[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                     
          
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                   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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