fauci. >> thank you very much. we had good news today in the field of vaccines. that has to do with the results announced yesterday from the astrazeneca trial. as shown on this slide, there are three platforms that have six companies involved. for the discussion over the next couple of minutes, we will be looking at the vector used by astrazeneca that yesterday revealed the results of their phase three trial. next slide. just to refresh your memory, the vector that is used in this platform is the virus in which the covid spike protein was inserted. that non-replication harmless virus is injected into the muscle of an individual. the dna then codes rna that then essentially codes for the spike protein that the body makes the immune response against. that is the fundamental mechanism of this platform. next slide. so, the data. we are talking about a phase three trial involving 32,000 participants who are 18 years of age and older at 88 sites, mostly in the united states but a small amount in c

fauci was incapable of pressing the fda to move it through faster. i was the one to get it done and even the fake news media knows and reports this. dr. fauci is also the king of flip-flops and moving the goal post to make himself look as good as possible. in the statement trump adds, dr. birx is a proven liar with very little credibility left, many of her recommendations reviewed as pseudo science and dr. fauci would talk negatively about her and, in fact, would ask not to be in the same room with her. who can forget when dr. birx gave a huge mandate to the

anthony fauci. >> thank you and i'm glad to be back with you all today. the most recent is about 53800 cases per day which is a slight increase from the previous seven-day period and over the past two weeks, cases continue to fluctuate somewhere between 60000 and also in the daily cases. most recent seven-day average for possible and message is just of our 45 per day. like covid-19 cases, hospital admissions and relatively stable over the last two weeks hovering around 4500 - 5000 admissions per day. debts continued to decline in this arising indicator with most recent 70 average slightly over 1000 per day. :-) and i'm sorry, slightly under 1000 per day. apparently level of the hospital admissions after the consistent declines we saw in these outcomes in early january through the end of february, this is concerning. while debts continued to draw, the remaining in elevated levels and over the past week, the rate of decline is up and it has slowed. we also know the trajectory of the pandemic, varies a

fauci dr. walinski let's take some questions. >> great first we'll go to cnbc. >> thank you so much. i wonder first if you could just address what happened yesterday with the vaccine and data safety monitoring board i know you talked about it a number of times yesterday but if you can provide anymore clarity it seem leak from the reporting in "the washington post" and "new york times" that, efficacy was closer to 69 to 74%s that not different from astrazeneca released if you could just provide anymore clarity on that it would be extremely helpful and for dr. washington walinski wonderiw looking at b1256 and we spoke to new york city health commissioner saying it is contradicting to that high case load they're seeing in the city there. how are you looking at that and whether you might characterize it as a variant of concern rather than interest and is federal government looking at surging vaccines to places that are seeing more spread right now perhaps because of variants, thanks. >> thank you m

fauci? >> great question. so, right now the trials have shown that by the time we get to the beginning of the fall, the fall school term likely, that there will be enough evidence of the safety and of the efficacy of high school students, namely, people from 12 up to 17 or 18. the trials on what's called an age de-escalation, from going from 12 to 9, 9 to 6, 6 to 2, and six months to two years, that will likely be by the end of the year at the earliest and more likely by the first quarter of 2022. so it is very likely that young children in elementary school will be able to get the vaccine in the beginning of 2022. >> let's go to an interesting question from alberto in castro valley, california. he's one of the 28 million americans already diagnosed with covid-19. >> as a person who suffered through covid back in june 2020 and continues to deal with the lingering effects such as fatigue, migraines, headaches, shortness of breath, how many doses, if any, of the vaccine do you recommend based on the current immu

fauci was right. i've been vaccinated for all kinds of things, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, all of it. and i do not shy away from it. host: more from dr. anthony fauci on "meet the press," talking about a year of covid. [video clip] dr. fauci: i knew it was going to be bad. a couple days ago last year, i said that things were going to get much worse before they got any better. but even i did not fully anticipate that we would have over a half a million deaths a year later. we knew it was going to be bad, but this has turned out to be a historic example of what a pandemic virus can do. it's been a terribly trying year for everybody, not only suffering healthwise, deaths, but what it has done to the economy, society, and has deepened the divisiveness that we have had in our country to begin with has just made it more intense. it's been a bad time all around. we are getting around the corner, going in the right direction, but looking back at what we have been through, people will be writing about this

