le bfment et health. -- lebet health. if you are confirmed, how do you protect the integrity of the program and make sure it works for the provider as well as the patients. mr. becerra: thank you for the question. here i will tell you in a the previous administration issued some guidance. they issued an advisory opinion. we'll try to build on the work that's been done in the past, but what we must do we cannot sacrifice patients. they should not be the one that is suffer of the consequence of the fight. i will guarantee if i am fortunate to be confirmed i look forward to sitting down and working with you and others interested in addressing this issue. 340-b has become an indispensable program for some of these providers helping some of our neediesty populations. senator moran: the rure hospitals are on the culp. covid has not been helpful. but they are always hanging on by a thread. the 340-b program is perhaps one of the most important. if it disappears in providing resources to hospitals and their patients, we are going

and health officer. and whereas health officer dr. aragon led the design and implementation of public health programs and policies to ensure the effectiveness of the mandated functions of the local government and force the local health orders and ordnantses and communicate it regularly with public health issues with the health commission, the board of supervisors, mayor and san francisco residents. and whereas director of the population health division, dr. aragon was responsible for the vision, the commission strategy, the leadership, and the administration of the division which implemented the core public health services across the city. this included successfully earning and maintaining the accreditation for the d.p.h. and whereas dr. argon also had a productive 29-year history with the university of california teaching faculty, the principal investigator and clinician. and during the covid-19 pandemic, dr. argon worked tirelessly with city and community leaders to shape san francisco's response throu

of health and i think covid-19 is certainly exacerbated those mental health issues and mental healthneeds. i was quite taken by your idea in terms of summer programming. if i'm fortunate to be confirmed at this position i would very much look forward to meeting with you again and your staff and working on this issue and seeing what we can do to actualize it. >> thank you very much and thank you to both of you for your willingness to continue your service toun the country. thank you. madam chair. >> thank you and i believe senator marshall is next. >> thank you chairwoman. welcome doctors a very good to see you again and dr. lavigne good to meet you as well. my question and i will let you both answer it we talked about the goal of the current administration is 100 million vaccines a 100 days. today we only have 85 million vaccinations out the door. we should be doing two or 3 million vaccinations. we have the structure to do 3 million flu vaccines per day. you will be offering this colin is it feasible but i would think we could do 3 million vaccinations a day in march and 150 million

as a health care member to making our health care system more efficient. the covid-19 pandemic has threatened americans physical and economic health. but it has also reinforced and provided opportunities changes that foster it. hhs has used its authority under the public health emergency to waive numerous requirements to ensure medical beneficiaries and other patients receive care during the pandemic. patients have benefitted from expanded access to telehealth and expedited approval of covid vaccines, diagnostics and treatment. going forward medicare and medicaid patients should have the same access to those innovative items and services as those with commercial insurance. we must carefully evaluate our response to the pandemic and implement appropriate reforms based on the lessons we've learned. hhs should partner with this committee in that effort. another long-term priority for many on this committee for many is to address the financial problems. medicare's financial stability was a key issue discussed by the bipartisan bull simpson commission on which

congress passed of the occupational safety of health act.d into law the right to a safe he and thus to a safe -- this confirmed in law the right to a healthy and safe workplace and established the occupational safety and health administration, or osha. the act says that employers have the primary responsibility for providing a safe and healthy workplace. osha is responsible for making safety rules and enforcing them. workers have a right to talk to their supervisors, their union, or osha about safety and health problems. jim suffers from failing eyesight and severe skin discoloration. these job-related problems affected both him and his father who worked at the same plant. ,>> i worked 24 years in the plant. they made silver nitrate. take silver bullion and turn it into liquid form. then we would put heat under it. as it started reacting, you would get yellow poison fumes off it. silver crystals, it used to be a real strong dust that came off , it. it turned to the skin dark. my father worked there for a while. his eyes discovered when he wa

