires things that don't explain the difference. our hospitals are as good or better than those in south korea. our research capacities is as good or better than that of south korea. and we have more resources than south korea. our gdp is 12 times south korea and per capita income 50% higher. so to dr. fauci, the death role in the united states, the death rate in the united states, especially when compared with other nations, is unacceptable, isn't it? >> excuse me. so sorry, sir.

yes, of course. death rate that high is something in any manner, form in my mind is unacceptable. >> and it shows the death rate is also not acceptable but unnecessary, is that correct? >> i don't know if we can say that, senator. >> would you say the u.s. has to do better? >> of course, you always have to do better. >> the experience of south korea shows how a nation manages the health care crisis, has a huge impact also on its economic condition, isn't that the case? >> that is the case, sir. i understand where you're going with this but i have to tell you, there is a big difference between south korea and the united states and the outbreak. >> let me get to that. i want to get to factors that do explain the difference, since we know it's not resources or our health providers. first is testing. south korea began aggressive testing much earlier than the u.s. now in the fifth month of the pandemic, we surpassed south

korea in per capital florida testing but in the critical month of march, south korea was testing its population as a rate of 40 times the testing in the u.s. add memory gir-- dr. giriou sete standard that the u.s. has to do 40 million tests a month to be safe. that equates to about 1.3 million to 1.7 million tests a day. yesterday we did 395,000 tests. we've got a long way to go. a second factor is contraact tracing. south korea embraced a rigorous contact tracing right from the beginning. the united states still has not engaged in a national contact tracing program, isn't that right? would that be dr. fauci or dr. redfield? >> sir, i think that question would best be directed to the cdc and not the nih.

>> when the outbreak started, sir, we had an aggressive contact tracing program but unfortunately as cases rose t. went beyond capacity of mitigation. so we lost the containment edge. >> and that was key to the economy as well. because south korea did testing, contact tracing, protect, serve, isolate the sick and they didn't have to do the shutdowns, which hurt their economy. social distancing is the third factor. and finally the last one, health care systems. would you agree with me it keeps people safe from serious conditions or death from covid-19 if they have access to health care? >> yes, of course. >> of course that's the case. in south korea 97% of the population have health insurance. in the united states before covid-19, millions didn't have it and lacked access to health care. the massive job losses in the last months threatened to take health insurance away from

millions more and president trump is doing all he can to dismantle the affordable care act, which would take health insurance away from tens of billions more. let's learn the lessons from those doing this right. thank you, i yield back. >> can i make a clarification, please, mr. chairman. i just want to clarify that i did project we would have the ability to perform 40 million to 50 million tests per month in that time frame and i said if needed at that time. i'm not making a proclamation, we have to really understand where the pandemic is, what the community spread is before we can estimate the number of tests needed. i was simply saying the fact of that you are combination of testing capabilities will be at that level even barring new input from the nih. >> thank you very much senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and

thank you gentlemen for being here virtually and also for all you have been doing for these many, many months. we're doing okay in alaska from a numbers perspective and we want to keep it that way. we know we have vulnerable populations and geography that are limited. last hearing we had an opportunity to hear from dr. collins and he shared where they are with the radx and also spoke to radx up, which is interesting what we could be doing in rural areas but focusing on hotspots. as i reminded him, we don't want to be a hot spot in alaska. every effort we make to keep the virus out of alaska are lives saved. i educated him on the community of cordova, that is just getting ready to open its copper river

salmon fishery in two days. and was able to share that they had, had one worker test positive as he was coming in from the lower 48 to come to work. the good news on is that is all of the protocols we had put in place seemed to be working. the quarantine, isolation, not only for that individual but for others that he had come in contact with were secure. i want to recognize the assistance that we have received from the administration, dr. eastman is in the state at this moment. the chief medical officer for the department of homeland security going out to rural communities to really better understand our vulnerabilities, go to some of our fishing communities to, again, understand how we can successfully pros fisheries when you have to bring workers in from the outside. we thank you for the assistance with regards to additional

testing capacity. i have been in contact with our chief medical officer of the state this morning and mare of cordova for betting understanding again, do we have the tests we need? what do we need on the ground? one of the things that i would like to have clarified -- and this is probably to you, dr. giriou, because you have been so helpful in shining the light on what we ought to be doing in rural areas. but so many of the focus has been on hot spots and responding to hot spots. but how do you keep rural, remote, small communities from becoming the hot spot in the first place? are we doing enough? right now the strategy has been we lock it off. the travel restrictions in place are apparently working, but they're also, also devastating our economy. whether it's tourism, whether