fauci. dr. fauci: thank you very much dr. walensky. i will give a brief signs update on something that is being asked much more consistently. it's, how do we approach the entire issue of pandemic preparedness currently and for future pandemics? i have the first slide. there are three components that have been pursued now for some years. the first is priority passages. take out a pathogen that you think might be risky in the future. that could be ebola, that could be any. the other is the develop platform technologies. we have already spoken about the real advances that have been made with message rna check knology -- technology. i want to spend a couple of minutes on prototype pathogens. what do we mean by how prototype pathogens approach helps us for future pandemics? next slide. this slide looks complicated, but it's simple because it tells you this is all the genetic treatment of the coronavirus. and in red are the human coronavirus is. but noticeably, and the yellow boxes are the four coronavirus is that, each year, because about a

fauci. dr. fauci: thank you, i would like to spend the next few minutes introducing you to a new clinical trial that started yesterday, that will ask -- answer a very important question related to what people who are vaccinated can and cannot do. the trial, if i can have the first light will test if covid-19 -- first slide, will -- next slide. this is a question of extreme importance because we know that with people vaccinated that the endpoint of the trial shows that they are protected against clinically apparent disease, but the prevailing question is when these people get infected, how often is that if they are asymptomatic, how much virus do they have in their nose and do they transmitted to people that are there close contacts. this will help inform science -based decisions about mask use and about social distancing postvaccination. this is a randomized, open label, controlled study involving 12,000 college students between 18 and 26 years of age at more than 26 universities shown on the sl

fauci's role? >> well we cannot wait for that we have to determine whether or not any researchers dr. fauci or dr. collins or otherwise in u.s. was aware of lacks safety there. and fight have been aware of any type of improper utilization of that research. we can't wait, we need to utilize freedom of information act process that is available to any american, that initial letter we sent to get answers from administration is a first step, we're going follow-up in in congress, not going to promise the people that if they vote for us we'll take action, we have to take action right now. because there could be extensive concern and threat that our country would face today if there are these types of arrangements elsewhere. steve: you are doing freedom of information request, what is that process? >> that is rao what we're doing getting that information with tools we have to us, it sour hope that we'll get that as a consequence of the letter that we sent. but democrats should join us in this they -- >> go

anthony fauci. fauci was so popular that, back in april, he became a write-in n alive."or le's "sexiest there'st awt stakes you wantt him more. shockingly, the winner turned out to be michael b. jordan, who, while not an epidemiologist, has been published in the "new england journal of mama like!" i'm excited to talk to dr. fauci. we tried to get him on the show all last year, but he wasn't available. then around january 20 his schedule started freeing up for some reason. but before we get to the good doctor, i'd like to tell you a little about my experience during this quarantine. you see, for me, and perhaps for some of you, the past 12 months have been both terrible and wonderful. it was, as dickens wrote, the best of times and the worst of times.incide, i'vein quarantine for a year, and that's as much of the book that i've read. a little trouble focusing. you see, it was the worst of times because we saw the toll that this pandemic had all across america, with people losing their loved ones and their jobs, and having to adapt to a stark new reality. and, of course, t

fauci. >> thank you very much. i would like to spend a couple of minutes now talking about something i introduced at a prior briefing and that is the ultimate effectiveness of the vaccines that are being administered. as i mentioned previously, we now have threeeu vaccinesa that have shown a high degree of efficacy in randomized placebo controlled trials. right now, as the weeks go by, we see more and more and not only are these vac is -- vaccines efficacious but in the community, they are extremely effective in preventing infection with sarsc what i will do is present very brieflyo, new data on the effectivenessvi-2.a vaccination that health care workers in reports that came out yesterday online in the new england journal of medicine. in this particular study health care workers and employees at the university of texas southwestern medical center in dallas, if you look at this graph, it is really quite impressive. what it looks at is people who are not vaccinated and which infection was see

fauci: i'm sorry? >> if you could respond to the question so we understand the difference between the vaccine controlling the wild type versus the vaccine and reasons for wearing a mask. dr. fauci: first of all, when you have a variant, you have an immunity that you get with convalescent. and if i vaccinate you and me against the wild type, you get a certain level of antibody that's specific for a particular viral strain. if there is a circulating variant, you don't necessarily have it. you have some spillover immunity, to be sure, but you diminish anywhere from two to eight-fold the protection. so the point i'm saying is that there are variants now circulating. the point that senator paul was making was that if you look at wild type only, there is some clear cut credence to what he is saying. but we are living right now in a situation where we're having a dominance of 117, which was the original u.k. we have a troubling variant in new york city of 526. we have two variants in california of 427 and 429

