Moving Beyond the Coronavirus Crisis: Progress in Combating the Pandemic (Hearing, 2022)
Summary
Record of the hearing "Moving Beyond the Coronavirus Crisis: The Biden Administration's Progress in Combating the Pandemic and Plan for the Next Phase" before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, March 30, 2022, Serial No. 117-74. Chairman James E. Clyburn said the word "crisis" no longer accurately describes the Coronavirus in the country. Witnesses were Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dawn O'Connell, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. The index of documents lists interim findings on school reopening guidance submitted by Ranking Member Scalise and a staff analysis submitted by Rep. Krishnamoorthi.
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“Moving Beyond the Coronavirus Crisis: Progress in Combating the Pandemic (Hearing, 2022).”
Original at www.govinfo.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/house-hearing-117th-congress-moving-beyond-the-coronavirus-crisis-the-2969f9fc4d/
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[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
MOVING BEYOND THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS:
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S PROGRESS
IN COMBATING THE PANDEMIC AND
PLAN FOR THE NEXT PHASE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 30, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-74
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-263 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
Columbia Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Michael Cloud, Texas
Ro Khanna, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Pete Sessions, Texas
Katie Porter, California Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Cori Bush, Missouri Andy Biggs, Arizona
Shontel M. Brown, Ohio Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Scott Franklin, Florida
Peter Welch, Vermont Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Pat Fallon, Texas
Georgia Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Byron Donalds, Florida
Jackie Speier, California Vacancy
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Russ Anello, Staff Director
Jennifer Gaspar, Select Subcommittee Deputy Staff Director and Chief
Counsel
Yusra Abdelmeguid, Staff Assistant and Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director
Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis
James E. Clyburn, South Carolina, Chairman
Maxine Waters, California Steve Scalise, Louisiana, Ranking
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Minority Member
Nydia M. Velazquez, New York Jim Jordan, Ohio
Bill Foster, Illinois Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Nicole Malliotakis, New York
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 30, 2022................................... 1
Witnesses
The Honorable Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, Director, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
Oral Statement................................................... 8
The Honorable Dawn O'Connell, Assistant Secretary for
Preparedness and Response, Department of Health and Human
Services
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, MD, MPH, United States Surgeon
General, Department of Health and Human Services
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Written opening statements and the written statements of the
witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives
Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Interim Findings: Union Officials Wrote Key Portions of the
Biden Administration's School Reopening Guidance; submitted by
SSCC Minority Ranking Member Scalise.
* SSCC Staff Analysis - The Trump Administration's Pattern of
Political Interference in the Nation's Coronavirus Response;
submitted by Rep. Krishnamoorthi.
* Letters - The National Association of County and City Health
Officials (NACCHO).
* Questions for the Record: for Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
* Questions for the Record: for Assistant Secretary for
Preparedness and Response Dawn O'Connell.
* Questions for the Record: for Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
The documents listed are available at: docs.house.gov.
MOVING BEYOND THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS:
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S PROGRESS
IN COMBATING THE PANDEMIC AND
PLAN FOR THE NEXT PHASE
----------
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:04 p.m., via
Zoom, Hon. James E. Clyburn [Chairman of the subcommittee]
presiding.
Present: Representatives Clyburn, Waters, Maloney, Foster,
Krishnamoorthi, Scalise, Jordan, Green, Malliotakis, and
Miller-Meeks.
Mr. Clyburn. Let me welcome everybody. Today, our select
subcommittee is holding a remote hearing via Zoom.
Let me remind members of a few procedural points. As a
reminder, this hearing is being recorded and live-streamed. The
rules require that members have their videos turned on the
entire time in order to be recognized. Staff should keep their
videos off at all times. Members should remain muted to
minimize background noise and feedback until they are
recognized by the chair.
Members will be recognized in order of seniority for five
minutes of questions each. The timer should be visible on your
screen when you're in thumbnail view, and you have the timer
pinned. Members who want to be recognized may do so in three
ways: You may use the chat function located under the
participants' panel to send a request, you may send an email to
the majority staff, or you may unmute yourself to seek
recognition. Members who have experienced any technical
difficulties should notify committee staff as soon as possible
using the chat function located under the participant panel or
by email.
As members are aware, votes on the House floor--we expect
to have votes on the House floor during the hearing. Because
our witnesses have a hard stop at four, we will proceed with
the hearing and only call a recess if it is absolutely
necessary.
When I step away to vote, Mr. Krishnamoorthi will chair the
proceedings until I return. Now, at the request of the House
Recording Studio, I will count down from ten and the live-
stream will begin when I get down to one. Ten, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,
4, 3, 2, 1.
Good afternoon. The committee will come to order. Without
objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the
committee at any time. I now recognize myself for an opening
statement.
This is a hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the
Coronavirus Crisis. When we were established with this name in
April 2020, we were experiencing the worst public health crisis
since the 1918 flu pandemic, and we were experiencing the worst
economic crisis since the Great Depression. Today, while there
is still significant oversight of the response to the crisis
for the select subcommittee to conduct, the word ``crisis'' no
longer accurately describes the Coronavirus in our country.
As President Biden declared in his State of the Union
address, the Coronavirus, and I quote him here, ``need no
longer control our lives.'' End of quote. This statement is
based on sound science. Recent CDC recommendations provide that
mitigation measures like mask mandates are not needed in
counties with low or medium COVID-19 community levels, a CDC
metric based on Coronavirus case rates and hospital capacity.
Based on this recommendation, mask mandates are currently
not needed in counties where more than 99 percent of Americans
live. Across the country, schools are open, businesses are
thriving, and the American people are safely going about their
pre-pandemic lives. Make no mistake; we do not move beyond the
crisis by chance. Our success is the result of deliberate
positive decisions and the decisive leadership of the Biden
administration. And if Congress fails to provide the
administration the resources needed to continue to combat the
virus, we increase the risk that we will return to crisis.
I look forward to hearing more from the three senior
administration officials with us today about our success in
getting to this point and how we can maintain and build on this
success moving forward.
As we begin this discussion, it is essential that we take
stock of how we got here. Within days of taking office,
President Biden rescued a vaccination campaign that had been
chaotic and floundering under the prior administration. The
American Rescue Plan provided the necessary resources to take
this campaign to every community in our country, including the
most underserved and overlooked. Even in the face of vaccine
hesitancy that has been legitimized by too many of my
colleagues, the Biden administration vaccination campaign has
been a stark success. There's a visual I would like for you to
take a look at here.
And as this chart reflects, today, more than 217 million
Americans are fully vaccinated. According to a recent study,
these vaccinations have prevented 10 million hospitalizations
and saved more than 1 million lives. And thanks to considered
action by the administration, including the distribution of
vaccines to community health centers that helped close those
racial vaccination gaps, these benefits of vaccination have
been shared equitably.
The American Rescue Plan also enabled the Biden
administration to provide schools the resources they needed to
stay open safely, to make lifesaving treatment available for
free, and to launch an unprecedented program that sent millions
of Coronavirus tests to American households after the highly
infectious Omicron variant emerged late last year. These
initiatives have enabled us to safely emerge from the crisis
phase of the pandemic.
Coronavirus hospitalizations are the lowest they have been
in nine months. And large-scale interventions are not needed.
But just because we have moved beyond the crisis doesn't mean
we will automatically stay beyond the crisis.
Earlier this month, President Biden released his National
COVID-19 Preparedness Plan which details a comprehensive
strategy to protect against and treat the virus, prepare for
new variants, ensure schools and businesses stay open safely,
and continue leading the global vaccination efforts. This plan,
however, is not self-executing. Congress must provide resources
for its implementation. If Congress does not act swiftly, we
risk losing valuable tools that have allowed us to get beyond
the crisis. Losing these tools would increase the risk of the
crisis returning.
As you can see on this chart, if Congress does not act, the
Federal Government will no longer be able to make monoclonal
antibody treatments available for free. We risk losing our
capacity to maintain robust testing, leaving us vulnerable to
new variants and may drive lower infections.
If the science shows additional booster shots are needed
for everyone, we will not be able to secure enough doses, and
the administration would be forced to scale back--, and the
administration would be forced to scale back its Coronavirus
treatment for our most vulnerable citizens.
These are just some of the disastrous consequences of
inaction, all of which are entirely avoidable. I will reiterate
what I said at our roundtable earlier this month to my
colleagues concerned about the cost. When it comes to public
health crises, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I want to thank our witnesses for testifying today. I
particularly want to thank you for your flexibility in allowing
us to reschedule the hearing to accommodate Congressman Don
Young's memorial service on yesterday. While we were looking
forward to seeing you in person, which was not possible, but
once we rescheduled, we are fortunate to have the ability to
hear from you virtually.
