Fauci testifies on coronavirus response

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, and other members of the White House coronavirus task force testified today before a House subcommittee on the Trump administration’s coronavirus response.

Fauci, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, addressed concerns about testing, the possibility of a Covid-19 vaccine and the reopening of schools.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened at today’s hearing:

SEE FAUCI’S OPENING STATEMENT:

Quicker coronavirus test results are not possible for everyone right now, Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers Friday.

Giroir, who is the Trump official overseeing Covid-19 testing efforts, has spent the week defending US coronavirus test turnaround times but told the House Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus Crisis that, at the moment, it is not possible for laboratories to deliver all Covid-19 tests results within 48 to 72 hours.

Giroir added the government is moving to point-of-care testing to address test result delays. Point-of-care testing delivers a result within minutes.

“We’re investing in a number of technologies that will greatly expand point of care testing and I think that’s the future,” he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said again on Friday that no randomized placebo-controlled trial has shown that hydroxychloroquine works as a Covid-19 treatment.

Asked during a House subcommittee hearing about a study by a team of researchers at the Henry Ford Health System that claimed to show that hydroxychloroquine saved lives, Fauci said that study was “flawed.”

When Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Missouri, replied that the Henry Ford study was peer-reviewed, Fauci countered by saying, “It doesn’t matter. You can peer review something that’s a bad study, but the fact is, it is not a randomized placebo-controlled trial.” 

“The point that I think is important, because we all want to keep an open mind: Any and all of the randomized placebo-controlled trials – which is the gold standard of determining if something is effective – none of them had shown any efficacy for hydroxychloroquine,” Fauci said.

Fauci added that when he sees a randomized placebo-controlled trial that shows efficacy for the treatment, “I would be the first one to admit it and to promote it.”

“I just have to go with the data. I don’t have any horse in the game one way or the other. I just look at the data,” he said.

WATCH HERE:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday it is not his position to determine what the government can forcefully do, after being asked if the government should limit protesting during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a lengthy and tense exchange, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Fauci during a House subcommittee hearing if the government should limit the protests that have been going on for months now across cities in the US.

The congressman doubled down, arguing that Fauci has given his opinion on a number of things, from baseball to dating, adding that the government moved to stop people from going to work and has limited church services to avoid the spread of the virus.  

After a back and forth, Fauci said, “I’m not gonna opine on limiting anything. I’m telling what it is the danger. And you can make your own conclusion about that. You should stay away from crowds, no matter where the crowds are.”

WATCH THE HEATED EXCHANGE:

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters offered condolences to the family of Herman Cain, the businessman and former Republican presidential candidate who died from coronavirus.

Cain was hospitalized earlier this month. He was one of the Trump surrogates photographed at the President’s campaign rally on June 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cain was seated closely among other attendees without a face covering.

SEE THE CONDOLENCES HERE:

Chairman James Clyburn speaks during a House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 31.

House subcommittee Chair James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, addressed President Trump’s tweet that seemed to reference a chart Clyburn showed earlier in the hearing about US cases largely outpacing European countries.

In his tweet, Trump claimed that the US is leading Europe in cases due to testing. The President has repeatedly argued that more testing is leading to more cases in the US. That is comprehensively inaccurate.

“Somebody please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesn’t have a clue, that the chart he put up indicating more CASES for the U.S. than Europe, is because we do MUCH MORE testing than any other country in the World. If we had no testing, or bad testing, we would show very few CASES, ” Trump tweeted in part.

Clyburn asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, if he agreed with Trump’s statement. Clyburn pointed to Fauci’s earlier comments from the hearing where the public health official said the difference in cases is due to multiple factors, including how states reopened.

Fact’s first: CNN’s fact check team has reported that Trump’s officials and his Republican allies have acknowledged it’s not true that a rising number of tests is the reason the number of cases has skyrocketed over the last month.

One telling piece of evidence that the spike is genuine: the percentage of people testing positive, a key measure of the true spread of the virus, has also spiked. As for his assertion regarding other countries — Countries like Germany have needed to do less testing over time because they were more successful at containing their outbreaks in the first place — by employing a strategy that involved aggressive early testing.

Watch the exchange between Clyburn and Fauci:

The House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis is holding a hearing this morning on “The Urgent Need For A National Plan To Contain The Coronavirus.” The panel is in a short five-minute break.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert; Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Admiral Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, are testifying in-person.

For a little over two hours, the health experts have been pressed on Covid-19 vaccine development, school reopenings and the efficacy of President Trump’s response to the virus.

In his congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci told lawmakers that a coronavirus vaccine may not be available to all Americans immediately, but in phases.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert reiterated that he is “cautiously optimistic” that a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by the end of the year to be distributed in 2021.

He also reassured lawmakers that all safety precautions will be taken by the FDA before the vaccine is made available to the public, encouraging all Americans to take the vaccine.