~ . , , ., , health? we have puts a significant amount of extra _ health?icant amount of extra funding into - amount of extra funding into supporting children's mental health, alongside adult mental health as we know that one of the consequences of the lockdown, which is absolutely necessary, is that it does put significant pressure and we have seen the increased burden on mental health services. it is very important that people get the support that they need. flan t important that people get the support that they need. can i 'ust add my congratulations �* support that they need. can i 'ust add my congratulations to h support that they need. can i just add my congratulations to those l support that they need. can i just i add my congratulations to those that have been rolling out our vaccine? i listen carefully to what i call it northamptonshire said, but can i put on record my thanks to those in close touch, which was the top performing part of the country, and hereford and worcestershire next door was second highest performing, which makes them the highes

as a health care member to making our health care system more efficient. the covid-19 pandemic has threatened americans physical and economic health. but it has also reinforced and provided opportunities changes that foster it. hhs has used its authority under the public health emergency to waive numerous requirements to ensure medical beneficiaries and other patients receive care during the pandemic. patients have benefitted from expanded access to telehealth and expedited approval of covid vaccines, diagnostics and treatment. going forward medicare and medicaid patients should have the same access to those innovative items and services as those with commercial insurance. we must carefully evaluate our response to the pandemic and implement appropriate reforms based on the lessons we've learned. hhs should partner with this committee in that effort. another long-term priority for many on this committee for many is to address the financial problems. medicare's financial stability was a key issue discussed by the bipartisan bull simpson commission on which

public health. >> i just would say well before ai was cdc director i was a local health director. that was the first job after my training and as doctor wen just said, these agencieshave been chronically underfunded . we've seen repeatedly the learning the same lesson over again and that is we need this local infrastructure to do very important functions, but we don't have a sustained way of tifunding local and state public health. we do it in one time bowls so i agree with this report's request for a one-time surge in funding. but we need continued funding over the long haul. if this is going to be in place for the next epidemic as it surely will come . >> thank you, mark. >> a lot of things have made me sad and angry over the course of the last year. i don't think there's anything that made me sadder or angrier and to see multiple health individuals have to have bodyguards and bulletproof vests because they are caught between an epidemic that had very little to support and assistance from the fede

know them, community health centers. community health centers provide primary care services in underserved areas, reaching almost 30 million people. under this new program, we will begin directly sending vaccine supply to community health centers, enabling them to vaccinate people they serve. community health centers are in a board and part of our broader strategy to ensure we are reaching everyone with our response i will turn it over to dr. nunez smith to provide more information on the community health center program. before i do, i want to mention another important point that we discussed in our meeting today. equity is core to our strategy to put this pandemic behind us. equity means we are reaching everyone, particularly those in underserved and rural communities and those who have been hit hardest by this pandemic. but we cannot do this effectively at the federal level without our partners in the state and local level sharing this same commitment to equity. they need to lead this work. they know their communities

essential workers, health care workers, the health system is overwhelmed. there was no sense that the health system needed not just equipment, the ppe, the masks, the ventilators, equipment. but we know that people didn't get other health care they needed because the hospitals were at capacity. and finally, i don't think we anticipated the depth of the resistance to science in public health. we knew that there was vaccine resistance. that is nothing new. but the depth to the resistance to public health, to science, i think it surprised even me. and i was prepared. so you have attacks on public health officials. you have that horrible scene in lansing, michigan, when people were asked to stay home, to wear masks and social distancing. they are linked together in a , sense. i've taken time so i will come back to what we do with the money with specific suggestions for that. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.

through the san francisco health network, the health department's health care delivery system, we served more than 100,000 people each year, who are largely uninsured, underinsured, have medicaid, medi-cal, or are served by healthy san francisco, or other such programs. many of the people in our system are in the southeast sector of the city, which, as you know, has had a disproportionate number of covid-19 cases. this map shows where d.p.h., the department of public health, vaccines are being administered, and it shows that the majority of the approximately 1300 daily doses that we are administering is in the southeast sector of the city. next slide -- oh, sorry. that's it for slides. before closing, i want to say a few words about variants. now, variants are a natural part of how all viruses evolve. some of the covid-19 variants that have emerged worldwide, and some that have been detected in the bay area, have the potential to spread faster. now, across the nation, we have little laboratory capacity to detect variants. but studies do show that certain ones are spreading quickly in the