I look forward from hearing more about the new phase of the
pandemic, the Biden administration's National COVID-19
Preparedness Plan, and how Americans would be impacted if
Congress fails to provide the necessary funding. Thank you, and
I'll yield--I would yield to the ranking member for his opening
statement.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
having the hearing, and I'm glad that the Biden administration
officials are here to testify at this public hearing before the
subcommittee. It's definitely been quite a while since we've
had this kind of testimony. I appreciate all of you joining us.
I would like to note that we also invited Dr. Anthony
Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Biden and the
director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases, but regrettably, he sent this letter that he was
unable to attend because he would need to be invited by the
Chairman with permission from the Biden administration. So, Mr.
Chairman, hopefully, you will invite Dr. Fauci. I think we all
want to hear from him.
Just as a note, it's been 309 days since we've heard Dr.
Fauci testify before any committee in the House. So I don't
know if Speaker Pelosi is trying to silence Dr. Fauci. We asked
that he home. He was not allowed to come. I think he should be
part of this hearing. I sure hope we rectify that soon.
It is important to hear from the witnesses today about the
current state of COVID and planning for the future. But I think
it's imperative that we address the elephant in the room. The
public has lost a lot of trust in public health officials over
the last two years. And we have seen flip-flopping, we have
seen mistakes, we have seen power-grabbing, and we have seen
political interference with the science during this last year
and a half, especially.
I hope the witnesses will address the following issues
directly today. There's a long list of controversies that the
American public is looking for answers from, and I'd like to
name just a few of them; and I hope that we can have the
witnesses address them in neither their remarks or during
questioning.
First, it was uncovered that there was direct political
interference with CDC's school reopening guidance from the 2021
report. President Biden and CDC discarded historical practices
to allow a radical teachers union that just so happens to be a
major supporter of Democrats to bypass agency norms and
directly change official CDC guidance.
The damaging edits by union bosses effectively kept
thousands of schools shuttered across the country, which locked
millions of children out of their classrooms. The Biden
administration abandoned medical science and replaced it with
political science, and, by the way, gave unprecedented VIP
access to one of their largest supporters harming millions of
children in the process.
Mr. Chairman, a lot of this was documented through some of
the testimony we received. And House Republicans put together a
summary of this in a report that we released. I would like to
ask unanimous consent to include this report in the record. And
I know, Mr. Chairman, we have provided you with a copy.
Mr. Clyburn. Permission granted.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Roughly, $200 billion
dollars in taxpayer money was spent with the intention of
safely reopening schools. Yet, many remained closed even after
they took the taxpayer money. Students have suffered severe
learning loss, and emotional and social problems.
I hope that Dr. Walensky will address this scandal that
we've outlined and provide answers for us today on those
allegations made especially as it relates to the unprecedented
action that the union bosses were able to get to make major
edits to a CDC document weeks before it was released to the
public.
The list goes on. The CDC recommended little kids wear
masks all day, both indoors and outdoors, for almost two years.
They did this without any reliable scientific evidence of
masking effectiveness in toddlers. An action that likely caused
developmental delays for millions of children. And even in
hearings before this committee, we've had testimony that
identified and talked about the concerns to children from this
last few years.
In 2021, the CDC recommended that kids at summer camp wear
masks even while outdoors, even though we all knew that outdoor
COVID-19 transmission was highly unlikely. Again, amongst
children, we saw those numbers. Recently, after a long
torturous two years of masking guidance, the CDC has finally
changed its metrics for masking, effectively allowing most of
the country to take masks off. This change just so happened to
coincide with a memo from President Biden's pollster that
showed people are fed up with COVID restriction like masks.
So, again, not following the science, following the
political science after the pollster to the President came out
with this data that the public is fed up with this approach. Of
course, I welcome the change in masking, but why weren't these
metrics used all along? I hope the witnesses will explain that
today.
It's also been reported by The New York Times that the CDC
has failed to publish essential information about COVID-19
hospitalizations, at least in part, as they report, to control
the narrative around vaccine effectiveness.
The reports indicate that the CDC has, in fact, collected
data on vaccine and booster shot effectiveness as well as
breakthrough infections and wastewater analysis, but has
delayed its release, and released only small portions of the
data, and in some cases, none at all.
States and localities could have used the withheld data to
better inform their efforts to mitigate the virus' spread in
their area. CDC spokesman Kristen Nordlund stated that the
agency has been slow to release the data they routinely
collected because quote, Basically, at the end of the day, it's
not yet ready for prime time, close quote. And they feared the
information might be misrepresented.
Again, let the science be put out there transparently, and
let everybody explain it. If it's hard to explain, maybe other
decisions should have been made. But people should have been
given access to that data. This is why the majority of
Americans do not trust the CDC and what they've said about
COVID. What happened by the way to the transparency that we
were promised by President Biden.
On top of that, it was recently revealed that the CDC was
publishing inaccurate data. An adjustment was made to the CDC
COVID data trackers' mortality data on March 15 and involved
the removal of 72,277 deaths, including 416 pediatric deaths,
reducing the number of pediatric deaths from COVID-19 by nearly
24 percent.
This is not some minor error if that's what it really was.
A CDC spokesman told the Washington Examiner that CDC's
algorithm was accidentally counting deaths that were not COVID-
19 related. The flawed data indicated that children were dying
at an increased rate during the Omicron surge. Yet, in fact, it
turns out they were not. What decisions were made off of this
inaccurate data?
And, by the way, I would also like to hear, who has been
held accountable for this mistake, if it was a mistake, if not
worse? I hope we get that addressed today. Because it was a
very costly mistake.
Then there's the controversy over the Biden
administration's inaction with procuring tests and rejection of
a plan to provide millions of rapid tests in time for the
Christmas holiday when the Omicron surge was at its highest.
Sadly, we've had to endure the Biden administration's
alienation of the unvaccinated, instead of focusing on a
science-driven approach that includes vaccination and natural
immunity.
Undermining trust, once again, in the vaccine, and dividing
person Americans is not a time that that should have happened.
President Biden's unlawful vaccine mandate on employees or
private businesses was stopped by the Supreme Court. This overt
power grabbed backfired and further increased vaccine
hesitancy.
The Biden administration has also been sidelining the
science on boosters. First, in the summer of 2021, the Biden
administration announced the availability of booster shots for
all adults by September 2021. But, amazingly, they made this
announcement before the FDA and the CDC finished even reviewing
the data to determine the need for booster shots. Because of
this, two senior FDA officials actually left the agency amid
alarming reports of reported political interference with the
scientists by the Biden administration. This was obviously very
confusing for the public, fueling their continued distrust in
public health guidance.
Republicans on the select subcommittee are still the only
ones in Congress to hold a hearing on the origins of COVID-19.
For whatever reason, Democrats in Washington still refuse to
have a hearing on the origin.
The U.S. apparently was funding risky gain a function
research in China. Taxpayers should know about that as well.
And we should have a debate and discussion about whether this
should even be funding--we should even be funding this kind of
controversial research in the United States or in another
country.
Unredacted emails showed Drs. Fauci and Collins were warned
that COVID-19 came from that lab in February 2020. Yet they
worked to stifle any hypothesis that the virus could have been
started in a lab. Again, how much time was lost? How many lives
were lost, telling people that something is a conspiracy when
it turned out to be true?
I hope the witnesses will address all of these issues
today. I know the American public is looking for answers and
wants the transparency they were promised that they still
haven't gotten from the Biden administration.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back and look forward to
the testimony from our witnesses.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much. Before introducing the
witnesses, let me address the--at least respond to the ranking
member's expression of displeasure that Dr. Fauci is not with
us today. Of course, it is very clear that there have been
several political attacks made against Dr. Fauci; I'm more
interested in having a meeting to continue the progress that we
have made. And, of course, we gave notice of this hearing.
And it is my understanding that the minority was made aware
of who our intended witnesses were going to be. But no request
was made of me to invite Dr. Fauci. I did see the public letter
that was sent to Dr. Fauci, not to me, but to Dr. Fauci. And,
of course, it did not allow us the two weeks that we usually
grant administration people to prepare for a hearing. And
therefore, that's the reason we did not move forward with the
request.
Mr. Scalise. Mr. Chairman, if I may?