“I think the American public should be assured that in the process of determining the safety and efficacy, the proper steps have been taken to determine that, and when a vaccine becomes available it’s important for their own health and for the health of the country to take that vaccine.”

SEE FAUCI’S ANSWER HERE:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers Friday that he hopes China and Russia are “actually testing the vaccine before they are administering the vaccine to anyone.”

Speaking during a House subcommittee hearing, Fauci said “claims of having a vaccine ready to distribute before you do testing, I think, is problematic at best.”

Fauci explained the US is moving in a “rapid” but “prudent” way.

“We are going very quickly. I do not believe that there will be vaccines so far ahead of us that we will have to depend on other countries to get us vaccines. I believe the program that is being sponsored by us right now, and being directed and implemented by us, is going at a very rapid speed — prudent, but rapid,” Fauci said.

Some context: CNN learned earlier this week that Russia intends to be the first in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine, in less than two weeks. And despite concerns about its safety, effectiveness and over whether the country has cut essential corners in development, interest in the vaccine has already been expressed by at least 20 countries and some US companies, Russian officials say.

Officials told CNN on Wednesday that they were working toward a date of August 10 or earlier for approval of the vaccine, which has been created by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute. It will be approved for public use, with frontline healthcare workers getting it first, they said.

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Anthony Fauci, during the Coronavirus Crisis hearing on July 31, in Washington, DC.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers Friday that he doesn’t think it’s a dream to say that a coronavirus vaccine could be ready by the end of the year or early 2021.

“I know to some people this seems like it is so fast that there might be compromising of safety and scientific integrity, and I can tell you that is absolutely not the case. The rapidity with which we’re doing it is as a result of very different technologies.”

Fauci said early data from Phase 1 of the vaccine being developed by Moderna and NIAID was very favorable, but he added there are also other vaccines the government is involved with.

WATCH:

Robert Redfield speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 31.

As the start of the school year creeps closer and some states continue to see surges in cases, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reiterated his stance that schools should reopen this fall.

Redfield outlined some of these consequences, including student access to mental health services.

“Clearly we’re seeing less reporting of it, and again, I think it’s a direct consequence of the school closures. 7.1 million kids get their mental health services at school, they get nutritional support as we’ve mentioned from schools,” he said.

“It’s really important to realize it’s not public health versus the economy about school opening, it’s public health versus public health of the K-through-12 to get the schools open. We’ve got to do it safely and we have to be able to accommodate,” Redfield added.

Dr. Anthony Fauci echoed Redfield’s comments later on in the hearing, saying that a “default position despite the fact that we have to have flexibility” would be to try “as best as we possibly can in the context of the safety of the children and the teachers” to reopen the schools.

Fauci pointed to the psychological consequences on children and “downstream unintended consequences on families” as important reasons for aiming to open educational establishments.

SEE REDFIELD’S ANSWER:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday that 30,000 individuals have started to enroll in the first Phase 3 clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine in the United States which started Monday. 

The investigational vaccine was developed by the biotechnology company Moderna and NIAID. 

“As I mentioned, the Phase 3 trial has already started; 30,000 individuals were already starting to enroll,” Fauci said during his opening statement for the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

Fauci also said that, as of last night, more than 250,000 people have registered interest in trials for a coronavirus vaccine. He asked individuals who have expressed interest to go to coronaviruspreventionnetwork.org “to make sure that we have a diverse representation.”

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Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked why Europe has been able to largely contain the virus while the US has seen a rise in new cases.

Fauci said it was a complex question, but described some of the contributing factors. He first pointed out that many European countries locked down more wholly than the US.

However, “when you actually look at what we did, even though we shut down, even though it created a great deal of difficulty, we really functionally shut down only about 50% in the sense of the totality of the country,” Fauci added.

He also noted that some states had better success at following reopening guidelines than others.

“Some were followed very carefully and some were not,” he said.

WATCH:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers that while one can “never guarantee the safety or effectiveness” of a vaccine, he is “cautiously optimistic” that the coronavirus vaccine being developed by Moderna and his agency will be successful.

“Because in the early studies with humans, the phase one study, it clearly showed that individuals who are vaccinated mounted a neutralizing antibody response that was at least comparable and in many respects better than what we see in convalescent serum from individuals who have recovered from Covid-19,” Fauci added.

Some background: The phase three clinical trial of the vaccine discussed by Fauci began Monday.

The investigational vaccine was developed by the biotechnology company Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The trial will be conducted at nearly 100 US research sites, according to Moderna. The first patient was dosed at a site in Savannah, Georgia.

The trial is expected to enroll about 30,000 adult volunteers and evaluates the safety of the Moderna/NIH vaccine and whether it can prevent symptomatic Covid-19 after two doses, among other outcomes.