fauci, guess again. on hand to stroke fauci's ego again. >> did you know that on social media, people are referring to the vaccine as the fauci ouchy. >> it was not my idea. [laughs] >> can you prove it was not your idea? >> laura: tough and penetrating questioning. that's all the time we have tonight. shannon bream and the "fox news @ night" team take it from here. shannon. >> shannon: we are going to see if we can follow up on that. thank you very much. breaking tonight: the first diplomatic meeting between the biden administration shannon: we will see if we can follow up on that, thank you very much. breaking tonight the first high-stakes diplomatic meeting between the biden administration and china is not going well according to both sides of the table. the chinese are accusing the white house of making moves that, quote, only show weakness on the

fauci. also at 10:00 a.m., a senate hearing on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. >> thursday, national institute of allergy and infectious diseases director, dr. fauci and the cdc director testify with other federal officials on the covid-19 response. watch live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3 come online at c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. >> you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's television cable companies in 1979. today we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers as a public service. >> dr. fauci and national institute of health director, dr. francis collins joint faith leaders to encourage people to take a covid-19 vaccine. dr. fauci met with people as they were getting vaccinated. this took place at the washington national cathedral.

fauci: thank you. i will give a brief science update on something that is being asked much more consistently. it's, how do we approach the entire issue of pandemic preparedness currently and for future pandemics? i have the first slide here. there are three components that have been pursued now for some years. the first is pathogens. take out a pathogen you think might be risky in the future. that could be ebola, it could be anything. develop platform technologies. we have already spoken about the advances made with mrna technology. the third is one i want to spend a couple minutes on, that is called prototype pathogens. what do we mean by how a prototype pathogen approach helps us for future pandemics? this slide looks complicated, but it is simple because it really tells you that this is all the domenici of the coronavirus is. in red are the human coronaviruses, but noticeably in the yellow boxes are the four that each year because about 50% to 30% of all the common colds that we all experience repet

fauci and i like listening to dr. fauci, i think he's a wise man. but he's a specialist. i remember when the covid outbreak began he talked about it we should and shake hands, he said he's always thought we should not shake hands. this is the problem when you have a specialist who gets in charge of things that are outside their specialty. if we lived in a bubble, there'd be no infectious diseases but we would not be humans anymore. that's the balance have defined in life and make smart choices about covid. i will get vaccinated saturday rdso my saturdays coming out. and i'm looking forward to it. >> sean: you look so much younger though. >> fauci, is not the only one who can make a choice. >> i want to be careful here. dr. fauci has spent his life trying to help people be well, katie, i would to be charitable but he's become a political player. now he's at the political realm, he opened himself to attacks. at the w.h.o. was wrong, nobody wants to hold china accountable either, right,at katie? >> sean, dr. fauci has been wrong. the exchange between dr. rand paul and dr. fa

fauci on the sugar show going down there at the border, where is fauci? where is the i hate trump fauci guy now? >> laura: he's too busy giving an interview to entertainment weekly, he's very booked up. you can't bother him. great show tonight. we'll see you tomorrow. i'm laura ingraham, this is "the ingraham angle," so much going on i can't believe 24 hours has gone by, we are going to get right into it. a line in the sand, that's the focus of tonight's angle. one of our nation's most sacred and fundamental rights is the right to vote and protecting that right is going to require voters to follow reasonable rules when casting their ballots. that's exactly what georgia is doing with the election reforms that governor brian kemp signed into law last week. as we watched democrats try to undermine common sense voting rules, laws like this are long overdue but democrats somehow see this as a threat to their power, so they and their media lackeys are mischaracterizing these measures as, you guessed it, racist. >> what georgia has done in this bill is in essenc

fauci. we heard that too. kristi noem, the governor, defending her handling of the pandemic, she gave residents personal responsibility over decisions regarding their own health and the flexible to keep their business open. but i have to tell you they have really high covid death rates and cases per capita in south dakota. your final word own this, gianno. >> peter navarro who was a member of president trump's staff, went to dr. fauci early in, we need to ground flights from the china to the u.s. dr. fauci disagreed. he talked about hydroxychloroquine. i am proannouncing incorrectly people understand i saying. he should use that reducing mortality rate. dr. fauci was against that. studies showed it reduced hospital death rate by 50%. a lot of things have been said, dr. fauci, perhaps should have agreed with but didn't and come to find out these were life-saving measures. at this point we need to listen to multiple experts, not leaf it up to one person who has been clearly inaccurate in number of instances. >>

