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Biden's COVID Response Team Holds First Briefing. Aired 11:30- 12p ET

Aired January 27, 2021 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:30:00]

DR. MARCELLA NUNEZ-SMITH, CHAIRWOMAN, COVID-19 HEALTH EQUITY TASK FORCE: So we're going to do that through important actions. We're leveraging data sources built from government and other sectors to find and remedy in employees. And we're limiting all out-of-pocket costs for vaccines. Your ability to pay should not play a role in your decision of whether or not to receive this vaccine.

We're removing structural barriers to access in underserved communities. And we'll do this by making sure that it's convenient and accessible to get to vaccination sites by increasing the clinical and community-based workforce for outreach, education, vaccination and wrap-around service. And then we're working to make sure that transportation and paid time off are available so people can make it out to get their vaccine.

We're going to increase and support core venues of vaccination, including government-qualified health centers, and Andy is going to talk about some of our other venues for vaccination that we're ramping up. But it will be important to make sure vaccine is available for everyone. And oftentimes that will mean bringing the vaccine right to people.

So, next, we're already talking to states about their pandemic plans and strategies for equity. We're here to provide technical assistance when needed. But when local health officials are making great progress in equity, we're sharing some of those great ideas with their peers around the country.

And, finally, we're launching a robust national public education campaign to make sure people know about this vaccine, the facts and not the misinformation. We want people to know that the vaccines are safe and effective. We want everyone to be able to make decisions with the best information possible. And we're going to make sure the information comes to them in places and in ways that are most likely to reach them.

It's critical this public education work be very local in nature, critical that we in the federal government support the relationships that already exist between faith and community leaders and their communities. So while there is no single way to do this work, there are best practices that must define our approach and supporting those best practices will be our focus in the days and weeks to come.

So there's so much to do to get through this pandemic. We want to make sure all communities are cared for and supported along the way.

So with that, I'm going to turn it back over to you, Andy.

ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR ADVISER TO WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM: Thank you, Dr. nunez-smith. And, look, it's appropriate that I follow in my report Doctors Walensky, Fauci and Nunez-Smith, very simply because it's important to send a message to the public that the White House respects and will follow the science and the scientists will speak independently and that our core values of science, public health and equity are going to drive our actions here at the White House.

The president launched a national strategy just as he assumed office on the second day, and at the heart of that plan is the most aggressive actions possible to stem the pandemic and follow the science. So Dr. Walensky spoke about the high levels of spread still in this country, even as they decline. Dr. Fauci talked about the threat from the new variants, and Dr. Nunez-Smith spoke about our difficulty and challenges in getting access to vaccines all across the country.

So, given those realities, accelerating the availability and the administration of vaccines are all the more important. So it's been a busy seven days. You've seen us begin to execute our strategy. We set up a team, began working with states and vaccine manufacturers, launched community vaccination centers, taken action to improve supply, revised travel restrictions and more.

Now, I know that many Americans are anxious and eager to get vaccinated. I want you to know we're taking this issue on with incredible urgency and purpose despite not inheriting a fully developed strategy or the infrastructure to make vaccines readily available to Americans as quickly as they need to be.

So far this week, we've been hitting our target of an average of 1 million vaccinations per day, necessary to meet the president's early commitment to administer 100 million shots in 100 days.

Now, as you heard from the president this week, he is pushing us to view 1 million per day as the floor, not the ceiling. To that end, we are releasing more supply, activating FEMA and deploying many more personnel. In fact, just this week, FEMA announced they had obligated $1 billion to support state vaccination sites.

And I want to step back for a moment and put our vaccination plan in some context. To vaccinate every American over the age of 16, we are looking at a total need of well over 500 million doses of vaccines. Now, that assumes two shots for every American 60 and older.

[11:35:00]

Now, I want to pause and say that everything we're talking about today in terms of vaccines reflects the vaccines currently on the market. That is a two-dose regimen. We are not counting on things that are not in existence today. Our plan will be to make sure that we prepare for as many contingencies as exist.