and emotional health. and we can't let it do that. so many of us are struggling. we have a real opportunity to make sure that our kids, who look sad, who miss their friends, who miss their teachers, who are ready to return to school -- we have an opportunity to at least make some of that possible before the end of this school year. i am hopeful that we can get to a better place. and i am grateful to the people of san francisco who continue to follow the health orders and to do your part in helping to make sure that people in this city are safe. with the vaccines, with our reopening efforts, with all that we're doing, the city is going to come alive again. let's continue to do our very best to make sure that we don't lose something precious in the process. process, the heart and the soul of our children. with that, for more information, please visit our website or call 3-1-1. and at this time, i'd ask dr. grant cofax to come forward and provide specific information from the department of public health. than

different from other departments of public health, we have population health. hopefully, because we pay for the clinical part, if we are doing the population health part right, we will reduce costs. just aside from the moral obligation we have to all our residents just the financial obligation we have to the city to make sure we address things is just good policy, good practice. i think today we think differently than 27 years ago. we talk about race. we talk about gender. we talk about income. we have been talking a lot about the social determinance of health. that is something we did not talk about 27 years ago. i'm wondering as supervisor peskin talked about, we heard about the years before land was transferred. i'm wondering what you think in terms of our future? this board, i think, and supervisor haney, is looking to sort of shape what happens here. how will your department work with population, health and equity going forward in terms of ensuring that the population of treasure island, which is all low-income people, people of color, formerly homeless, i

of public health labs. we were there to kind of support and lift morale among workers and really pitch in where we can. host: a year into this, almost a year, and yesterday marking 500,000 deaths due to the disease. what are your thoughts about the role of public health professionals and -- that they have played in the last 10 months. guest: i think public health professionals have thrown everything that they have at this virus and at the response. the problem is that we did not give them a whole lot to throw. we always knew that this was coming. it was never an if, it was always a when and yet we have consistently underfunded public health, and so we created a vulnerability to emerging viruses and finally the bill came due. host: you are an epidemiologist by training, what have we learned about preparedness in responding to a pandemic? what needs to happen to combat this one and prepare for the possibility of the next one? guest: i think what we have learned is that our collective safety, security, and eco

i was hired by a labor union in milwaukee, wisconsin to be on their health and safety staff. in my first week on the job we had gotten these three films that you are going to show in from osha, brand-new, and we reviewed these and they were just marvelous. we had all sorts of ideas on how we would use this in education and training programs we were considering and shortly after that we got a letter from the new administration, this was -- the film had come from the osha under the carter administration and the administration under reagan had a very different view of what the agency should do. they sent a letter out asking -- not asking, but telling everyone to return the films that had just been mailed out by the previous administration. our leadership decided not to do that, so we kept the films. we were also getting funding from osha to support training education programs. shortly after we didn't return the films, we got a call from our manager who managed our funding and he said, if you use these films, your funding will be taken away because the agency thinks these films a

that includes local public health, state public health, and federal public health. and the collaboration and coordination between all of the different aspects of public health. you are correct as the secretary of health in pennsylvania under the government's leadership, the containment, the distribution of medical counter measures. medications, and more in the vaccine. if confirmed to this position i would like to take that experience in organizationalizing the strategy at the state and local level. and i hope to make my contribution that time. >> thank you for indulging me. >> thank you, we will turn it over to senator cassidy. >> thank you, i could ask either of you my questions, but i will start with you, dr. murthy. health equity is something that we must all be concerned about. i spent 25 years caring for patients in a hospital in the poor and uninsured. that said when i hear some people speak about it, it sounds like something to stoke resentment, as if any health inequity must reflect injustice. i just want to explore this because i think it is important. are

crisis joining me now from brigantine in new jersey is an internationally leading voice in mental health and addiction patrick kennedy even if you have the late us president john f. kennedy thanks so much for coming on going underground. first of all the figures $81.00 found wasn't in 12 months to june what has happened in the united states about the opioid crisis because it's out of the headlines now well we we had an epidemic going into this pandemic and of course the pandemic has has moved off the front pages because of the urgency to address coronavirus but right underneath coronaviruses is all of the effects of isolation economic hardship because people are losing their jobs the stress of so many aspects of this and that's just adding fuel to the fire that was already under way before we even had the 1st coronavirus case we were almost at a point where we were going to begin to focus our attention entirely on this mental health addiction crisis and then of course now we've taken our eyes off of it because there's something more pressing. but there's no doubt it's not going away it's