Mr. Clyburn. Sure.
Mr. Scalise. We did ask Dr. Fauci weeks ago; as a normal
practice, the majority has the majority of witnesses, but we
have the opportunity to invite a witness; we don't have to
check with the majority.
But we asked Dr. Fauci to be our witness. He actually said
in his response--, and I'll make sure you get a copy of his
response to us,--that he is willing to testify. He didn't have
a problem coming to testify. He just said that he needs to have
the Chairman ask I don't know if you're aware of, but we will
then if we can have him come testify. He is saying we would
appreciate that opportunity. And I'll get you a copy of this
letter as well.
Mr. Clyburn. OK. I look forward to reading the letter.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Clyburn. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. It's Congressman Jordan. So did you tell--do we
understand your comments, did you tell Dr. Fauci you didn't ask
him to come today?
Mr. Clyburn. No. I have not talked to Dr. Fauci. What are
you talking about?
Mr. Jordan. Well, I just--I saw his letter. He said unless
you invite him--his response back to Ranking Member Scalise--
unless you invite him and the administration gives an OK, he is
not allowed to come. Even though he said in the letter to Mr.
Scalise, he looks forward and is willing to come any time to
testify in front of Congress----
Mr. Clyburn. You saw that? I'm sorry. You saw that in a
letter from me.
Mr. Jordan. No, no, from Dr. Fauci.
Mr. Clyburn. Oh, I have not seen the letter. The ranking
member says he will get a copy of the letter to me, and when he
does, I'll respond.
Mr. Jordan. I'm always willing to testify before the
Congress upon the request of the committee chair and agreement
by the administration. So there are two things reasons--two
things that can keep him from coming. You didn't ask him, or
you told----
Mr. Clyburn. No, I didn't.
Mr. Jordan. Or you told him not to come and the
administration.
Mr. Clyburn. No, I did not ask him to come. I asked these
three people that are here today. And if you thought--I didn't
think we needed him. He had been here three times already. So I
didn't ask him to come.
Mr. Jordan. You told him not to come, I guess, is what I am
asking you.
Mr. Clyburn. I'm sorry?
Mr. Jordan. He hasn't been here in almost year. We asked
him to come. Did you tell him not to come, or did someone in
the administration tell him not to come?
Mr. Clyburn. No. You asked him to come, and he responded to
you. If he wanted me to ask him, all he had to do was ask me.
Mr. Jordan. OK. He could have just came. He could have just
came. All right. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Clyburn. OK. I'm going to--, yes. He could have. Well,
let me get thank--let me get on with introducing our
distinguished witnesses today. First, I want to welcome back
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the Director of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Dr. Walensky is no stranger to members
of this subcommittee, and we all appreciate other her steady
leadership atop CDC these past 14 months. Thank you for being
with us again, Dr. Walensky.
Next, I want to welcome Dawn O'Connell, the Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response. Assistant Secretary
O'Connell's office leads the Nation in preventing, responding
to, and recovering from public health emergencies, including
the Coronavirus pandemic. Welcome, Assistant Secretary
O'Connell.
Finally, I want to welcome Dr. Vivek Murthy, of course,
Murthy, I believe, the Surgeon General of the United States. As
Surgeon General, Dr. Murthy's mission includes providing clear,
consistent, and equitable public health guidance and resources
to the American people with a particular focus on combatting
health misinformation and the youth mental health crisis among
other issues. Welcome, Doctor.
Will the witnesses please raise your right hands.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you, God?
Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative. Without objection, your written statements will be
made part of the record. Dr. Walensky, you are recognized for
five minutes for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROCHELLE WALENSKY, MD, MPH,
DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
Dr. Walensky. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Clyburn,
Ranking Member Scalise, members of the House Select
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
I want to first extend my condolences to all of you for the
loss of your colleague, Representative Don Young. I know he
worked tirelessly to represent the constituents of Alaska for
nearly 50 years. And as a public health professional, I want to
acknowledge his great leadership to increase awareness about
tuberculosis.
It's been over years since we were first alerted to the
emergence of SARS-CoV-2. Since that time, with support from
Congress in collaboration with our partner agencies, we have
made incredible strides in providing the American public with
the knowledge and tools necessary to combat the virus.
For example, over 217 million people have received a COVID-
19 primary series, providing critical protection against severe
disease, hospitalizations, and death. So I know we have
dramatically improved the volume and speed by which data are
collected and released. We now receive over 11,000 healthcare
facilities reporting automatic case data. And, finally, we have
increased our capacity to identify emerging variants, so that
we can quickly effectively monitor changes in this virus to
make lifesaving decisions. Despite these strides, rising
hospitalizations and deaths due to Omicron again reminded us
that new variants can rapidly change our situation.
While Omicron infection may typically be less severe and
widespread vaccination and immunity from prior infection
provided protection against this variant, the sheer volume of
cases resulted in peak hospitalizations above what we saw
during both the Alpha and Delta surges. We must work to stay
ahead of this virus by amplifying bipartisan messaging to
reinforce the importance for vaccination and boosters to save
lives.
CDC is committed providing those of increased risk for
severe disease with the tools they need to protect themselves.
And, in fact, just yesterday, following FDA's regulatory
action, CDC updated its recommendations to allow certain
populations the objection of an additional booster to increase
their protection against severe disease.
As we think about how we manage the next phase of this
virus, we must continue to assess which metrics are most
helpful to track disease and to support future decisionmaking.
Just a few weeks ago, CDC released a new framework for
measuring and monitoring the risks COVID-19 poses to
communities called the COVID-19 Community Levels.
This framework focuses on prevention efforts on protecting
people at high risk for severe disease, minimizing severe
disease across the population, and preventing hospitals and
healthcare systems from becoming overwhelmed.
CDC also recently unveiled National Wastewater Surveillance
data. We are tracking more than 750 testing sites across 639
communities, and we will increase this to more than 800 testing
sites in the communities. This information empowers local and
state health officials to detect increases in circulating SARS-
CoV-2 virus in the community several days before traditional
sentinel signals, like syndromic surveillance, test positivity,
case counts, and hospitalizations.
In addition, we at CDC strive to improve data-sharing
capabilities with states, localities, providers, other
healthcare partners, and the public. We do this through
investing in platforms like CDC's COVID Data Tracker where CDC
shares an unprecedented amount of data each day that are pulled
from more than 50 data sources.
And we do this through efforts like CDC's Data
Modernization Initiative, which will bolster the capabilities
of our public health partners. But we also need continued
support from Congress through bipartisan efforts to modernize
CDC data authorities, to support standardized data collection
and rapid sharing of data in a way that Americans expect during
and after the pandemic.
CDC was able to leverage temporary authority during the
pandemic to make important strides in COVID-related data. But
without new authorities, we run the risk of losing these
improvements and the ability to expand on them for other public
health-related data.
The President's budget released this week provides a
roadmap to guide us to be more prepared for the next public
health emergency. It invests in critical initiatives to bolster
CDC's annual appropriation. It builds on the progress we've
made during the pandemic by supporting sustainable
infrastructure for adult vaccination.
And it invests $28 billion in CDC over the next five years
to support domestic and global pandemic preparedness. Taking
together, these investments will bolster public health
infrastructure through disease agnostic authorities and begin
to address the longstanding global and domestic public health
challenges that left our country vulnerable to this pandemic.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Dr. Walensky. We'll now
hear from Assistant Secretary O'Connell. Assistant Secretary
O'Connell, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAWN O'CONNELL,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PREPAREDNESS AND
RESPONSE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES
Ms. O'Connell. Chair Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise, and
distinguished members of the committee, it is an honor to
testify before you today on the efforts within ASPR to respond
to the COVID-19 pandemic. But first, let me join Dr. Walensky
in offering my condolences for the loss of Congressman Young. I
worked in the House for 13 years with many of you and remember
him fondly, and I know he'll be sorely missed.
Now turning to the pandemic. Over the last 15 months, as a
country, we have made tremendous progress in our fight against
COVID. Today we have the tools we need: Vaccines, tests,
treatments, and masks to keep people safe and keep schools and
businesses open. Thanks to the collaboration across HHS with
partners at DOD and with private industry, ASPR has delivered
more than 700 million doses of safe, effective, and free
vaccine to 90,000 vaccinationsites around the country,
contributing to 217 million people being fully vaccinated. We
continue to allocate vaccines and boosters to sites nationwide.