fauci. >> i dumping would be fair to say that the governor of florida did anything wrong, not at all. there were certain things that were done that i disagreed with and it wasn't just me personally but in a public health person who looked at it but i think it would be unfair to say that he did everything wrong. liz: he didn't spell out what governor desantis did wrong and critics keep saying why are taxpayers paying the salary of an expert who's been criticized. what did ron desantis do so wrong? >> i don't know. i would love to ask dr. anthony fauci that because if you make an accusation like that on national television you better have the goods to back it up. dr. fauci has been over exposed her no good reason. he has done hundreds upon hundreds of interviews since the pandemic again and that would defined at the nexus was consistent and correct them time and again it has not just like almost everybody else so i don't want to make it look like fauci has been wrong in everybody else's been r

fauci: i agree completely. the idea of treatment as prevention as we had with hiv doesn't work because you are dealing with an acute syndrome that lasts for a few weeks. you have a persistence of symptoms. treatment is important, because you don't want people to get ill. you can avoid deaths with good treatment. >> i would like to note dr. fauci has to leave at 12:15, so we will get through as many as we can. senator smith. sen. smith: thank you very much. i think you almost promoted me to doctor. [laughter] i want to thank our panelists for being with us today. as i have been listening to the testimony and the questions being asked, i am thinking about a conversation i had yesterday with the folks at a safety net health system in minnesota, level one trauma center in minneapolis. one of the things that one of the caregivers said has stuck with me. he said we are so worried here as we continue to grapple with the impact of covid in this community, that the world is going to move on. as dr. fauci and others have

fauci and i like listening to dr. fauci, i think he's a wise man. but he's a specialist. i remember when the covid outbreak began he talked about it we should and shake hands, he said he's always thought we should not shake hands. this is the problem when you have a specialist who gets in charge of things that are outside their specialty. if we lived in a bubble, there'd be no infectious diseases but we would not be humans anymore. that's the balance have defined in life and make smart choices about covid. i will get vaccinated saturday so my saturdays coming out. and i'm looking forward to it. >> sean: you look so much younger though. >> found she is not the only one who can make a choice. >> i want to be careful here. dr. fauci has spent his life trying to help people be well, katie, i would to be cute charitable but he's become a political player. now he's at the political realm, he opened himself to attacks. at the w.h.o. was wrong, nobody wants to hold china accountable either, right, katie? >> sean, dr. fauci has been wrong. the exchange between dr. rand paul and dr

fauci. dr. fauci: thank you. as we have said many times and happy to reiterate it right now, we have three highly efficacious vaccines with a very good safety profile, and each of them are very effective in preventing clinically apparent disease. importantly, all three of them have a very important effect of being extraordinarily effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalizations and deaths. we don't compare one to the other, the only way that you can effectively do that is by having head-to-head comparisons in a clinical trial. which was not done. as andy said and i will reiterate, it is a question, if you go in and a vaccine is available to you. i would take the first available vaccine because the most important thing to do is to get vaccinated and not to try and figure out which one may be or may not be better than the other. mr. slavitt: thank you. i did not answer one element of your question, which is how are we preparing states and others in the distribution system for the pattern of vaccines that

elizabeth: doctor fauci is in the numbers don't lie. the jobless rate and south dakota is at 3% is less than half the national average but has the highest mortality rate per capita for covid cases very high hospitalization rate, very high infection rate in south dakota some are calling it a failed experiment of herd immunity in governor noem is stayed we had no choice were gonna stay open that thed road e are taking, your reaction to that? >> i'm sitting in florida where that isn't the case, i understand you mentioned south dakota but in other places in inthe country that's not the ca, i don't know why south dakota that they might be higher in terms of hospitalization but other places things are much, much different and that's what has to be a measured approach, decisions need to be made with the public notot necessarily dictating exactly what the public does especially by unelected bureaucrats that's what we've seen in a number of places especially liberal cities and states. elizabeth: we hear what you're saying, we are year in to the