it's our resource industries or whether it's the potential for our fisheries. so add memoriamiral, if you mig to that asset of it and i have a question that relates to contact tracing i would like to direct to admiral giriou or dr. refield. >> thank you, senator. you have an outstanding state health officer in dr. ann zinc. >> we do. >> i have had the privilege of working with her and you have a very good protocol of trying to keep alaska safe by isolation over a period of time when you come in. as you know, we also work with the state to meet your very challenging testing requirements because you can't really send labs out thousands of miles away. so we put a customized mix of point of care in and also the

machines, i think we sent nine or ten new to alaska and 50,000 tests, about four times you have done to date collectively in order to provide that support. so, again, i do think there's a comprehensive strategy that you do have. but, again, the mitigation to the degree you can, given the circumstances, the face masks, handwashing, hygiene, we understand fully the challenges particularly in the fishing environment and the remote but all of these have to come together the testing, the tracing, the mitigation, the hygiene factors, to try to keep your communities safe. we understand culturally that many of your communities were almost annihilated in the 1918 by influenza pandemic. and that memory is still very sharp and very hurtful to many of the citizens. so we want to do our best to assure them we're giving them all of the protection we can.

>> admiral, let me turn to dr. redfield. because this relates to contact tracing. i think this is a very, very key part of how we move forward into getting people back to work, getting people back to school. right now we have about 100 people that are involved in contact tracing in alaska. that's clearly not sufficient. there's been talk about a national strategy, but i think we recognize that we have teams in place, whether it's americorps, peace corps, whether our public health corps. what more do we need to be doing to make sure that once you have been tested positive, you know then what happens after that? who else needs to be brought in to this? and i'm not convinced we're focusing enough on that aspect of how we move to reopening if we haven't done the contact tracing. >> thank you very much, senator. i want to just re-emphasize what you said. i think contact tracing

capabilities is critical. it's going to be the difference from succeeding and containing this outbreak from wide scale community transmission or not. we're positioned, as you know, to deploy and redeploy the number of cdc, over 500 cdc individuals. we have another 650 that we're trying to put in, but most importantly we're trying to work with your health department, with the resources that we've been able to give because of the congress supplements. also you mentioned other agencies with labcorp, with amo americorps, the census bureau, developing to increase state capacity. some states reactivated the national guard. i agree with you.

i think it's going to be a significant expert to build a contact tracing we need. it will be state by state but need to be augments probably in your state from what you just said five to ten fold. we're there to work with the states to help them accomplish that needs to be in place before september. >> we need to move on. next question. >> thank you. >> thank you, is now murkowski. i don't want to cut anyone off but we have eight more senators with five-minute rounds and it's 12:30. so i would like to request that the senators and the witnesses su suss sifrpgt questions and try to stay within five minutes would be appreciated. senator passal? >> thank you, mr. chair and members and witnesses today. please pass our thanks along to all of the hard working men and women in your agencies who i know have been working virtually

around the clock to improve our response and keep americans safe. mr. chair, i hope you and all of the witnesses are healthy and safe today as is everybody on your team. i wanted to start by echoing the comments my colleague had made by leadership from the cdc and our public health experts how we're going to use facts and public evidence as guidance so our schools and day cares and businesses have the information they need to create safe and sustainable plans to reopen. and, of course, that means our testing capacity not only has to be enough but it has to be flexible enough to meet our needs. the key distinction between south korea and the united states is not how many tests per capita over a certain amount of time we've done, but the fact that at the onset of this

pandemic, south korea was much more able to do a lot more tests per capita than we were, and then follow that with all of the other measures you've talked about. we continue the need to identify the need and then build our capacity towards the need, not the other way around. i wanted to start with a question to you, dr. fauci. first of all, thank you for your work and your expertise. i wanted to talk about nursing homes for a minute. in new hampshire and across the country, a huge number of the deaths from covid-19 we are seeing have been in nursing homes. we all know people who have lost friend or family member in nursing homes, and the grief compounded by the fact that people couldn't be at their loved one's bedside if they died. yesterday dr. birx said all 1 million nursing home residents should be tested within the next two weeks as well as all nursing home staff. dr. fauci, as a short-term goal, that makes sense to me. after that, what will the

ongoing federal recommendations look like? how frequently do we need to test patients and staff on a continuing basis and what other measures would be necessary to keep our loved ones in these facilities safe. >> thank you for the question, senator hassan. the general plan you mentioned is a sound plan in the immediate. but the question is the long range. we will have to have infection control capabilities in nursing homes that are really pristine and unassayable. we have to have the surveillances and have the capability when you identify someone, you get out of that particular environment so they don't spread the infection throughout. general testing for all i think is a good start. when you look where you're going to go in the future, it has to be a considerable degree of surveillance capability.