While vaccines remain the best way to prevent severe
illness from COVID-19, today, we have an array of therapeutics
to treat those that do become infected. We currently allocate
monoclonal antibody and oral antiviral treatments to states and
territories for free on a weekly basis. We allocate the
preventive monoclonal antibody Evusheld. It's a treatment for
immunosuppressed people for whom vaccines are not recommended.
And allocate that to states and territories for free on a
monthly basis.
We recently launched a nationwide Test to Treat Initiative
that gives individuals an opportunity to rapidly access
treatments at over 2,000 pharmacy-based clinics, federally
qualified health centers, and long-term care facilities. Under
this program, people are able to get tested. And if they are
positive and treatments are appropriate for them receive a
prescription from a healthcare provider and have their
prescription filled all in one location. This is important
because antivirals work best within five days of symptom onset.
Testing continues to be a vital part of disease
surveillance, diagnosing illness, connecting patients to
treatment, and keeping businesses and schools open. We've made
significant progress in increasing testing supply availability
and affordability over the past year. We went from zero over-
the-counter tests in January 2021 to approximately 300 million
tests in December 2021.
I recently visited an Abbott test manufacturing facility in
Illinois to meet with company leadership, visit with the
employees on their production floor, and see the manufacturing
process up close. The advances we have made in testing are
reflective of a broader effort within ASPR to bolster our
domestic manufacturing of critical medical supplies, expand our
industrial base, and secure the public health supply chain.
In addition to increasing the commercial availability of
tests through investment to domestic manufacturing, at the
direction of President Biden, ASPR has secured more than 900
million of the one billion at-home tests promised for free to
the American people. And we're in the process of procuring the
remaining ones. Further, in partnership with the U.S. Postal
Service, we have delivered hundreds of millions of free at-home
tests to more than 70 million American households via the
COVIDTests.gov program.
While we are pleased to see the winter Omicron surge
receding nationwide, we know that masks continue to be useful
in some situations. In January, the President directed ASPR to
make high-quality American-made N95 masks available to the
American people for free. Today, ASPR's Strategic National
Stockpile has shipped more than 250 million masks to pharmacies
and community health centers nationwide. This effort represents
the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S.
history. Since the start of the pandemic, we have tripled the
number of N95s in the SNS.
And finally, in addition to vaccines, therapeutics, tests,
and masks throughout the pandemic, and especially in this past
year, ASPR has provided on-the-ground support to states and
communities in need. Since July, 93 national disaster medical
system teams. Nearly 1,100 team members have deployed to 26
separate states--in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, American Samoa, and Palau to support a range of
functions, including hospital augmentation and decompression,
setting up medical overflow centers for patients, and mortuary
support.
As we move forward and prepare for new surges, we will
continue to make resources available to help states and
communities respond.
While COVID-19 has been anything but predictable, today we
are in a much better position to respond than we were a year
ago. A big reason is because Congress, on a bipartisan basis,
provided the resources needed to make sure Americans had free
and widely available tools to protect themselves.
I want to thank you for your support and partnership and
look forward to working with you as we continue to respond to
the COVID-19 pandemic. I am happy to answer any of your
questions.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you, Assistant Secretary O'Connell.
We will now hear from Dr. Murthy for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF VICE ADMIRAL VIVIK MURTHY, MD, MPH, UNITED STATES
SURGEON GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Admiral Murthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Clyburn,
Ranking Member Scalise, members of the committee, thank you for
allowing me the privilege of speaking with you today.
In the last year, we have collectively harnessed our
country's unparalleled scientific and operational capacity to
make incredible progress in the fight against COVID-19. We have
identified and developed the tools necessary to keep people
safe and out of hospitals, including vaccines, boosters, and
antiviral treatments. We have led and funded the production of
these tools on a massive scale, and we have made them, along
with high-quality masks, available for free to millions of
people in America.
To be sure, though, we have not relegated COVID-19 to the
history books. But the bottom line is that today as a country,
we are in a better position to address COVID than at any other
point in the pandemic. America has never been closer to the day
when COVID-19 no longer defines our lives.
The question now is whether or not we can keep this hard-
won progress and, in fact, build on it. And that, in part, will
come down to the choices we each make about our health and the
health of our families over the coming months and years.
That's why what I want to highlight today is one of the
biggest ongoing threats to our public health, the extensive and
dangerous spread of health misinformation.
The usefulness of any tool is dependent on whether an
individual can make a fully informed decision about if, when,
and how to use it. When it comes to our health, misinformation
has robbed too many people of their freedom to make that fully
informed decision. And over the last two years, especially, we
have felt its human costs. If we have failed to address health
misinformation now, our ability to contain this pandemic will
suffer, our response to the next global public health emergency
will be exponentially harder, the societal pluralization the
misinformation thrives on will be further exacerbated, and we
will risk the well-being of more and more families,
communities, and disproportionately people everywhere.
But I believe that we can make change happen. Last year, I
released my Surgeon General's Advisory on Health
Misinformation, which highlights the urgency of this crisis and
outlines what it will take to address it. And it will take all
of us. The advisory includes actionable recommendations for
every major sector. Government, for example, can support
community organizations and other trusted messengers while
working to prevent the spread of misinformation and can fund
research to help us better understand the extent and nature of
the problem, and it can use the full extent of its powers to
help create a healthy information environment.
Clinicians, including doctors and nurses, can continue and
expand their work to address misinformation directly with their
patients and their communities. Our educators can play an
important role providing people with tools for digital health
literacy. Journalists and media outlets can do more to inform
the public without amplifying misinformation by providing
context, using a broader range of credible sources, and
avoiding sensationalism.
Technology companies also need to step up and take
responsibility for the unprecedented volume of misinformation
on their sites. These companies can start by sharing data
transparently with independent researchers and the public so
that all of us can better understand how misinformation is
spreading online and how best to address it.
Finally, we each must raise our personal bars for what we
share online and offline. We all have a platform, however big
or small, and I believe we have a moral responsibility, to be
honest, fair, and accountable for what we share.
I look forward to discussing these possibilities with you
today. I want to acknowledge those who are concerned about
where the line is drawn between preventing the spread of
misinformation and censorship. We are a country that prides
itself on defending certain bedrock values, including freedom
of speech.
The values that we support and honor, and cherish in
America are the beacons that have drawn generations of
immigrants, like my parents, to this country. In our society,
though, where individual actions affect one another, we must
also set common rules for the common good--rules that respect
and reflect our fundamental values.
That's why we banned tobacco ads that targeted kids and, in
1984, mandated warning labels on tobacco products. So then, in
the face of powerful economic forces denying the dangers of
tobacco and promoting the use of an extremely addictive
substance, the public's ability to make a fully informed
decision about their health was protected.
President Reagan, the Congress, and one of my predecessors,
Surgeon General Koop, understood that when we don't have
honest, accurate information, and we lose the freedom to make
the best decision for our health and the health of our
families. The result of their actions decades later is a nearly
unparalleled public health success story copied the world over.
That's what we have the opportunity to do again here. As we
protect the gains we have made against COVID and prepare for
what's ahead, let's ensure all Americans have the tools, the
support, and the information necessary to help keep themselves
and their loved ones safe. Thank you so much, and I look
forward to your questions today.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Mr. Chair, may I be recognized?
Mr. Clyburn. Yes, you may.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Mr. Chair, I would like unanimous
consent to enter into the record an analysis released by the
select subcommittee last July. The report that my colleagues
across the aisle have introduced is riddled with misleading,
cherry-picked statements taken out of context and falsely
suggests that the CDC was pressured by teachers' unions to keep
schools closed.
Here is the truth. The Republican's report is a sad attempt
to falsely equate Biden administration stewardship with Trump
administration corruption. It is not in any way unusual or
improper for the CDC to engage with stakeholders about how
guidelines will be implemented and practiced. While Republicans
accuse the Biden administration of trying to keep schools
closed, the reality is exactly the opposite.
Today, under the Biden administration's leadership,
virtually every school is open. Just yesterday, I heard that
99.9 percent of schools are open and operating in person
safely. Even President Trump's former CDC director, Dr. Robert
Redfield, told us in a recent interview that he is quote, very
happy with the current trends in the Biden administration on
keeping schools open safely.
Hearing input from teachers on how to best achieve this is
not improper. What is improper is having political appointees
routinely apply pressure to career scientists to impact public
health guidance for political reasons.