Right now, I want to level with the public that we're facing two constraining factors. The first is getting enough supply quickly enough, and the second is the ability to administer the vaccines quickly once they're produced and sent out to the sites. We are taking action to increase supply and increase capacity, but even so, it will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.

Now, let me start with what's happened so far. We've delivered 47 million doses to states and to long-term care facilities. We have administered about 24 million doses. Now, we've gotten several questions on this. So I want to be clear. As you heard us announce yesterday, any stockpile that may have existed previously no longer exists.

Our practice is to maintain a rolling inventory of two to three days of supply that we can use to supplement any shortfalls in production and to ensure that we are making deliveries as committed. But we are passing doses directly along to states very much in real-time as they order them. And we are confident that we will receive the supply on a rolling basis from the manufacturers to allow us to continue to do so.

Now, we know there are places in the country with not enough vaccines, and at the same time there are places with vaccines that they are not using yet. This is a natural challenge states are facing, and we will give them more visibility into their forthcoming supply and providing technical assistance that will help them make sure to make quicker use of these doses.

But I want to emphasize an essential ingredient to increasing the administration of vaccines as passage of the American rescue plan which dedicates needed money for vaccinators and for the administration of vaccines.

Now, let me take you through what we're doing to increase the supply. So the president invoked the Defense Production Act last week as a big first step to increase the supply of vaccines. We're going to make sure that we get six doses out of Pfizer's vials everywhere in America, because that's the potential. And we're going to do that by acquiring something called low dead space syringes. I'm sure everybody knows what low dead space syringes are. I now do.

And yesterday, we announced a 16 percent increase in supply flowing to states every week for the next three weeks to a minimum of 10 million doses per week. That's good news. But what's also important about it is it gives states the visibility that they have lacked to know how many vaccines are coming in so they can make commitments to their partners in states and to the citizens and residents of their state so they know when to expect vaccines to arrive.

Pfizer and Moderna are committed to delivering a total of 200 million doses by the end of March with much of it coming at the end of the quarter. So it will accelerate. Pfizer yesterday announced that they think they can deliver 120 million doses this quarter. And as you heard from the president yesterday, the United States plans to purchase an additional 200 million doses from Moderna and Pfizer this year which will be sufficient to vaccinate every American over the age of 16. And we expect those doses this summer.

This entire thing is an unprecedented undertaking. We will run into unanticipated issues, but our plan and the actions we're taking in the days and weeks ahead is to deliver on these commitments to the public.

Finally, we've also announced that we're creating additional paths to get Americans vaccinated. These will include standing up what we call community vaccination centers. We are going to launch 100 community vaccination centers this month. We will be also supplying -- we will be supplying vaccines directly to pharmacies. We'll be standing up mobile clinics to reach hard-to-reach areas, particularly for pursuit of the health equity goals that Dr. Nunez-Smith has outlined.

[11:40:06]

And we're going to partner with community health centers to reach hard-hit communities and have infrastructure to deliver vaccines.

But, again, I want to close with this. It's critically important that Congress act. The American rescue plan is an important and vital part of getting America vaccinated. It's got bold and ambitious legislation that will help fund the effort that we're outlining today in providing the resources we need to defeat this pandemic. So we need immediate action.

With that, I'm going to pass it back so we can take some of your questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay, great. If folks have a question, you can use the Raise Hand feature on your screen and we'll try to get to as many as we can here in the time we have left. So let's start with Angelee (ph) from Yahoo News. You should be unmuted.

REPORTER: Hi there. Thank you for taking questions. Can you hear me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we can.

REPORTER: All right, great. Thank you so much. I just wanted to get some clarity about the rollout of these vaccines. It seems like we are getting an increase in vaccinations and administrations. Can you clarify what the sudden change was to be able to get to this point?

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Andy? Andy Slavitt, can you hear us?

SLAVITT: Yes. I can hear you.

ZIENTS: Did you hear the question about what the increase, the recent increase, what it was driven by, the minimum of 10 million to states for the next three weeks, how was that achieved? Andy?