>> thank you, doctor. the white house is now requiring all staff to wear masks and anyone in regular contact with the president tested daily. do you think nursing homes should implement those same measures to help make sure that our seniors can get the same level of protection? >> i think there should be a -- staple in place for the optimal protection of people in nursing homes, and that would be not necessarily testing every person every day. that's one approach that might not be practical when you think of all of the nursing homes in the country. but very strict regulations and guidelines about who is allowed to go into the nursing home and the staff, i believe, needs to be monitored very carefully with intermittent testing to make sure we don't have introduction into the nursing of home of affected individuals. i'm not sure you can practically do testing every day.

i don't think that would be feasible. but some think that is much more aggressive than has been done in the past i believe should be done. >> thank you. i have one last question for dr. fauci and dr. refield. i would also just say if we're able to get masks to everybody in the white house, i hope we can get masks to every nursing home employee who needs it. dr. fauci, dr. refield, u.s. needs to be preparing now to ensure we have capacity to manufacture and administer vaccine, something you both touched on. both for an eventual covid-19 vaccine and others such as the flu. the failure to ramp up testing and personal protective equipment early on during this crisis made things worse here. those mistakes cannot be repeated when it comes to vaccine production and distribution. we're already seeing reports some children are not receiving routine immunizations as it becomes more difficult to access in-person care. dr. fauci, what steps can we

take now to ensure we have significant manufacturing capacity for a covid-19 vaccine without putting at risk our capacity to manufacture and distribute other important products such as a flu or measles vaccine? my followup question to dr. refield would be what efforts are under way at the cdc to ensure all of these are available at the cdc. >> thank you for that question. i alluded to in my introductory remarks when i was talking about vaccines for covid-19. what we said as we do the testing on these vaccines, we're going to make production risk, which means we will start putting hundreds of millions of dollars of federal government money into the development and production of vaccine doses before we even know it works. you see, when we do, and i hope we will and i have cautious optimism that we will ultimately get an effective and safe vaccine, that we will have doses

available to everybody who needs it in the united states, and even contribute to what is the needs globally because we're partnering with a number of other countries. the other part of your question about making sure that when we get into a situation like the so-called shutdown that we might be in now, that we make sure children get the vaccinations they need. that would be an unintended consequence of shutting down as we are right now. it's a very good point. we want to make sure we don't fall behind on that also. thank you. >> thank you very much. i will take my answer from dr. redfield offline. thank you for letting me go. >> thank you, senator. senator scott? >> thank you, senator and the panel. thank you all for being here virtually. without any question, we find ourselves in a situation we wish we were not. i'm thankful for folks like dr. birx, dr. fauci for your dedication 24/7. our nation is safer because of your hard work.

i want to direct my questions towards dr. fauci, really one specific question, dr. fauci, and i'm thinking about the reopening of america and specifically the reopening of south carolina, and i'm taking into consideration the fact in south carolina, i think overall our cases are moving in the right direction. we have a little less than 8,000 cases. unfortunately 350 deaths. our hospital capacity is actually better now than it was when the pandemic started. our ability to isolate hot spots and mitigate the spread of the virus is, i think, where it needs to be. with that in mind, i flew in to washington from south carolina yesterday. we have plans to test additionally 220,000 more residents by the end of this month. focusing on at-risk populations, by the end of this month, we will have tested 100%, 100% of nursing home residents and the staff that takes care of them.

after increasing our contact tracing workforce 20-fold in the matter of weeks, our state's health department announced yesterday we're going to increase it by an additional 1,400 contact tracers. we've built and continue to build the tools necessary to better detect and isolate cases, to map their exposure and prevent potential spikes moving forward. most importantly the health care system, thanks in part to flexibilities from this administration, has the beds and the equipment necessary to address the most serious cases when they arrive. with these tools in hand, we've begun to reopen. to be clear, we continue to scale up testing and to make -- take measure to protect the most vulnerable. and the data points are increasingly clear, for older americans and for those with chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, this virus remains a threat. a dangerous threat. a recent report suggests that in

new york roughly 90% of the fatalities is underlying issues. two-thirds of the fatalities were 70 years or older. 95% over the age of 50. in south carolina, the median age of patients who died from the virus, 76 1/2. nearly two-thirds of the fatalities have been patients older than 71 and nearly 90% were over the age of 60 and roughly 98% in south carolina are over the age of 50. contrast that with those age 20 and younger, where we've seen no deaths, fewer than 1% of deaths in my state have been under the age of 40. every single death is a tragedy. every single one. and we mourn with our family members who have lost their loved ones.