fauci, dr. birks are trying to rewrite history, when it comes to the vaccine, "operation warp speed" under the trump administration was the greatest public/private partnership since world war ii. the yes, the entire trump administration deserves credit but in all honesty, the man at the top, donald trump deserves the most. frankly for some odd reason it seems anthony fauci is concerned because the pandemic made him famous. now that it is subsiding he might lose his star power. seems like he is doing it for his own personal gain, not the betterment of country and what awesome great things president trump did with "operation warp speed." elizabeth: former president trump using harsh words, describing dr. birx as quote proven liar and dr. fauci the king of flip-flops. he was critical about fauci's pessimism how long it would take to develop a vaccine. fauci previously said it would take a year to 18 months t came in pretty fast, five years faster than people predicted, according to fauci's boss dr.

fauci. dr. fauci: thank you very much. i would like to take up a bit on what dr. walensky just said. if i could have the first slide, i am going to spend the next couple of minutes talking about the daily trends in the numbers of cases that have been reported and how this relates to both the evolution of variants, and how you handle variants. if you look at the far left part of the slide on the area between january and june, many of us will recall very vividly, in the end of the winter and beginning of the spring, we had a surge dominated by the new york metropolitan area. after the surge, what we came down to was a baseline of about 20,000 cases per day. that is a very high baseline , relatively speaking. when we try to open up the country on the second peak in the middle of the slide, the same thing. after we peak, we started to come down, but we plateaued again. at a very high baseline, 40,000. we just now experienced the worst surge on the right-hand part of the slide. it is starting to come down in a very nice deflection curve. the issue is if you look at the

one more thing about tony fauci. if you thought he was an inconsistent attention seeking narcissist before this, now it's confirmed. >> juan: i'm sorry to hear you got the covid. i had it. it's no fun. >> dagen: prayers for the people that died from it. including 15,000 elderly that were killed by andy cuomo. >> juan: okay. up next, the major of washington d.c. is getting backlash. critics saying she's done deaf for the responding of a deadly carjacking of an uber eats driver. that's next on "the five." ♪♪ >> jesse: the mayor of washington d.c. getting called out for a tone deaf treat and preventing auto thefts after a deadly uber eats driver. two teens have been charged in the death of mohammed anwar after they assaulted him with a stun gun and drove off with his car. the girls crashed the car while anwar was still hanging on and he died. juan, you're in d.c. a story in our nation's capitol. you have an innocent minority victim, harrowing footage, sadistic behavior. just coming off a year. you've seen records su

fauci? it should give us the opposite of comfort that someone who has been as wrong and deceptive as many times as fauci has been that he's anywhere near decision-making of the pandemic or anything else for that matter. last night we learned he urged president trump not to tout the vaccine. >> was dr. fauci urging you to downplay this idea that a vaccine could be ready by the late fall? was he urging you all to do that? >> not only urging us not to do it but you are responsible to talk about the fact that we could possibly have a vaccine by any time -- let me give you jul. >> laura: that was new news. and also fauci said he didn't work but now you need to cope. he moved a goal post on herd immunity. this guy spent so much his head is about to twist off his shoulders. not on his predictions or phony warnings at super-spreader events. not on his constant doomsday scenarios despite the mounting evidence that the virus is largely behind us. fearmongering about virus, that is his stock and trade

fauci: good evening, my name is tony fauci, and i am the director of the infectious diseases at the national institute of health. the first one to underscore the points made by my colleagues and friends, dr. francis collins, but i would like to spend my couple of minutes talking to you a little bit about the facts and some of the fictions associated with vaccines. how do these vaccines work? i often get asked that question by people who understandably want to learn more about what is being injected into their arm. vaccines that we have for covid-19 all have one thing in common, it takes a single protein of the virus -- not the whole virus -- and that protein gets expressed in different ways depending on what particular vaccine platform that is being used in the vaccine that you will have. some have a little snippet of messenger rna that codes for the spike protein on the virus. others, a little harmless virus that has the dna for that spike protein, that when you inject it in, it makes the protein. the body thinks it is the virus but it is not the virus. it is a harmless protein component of

fauci. nearly 50 days into the biden administration, where are we today with the rate of infections with this disease in your perspective whether the worst is behind us? dr. fauci: well, right now, even though we have seen over the past weeks and months a sharp decline in the number of infections per day, which were as high as 300,000 to 400,000 per day, the sharp decline is good news but the sobering news about this is we reached what is somewhat of a plateau in the diminution of daily cases at the seven day average being somewhere around 60,000 to 70,000. the good news was it was coming down. the sobering news is it is starting to plateau a bit and the history of this virus has told us when you start to plateau at a level as high as this, which is about 60,000 to 70,000 cases a day, that you are by no means out of the woods and you have got to continue to do the type of public health measures we talk about all the time, the masking, the physical distancing, and the avoidance of congregant