Volunteers will receive either two 100-microgram injections of the vaccine or a placebo about 28 days apart. Investigators and participants will not know who has received the vaccine.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, outlined four key points to the National Institutes of Health’s strategic plan to addressing Covid-19.

The four areas the agency has focused on are:

Today’s hearing is centered on the need to develop a national plan to contain coronavirus.

WATCH DR. FAUCI’S OPENING STATEMENT:

The House subcommittee’s ranking member, Rep. Steve Scalise, dismissed assertions that the US lacks a national plan to combat coronavirus and called the hearing’s title a “false political narrative.”

In his opening remarks, Scalise held up a stack of documents he said were a few of the guidelines published by the Trump administration and his agencies to show states how to safely reopen. The Republican said that those claiming the US does not have a plan perhaps have not read the “different components” of the plan.

“To show nursing homes how to care for their patients, which by the way, if all governors would have followed those guidelines, thousands more seniors in nursing homes would be alive today if just five governors would have followed your plan that was developed by President Trump and is being carried out by you and your teams effectively every day,” he said. “Let me thank you on behalf of the millions of American people who are alive today who wouldn’t be alive if you weren’t carrying out President Trump’s effective plan to keep Americans safe.”

SEE IT HERE:

The House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis is holding a hearing this morning on “The Urgent Need For A National Plan To Contain The Coronavirus.” The panel just began.

“My goal today is simple. To hear from our nation’s top public health experts on what steps we need to take to stop the unnecessary deaths of more Americans, ” Chair James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, said in his opening remarks.

“Regrettably, nearly six months after this virus claimed its first American life, the federal government has still not yet developed and implemented a national strategy to protect the American people,” Clyburn said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is testifying in person.

The other witnesses include Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Admiral Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services. They are also testifying in person.

The health experts are expected to be grilled on Covid-19 testing, school reopenings and the development of a vaccine.

WATCH HERE:

The House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis is holding a hybrid hearing this morning at 9:00 a.m ET titled “The Urgent Need For A National Plan To Contain The Coronavirus.”

The hearing comes as the US reports more than 1,000 people died in the country yesterday from Covid-19, the highest number of daily coronavirus deaths in more than a month, a statement posted on the hearing’s website says.

Witnesses include:

The three witnesses last appeared before Congress on June 30.

According to the House subcommittee’s website, after the Trump administration “initially declined” to make witnesses requested by the subcommittee available, Chair Rep. James Clyburn wrote to the vice president and the secretary of health and human services on July 14 saying:

Safety precautions: Face coverings are required in the hearing room, and entry will not be permitted without a face covering, the subcommittee’s website said.

In addition, seating arrangements will be “in accordance with social distancing guidelines” and “every effort should be made [to] adhere to six-foot social distancing guidelines.”

The Trump administration official overseeing critical coronavirus testing is expected to be pressed this morning on why turnaround times are still too long in the United States.

During CNN’s coronavirus town hall yesterday, Admiral Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, said testing is improving but not as good as he wants it to be.

He tried to defend the state of testing in the US after large testing companies such as Quest Diagnostics reported it can take seven days or more to run tests and get results back to people.

“Nationally, about 25% of tests are point-of-care so that’s about 15 minutes. Another 25% are done in local hospitals … That’s generally a quick turnaround,” Giroir said.

But he conceded there is a backlog that’s rendering some coronavirus testing practically useless.

“Where we really talk about it is the big commercial labs and there’s no question they’ve been strained, and Quest has been strained more than the other commercial labs,” he said.

“Our data right now, and this is the worst week, is that 56%, are back within three days, 76% are back within five days,” he added.

Pooling samples from four or five people can speed things up and save resources, Giroir said.

“I’ve said and I’ve said before — I want the perfect test. I want it to be perfectly sensitive and specific and back within 15 minutes. That’s why we’re really working towards more point-of-care but again it is a work in progress, because of the tremendous demand,” Giroir said.

By September, Giroir said he expects half of all tests in the US to be point-of-care tests, but he warned, “You can’t test your way out of this.” People must also use masks, avoid crowds and avoid being indoors with others, he said.

The United States needs to restart its response with policy actions at the federal, state and local levels to get control of the pandemic, scholars at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security said in a report.

The report includes 10 recommendations that include universal mask mandates, federal leadership to improve testing and, in places where rates of transmission are worsening, stay-at-home orders.

Here are some key suggestions:

The report also gives recommendations about personal protective equipment, epidemiological data, funding research agendas, contact tracing, identifying best practices for improving public health response and developing policies and practices to protect group institutions.

Fauci told MSNBC he didn’t believe moving back to a complete shutdown is necessary.

“I think psychologically that would be really very difficult for people to accept,” he said. He advised that states and communities could “backtrack a little” in order to “regain your footing.” Then the next reopening should be done with more caution, he said.