I have in my hand a select subcommittee staff analysis that
documented 88 separate instances of the Trump administration's
political interference in the pandemic response, including
repeatedly overruling and bullying our Nation's scientists and
making decisions that allows the virus to spread more rapidly.
Let's just talk about one example highlighted in this
report. Multiple witnesses, including Dr. Deborah Birx, told us
that CDC's testing guidelines were altered in August 2020,
specifically, to reduce the amount of testing being conducted
at a time when no vaccines and few treatments were available.
Think about that. Why did the Trump administration do this? Not
because it was sound scientifically, but because they thought
that the high number of cases was making them look bad
politically.
Mr. Chair, I think it is important for the official hearing
record to reflect what actual improper political interference
looks like. So I ask for unanimous consent that this staff
analysis be entered.
Mr. Clyburn. Without objection.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you.
Mr. Clyburn. Members will now have five minutes within
which to ask questions.
And let me begin with a question. I think I will direct
this to Dr. Walensky. In your opening statement, and I am
quoting you here, the overall risk of severe disease is now
generally lower. But you acknowledge that the virus will
continue to circulate in our communities.
Can you elaborate on the level of risk posed now by the
virus to those who are up-to-date on their vaccinations and
those who are not? And what Americans should do to make sure
the risks to themselves and their families continue to remain
low?
Dr. Walensky. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chairman, I'm
happy to do so. So let's just talk about where we are with the
Omicron variant, which is the most recent variant that caused
up to a million cases in the middle of January every single
day. What we know, specifically, about this Omicron variant, in
contrast to what we saw with both Delta and Alpha, is it's more
transmissible.
But we also know that it tends to cause less severe
diseases. Correcting for comorbidity, correcting for vaccine
status and booster status, we have seen an Omicron specifically
causes less severe disease, less hospitalizations, less ICU
states, and less deaths, resting for all of those things. So
that is true Omicron, specifically.
We also know that in this country, because of vaccines,
because of boosters, and because of protection from prior
disease, infection-induced immunity, that about 95 percent of
people in this country have some level of protection against
SARS-CoV-2.
Now, we don't know how durable, we don't know how long-
lasting, but we know that most people in this country have some
level of protection. Of course, the best way to remain
protected is to get your primary series and to get your booster
shot. That third booster is so essential.
What we have seen with the Omicron variant you need higher
levels of immunity to combat Omicron. That means that our
vaccines may not work as well against infection, but they're
still working quite well against severe disease, against
hospitalization, and against death.
And what we have seen in our most recent data against the
Omicron variant is that if you are boosted with that third
booster shot, that you are 21 times less likely to die of
Omicron as you are if you are unvaccinated.
So it's true Omicron is a bit less severe, but it is much
more infectious, so we see it on many more cases. It's true at
the population level, we have a lot of immunity. And for any
given individual, it's very clear that you need that booster
shot because you need high levels of protection in order to
combat Omicron. Thank you.
Mr. Clyburn. Well, thanks, but I have a second question of
you. Can you give us--tell us a little bit more about the
current status of the BA.2 subvariant in the United States and
how we are preparing to combat it?
Dr. Walensky. Yes, absolutely. So BA.2 is the cousin of
Omicron. It's actually a sublineage of Omicron. So the one that
we have seen here mostly to date is BA.1. What we know about
BA.2--, and we have known about this really since really
January, we've had this variant, this sublineage in the United
States,--is that it is absolutely more transmissible than its
BA.1 cousin.
So we have seen over time that it is increasingly more
prevalent in the United States. And in fact, just yesterday,
CDC released data that demonstrated about 55 percent of our
sequences now are related to BA.2.
We also have seen data from other countries, which is the
reason for some optimism, that if you have had BA.1, that you
were less likely to get BA.2. There's quite a bit of good
protection if you've previously been infected with BA.1 against
BA.2.
We also know that BA.2 does not look to cause more severe
disease than its Omicron cousin, nor does it look like it
evades our immunity any more than BA.1. So we were watching
this very carefully. Right now, we continue to have relatively
low levels of disease, about 27,000 cases a day, but a higher
proportion of it is related to BA.2.
Mr. Clyburn. Well, thank you very much. As the members
know, we are having five-minute votes, and I don't see any
Republicans on the screen. Are any there in the room? The chair
now recognizes has Mrs. Maloney for five minutes.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this important hearing, and thank you to all of our
panelists.
The Biden administration's vaccination campaign has been
essential to the progress of our country has made even
combatting the Coronavirus. Under President Biden's leadership,
more than 215 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, and
nearly 100 million have received booster shots. This has
provided significant protection against severe illness and
saved lives.
Dr. Murthy, how impactful has the Biden administration's
vaccination campaign been in helping our Nation overcome the
crisis and move forward safely?
Admiral Murthy. Well, thank you, Congresswoman, for that
question. I do believe this has been one of the successes of
the COVID response that we should all feel good about. We have
been able to develop, produce, and distribute vaccines at a
scale that is truly historic for our country, and the impact of
that has been literally lifesaving.
We have now 217 million-plus people who have been
vaccinated in the United States. We have saved, during this
vaccination campaign over the last year-plus, over 1 million
lives and prevented over 10 million hospitalizations.
I will tell you, Congresswoman, as somebody who has lost
family members to COVID-19, who has had friends hospitalized
with this virus, I would have given anything to have had a
vaccine available when my family members got sick, but that
wasn't the case. The fact that we have one now stands out as
one of the great scientific successes, you know, of our time.
But also, it is a victory for the community. What made this
possible was not just government, it was partnerships with
committee organizations all across America.
It was students knocking on doors. It was moms and dads
talking to their friends in neighborhoods. It was faith leaders
talking to their communities to help get accurate information
to people about these vaccines.
Last year, we still got more work to do. We have had
millions of ma'am's brothers and sisters in America who are not
vaccinated who do not have the protection against COVID-19 that
we want for everyone. So we're not giving up. We are going to
keep doing everything we can to make sure people have accurate
information about this vaccine so they can get the protection
that every American deserves.
Mrs. Maloney. OK. Thanks to this progress, 99 percent of
Americans live in areas where masks are not currently
recommended, community-wide, under the CDC's current
guidelines. Dr. Walensky, you have explained that the CDC's
updated framework reflects the reality that the overall risk of
severe disease is now generally lower in most communities.
Thanks to vaccinations and booster shots, as well as new
treatments and access to rapid testing and improved
ventilation, we have made great progress.
How does CDC's updated framework reflect where the country
is today in terms of the overall risks posed by the virus both
to individuals and to our public health system more broadly.
Dr. Walensky. Thank you, Congresswoman. So on February 25,
we release our new COVID-19 community levels for executive
reasons, as you know. That so much of our disease right now,
especially with Omicron, and especially in the context of a lot
of population-based communities from vaccines, from boosters,
and from prior infection, there's a lot of protection out
there.
And so we really this updated framework to reflect
medically severe diseases. How are our hospitals doing? How is
our hospital capacity? We also wanted these metrics to reflect
the ability for vulnerable people to be able to be protected;
that they have the capacity to get a fourth, if not a fifth
booster shot; that they have the capacity to easily access an
N95; to wear a mask in any of these settings where they see
fit; to use routine screening.
So that these COVID-19 community levels were reflected and
updated as metrics of the time to reflect severe disease. And,
in fact, when we looked at how these metrics perform.
Retrospectively, they performed quite well during this Omicron
surge. They performed well in predicting where we will be three
weeks from now, six weeks from now in terms of severe disease.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, I'd say that you explained that CDC's
framework is designed to be flexible, signaling when
policymakers should consider relaxing the program, and when
other times you have said you would quote, dial it up. Can you
elaborate on how CDC's framework helps guide communities about
when to dial up mitigation measures either up or down?
Dr. Walensky. Yes, thank you----
Mrs. Maloney. Dr. Walensky.
Dr. Walensky. Thank you. Yes, one of the things that's been
very clear through this pandemic is we've gotten curveballs.
And we need to be ready to dial things up should we get another
one of those curveballs.
So we have said we want to relax our mitigation strategies
when things are going well. And we want to have the capacity to
put them back on again if we see those surges, if we see
challenges with our hospital capacity, with our
hospitalizations. And so, this is exactly what these community
metrics do.
We are following--the metrics are intended to be followed
at the county level. They are metrics that are reported at
least a weekly basis. So we can follow these locally and in
realtime and update these metrics when we see these concerning
trends and put on masks should we need be.
Mrs. Maloney. My time has expired. And, Mr. Chairman, I
think we've been called to another vote.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes
Mrs. Malliotakis for five minutes.
Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
having this hearing today. I want to talk a little bit about
the inconsistencies that we're hearing from the Federal level,
the state level, local levels. I think it's been the double
standards that have been put in place that have been very
stressful and--for my constituents, and infuriating, quite
frankly.
For example, just recently, our mayor announced that if
you're a baseball star or a basketball or even a performer
that, you don't need a vaccine to continue doing your job. Yet,
1,500 city workers, firefighters, police officers, teachers,
they were fired for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate.
I would love to hear Dr. Walensky's opinion on what
science, what science was my mayor using in saying that, you
know, if you're a Brooklyn Net, you don't need the vaccination,
but if you were a New York City firefighter, you do. Is there a
science that was being followed there?
Dr. Walensky. Thank you, Congresswoman. So let me just say
that CDC provides guidance at the national level. That guidance
and recommendations are really intended to be able to be useful
and in places such as Cherokee Nation, as well as New York
City, as well as rural Montana. As we put those guidances
forward, we certainly have recommended vaccines and booster
shots, demonstrating that boosters are working.
Our data demonstrates that if you are vaccinated and
boosted, as I have just mentioned, you have a 21 less
likelihood of death compared to if you're unvaccinated.
In the context of this guidance, though, we have always
said that this guidance is applied locally, and that give--
we're very deferential to our political leaders locally to
apply the guidance for what is happening locally. This is
critically important because this disease is local. What is
happening with this disease in your county, in your
jurisdiction.
So as we have provided high-level guidance and
recommendations, it is intended to be applied. We certainly
would be differential to the local leaders for how those
policies should be made.
Ms. Malliotakis. But shouldn't there be consistency? Why is
a Brooklyn Nets player or a--, let's say--before it was even if
you were a fan in the stadium, you needed to be vaccinated. But
if you're playing on the court, you do need to be vaccinated.
Now, we're seeing that if you're an athlete and performer in
New York City, you don't need to be vaccinated. But if you're a
New York City first responder, you do.
I mean, don't you think it's important that the
municipalities have consistency here? I mean, is it wrong that
people are losing their livelihoods if they choose not to be
mandated, particularly, in light of this new decision by our
mayor?
Dr. Walensky. You know, certainly, I can't speak for the
mayor's decisions or how they make those decisions, but what I
can say is the CDC's recommendations, and guidance is to get
vaccinated and to get boosted. We know those vaccines are
saving lives. Those boosters are saving lives. So from our
guidance perspective, we would recommend it.
Mrs. Maloney. And what is the CDC guidance related to
vaccine mandates for public school students across the country?
Dr. Walensky. The CDC does actually not apply any mandates.
The CDC, again, for all vaccinations and school-age children as
well, we don't have mandates. We have guidance. And what we do
is synthesize all of those policies on our CDC website, so it's
transparent as to where those policies are, but the CDC does
not apply those mandates.
Mrs. Maloney. OK. And last, what is the administration
telling you about, I guess, as a push now to pass a new COVID
relief package? And my concern is that there have been billions
of dollars in fraud in both the Paycheck Protection Program and
Unemployment Insurance fund. I understand as part of the
Chairman's memo regarding this meeting that part of the topic
was going to be, you know, programs for economic development.
I understand that you're at CDC and not necessarily
administering these programs, but have you had any
conversations with your colleagues in the administration on how
to ensure that this money that was fraudulently taken from the
taxpayers is returned to the Treasury? Because I am hesitant to
support any type of additional funding if we are not going to
have accountability for the up to hundreds of billions, it's
estimated, roughly $400 billion is the high estimate, that has
been taken fraudulently through the PPP and Unemployment
Insurance program.
Dr. Walensky. Here is what I can tell you, Representative.
What I can say is, we're at a critical juncture right now where
we are low on funds in the Federal Government in order to not
only purchase vaccines, boosters, tests, and therapeutics but
to deliver them and administer them to the American people.
We----
Mrs. Maloney. Well, what----
Dr. Walensky [continuing]. at CDC are deeply concerned
about our ability to look at vaccine effectiveness studies,
studies that are germane and to how we use these, looking at
studies of long COVID, post-COVID conditions over the long
term, what do these post-COVID conditions mean and----
Mrs. Maloney. I've run,--I've run out of time. I just want
to simply say that we should find out what happened to that
money because to ask the taxpayers for more when we have
hundreds of billions of dollars that was lost is just
unconscionable. So let's find that money because it should have
been used for its intended purpose to begin with. Thank you.
Mr. Clyburn. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Krishnamoorthi? Is he here? We now--the chair now
recognizes Mr. Krishnamoorthi for five minutes.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let me begin with Secretary O'Connell. Secretary O'Connell,
how many doses of vaccine are left in the--in the, I guess, the
stockpile that is to be administered at this point?
Ms. O'Connell. Thank you, Congressman. That's an important
question. You know, as we look across our current inventory, it
changes every day as vaccines are administered. And we, as have
currently assessed, that we have enough fourth doses. We have
enough to be able to provide a boost to the 50-and-older
population that was just authorized and recommended by FDA and
CDC yesterday.
We do have significant concerns about whether we would have
enough vaccine if we were to do a general population boost
campaign in the fall, particularly if we're going to need a
variant-specific vaccine. We don't have any of those doses, nor
do we have any funding for those doses. Not only that, our----
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. So basically,--can I just jump in. So
basically, what we have left is enough in the inventory for
boosting those who are age 50 and older. So how many people in
the population are, I guess, younger than that particular age?
Do you know?
Ms. O'Connell. I don't know off the top of my head. We
would be happy to get that number.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Now----
Ms. O'Connell. We have 330 million total that we look at.
How many are below 50 I don't have off the top of my head.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I understand.
What I am hearing from a lot of the providers is that HRSA,
the Health Resources and Services Administration, uninsured
program is basically going to run out of money very shortly.
Has it already run out of money at this point?
Ms. O'Connell. Thank you, Congressman. It has for one
component that it's responsible for. It--as of last Tuesday at
midnight, it stopped accepting claims for tests and treatments.
So for reimbursing providers for providing tests and treatment
to the uninsured, it no longer accepts claims for that as of
last Tuesday.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And how----
Ms. O'Connell. As of midnight next Tuesday, it will stop
accepting claims for vaccines. I'm sorry, Congressman.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. You got--you beat me to it. So as of
last Tuesday, it stopped accepting reimbursements for tests and
treatments, and then as of next Tuesday, it will do the same
for vaccines.
Ms. O'Connell. That's right. And these are the claims that
the providers are submitting to them.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Well, I'm--I'm--I'm deeply, deeply
concerned about that. I'm already--my phone is already lighting
up with text messages and emails from a number of providers who
were expecting to be reimbursed from HRSA, and I suspect that's
the case all over the country. And basically, we're looking
at--roughly how many people are we talking about who are going
to be potentially left in the lurch who would otherwise benefit
from HRSA, basically?
Ms. O'Connell. So HRSA would know that number in
particular, but the uninsured, you know, several tens of
millions of people fall in that gap at this point.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me ask you this about global
vaccination. As you might know, I'm the co-chair of the Global
Vaccination Caucus here in Congress, and we've been strenuously
advocating for basically more funding to make sure that the
rest of the world gets vaccinated, because that's the only way
that we're going to get out of this pandemic. How much of the,
I believe, $15.6 billion that has been requested is now being
allocated for that particular purpose, global vaccination?
Ms. O'Connell. My understanding is that the
administration's request is $5 billion for the State Department
and USAID to do that work.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And what would they do with that money?
Ms. O'Connell. Well, we've already--, as you know, the
President committed 1.2 billion vaccines to the rest of the
world; of those, 500 million have been delivered to 112
countries, but we still have work to do there. So not only
would it help get those next round of vaccines to the world, it
would also make sure that they're administered. You know, it's
one thing to ship them to different countries; it's another
thing to make sure that they actually enter arms, and that's
part of the work that USAID is planning to do next.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. So $5 billion would be sufficient to
fulfill the rest of the pledge that was made?
Ms. O'Connell. So I'm--you know, of course, USAID and state
have made that request. And how that--how much of the pledge it
would, you know, fulfill, we'll have to see, but that was what
their portion of the request was.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Can you please come back to me on that,
Secretary O'Connell? That's extremely important to me. I feel
like we need more transparency on that particular piece,
because that's something that I and a lot of others care deeply
about.
I'm going to yield back because I have to go vote.