i'm joined by san francisco's health officer and the deputy director of health to discuss in more detail francisco's plan to distribute vaccines as quickly as possible. the doctors are medical experts helping to lead the city's response to covid. we're lucky to have them here to help answer the questions that many san franciscans are asking. i know this is a topic on everybody's mind. we've never done anything like this before in this country, in this state or city. vaccinating this many people in the midst of a pandemic. it's a process with many moving pieces. while many things are out of our control, we're in good shape in san francisco with a plan in place to get people vaccinated quickly once we have the supply we need. to start off the conversation, i'll give a brief overview of the current situation in san francisco and then we can get right into the conversation. san francisco is moving full speed ahead on covid-19 vaccinations. we're creating a network of vaccination locations across the city. high-volume sites, partnerships with pharmacies, uzbekistaning -- using existing commun

that includes local public health, state public health, and federal public health. and the collaboration and coordination between all of the different aspects of public health. you are correct as the secretary of health in pennsylvania under the government's leadership, the containment, the distribution of medical counter measures. medications, and more in the vaccine. if confirmed to this position i would like to take that experience in organizationalizing the strategy at the state and local level. and i hope to make my contribution that time. >> thank you for indulging me. >> thank you, we will turn it over to senator cassidy. >> thank you, i could ask either of you my questions, but i will start with you, dr. murthy. health equity is something that we must all be concerned about. i spent 25 years caring for patients in a hospital in the poor and uninsured. that said when i hear some people speak about it, it sounds like something to stoke resentment, as if any health inequity must reflect injustice. i just want to explore this because i think it is important. are

health care again.african-americans, brown children, they are three to five times of these mothers in childbirth. we have childbirth outcomes that resemble that of so-called third world countries among people of color, because of the lack of health care. don't make us get on the floor and beg for food stamps like we have to do all the time. if you want to help, care about the children after they are born , not johnny we care about you as long as you are in the womb. the minute you cut that umbilical cord you are on your own. with that i yield back. chairman neal: i think the gentlelady. there are no further requests for time on this. the question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the gentlelady from indiana. members are reminded to unmute themselves for this voice vote. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed, no. >> no. chairman neal: the nos habit. mr. brady has requested a record vote. please meet yourself and state your name when recording your vote. we will call the role. >> mr. dogg

and health officer. and whereas health officer dr. aragon led the design and implementation of public health programs and policies to ensure the effectiveness of the mandated functions of the local government and force the local health orders and ordnantses and communicate it regularly with public health issues with the health commission, the board of supervisors, mayor and san francisco residents. and whereas director of the population health division, dr. aragon was responsible for the vision, the commission strategy, the leadership, and the administration of the division which implemented the core public health services across the city. this included successfully earning and maintaining the accreditation for the d.p.h. and whereas dr. argon also had a productive 29-year history with the university of california teaching faculty, the principal investigator and clinician. and during the covid-19 pandemic, dr. argon worked tirelessly with city and community leaders to shape san francisco's response throu

le bfment et health. -- lebet health. if you are confirmed, how do you protect the integrity of the program and make sure it works for the provider as well as the patients. mr. becerra: thank you for the question. here i will tell you in a the previous administration issued some guidance. they issued an advisory opinion. we'll try to build on the work that's been done in the past, but what we must do we cannot sacrifice patients. they should not be the one that is suffer of the consequence of the fight. i will guarantee if i am fortunate to be confirmed i look forward to sitting down and working with you and others interested in addressing this issue. 340-b has become an indispensable program for some of these providers helping some of our neediesty populations. senator moran: the rure hospitals are on the culp. covid has not been helpful. but they are always hanging on by a thread. the 340-b program is perhaps one of the most important. if it disappears in providing resources to hospitals and their patients, we are going