we are taking every measure to protect our older south carolinians as well as those with underlying conditions. but when we sat out to flatten the curve by taking aggressive, unprecedented measures like staying-at-home orders and mass foreclosures, we did not set out with the goal of 100% no fatalities. that would be unrealistic. it is impossible. we didn't sit out to keep quarantines in place until we found a safe and effective vaccine. that would take too long. dr. redfield, your agency put out a helpful graphic, spiking daily and flatter curves showing cases with those measures in place and the whole point which the graph ic illustrated was mae sure we did not exceed hospital

capacity. while i respect the need for caution, we too often presented with a false dichotomy, either saving our economy or saving lives. we've seen the goal post around flattening the curve move, and i think that's unfortunate. at the same time we're doing that, businesses collapsed, mental and physical health declined, depths of despair escalate, education to outcomes nose-dive, as we wait in our living rooms praying for good news around therapies and around vaccines. we set out to flatten the curve, and i think we've done a pretty good job of that. we need to do better and will do better. my question is, dr. fauci, as we start the process of moving towards reopening south carolina, what else would you suggest that we can do to protect our most vulnerable populations? >> thank you, senator scott. you gave a really very eloquent

description of what i think would be a model way to approach this. you've put things in place that i think would optimize your capability of reopening. and as i was thinking as you were speaking, i almost want to clone that and make sure other people hear about that and see what you've been doing. the issue of your direct question to me about the vulnerable populations is that as we have said in our guide liends, and it looks like you're ready to progress carefully because you put into place a very good system, that the vulnerables, elderly and those with underlying conditions, should be those who at the very last liftling of mitigations should be those who are left in a situation where they might be in danger of getting infected. in other words, protect them right up until the very end of the relaxation of your mitigation. because as you said very

correctly, those are the individuals that are the most vulnerable for the morbidity and mortality. those individuals, particularly might i say, sir, those in the minority group, the african-american and hispanics, who for a variety of situations that social determinants withheld have a greater likelihood of not only getting infected but also having the underlying conditions that would make their risk for a high degree of morbidity and mortality higher. it looks like you're doing things very, very well. i would encourage you to continue and follow the guidelines as you get closer to normalizing your state. thank you. >> thank you, dr. fauci. i will simply close with this since i'm out of time, thank you for the many conversations that you and i have had about those vulnerable populations to include minorities as well as our senior citizens. i will say that without any question when you look at nursing homes, it's typically african-american and hispanics

are the certified nursing assistants who provide for the elderly population. your focus on those two vulnerable groups is much appreciated and thank you for your expertise. >> thank you, senator scott. senator smith? >> thank you very much, chair alexander and ranking member murphy. thank you all for being here and for your service. dr. fauci, i have to say, you're in the unenviable position being the person so many americans and minnesotans trust to give us the skr straight scoop and tell us what's really happening. you're about the facts and not politics, and that's a really good thing. i have to start by asking a question that a lot of americans want to know which is how are you doing? how are you holding up? you have made an unbelievable effort. >> i'm doing fine, senator. thank you very much for asking. this is such an important problem, it transcends all of us individually and have to be

working as a team. i enjoy very much working with your senators and governors because it's at the local level we're going to make this work. i'm fine. i appreciate your concern. >> a lot of people are thinking about you and grateful for your service as we are for all of you. we're gathered today to think about what we can do to reopen our economy. i think first about what's happening in my home state of minnesota, where agriculture is such an important part of how our state work, it's part of our history and culture. pork processors right now are looking at the reality of euthanizing thousands of hogs a day because there's no place to process them because of what's happening in the processing plants. and the working people who do the hard work in those processing plants are getting sick. so here's one story, this is one worker. an asylum seeker and mom who works for a contractor that does