SLAVITT: Thank you, Jeff. That's a good question. Look, this entire effort is not about just big blast goals, but it's about day-to-day execution. This is the result of the work of Pfizer and Moderna. And in this case, much of the increase came from our work with Moderna. There were planned increases and scrutinizing what's available so that we can make a commitment to states.

Very importantly, we need to add predictability into this process. So I think this is due to the hard work from everybody involved in the process.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. Let's go to Sheryl Stolberg at The Times next.

SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Thank you for doing this call. I appreciate it. I was wondering if you could be specific about what you would not be able to do if Congress does not pass the American rescue plan.

And separately, I'm interested in hearing from Dr. Walensky (INAUDIBLE) the CDC data from the states and localities aren't using about half the vaccine distributed to them. And if that data is the wrong picture, what is the accurate picture.

ZIENTS: Well, thank you, Sheryl. I'll take the first question and then I'll turn it over to Dr. Walensky.

It's essential that Congress pass the act. We are committed to 100 shots in 100 days. And that piece of it is not dependent upon Congress providing funds. But as we all know, that's just the start. We need money for additional vaccinations, sites that provide for more vaccinators. So in order to get all Americans vaccinated, we need Congress to provide funds for vaccination.

We still do too little testing in this country. We need to ramp up testing significantly. We need Congress to fund more testing in order to reopen schools and businesses and take care of people in congregate settings.

Furthermore, believe it or not, we still have shortages of PPE and other clinical materials. We need emergency funds (INAUDIBLE). So those are just three of the areas that need to be (INAUDIBLE) national plan.

Maybe you can repeat the question for Dr. Walensky, and I'll hand it over to her.

STOLBERG: Yes, the question for Dr. Walensky is, how accurate is your data showing that states and localities are using only half the vaccine supply? And if that is not the real picture, then what is the accurate picture?

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Yes, that's a great question. We have a database that actually looks at the vaccine supply.

[11:45:01]

I want to reiterate that, you know, not all vaccine that is sort of allocated or delivered or whatnot is available for and certainly into people's arms and where in the pipeline that is varies by the day of the week, whether it's available that singular day. We are working very hard in ensuring we understand exactly where the vaccine is on any given day, and the reporting of the data is actually also behind. So we're getting when vaccines are reported rather than when they're actually administered.

So, much of our work over the next week is going to make sure that we can tighten up the timelines, understand where in the pipeline the vaccine actually is and when exactly it is administered.

ZIENTS: I want to make two points. One, most states are getting better at putting needles in arms, and the federal government is beginning to support those efforts through all the vehicles that Andy described, in partnership with the states. Some of what is -- the states are -- have right now is inventory to do the very, very important second shot.

I think it's important that when you're looking at states' inventories, you recognize some of that inventory is being held for the very important second shot which we all believe that everyone should follow the FDA guidelines that Dr. Walensky said earlier.

So, states are getting better. The federal government is ramping up its support. We've got a long way to go and we're very committed to the 100 million shots in the first 100 days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. Let's go next to Ed O'Keefe at CBS News.

ED O'KEEFE, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Thank you all for doing this. I've got questions about the Defense Production Act and the aspects of how the administration can maybe hasten the production of vaccine and related products.

Regarding these new doses from Moderna and Pfizer that you announced yesterday, have those two companies specifically told you when these extra 100 million doses will be available? I know some administration officials said yesterday over the course of the summer, Moderna said third quarter of 2021. That's a broad range. So I'm curious if you can sort of narrow that down.

And why isn't it being used yet, the DPA to perhaps compel other companies or even other pharmaceuticals to help make already approved vaccines?

ZIENTS: Let's take it a question at a time. Andy, why don't you start with the DPA and I'll also touch on the likely delivery of the additional 200 million doses.

SLAVITT: Great. Yes, thanks for the question.

The Defense Production Act is a very important vehicle for us. And we have an entire team that's focused on how to maximize and speed supply.

Now, in its first instance, getting the syringes and all of the other ancillary capabilities necessary to get Americans their vaccines is one of the core areas. We've identified 12 areas where the president has authorized us to use the Defense Production Act, including masks, including more testing, including many spaces.