so, can i count on your support in working with us to address mental health and behavioral health services in the state and across the country? >> senator, for the reasons you've just articulated, i started a disact rights unit in the department of justice in california, and i am absolutely looking forward to working with you on these issues. >> wonderful. lastly, i would like to underscore the imperative that hhs focus on improvements to the indian health services. we are in bipartisan agreement here in congress that the service is in dire need of additional stable funding in order to meet the basic need of indian country. many of us also sit on senate indian affairs, and this is crucial, critical, that we have your support. the crisis at hhs is years in the making. can i get an a commitment from you that we can listen to you, that you're willing to come talk with us about how we address and improve upon indian health service in this country? >> absolutely, you have that commitment. >> thank you. congratulations again. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator cortez masto. senator cassidy is n

catlin: it primarily traces the end health in the united -- the history of occupational safety and health in the united states, back to the early 1900s and the development of worker's compensation laws, and then health and safety work into the 1920's and 1930's and great depression and world war ii and then the postwar era up until the creation of osha. so there is a lot of wonderful historical footage that most of us had never seen before and that wasn't readily available. and that is interspersed with workers dealing with health and safety issues in the modern era. >> work has killed millions. they have died from explosions, falls, electrocution, dangerous machinery, from breathing in poisons in the air. millions more have been mutilated or permanently disabled at work. this year, it is estimated up to 100,000 people will die from job-related injury or disease. over 5 million will be injured at work. host: why was it that the incoming new administration wanted to take these films back, in your opinion? mr. catlin: they were pretty clear. the head of the new administration, the leader of

and health officer. and whereas health officer dr. aragon led the design and implementation of public health programs and policies to ensure the effectiveness of the mandated functions of the local government and force the local health orders and ordnantses and communicate it regularly with public health issues with the health commission, the board of supervisors, mayor and san francisco residents. and whereas director of the population health division, dr. aragon was responsible for the vision, the commission strategy, the leadership, and the administration of the division which implemented the core public health services across the city. this included successfully earning and maintaining the accreditation for the d.p.h. and whereas dr. argon also had a productive 29-year history with the university of california teaching faculty, the principal investigator and clinician. and during the covid-19 pandemic, dr. argon worked tirelessly with city and community leaders to shape san francisco's response throu

and for more safety and health. >> now we are looking for a better health safety and future for the workingis country and their families. we want to bring safety to the work bench, and safety to the job site. >> labor leaders working with the johnson administration, to propose a new government agency, to enforce health and safety rules. >> this year, i asked the congress for a workers safety bill. to protect you. >> but once again, the law was not passed, until after a major disaster. when 78 miners were killed in west virginia in 1968. >> i think all of us, are at fault or not take aggressive action to preserve 20th century safety and health standards. now there is a revolt in the minds, and the workers are going to get the kind of conditions that they deserve and should have they should've had. >> within one year the coal and safety act was passed. and they blast the occupational health and safety act. this confirmed in law, the right to a healthy and safe workplace. and established the health and safety administration, and they said the employers have the primary responsibility for a hea

since november, state health departments and other public health agencies have been regularly sending samples to cdc for sequencing and further analysis. this system is called the national sars covid to strain surveillance. it is now being scaled to process 750 samples a week and will be increasing to 15 samples per week in the coming weeks geographically distributed across all states. we've also contracted with large national commercial reference labs to look for variants and expect these labs will be able to analyze 3000 samples per week now and 6000 samples per week by the middle of february. as a result of these efforts, our samples have increased tenfold in the recent weeks. going from 251 sequences on the week of january 10, to 2238 sequences during the week of january 24. this way -- this may well be among the reasons for finding more variants now. additionally, cdc has contracted with seven universities that are working with public health agency to identify variants. there is $15 million to several health department in the united states to accelerate the integration of next ge