the cleaning in the processing plants. she works for $14 an hour, 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. her job is to sanitize the machines that process the meat into ground meat. and she started feeling sick on april 11th. but she kept going to work. on april 21, when one of her co-workers fainted, she told her supervisor she felt sick, so she was told to go home but that if she didn't show any signs of illness, she should come back. she went to the doctor and she paid $115 to get a test and found out a few days later that she was covid positive. and she still is home. she's not getting paid. and shi doesn't hae doesn't hav insurance. nearly two weeks ago president trump deployed the defense production act to keep these processing plants open. but the usda gave really limited guidance about what would be

safe for those workers. it said, for example, in response to testing, which has been such a big part of what we've been talking about today, they said this is a quote, facilities should consider the appropriate role of testing in workplace contact tracing of covid-19 positive workers in a work site and assessmentment. dr. fauci, as we think about how we want to move forward and open up the economy, what guidance would you give us in a situation like this here in minnesota? >> well, i can give you my common sense guidance, although this is not the area of my expertise. it's more others. but it would seem if you want to keep things like packing plants open, that you've really got to provide the optimum degree of protection of the workers involved. the ability to go to work safely and if and when individuals get

infected to immediately be able to get them out and give them the proper care. i would think when you're calling upon people to perform essential services, you really have almost a moral responsibility to make sure they're well taken care of and well protected. again, that's not an official proclamation. that's just me speaking as a physician and as a human being. >> thank you, dr. fauci. and i think that you speak as a human being but you also speak as the chief epidemiologist of our country and person we all trust. and this is the point i want to make and drive home with everybody, which is this is the kind of guidance we should be getting and following, and these are the tools that we have got to have in our country if we're going to reopen our economy as we all want to do. we move forward with reopening our economy and yet we still have circumstances like we have

in these processing plants and other places around the state. we're going to be right back where we started, except even in a worse place as i think you pointed out, dr. fauci. >> thank you, senator. and, again, it really does relate to one of the questions that one of your colleague senators asked me before, that one of the things that i keep emphasizing, and i will just repeat it again because it's important, that when you are in the process of opening up and pulling back on mitigation, you really must have in place the capability of responding when you do have the inevitable upticks in cases. that will absolutely occur. it's how we deal with it and how successful we are in putting the clamps on it that will prevent us from getting the kind of rebound that not only from the standpoint of illness and death would be something unacceptable, but it will set us back in our progress towards reopening the country. >> thank you very much, senator smith.

>> admiral giriou, i will take off where senator hassan spoke. i understand politicians will frame data in a way that's most positive politically. of course, we don't expect that from admirals but yesterday you said we had done more tests and more tests per capita even that south korea. but you ignored the fact they accomplished theres at the beginning of the outbreak while we shredded water during february and march. as a result by march 6 the u.s. had completed just 2,000 tests, where as south korea had conducted more than 140,000 tests. so partially as a result of that, they have 256 deaths and we have almost 80,000 deaths. i find our testing record nothing to celebrate whatsoever. the fact is their test numbers are going down, down, down, down now because they don't have the kind of outbreak we have.

ours are going up, up, up as they have to. maybe that's an important lesson for us as we think about the future. on a separate topic, my impression is with varregard toy darn good job of moving ahead pretty aggressively. and yet the president said the other day that president obama is responsible for our lack of a vaccine. dr. fauci, is president obama or by extension president trump, did they do something that made the likelihood of creating a vaccine less likely, are either president trump or president obama responsible for the fact that we don't have a vaccine now or in delaying it in some way? >> no, senator, not at all. certainly president obama nor president trump are responsible for not having a vaccine. we moved as you said, because i described it in my opening statement, rather rapidly. no one has ever gone as fast as

we've done. so i don't think that that is something that anybody is responsible for doing anything wrong on that. i think that that is right. that is the correct way to do it. >> thank you. that was my impression. i was surprised by the comments, but that was my impression. dr. redfield, center sin insens wrote a letter about the dismay that we have about the response from the cdc. how is it possible in this day and age that the cdc has never established such a realtime system with accurate data, and what can congress do to rectify that so we never have to look at something like this again? >> senator, thanks for the question. i think that you have hit one of

the -- [ inaudible ] -- how important they are. the first one focus on is data an will talytics and analysis. congress has provided funding for data modernization and we're in the process of implementing it. the reality is that there is an arrest archaic system. and this nation needs a modern highly capable data analytics system that can do predictive analysis. it is one of the many shortcomings that have been filed as we went through this outbreak. and i couldn't agree that it is time to get that corrected. >> and please help guide us as to what we need to do to make that happen. and i presume it is not build it ourselves, but work with companies that have that

