Dr. Anthony Fauci, alongside three other health experts, testified in front of a Senate Committee today on the Trump administration’s coronavirus response.
If you’re just now reading in, here are the top lines from Fauci’s testimony:
Dr. Anthony Fauci assured senators today that coronavirus vaccine trials are designed to represent minority and at-risk populations.
He said representative trials help determine how effective a vaccine is and what the potential side effects are.
He said the process was started back during the HIV crisis, “when we tried to get good demographic representation and we’re going to do that with these trials.”
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions’ hearing on the US’s coronavirus response just wrapped up.
The senators heard testimony from four key witnesses: Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Brett Giroir, with the US Department of Health and Human Services; and Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
Fauci does not have “total control” yet of the coronavirus pandemic and warned that reopening too soon could lead to “serious” consequences.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he does not have a “confrontational relationship” with President Trump.
Here’s how Fauci responded when he was asked by GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler if he had such a relationship with the President:
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn also said they did not have confrontational relationships with Trump.
Neither President Trump nor his predecessor President Obama are responsible for the lack of a coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
He was responding to GOP Sen. Mitt Romney’s question about President Trump’s recent suggestion that Obama was responsible for the lack of a vaccine.
“The President said the other day that President Obama is responsible for lack of vaccine. Dr. Fauci, is President Obama — or by extension President Trump — did they do something that made the likelihood of creating the vaccine less likely?” Romney asked.
He added that the US has moved “rapidly” from discovering the virus to having trials for vaccines.
Romney then added that he was “surprised” by Trump’s suggestion.
“That was my impression. I was surprised by the comment,” he said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci gave his “common-sense guidance” when Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith asked about reopening meat plants and expressed her concerns over deaths and infections there.
“It would seem that if you want to keep things like packing plants open, that you really got to provide the optimum degree of protection for the workers involved, the ability to allow them 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,” Fauci said.
“That’s not an official proclamation, that’s just me speaking as a physician and as a human being,” he added.
In late April, President Trump signed an executive order under the Defense Production Act to keep meat processing plants open during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, started her five minutes of questions with a simple one for Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“How are you doing and how are you holding up?” she asked him.
“I’m doing fine, senator, thank you very much for asking,” he said.
Fauci continued:
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, who sits on the White House coronavirus task force, said there is no “easy answer” to how students go back to school.
Fauci was asked about the risk-benefit ratio between sending kids back to school and having them miss out on education.
“It’s obviously very difficult,” he said. “The unintended consequences of trying to do something that broadly is important for the public health and the risk of having a return or a resurgence of an outbreak and the unintended deleterious consequences of having children at a school.”
“I don’t have a good explanation or solution for the problem of what happens when you close schools and it triggers a cascade of events,” Fauci added.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said the United States does not have “total control” yet of the coronavirus pandemic.
“If you look at the dynamics of the outbreak, we are seeing a diminution of hospitalizations and infections in some places — such as in New York City, which has plateaued and is starting to come down — but in other parts of the country, we are seeing spikes,” he said.
Fauci said the coronavirus curve looks flat right now.
Fauci again said that if there is not an “adequate” response by the US in the fall, more infections and deaths are on the horizon.
“We run the risk of having a resurgence. I would hope by that point in time in the fall that we have more than enough to respond adequately, but if we don’t, there will be problem,” he said.
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The coronavirus outbreak in the US appears to be “going in the right direction,” but the nation does not have it under control, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
“If you think we have it completely under control, no we don’t,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci added that while in some states, such as New York, the number of new cases appears to be going down, but there are other areas in the nation where new cases are rising.
Sen. Chris Murphy asked US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield about the CDC guidance on reopening states that was rejected by the Trump administration.
The guidance provided more detailed suggestions beyond the reopening guidelines the administration had put forth last month, including specific suggestions for schools and churches.
Redfield said the guidance was going through “interagency review” and could be posted online “soon.”
Here’s how the exchange between Redfield and Murphy went down:
Murphy: “Why didn’t this plan get released, and if it is just being reviewed, when is it going to be released? Because states are reopening right now, and we need this additional guidance to make decisions.”
Redfield: “Senator, I appreciate your question, clearly we have generated a series of guidances as you know and as this outbreak response has evolved from a CDC to an all of government response. As we work through the guidances, a number of them go for interagency reviews and interagency input to make sure these guidances are more broadly applicable for different parts of our society. The guidances that you’ve talked about have gone through that interagency review. There are comments that have come back to CDC. And I anticipate to go backup into the task force for final review.”
Murphy: “But we are reopening in Connecticut in five days, in ten days. This guidance isn’t going to useful to us in two weeks. Is it this week or next week? When are we going to get this expertise from the federal government?”
Redfield: “The other thing that I will just say is the CDC stands by to be of technical assistance to your state and any state upon requests, I do anticipate these guidance so to be posted on the CDC’s website soon.”
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Dr. Anthony Fauci warned against believing children are immune to coronavirus, citing new cases where some children have developed a mysterious inflammatory syndrome that could be linked to the virus.
He stressed that experts are still learning about coronavirus.
What this is about: A mysterious illness that’s affecting children and could be linked to the coronavirus has alarmed officials, who are searching for answers as infections increase. Doctors are referring to the condition that has hospitalized dozens of children as “pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome.” Three children have died because of it in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday.