next, abigail, chief research officer of the indian health board and director of the annual health institute. she will share experience of american and alaskan communities in the vaccine. she was also a member of the committee on the allocation of vaccine and co-author of a groups report. next, miranda. the president and chief executive officer of the hispanic federation who supports latino communities around the country and experience the communities during the coronavirus vaccine. finally, over the last three decades, my friend has been close to deliver medically underserved communities. chief executive officer of the south carolina primary care association, and safe. an advocate for community health centers and as someone who knows the communities. insert to south carolina. he will now hear opening statements from our panelists. you are now recognized. >> good afternoon, it's my honor to be with all of you today. i want to thank chairman clyburn and the great staff and other members of the community for the opportunity this afternoon on the importance of equitable distribution of the covi

in 19 70, congress passed the occupational safety and health act.eserve the right to a healthy and safe workplace at established osha. the act says that employers have the primary responsibility for providing a safe and healthy workplace. osha is responsible for making safety rules and enforcing them. workers have a right to talk to their supervisors, the union, or osha about safety and health problems. jim suffers from fading eyesight and severe skin discoloration. these problems affected him and his father, who worked at the same plant. >> i worked 24 years at the plant. they make silver nitrate. i take silver bullion and turn it into a liquid form. then we would put heat on it. you would get poisonous fumes. when they put silver crystals up, there used to be a strong dust that came off that helped turn the skin dark. >> my father worked there for a while. his eyes discolored when he was there. his complexion was dark too. >> you do your job, shut your mouth, and that your pay at the end of the week, and if you hurt your body. same with the older

but essential workers, health care workers, the health system is overwhelmed. it makes sense that the health system needed not just equipment, the ppe, the masks, the ventilators, the vaccines, treatments, but we know that people didn't get other health care they needed because the hospitals were at capacity. and finally, i don't think we anticipated the depth of the resistance to public health. we knew that there was vaccine resistance. but the depth to the resistance to public health, to science, i think it surprised even me. i was prepared to have -- you have attacks on public officials, you had that horrible scene in lansing, michigan, where people were asked to stay home, to wear masks, social distance. they all came together, in a sense. >> thank you. i think you laid a lot on the table that i'm sure others will have thoughts about, too. kathleen, you played a role in covid-19 panic and response efforts. i'd like to hear your reflections on what peter said, but also, what would you do differently to build resilience, not just in managing covid-19, but bui

of the urban health institute. she will share the experience of americans of the vaccinated communities in vaccines. she will a -- was also a member of the committee for equitable allocation of the vaccines for coronavirus, and is a co-author of the group's report. next, we'll hear from mr. frankie miranda, who is the president and chief executive officer of the hispanic federation, who supports latino communities around the countries, and will share the experience to those communities in the axis of coronavirus vaccines. finally -- access of coronavirus vaccines. finally, my friend has been a close partner in our effort to deliver quality health care for medically underserved communities. as chief executive officer of the south carolina primary care association, she has distinguished herself at the national level and state as an advocate for community health centers, and as someone who knows the needs of the communities who were seeking to focus -- who we're seeking to focus on today. we will now hear opening stat

>> the public health, data when we access public health data at the health department, state or locale federal levels, that data is protected by hipaa. the only way we can use that information is to really cried a public health intervention, we see there is a convenience not being used. -- when we see the population is not being vaccinated, we can redirect our resources to them. when information is shared, it's shed in aggregate. so individuals cannot be identified. if those two few people have similar characteristics, that information is not shared. we have a respect for the privacy of these individuals, because of this -- >> thank, you i have to apologize. iran over my time, i need to yield back. but that was very helpful. thank you so much, and i yield back. >> i do have legislation on the privacy relative to what's of these systems, we can talk more about that later. it's a pleasure to welcome to the committee and recognize mr. joyce, from the great state of pennsylvania. we are thrilled that you are part of the committee and you gave you five minutes. >> first of all, thank you.

what you do in your daily lives i don't mean individual health i mean individual health. i think we need to encourage everyone to think about how do we go forward? how do we fund public health? we have to not make it one budget one cycle commitments. we have to invest in infrastructure over the long-term. >> jeffrey are you ready for follow-up? >> yes i am thank you. yes doctor, i would like to follow-up with the question to you w, i totally agree with your premise and ease to be funded over the long-term. but as i mentioned we have shown historically we are incapable of doing that since 2005, plans have been chronically underfunded, annualize her nearly annualized pandemic simulations were all of thehe principles charged with administering a pandemic response have warned public lawmakers to fund this appropriately. they have refused to do so. we have seen even more recently perhaps even more critically that politicization and an age of populism has compounded the problem dramatically. we did not act quickly for better outcomes that covid did. as a result of not acting on