capacity and use that capacity in our favor. dr. fauci, one last thing which relates to the virus. and i know i'm asking you the impossible question, but we're all hoping for a vaccine obviously. it is the objective of our administration to get it as soon as they can and from what i can tell, they are pulling out all the stops do exactly that. given our history with vaccine creation for other coronaviruses, how likely is it -- i mean extremely likely that we'll get a vaccine within a year or two, is it just more likely than not, or kind of a long shot? >> it is drovely not a lonnot - definitely not a long shot. more likely that we will. because this is a virus that induces an immune response and people recover, the overwhelming majority of people recover. although there is mortality and morbidity in certain populations, the very fact that

the body is capable of spontaneously clearings virus tells me that at least from a conceptual standpoint we can stimulate the body with a vaccine that would induce a similar ugthere is no guaranteed, i think that it is more likely than not that somewhere within that time frame we will get a vaccine for this virus. >> mr. chairman, i yield. >> and i want to thank the witnesses for their patience. we have four more senators who we'd like to give a chance to ask their questions. senator jones. >> thank you very much and thanks to all of our witnesses for your being here virtually and also for your incredible service occurrise service during this time. i want to talk about an additional statistic with regard to south korea, the fact that we are a nation that has about six times the population of south korea but yet we have about 310

times the number of deaths from this pandemic. so i think that we have to be very careful in making comparisons around the world comparing the united states to other countries. dr. redfield, i want to follow up with what senator murkowski and i think senator cakaine tald about contact tracing. i understand that you are working with states to try to develop plans for reopening. the testing is important, the contact tracing is important. but using that data as well is also going to be important in terms of the quarantine plans that senator murphy talked about. child care facilities to allow people to put their kids in a facility while they are going back to work. all of those issues including maybe even facilities like say kabts o vacant hotels or motels that may be used for self-isolation. how is this plan being developed

within the vooed, will they be individualized by state, will we as a member of congress have access to those plans? and how are states going to pay for these? and i say that because my state's already using the money that we've already begin them as a wish list. i mean, they are talking about building $200 million statehouse as opposed to developing the tests and doings contact tracing. so i'd like to drill down a little bit on how these plans will develop, what access we will have to those plans to be able to see them. >> thank you very much, senator. as i said, this is a critical component of us taking this time that we have now to get prepared for next fall and winter and building that contact tracing capacity. we're working with the leadership of the local health departments to try to let them

understand what their capacity needs are. and there have been a variety of federal agencies together on testing and contact trace ppg vooed vooed is cdc is in position that we have reprogrammed our agencies to help each of these states. we're augmented that with some additional personnel that we're bringing on board state by state through our foundation. we've put about $106 billion into the money that congress is appropriating into the states so they can start to think about how do they want to hire for contract tracing. and also it was mentioned americorps and peace corps and that each group will construct their contact tracing piece to

what they think their needs are. and i do think that it will be similar are from what we heard from the senator from south carolina. he said he increased 20 fold and they will increase again. but the point you brought up is also important. and we found that as we already struggled through the repatri repatriation of americans around the country, because many of the state and local health departments really can't develop that system. where do they put somebody to be in isolation who is homeless. how do you develop those systems. so this has to be part of it foop too. is it a certain capacity, hotels that you mentioned? a point made by one of the other senators is so important about individuals that particularly like the meat packing individual that has to go home and self-isolate, but maythey don't

have the ability because they live in a multigenerational house with about 12 other people. so there are many mechanisms to be brought into have an effective way to identify cases and then do the appropriate public health measure and that these have to be comprehensive, it will be developed one jurisdiction at a time. i see no reason why these are not transparent documents as they get completed. and it really is attributed to what the congressional support that has been given so far, as i said, $1.6 billion got into the states in addition to the resources that we've gotten. but it is fundamental. people under estimate how important it is that we have a highly functional contact tracing program so that we can have containment, we don't have to switch to mitigation. >> thank you, dr. redfield. i appreciate it. sounds like we've still got a

lot of work do. so thank you. >> thank you, senator jones. senator braun. >> thank you, chairman. there has been so much discussion about testing in general. i listened to senator romney earlier and i think senator kaine mentioned it, everybody has. dr. hawn, if you remember when we first met, i said is the fda going to be more entrepreneurial, is the fda going to kind of not be as stodgy talking then about how we fix the health care system in general. and now this has brought it into clear focus. i've got a time line that i'm going to submit for the record that shows from january 24th through march 5, and i want to emphasize what senator burr asked earlier, has the administration ever put an impediment in front of trying to get to testing. and dr. hawn,