Dr. Walensky. May I----
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Go ahead.
Dr. Walensky [continuing]. just chime in and say the
critical importance of these funds, as you have seen the
challenges in administering vaccines in this country, that is
not lost in resource-limited settings. Fourteen percent of
resource-limited settings of the populations in those settings
have received one dose. We need administration capacity; we
need surveillance capacity; we need vaccine safety capacity, we
need data capacity in all of these places in order to deliver
those vaccines and give them to the people.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Director, I would just say, I think we
need a lot more than $5 billion for that----
Dr. Walensky. Totally.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi [continuing]. honestly. And that's where
we need more transparency and more information from you on
that. Thank you so much. I yield back. I have to go vote.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Scalise for five minutes.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Walensky, we had recently interviewed Dr. Henry Walke.
He's CDC's director, for the center of preparedness and
response, over in your office. You know Mr. Walke, don't you?
Dr. Walensky. Dr. Walke, yes, I do, very well.
Mr. Scalise. Yes. Do you respect Dr. Walke's opinion on the
job he does?
Dr. Walensky. Dr. Walke has a great amount of integrity,
and he has my deepest respect.
Mr. Scalise. I ask because we--I asked him a number of
questions about something that we also asked you about, and
that relates to the changes that were made to CDC's guidance
right before they were about to come out on school reopenings
as it relates to the Teachers' Union making major edits to the
CDC guidance.
And I know when we had asked you about it you said, quote,
it is CDC's customary practice to engage with stakeholders,
which we thought wasn't necessarily what we've seen in the
past. So we asked Dr. Walke, and some of the things he said is,
quote, that it was uncommon for the CDC to share draft guidance
documents to outside partners.
He also said that CDC, even if they did release a draft
guidance, it would be embargoed, quote, several hours before
publication. Yet, Dr. Walensky, you shared school guidance with
the CDC 12 days before publication. And there's a trail of
emails going back long before the guidance came out between you
and the head of the union talking about changes they wanted
that ultimately got incorporated almost verbatim.
So, first, is it uncommon or is it not uncommon to allow an
outside partner like a Teachers' Union who's trying to keep
schools shut to edit the documents when the CDC guidance was
initially going to give more credence to opening schools and
you changed it on their behest to, in essence, give them a
better opportunity to keep schools closed? So is Dr. Walke
right in that it's uncommon or your comments that it is common
the right statement?
Dr. Walensky. So thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member. Let
me just say, first of all, I was not in the room for--to
understand the full context of Dr. Walke's testimony, but let
me tell you what I know about the conversation that you're--the
discussion that I'd like to have.
First, this--these were discussions that happened in the
beginning of February 2021, days after I entered into this
position. Why was it days? Because getting our schools open was
critically important. At the time, we had 46 percent of our
schools open for in-person learning, and I think we would all
agree that we have real challenges with our children being
home, the social, educational milestones that were being lost,
we needed to get our schools open.
We, in that context, engaged as we often do with
organizations and groups that are impacted by our guidance and
our recommendations at the Agency, and we do that to ensure
that they can be----
Mr. Scalise. Let me ask you this--let me ask you this, Dr.
Walensky, did you engage with any parents groups?
Dr. Walensky. We did. In fact, we did. I personally did.
Mr. Scalise. Did they----
Dr. Walensky. So I can tell you that our draft guidance was
shared with over 50 organizations and stakeholders, boards of
education, superintendents, national associations of school
nurses, all of this with a mission of getting our children back
to school.
Mr. Scalise. Can you provide the details on all the groups
that you consulted with, and then specifically, can you provide
which groups actually gave you recommendations that you
incorporated? Because when we look at the request from the
Teachers' Union, specifically, they sent you language on the
left. They sent you this language because they were concerned
your language might not make it easy enough for them to close
schools when we're trying to get----
Dr. Walensky. May I speak to that, please?
Mr. Scalise. Dr. Fauci,--hold on. Dr. Fauci testified in
our committee almost a year ago, but he testified schools
should be open, so clearly, there's strong science that the
schools should be open. The unions wanted to close them. This
is the changed language after they sent you this by email, not
where teacher groups or parent groups were able to give input
that I've seen. They sent you this change. This is what your
new document showed literally almost verbatim language.
And I don't know if you put a footnote. If somebody gives
you language, you know, when I took----
Dr. Walensky. May I respond?
Mr. Scalise [continuing]. English, you put a footnote that
they gave you the language. But who else was able to give this
kind of guidance to you that you then took almost verbatim and
changed your report?
Dr. Walensky. So we, as I mentioned, engaged with over 50
organizations and stakeholders. We do those engagements so we
can bring in the feedback. We take that feedback, and we
consider it, and we ultimately implement things that are
consistent with our scientific underpinnings of our guidance.
When we----
Mr. Scalise. So will you give us all the groups that gave
you input and whose input you allowed into your document? Like
clearly, the unions were one of those groups that got to change
the science-based on----
Dr. Walensky. There was not science that was changed. There
was an omission, and if I could speak to the omission. The
omission----
Mr. Scalise. An omission?
Dr. Walensky [continuing]. was that in our draft guidance
we did not reflect on what should happen with immunocompromised
teachers. If teachers were undergoing cancer chemotherapy, if
they were on immunomodulating agents, there was nothing in the
guidance to reflect what we should do in that situation and
that is----
Mr. Scalise. This doesn't talk about chemotherapy. This
makes these sort of closed schools, and, in fact, they thanked
you for including it because they said it makes it easier to
close schools. So can you give me----
Dr. Walensky. Well I----
Mr. Scalise. Would you give me the detail of any other
group that gave you changes that you incorporated?
Dr. Walensky. But let me just note, as a reflection of what
happened after that guidance, 46 percent of schools were closed
before, 60 percent--46 percent of schools were open before that
guidance, 60 percent just a few months after. Those guidances
opened schools. I publicly said, even in the absence of
vaccination, our schools should be open, even in the absence of
vaccination. And, in fact, just this past year, in the fall of
2021, with a Delta surge ongoing, we had over 99 percent of our
schools open. All of this was a pathway to get our schools
open.
Mr. Scalise. And, Mr. Chairman--all right. I'll look
forward to getting that information from you.
Mr. Chairman, I would reiterate, if we could get Dr. Fauci
to come testify before the committee. He said he wants to, but
he said he can't do it unless you ask him. So I would ask if
you would ask Dr. Fauci to come and testify.
Mr. Clyburn. We'll give every consideration to
accommodating your request.
And with that, do we have another--is there a Democratic
member we have not recognized? Any other member present that is
not recognized?
I'm going to call a recess. I know we have a hard stop at
around four, but let me recess to see whether or not any other
members wish to participate. OK.
[Recess.]
Mr. Clyburn. Yes, I see--yes. There we go. Well, we are no
longer in recess. I think I see Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Our brief
recess is now over, so the chair now recognizes Mrs. Miller-
Meeks for five minutes.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much, Chair Clyburn.
And I want to thank all of our witnesses who are here today
and presenting to us.
And I know how difficult this is. Dr. Walensky, you and I
have had conversations. And, you know, much of my frustration
over what's happened through the pandemic, especially as it's
related to the CDC or the NIH, is more the function of
bureaucracies and how bureaucracies work rather than sometimes
the individuals who are personally involved or you as director
for the short time you've been director of the CDC. So I just
wanted to say that upfront.
And also, having been a director of the Department of
Public Health, I also had some concerns when I became the
director of a department that the majority of our function was
not related to what I think is the most important function of
the CDC, which is disease control, which was our first and
primary mission, which is a national security issue versus the
shift toward prevention. And I think that we know why that's
occurred, but yet it lends a level of frustration because we
don't have the immediacy that we need when it comes to handling
a pandemic.
So also, we're,--you know, Dr. Murthy, Dr. Walensky, Dr.
O'Connell, as physicians, as published authors, medical
doctors, we publish in medical journals, and as you all know
firsthand that there's a requirement for disclosure, that's
disclosures of financial disclosures, financial interests, and
that's also disclosures of any conflicts of interest.
So, Dr. Walensky, I just wanted to ask if the CDC, when
they published their February 2021 guidance, did you think to
put a footnote to the Teachers' Union or to think to disclose
that there was a conflict of interest in getting information
almost verbatim from the Teachers' Union?