fauci. liz: i hear were you saying in the flip-flopping saying you can't congregate in then you can congregate where mass, don't wear a mask reopen the schools, don't reopen the schools. the thing with what you pointed out about florida andu also new york he has praised the new york governor and praising him since last july. what justification does dr. fauci have for saying the state with the second highest death rate per-capita from covid is doing a good job and what justification does he have for praising the new york governor and going after instead ron desantis when governor cuomo is accused of covering up nursing home deaths that his order created. where is dr. fauci on back? >> were so strong statement or even my 7-year-old knows you shouldn't put people that have n contagious virus back into institutions where there are vulnerable people that could die from it? that order was ridiculous. his own age last week said they hit the numbers because they are afraid of in investigation. >> jo

fauci on this issue? our officers are encountering these people at a great rate and no one cares about their health. >> tucker: i appreciate your coming on tonight. a great point about fauci. we are out of time. back monday and every weeknight. have the best weekend with the ones you love. good-bye. ♪ ♪ >> sean: welcome to "hannity" friday nighta lot of breaking news to cover including brand new breaking allegations, a new andrew cuomo accuser: this is the 8th woman making allegation of sexual misconduct against the governor. first a fair and honest look at the president of the united states boarding air force one he fell 3 times as his leg appeared to give out. we don't show you this to make fun of joe biden or to have a good laugh at his expense. at this point it's difficult to watch.

fauci. dr. fauci: thank you. i would like to spend the next couple of minutes talking to you about the subject of the potential role of vaccinations that we are currently giving and handling the variance we see emerging in our society. may have the first slide? this is a slide that schematically diagrams the immune response. on the left-hand part of the slide is what happens when you get infected. multiple components of the immune response are operative. anybody, but something we don't pay attention to is the cell response. on the right-hand part, is what happens when you recover, which is the state you try to mimic when you try to vaccinate an individual. in other words, you want to in -- induced immune memory in the form of antibodies, t cells, as well as d cells. what i want to talk about is that the immune protection against covid-19 variance which is of concern to us, when you are vaccinated against a wild type viral strain namely the common virus in society, there are two potential mechanisms that protect y

fauci. rand paul is here. did you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? just get a quote at libertymutual.com. really? i'll check that out. oh yeah. i think i might get a quote. not again! aah, come on rice. do your thing. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ this is andy, my schwab financial consultant. here's andy listening to my goals and making plans. this is us talking tax-smart investing, managing risk, and all the ways schwab can help me invest. this is andy reminding me how i can keep my investing costs low and that there's no fee to work with him. here's me learning about schwab's satisfaction guarantee. accountability, i like it. so, yeah. andy and i made a good plan. find your own andy at schwab. a modern approach to wealth management. . >> neil: all right. it's become a big issue right now. the issue over masks. dr. fauci says you should wear them. rand paul, the senator says dr. fauci has gone overboard here. i'm pro

anthony fauci and cdc director, dr. rochelle walensky. both testifying this morning along with other federal officials on the covid-19 response. this before the senate health committee. it was set to start this morning at 10:00 eastern. but it looks like they're running a little bit behind. when it starts, live coverage here on cspan3. >>> good morning, the senate health, education, labor and pension committees will please come to order. today we're holding a hearing on the response to the covid-19 pandemic with administration officials at the forefront of the effort. ranking member burr and i will each have an opening statements and then i'll introduce our witnesses. i appreciate each one of you being here today, and i expect to be hearing from you often as we continue to work to end this pandemic. after the witnesses give their testimony, senators will each have five minutes for a round of questions. and before we begin, i want to walk through the covid-19 safely protocols in place. we'll follow the advice of the attending physician and