To the very specific question of whether or not a factory can be retrofitted to mass produce another vaccine, that's something that's under active exploration. As you can imagine, it's not as simple as walking in and flipping a switch. These are delicate processes, very sterile processes and have to be done in a way that actually completely works. But we will not be afraid to explore every option to get more vaccines to the public as quickly as possible.

As for the timing of the Moderna and Pfizer contracts, I think -- look, it is no secret, that it is our goal to accelerate that as much as possible. To the extent that we run into those physical limitations, we have to make sure that the vaccines that are produced are done the right way so that we can sign off and get them to the states and get them to the public.

So right now, that looks like some time over the summer.

ED O'KEEFE: So, hypothetically then, what you're saying is you're exploring the possibility of, say -- again, just hypothetically -- potentially having someone like Merck produce the Moderna vaccine by using the DPA to do that?

SLAVITT: Well, I don't want to talk about specific names, per se. But I will say that we are exploring every possible option. We do not believe that in an emergency crisis situation that we're in, that it is responsible to just pick one path and pin our hopes on that. Obviously, there are other vaccine manufacturers that are submitting emergency use authorization applications. There are other manufacturers that are not pursuing their own vaccine.

[11:50:04]

And for all of those, we will be looking at ways to accelerate.

But when we make a commitment to the public, we don't want to make a commitment to the public based on this that have not been accomplished. We want to make our commitment based on the things that we know about today. And that's why we're talking about through the course of the summer, we'll do everything in our power, of course, to accelerate that.

ZIENTS: Yes. And I think just to summarize it, this is a national emergency. 400,000 people have died. Everything is on the table across the whole supply chain, from the dead space syringes to other pharmaceutical companies, to anything we can do to increase the vaccine supply in the timing of the delivery is on the table and we will execute accordingly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. Let's go to Kristen Welker at NBC News.

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Thank you so much.

A couple of questions, just to follow up, I just want to be clear, has the president actually signed the DPA. And can you speak to the timeline, you raised the issue of summer, and just so we're clear on expectations by the end of summer, President Biden's advisers said he was confident by the end of summer, 300 million would be vaccinated. Is that still your expectation?

And then you can speak to some of the concerns that we've heard from governors who have cheered this announcement and say they welcome more supplies, they welcome more vaccines, but in the words of Larry Hogan, quote, we are going to need much more supply. Are you able to meet what the governors are asking for, not just increasing it in the first month but continue to meet what they're asking for?

SLAVITT: So, thank you for the question. Let me speak to that.

First of all, I think it's important to clarify the difference between 300 million -- or 600 million vaccines being produced and the process of getting that across the country to the providers and pharmacies and community clinics and into people's arms. There are many more challenges.

So, what we've talked about yesterday, what the president announced was a first step mainly to make sure we have enough production, making sure that 300 million people get vaccinated has a lot of other elements, including community conversations to discuss people's concerns about vaccines as we get into the summer, including making sure that, to our earlier points, we are getting every community access to vaccinations. So there is a huge process which we are undertaking to do this.

And so, I don't want you to hear that just because they are -- will be manufactured and produced by a certain date that that is the same thing as taking every step necessary to get them to the public.

As for Governor Hogan's comments about wanting more vaccines, we hear you, Governor Hogan, and we couldn't agree more. I would love to tell you that we inherited a situation where there were stockpiles and stockpiles of vaccines sitting there. That is not the case. And it is our job to level both with the governors and with the public.

Having said that, what we have been able to do is make a commitment to increase by 16 percent the amount of vaccines going out and to provide three weeks of visibility, which will allow them to plan better. And we hope to do our best to increase and accelerate more vaccines as we see them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. Let's go to Yamiche Alcindor of PBS.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: All right, thank so much for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first is can you (INAUDIBLE), I just want to make sure how many vaccinations are currently available and what's left in the federal stockpile? Is there -- are we dealing with a finite number of vaccinations or are they coming in in a certain -- I'm just kind of wondering if you could talk to the numbers again.

And the second question I have is what percentage of vaccinations, people that are already vaccinated, is coming back with racial and ethnicity information? Because I'm wondering how we know who is getting what and how you're gauging success when it comes to the people that are getting the vaccinated?

ZIENTS: Andy, why don't you take the first question? Dr. Nunez-Smith, the second, please?

SLAVITT: Yes. So, today, we delivered 47 million vaccines to states. And we are committed to delivering an additional 10 million per week for the next three weeks to states. Now, we do not keep a stockpile of a large number of vaccines. We keep a two to three-day supply, as a practice, just to account for variation in manufacturing production. That's it. The rest moves out to states.

[11:55:00]

ZIENTS: I think part of it decision here is there was a practice early on before we were in office of having a stockpile. The president-elect (INAUDIBLE) two to three days as Andy said of supplies to deal with any unforeseen situations.

Dr. Nunez -Smith?

NUNEZ-SMITH: Great, thank you, and thank you for that question.

So we are 100 percent committed to making sure that when it's your turn, that you have access to the vaccine, and we know that access in many communities that have been hard hit might be a challenge. You know, to your specific question around race ethnicity data, you know, we are making a call to get better, more consistent data, particularly around some of these demographic points.

Now, we see right now around 16 states or so that are releasing our race ethnicity data, but it's true that those data are incomplete. But it's not our only, you know, sort of visibility into what's happening. The CDC, for example, has a metric around social vulnerability. Many states are using that now. We encourage the use of metrics, such as that, as states are doing their mapping and planning. So we can think about things like neighborhoods and communities as metrics and ways of to track as well.

And we're building our equity dashboard right now and we rely on government sources as well as sources of data external to government.

ALCINDOR: And could I just ask as a follow-up, how soon do you think the plan to roll out vaccines to communities of color will have real impact? I know you talked about summer and other months throughout the nation as a whole. I wonder if there are any estimates for communities of color and vulnerable populations.

NUNEZ-SMITH: Absolutely. So, you know, that work is happening right now. So, in states and localities, you know, depending on kind of what's on the ground as far as prioritization. But in those communities that have been hard hit, I say kudos to all of the local health officials who are making those pushes to get to those who are over 75 who are in affordable housing communities, who are bringing vaccine to people, you know, in homeless shelters, so, again, who meet the criteria for the prioritization. And so I think that's the key, is when we say everyone over a specific age is eligible, that we're going to have to take an extra step to get to some of the people who are hardest to reach. And that work is already happening now.

ALCINDOR: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we're coming up on the top of the hour, so we have time for one more, which we'll go to Alice Park at Time.

ALICE PARK, STAFF WRITER, TIME: Hello, thank you so much for taking my question.

So this is more for the scientists, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky. It seems that the mutations in SARS-Cov2 are inevitable and it's really a matter of staying on top of them to figure out which ones are going to be benign and which ones can potentially affect disease outcomes and ultimately vaccine immunity. Are there plans to expand on current sequencing efforts on national level, like provide states with additional funding for collecting samples or conducting the sequence themselves? And how high a priority is this to have a more national sequencing effort for surveillance purposes?

ZIENTS: All right. Dr. Walensky, if you want to take that first.

WALENSKY: Thank you, and, yes, we are actively working on this. These are data and samples that are collected in the states, as well as with academic and other collaborations. We'll highlight again this money in the American recovery act to move this forward. And we need to have access to those resources to do the amount of sequencing surveillance that we need in order to be able to detect these when they first start to emerge.

ZIENTS: Just to (INAUDIBLE). I mean, believe it or not, we are 43rd in the world at genomic sequencing. So it's a central part of the American rescue plan. -- to spot the difference -- to spot -- COVID variants. I'm getting signal that I'm going in and out. Can you hear me now?

I'll go back up for a second. So we're 43rd in the world in genomic sequencing, totally unacceptable. As part of the American rescue plan, we remedy that situation and do the appropriate amount of genomic sequencing which will allow us to spot variants early, which is the best way to deal with any potential variants.

Dr. Fauci?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Yes. One other thing I think people need to understand is that, as we all know, RNA viruses mutate all the time.

[12:00:03]

That's what they do. That's their business.