Dr. Walensky. Thank you, Dr. Miller-Meeks. So, you know, I
think our guidance and recommendations are a bit different than
publication in a medical journal. We do, by standard practice,
get feedback from many different organizations, from many
different stakeholders, not just in our school guidance but in
other guidances as well. And so, we don't necessarily list who
we speak with to receive that feedback.
As you know, as a public health--a prior public health
official before, we routinely engage with ASTO, NETO, CSTE, our
public health, and jurisdictional partners. In this case, we
also engaged with school superintendents, state boards of
education, with parent organizations, superintendent
organizations, national association of school nurses. So----
Mrs. Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Dr. Walensky, I didn't see any
footnotes or any guidance that was directed from the state of
Iowa, which reopened its schools in the fall without any
instance, without any superspreader events. We opened schools
in the--August 2020 to no detriment either to our teachers, to
the staff, or to our students.
And when you look at the effect upon students--and I know I
have emphasized this and I will continue to emphasize this,
because our response to the pandemic is based upon the
precedent this year. So we just reduced the number of COVID-19
pediatric deaths, the CDC, by 24 percent over a coding error
just a couple of weeks ago.
I'm equally concerned about the excess deaths through the
pandemic, and we have discussed this before. The excess deaths
have now surpassed 1 million deaths, according to the CDC, and
the number is probably larger than that because deaths
attributed to COVID may, in fact, have been to other
comorbidities which would have caused death regardless of
whether someone was infected with COVID-19. These have been
from increased deaths from heart disease, from stroke, from
diabetes, from noncancer diagnosis, delay in cancer treatment,
and advancement of cancer because there was not a diagnosis or
treatment.
But even more remarkable than that and was predicted, and I
was one who authored a paper on this back in April 2020, the
deaths from increased mental health issues, whether they be
depression, anxiety, and then resulted in suicide, the deaths
from increased drug use, addiction, and deaths from overdose.
And most importantly, those deaths are occurring in the 18-to
45-year age group and younger in suicide prevention.
As you know, the Nevada school system opened up its schools
in 2021 because of 18 deaths in a nine-month period, the
youngest of which was nine years old. That's a travesty that we
have hoisted upon our children, who are the future of this
country. And so we know that children--and this is developing
into their pathway of resiliency. How are they going to be
resilient in the future when their, you know, their very most
early learning years are in a pandemic, in masks, not in school
without the social interactions they need?
So I think it's extraordinarily important that we look at--
which I have not heard until recently from the CDC or NIH, that
we look at the consequences, the risks and the benefits, and
there are significant risks to how we performed during this
pandemic and our actions.
I want to ask then, as we've heard today, we know that you
worked on the Teachers' Union to establish school reopening
guidance, but I'm interested to hear if you've taken the excess
deaths data into consideration. How did the data show rising
drug overdose and suicide deaths? How did that impact your
guidance? And did you communicate with other groups, such as
the American Academy of Pediatrics or the American
Psychological or Psychiatric Associations, who have declared a
national emergency on children's mental health and the WHO
national--a world emergency on childhood poverty which will
take decades to recover?
Mr. Clyburn. The gentlelady's time has expired. I'm going
to allow a very short answer.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Walensky. Yes. Maybe I will--thank you. Thank you for
that. Maybe--you and I have had numerous conversations or at
least a recent conversation about this. Maybe I will just say,
I'm happy to provide a list of the engagements that we had, of
course, for--to use our--to articulate our school guidance.
And I also really just want to commend the state of Iowa
for being able to open safely, but also note that only 46
percent of schools were open safe--were open at all, and part
of that is because how in the early part of this pandemic and
really throughout this pandemic there's been uneven
distribution of where the cases are around this country.
Just really an important point on data; we in this pandemic
at CDC have needed to work with real-time data in this
emergency and to report it outwards. From our death data, we
make decisions, but, in fact, those decisions, as I know you
know, having run a department of public health, especially with
death data, we get them in realtime, and then we get more
sophisticated, more validated death data from other sources in
later periods of time. So we are constantly updating our data,
validating especially those death data. Cause of death data, as
you know, also really difficult, but we're working toward that
as well. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, for
indulging our extra time. And it's hard to send more money
without reforming the CDC in its critical mission. I yield back
my time.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. [Presiding.] OK. I'm going to assume
the mantle here for a minute. I'm going to call a recess until
we have a couple people back who are currently voting, and so
we'll pause and then resume in a moment. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Clyburn. Let me thank the witnesses for being here
today and apologize for the problems that we're having since
the vote has taken place. As many of you know, we have been
having 15-minute votes, and because we have so many people
voting by proxy because of COVID-19, we are--we reduced the
time to five minutes, which means that a lot of people are
sticking close to the floor not being able to get back and
forth to their offices.
So--and there's a vote on the floor now that's taking a
little more time because it seems that there's some confusion
about what they were voting for, so people are switching votes.
So I'm going to go ahead and, in the absence of the Ranking
Member, proceed to close.
But before we close, I ask unanimous consent to enter into
the record a letter the committee has received from the
National Association of County and City Health Officials, and
I'm sure that there would be no objection. Nobody here to
object, so we are going to consider that done.
In closing, I want to thank all the witnesses for
testifying before the select subcommittee today. We truly
appreciate your steady leadership throughout the pandemic and
your dedication to protecting and improving the health of all
Americans.
As we have heard, thanks to safe and effective vaccines,
new treatments, rapid testing, and other tools, Americans are
now able to drastically reduce their risk from the coronavirus.
As a result of this progress, we have emerged from the crisis
phase of the pandemic.
But if you want to sustain and build on this progress,
Congress will provide the necessary funding to execute
President Biden's national COVID-19 preparedness plan. This
plan, if fully funded, will equip our Nation to protect against
and treat the coronavirus, prepare for new variants, and ensure
schools and businesses stay open safely and continue leading
the global vaccination effort. If Congress fails to act, we
increase the risk that the coronavirus will become a crisis
once again.
I see that the ranking member has returned, and I am going
to go out of order here and allow him to make a closing
statement. Mr. Scalise, you're recognized for a closing
statement.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we're kind of
bouncing back and forth voting and having the hearing. I
appreciate you having it.
I appreciate the witnesses again. And, look, I know that
there's some contention over some of the, you know, the
differences here, and it's because we've been working, and,
again, we've had hearings where Dr. Fauci and others have said
we need to open up schools and we've had this fight for way too
long. And then you see the documents come out that appear that
some people were given extra ability to change guidance that
was getting ready to come out from CDC, and the unions were
asking for changes because they felt like what was about to
come out wasn't going to give them enough ability to shut down
schools.
And when we've got all this science saying open up schools,
and then literally, like almost verbatim the changes they
proposed and asked to be included were incorporated almost word
for word in the final document. And they had--12 days in
advance they had the ability to do this.
I--and I look forward to getting--you know, Dr. Walensky
said she's going to give us the information on any other
groups. We've been hearing from parents groups, who, by the
way, during a lot of this time the Justice Department was
calling these parents domestic terrorists for trying to get the
schools open. And it just seems like the entire Biden
administration has been siding with the unions against parents
over and over again. And maybe some parents groups were
included. I'd love to see those that were able to get their
language included. We know what the unions were able to get
included.
And this is on the backdrop of a few months ago we had a
hearing where the President's own pollster laid out polling
that showed that the American people are worn out by the
pandemic, and the next day CDC changed guidance to say you
don't have to have masks, not after months and months of us
asking for it but after political science, the President's
pollster, said the American people are fed up with the
pandemic. And so if we're going get back to restoring trust,
we've got to address what really happened here.
And if there's a minute left, I know Dr. Green wasn't able
to ask questions during votes, but I'd like to give him the
rest of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Ranking Member Scalise. And I'll take
just a quick second, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
indulgence.
As a physician, we live by a certain code that the AMA is
very clear about standards for publications. The AMA says very
clearly you disclose any financial grants or anything that you
get. The teachers' unions very clearly gave millions of dollars
to not only this administration but Democrats across the board,
and then they influenced--, in fact, five paragraphs of the
CDC's position are almost identical.
And I don't understand why it wasn't disclosed that this
Teachers' Union who made those donations did not get
acknowledged or disclosed. That's--that violates--the AMA
policy. It's directly against the AMA's policy on medical
publications. And there's not a footnote in the whole thing.
And there are five paragraphs that are practically--I mean, a
high school kid turning in a term paper would have to put a
footnote down when he copies verbatim something else.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much.
And without objection, all members have five legislative
days within which to submit additional written questions for
the witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the
witnesses for their response.
This meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:03 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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