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1970, congress passed occupational safety and health act, and president acts in signed the bill into law. next on real america, we mark the 50th anniversary with three osha films released in 1980 by the carter administration, which were recalled by the reagan administration in 1981. but first we talk to occupational safety and health consultant, mark upland who has helped to preserve the films and make them available to the public. >> i was a young industrial hygienist just out of college,, good work in my first job. i was hired by a labor union in milwaukee, wisconsin to be on their health and safety staff. in my first week on the job, we had gotten these three films that you are gonna show in from osha. they were brand-new, and we reviewed these and they were just marvelous. we had all sorts of ideas and how we would use this on education and training programs. shortly after that, we got a letter from the new administration, this was a film that had come from osha under the carter administration, and the new administration under ronald reagan had a very different view on what the a

the department of public health. the leading force around this pandemic, the department of public health that has been the most conservative putting out health orders, they issued guidance to this school district will safety precautions needed to open schools last september. it's been five months since then. and there's not even an agreement or a plan in place to start reopening. in fact, there were a number of agreements put into place, and then, they changed. during that time, the school board has alienated parents and made national news for renaming 44 of our schools, all while there wasn't a plan to reopen those very same schools? all while even the children who are a part of these schools have not necessarily been able to participate in the discussion, which could be an incredible learning opportunity. look, i'm committed to working with the school district and the school board. we've been providing support for months. we've been prioritizing the schools and rolling up our sleeves in the city and doing everythin

if they can try to use reconciliation to cause a health care crisis by taking health coverage and healthare protections away from hundreds of millions of people, surely they can support this process to use to fight a health care crisis that has claimed over 440,000 lives in our country and counting. but if they do not, if they insist that using this process to provide relief during an historic pandemic is a partisan move or that the amount of the relief is too much, i think they're going to have a tough time explaining what and who they stand for. madam president, democrats have no problem going on the record as the party that fought for people during this pandemic. because when your house is in flames, you do not argue about how much of the fire to put out or how much water to use or how many lives to save. you do whatever it takes until the crisis is over, everyone is safe, and you do it as fast as you can. this crisis is not over. everyone is not safe, not from this virus and not from this economic crisis. 440,000 people have died. we are still averaging 140,000 new cases a day. new s

health disparities are symptoms of a failed health care system. in this pandemic has highlighted those inequities and failures. we see disparities with latinos, african-americans, native americans, high-risk essential workers, having a disproportionate burden of infections, hospitalizations and death from covid-19. we are seeing disparities and who has access to care. we saw it with access to testing. i have been sounding the alarm on this issue for months, long before a vaccine was available for use. i warned that without aggressive intervention and strategic planning, we would see the same disparities play out with access to vaccines. now we are seeing the old -- the inoculation process unfold exactly as i feared it would, with the highest risk individuals do not have proper access to the vaccine, even if they qualify. a good public health approach prioritizes groups according to russ -- to russ. last year efforts focused on how to determine a fair and equitable way to prioritize who should have initial access to covid-19 vaccines. this planning

very excited to see this investment particularly in health centers and community health centers because we are the home community. this is where the investments need to go in with the people go and whether culture is understood. and where we have their best interest and their trust. >> thank you . doctor gale the to get . based on the background and working in global health, why is it so critical to have enough doses to vaccinate everyone. not just to be rapid as possible. >> i missed a bit of that question. i am sorry. >> why is it necessary critical to have enough doses to vaccinate absolutely everyone. >> as we know, and your question for how we think about this globally, clearly, all of us are fully vaccinated, then none of us is saved. so i think it is critical that here in the united states, to really focus on making sure the people who are most at risk, who carried the brunt of this get vaccinated quickly as possible. because that is how we are going to drive the numbers down but i think we also have a responsibility for the rest of the world and thinking about how we make sure b