doctor anthony fauci reminds me of every bad weatherman. frequently wrong but never in doubt. steve: tammy, this lack of any interest in pursuing accountability, given the momentous consequences of these decisions and it's all fine to say right at the beginning no one knew what was happening and so on but these mistakes went on all through the year and when are the public officials who made them going to be held accountable? >> well, as we have seen even with the russian dossier hoax never, unless we take control when it comes to a course elections and sending messages to both california and new york are doing because both this stars of the democratic party knew so man cuomo for a variety of reasons are in trouble but i would say also due to your great reporting and other news that we had is that in fact we did know that this existed, as you noted even in your monologue. we did know what was happening at the wuhan lab and we knew what was being developed and there is anthony fauci, the man supposed to be in charge of this particular issue, infectious diseases for decades the e

fauci. their own doctor, their own health care provider, they are more likely to trust than anybody else. >> bret: let's play another sound bite, this is vaccine impressions, take a listen. >> scary not knowing the long-term side effects. >> a miracle albeit suspicious. >> unproven. >> rushed. >> not sufficiently tested. >> holding my freedom hostage. >> my fear of the vaccine is more than my fear of getting the illness. >> it seems like it should be cut and dry, frank. >> that is the challenge up to the biden administration to step up and to allow doctors to deliver the message. and the most powerful impactful message of all, 90% of all doctors have taken the vaccine, they are much more likely to be trusted then any politician, then the previous president even more than donald trump himself, and given the facts on the information and let americans themselves decide what to do. >> bret: use all the former president come out on maria bartiromo, saying people should get the vaccine, do you thi

fauci's, dr. redfield's voice. >> he thought if you could protect the vulnerable and let the well built up herd immunity, doctors brix and i and the rest of the doxxed said this is a fallacy. >> laura: dr. alice, you respond? >> i'm sort of speechless that again they do not understand what they advocated was done. i was brought in because i was the only one who cared what was happening by shutting down medical care, closing schools, closing businesses, destroying low income families, sacrificing our children. they had no interest in even talking about it. i could go on and on about what they didn't know, but i think it's just bizarre that they want to rewrite history and stop taking responsibility for what was done because that's what they b wanted. the truth -- >> laura: dr. atlas, yes or no? >> i can guarantee you, the truth will come out. >> laura: dr. alice, yes or no. if they had -- would america now,ht beware germany is locked down, if they had their druthers? >> if they had their druthers,

fauci, you better take dr. fauci. i think the american people are pretty clear on this, fauci has 60% plus of the american people saying he's done an excellent or good job in handling the virus. so the idea is even in theater you know what, you've got to acknowledge that the script changes, things evolve and as the cdc comes across new information as they come to new conclusions i think the audience should applaud that we are being given the latest evidence and the latest information in order to protect ourselves and our families. >> sandra: what if it's too late or too slow? >> greg: he didn't change, though. >> juan: we need to protect ourselves so if you hear dr. fauci saying, right now we are unaware of the impact of the variants, we can see the infection rate in this country is level, it was dropping and now it's level and we worry it will be going up. we see what's going on in europe, neither having lockdowns in europe where previously they were saying, we are going back to normal. we want to make sure that does

fauci. >> first, we are looking at the data. we know, at least for some of the vaccines, that there appears to be durability at the six-month point. the reason i use the six-month point is because that's how long the first people have been immunized, so we're continuing to monitor that. and i think what we see -- the good news is that durability seems to exist. there is a slow decline and there is some variability between individuals. so we can't sit here today and tell you whe and definitely there will be boosters, but i think we have to plan for it, and i think at some point, my colleagues, it may be more likely than not that at some point we will need to boost with the durability. it depends on a number of questions. so we need to make sure that we have enough vaccines in the cupboard that are ready to go when we need to do that, and we're doing that planning suddenly. >> dr. fauci, i know we're short on time, but if you could comment. >> i certainly agree with dr. kessler, but one thing that adds in the mix of variability, t

fauci. dr. fauci: thank you very much. what i'd like to do is talk a bit about what we refer to as special populations. if i can have the first slide, many of you are very familiar with the slide. this a slide of the phased vaccine distribution that has been put out by the cdc. if you look at these from phase one a, b, c, and two, what is not specifically mention here pregnant women and pediatric individuals, namely people from age six months to 16-18. also, in the third panel on phase one c, we refer to high risk conditions. going to get a little bit more granular on that with you. if i can have the next slide, please. first of all, let's take a look at what we mean by special populations. first of all, pregnant individuals. there are about 3.7 million births in the united states in 2019. then there are adolescents and children, a very important topic when we think in terms of schools and the protection of children. there are about 73 million individuals between birth and 18 years. and those are who you are those who are