WASHINGTON
(AP) — Nobody planned it this way, but a Senate hearing on reopening
workplaces and schools safely is turning into a teaching moment on the
fickle nature of the coronavirus outbreak.
Senior
health officials scheduled to testify in person before the Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions committee on Tuesday will instead appear
via video link after going into self-quarantine, following their
exposure to a White House staffer who tested positive for COVID-19. The
chairman of the committee, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee,
also put himself in quarantine after an aide tested positive. He’ll
participate by video, too.
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Even
before the gavel drops, the hearing offers two takeaways for the rest
of the country, said John Auerbach, president of the nonprofit public
health group Trust for America’s Health.
“One
thing it tells you is that the virus can have an impact in any
workplace setting or any community setting,” said Auerbach. “All
businesses will find it very challenging to ensure safety when there are
cases.”
Another
lesson is that the public officials involved are taking the virus
seriously by not appearing in person. “They are following the guidelines
that they are recommending to others,” said Auerbach. “There is not a
double standard.”
Appearing
by video link before the committee will be Dr. Anthony Fauci of the
National Institutes of Health, considered the government’s leading
authority on infectious diseases, and FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn
and Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. The three are in self-quarantine. They will be joined by
Adm. Brett Giroir, the coronavirus “testing czar” at the Department of
Health and Human Services.
The
main questions for the administration experts revolve around the “Three
T’s,” or testing, tracing and treatment. Without widespread testing,
state and local officials will be basing decisions to reopen businesses
and schools on incomplete data with blind spots lurking. Without the
ability to do the painstaking work of tracing the contacts of people
infected, unwitting transmission will continue. Without effective
treatments, hospitals in a given community could be overwhelmed in a
COVID-19 rebound. Ultimately, the goal is a vaccine that would offer
widespread protection.
It’s all a colossal work in progress, moving in fits and starts.
The
health committee hearing offers a very different setting from the White
House coronavirus task force briefings the administration witnesses
have all participated in. Senators on the panel are knowledgeable and
some have working relationships that go back years with the agencies
that the panelists are representing. Most significantly, President
Donald Trump will not be controlling the agenda.
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Eyeing
the November elections, Trump has been eager to restart the economy,
urging on protesters who oppose their state governors’ stay-at-home
orders and expressing his own confidence that the coronavrius will fade
away as summer advances and Americans return to work and other pursuits.
The
ranking Democrat on the health panel, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington
state, doesn’t think the Trump administration is doing nearly enough to
keep the virus under control as the economy reopens.
“President
Trump is trying to ignore the facts, and ignore the experts who have
been clear we are nowhere close to where we need to be to reopen
safely,” she said in a statement. Murray will participate via video, but
some senators are expected to attend in person.
Alexander
is more nuanced about the nation’s readiness. He suggests there’s
enough testing to move to reopen the economy, but worries that there
won’t be enough to sustain a return to normality.
“It’s
enough to do what we need to do today to reopen,” he said on NBC’s
“Meet The Press” on Sunday. “But it’s not enough, for example, when
35,000 kids and faculty show up on the University of Tennessee campus in
August.”
With
more types of tests on the market from different manufacturers and
providers, testing is an area that’s become particularly difficult for
lay people to navigate.
Until
now there has been only one kind of test to detect active infection.
Called a PCR test, it detects the genetic material of the virus, and is
still considered the most accurate.
Last
weekend the FDA approved the first “antigen” test, which looks for
protein traces of the virus instead, much like rapid tests for flu or
strep throat. Antigen tests aren’t as accurate as PCR tests but promise
to be faster and easier to use.
A
third kind of test detects past infection, by spotting antibodies in
people’s blood. But it’s not yet clear if having those antibodies means
someone is immune from another bout of COVID-19.
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