Today, Fauci added: “I think we should be careful, if we’re not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects.”
Fauci added that in general, most children who develop coronavirus “do much, much better than adults.”
“But I am very careful, and hopefully humble, in knowing that I don’t know everything about this disease and that’s why I’m very reserved in making broad predictions,” he said.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci issued a warning about states that disregard coronavirus guidelines for safely reopening.
Fauci said those actions would “turn the clock back” on stemming the tide of coronavirus infections.
That would “paradoxically set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery,” Fauci said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders asked the top three officials testifying on Capitol Hill today if they can guarantee vaccines will be available to all Americans, regardless of their income.
Adm. Brett Giroir of the HHS said he would “certainly advocate that everyone is able to receive the vaccine regardless of income or any other circumstance.”
“The payment of the vaccines is not a responsibility of the FDA,” Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration said. “I share your concern that this needs to be made available to every American.”
The US will be able to produce, distribute and apply “at least 40 to 50 million tests per month,” Admiral Dr. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for Health at US Department of Health and Human Services, said.
Giroir told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions that since March 12, “the nation has performed more than 9 million Covid-19 tests.”
Remember: The federal government has been under fire for months for its slow production of tests for the coronavirus. Public health experts universally say regular testing is critical to understanding the spread of Covid-19 and to control it.
Giroir indicated it will take a few more months to ramp up production.
“By September, taking every aspect of development, authorization, manufacturing and supply chain into consideration — we project that our nation will be capable of performing at least 40 to 50 million test per month, if needed at that time,” he told the committee.
“Collectively, states and territories established an overall goal to perform the 12.9 million tests over the next four weeks. The federal government is able to and will support the achievement of this goal,” he added.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said many experts believe more people have died from coronavirus than have been reported.
“Most of us feel that the number of deaths are likely higher than that number,” Fauci told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) today.
Fauci said he’s not sure “exactly what percent higher” the real death toll could be.
“But almost certainly it’s higher,” he added.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said that, while the coronavirus will not simply “disappear” this fall, he hopes the threat of a possible second wave can be mitigated by aggressive testing efforts and health-care preparedness.
Sen. Bernie Sanders asked Fauci, who sits on the White House coronavirus task force, this:
Fauci said he believes “that possibility does exist.”
“And the reason I say that is when you talk about ‘will this virus just disappear’ — and as I’ve said publicly many times, that is just not going to happen because it’s such a highly transmissible virus,” Fauci said. “And even if we get better control over the next several months, it’s likely there will be the virus somewhere on this planet that will eventually get back to us.”
He added that it’s “entirely conceivable and possible” that a second wave will happen this fall.
“I would hope that between now and then, given the capability of doing the testing that you heard from Admiral [Brett] Giroir and the ability of us to stock up on personal protective equipment and the work force that the CDC under Dr. [Robert] Redfield will be putting forth to be able to identify, isolate and contact trace — I hope that if we do have the threat of a second wave, we will be able to deal with it very effectively to prevent it from becoming an outbreak,” Fauci added.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Dr. Fauci:
Dr. Anthony Fauci said there could be “really serious” consequences if states and areas reopen prematurely.
Sen. Patty Murray asked what would happen if a community doesn’t follow guidelines from health experts on the phases of reopening.
Fauci added that there is “no doubt” that “even under the best of circumstances, when you pull back on mitigation, you will see some cases appear.”
“It’s the ability and the capability of responding to those cases with good identification, isolation and contact tracing will determine whether you can continue to go forward as you try to reopen America,” he added.
“What I’ve expressed then and again is my concern that if some areas, cities, states, what have you, jump over prematurely over those checkpoints and prematurely open up without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently,” he said. “My concern is that we’ll start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks.”
The 41 community-based drive-through testing sites across the US, as prioritized by the CDC “have been a profound success,” according to Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health in the Department of HHS.
He said the sites have tested more than 167,000 high-risk individuals.
More broadly, the US has performed more than 9 million Covid-19 tests since March 12 — “a number far greater than any other country and double the per capita task performed to date in South Korea,” he said.
Giroir also provided the current status on testing across the US as well as projected some numbers for the coming month:
Some context: President Trump and administration officials yesterday claimed the US leads the world in Covid-19 testing. While the raw number of tests performed in the US might be the highest, multiple data sources note that the US is not the leader in testing per capita and does not do more testing than other countries “combined,” as Trump claimed, according to Factcheck.org. Read more here.
The first question at today’s Senate hearing on coronavirus was about the possibility of college students getting back to campus this fall.
Sen. Lamar Alexander asked Dr. Anthony Fauci what he’d say to school officials who are trying persuade students to come back to campus.
“Let’s look down the road three months. There will be about 5,000 campuses across the country trying to welcome 20 million college students,” Alexander said.
Fauci said students might feel safest if there was a vaccine for coronavirus — but it’s a “bridge too far” to think a vaccine or treatment will be ready by the time classes start this fall.
Dr. Brett Giroir, with the US Department of Health and Human Services, said the strategy for getting students back on campus is heavily dependent on how much community spread is happening in the fall.
He said there would likely be a “surveillance strategy” for students going back to class. That would involve testing some students at different times “to give an assurance that there’s no circulation.”
Watch Fauci:
