The NPR Politics Podcast - Nation's Top Health Officials Testify

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Public health needs continue to stymie lawmakers' hopes for an immediate economic reopening. The nation's top health experts appeared — virtually — before a Senate committee today and provided updates on coronavirus testing and the state of the outbreak.This episode: campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, and science correspondent Richard Harris.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio stationLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Becky and Spencer calling from Port Huron, Michigan. We are two teachers sheltering and teaching in place. We're both getting ready to read to our classes on Zoom. This podcast was recorded at 2.07 p.m. on Tuesday, May 12th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. My students will know what house Harry Potter gets sorted into. And my students will know if Anne-Marie was able to save Ellen. Okay, here's the show.

Oh, man. So I feel like that's supposed to make sense to me, but confession here, I have never read a Harry Potter book. Neither have I. No. Or seen a movie. Neither have you. Wow, Ayesha, we have that commonality.

I think we're the only two people who are out. Well, hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I think we're the only two people around. Well, hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And we've got a special guest on the show today, Richard Harris from NPR Science Desk.

Hey, Richard. Hey, pleased to be with you. So, you know, I know in some ways this podcast probably feels like a throwback to those old days when we would actually all sit around, you know, physically in an office and watch hearings together. But this hearing was very different than what we are used to seeing. The Senate Committee on Health held a hearing on getting back to work and school, but the room was mostly empty. Individuals in the hearing room are at least six feet apart. Witnesses are participating in a video conference in a one-time exception. All four of the main witnesses, the nation's top health officials, testified virtually from their

homes. And many of the lawmakers were also remote, including both the chair and ranking member. Senators, we've been advised, may remove their masks, talking to the microphone when they're in the hearing room as they're six feet apart. And Richard, I want to start with you. You know, what was the main message of the hearing for you today? Well, the main message really was hearing from senators wondering, how are we going to put things back to normal and turning to some of the top people in government, particularly in the scientific realm of government to get advice and counsel. And I think something that the head of the CDC, that's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, said stuck with me.

It's important to emphasize that we're not out of the woods yet. Battle contends in wee months, but we are more prepared. We need to stay vigilant with social distancing. It remains an imperative. So in some ways, you know, people are saying, we want to look forward, and he's saying, well, wait, wait, wait, don't look forward too fast. And, you know, that's really kind of different from what we were hearing at the White House yesterday. President Trump gave, you know, during a press conference about testing, he made this remark.

We have met the moment and we have prevailed. Americans do whatever it takes to find solutions, pioneer breakthroughs and harness the energies we need to achieve a total victory. Prevailed. So past tense. And he did later clarify that he was talking about on the issue of testing. But even when it comes to testing, I think a lot of officials would say the U.S. still hasn't necessarily met the moment and prevailed. But the White House seems to be in this point where they really want to look at this as something in the rearview mirror and not something that they have to deal with right now. They want to look at recovery and the economy. And Ayesha, you mentioned testing. We're going to talk a lot more about testing in a bit. There was another moment that stood out, and that was in regards to this question around

the death toll and where the estimates of the death toll are really in the United States and how accurate those are. Yeah, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is helping to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, he was asked about this by Senator Bernie Sanders. I'm not sure, Senator Sanders, if it's going to be 50 percent higher, but most of us feel that the number of deaths are likely higher than that number because given the situation, particularly in New York City, when they were really strapped with a very serious challenge to their health care system,

that there may have been people who died at home who did have COVID who were not counted as COVID because they never really got to the hospital. Right. And I think we've been hearing that a fair amount. One of the problems is if people die at home, they're not counted. I think there's also a growing recognition that people may be dying not directly from the virus, but as a consequence of it, if they're afraid to go to the hospital and they die of a heart attack, they might have survived. And we can see this by looking at sort of the death rates in various cities and states. And you can see that there's been a huge spike that's only partially explained by the COVID-19 cases themselves. So clearly,

the deaths are, well, they're over 81,000 as of this moment, and likely to be substantially higher than that. But just how much more, as Dr. Fauci says, we can't really say. And Ayesha, the way the White House has spoken about the number of people who have died or who will die from the outbreak has seemed to also evolve, right? Like the numbers have not always been consistent. They haven't been consistent. And part of this is the White House has been, you know, relying on different models. They haven't always been very open about what models they were relying on.

But basically what they were saying earlier on when they came out with some of the social distancing restrictions and stuff like that, the justification was, you know, we have a model saying that 100000 people will die if we do strict mitigation. But, you know, it could have been, you know, a million, two million dead if we did nothing. But President Trump after that started saying, we're going to be way under 100,000. I remember him saying that and kind of stressing that as like a success. We're not going to get anywhere near 100,000. And of course, unfortunately, that has not been the case as numbers have gone up and up and up. He has had to acknowledge just yesterday, 90,000, 100,000, all of these deaths are very sad, but his numbers have gone up. Right. I will add that the models, I should do show that right now the best guess is around

130,000. We're likely to have 100,000 by the end of May, as a matter of fact. Oh, wow. Wow. So, you know, another big focus of the hearing was testing. And I am curious what you feel like the scientific response is. And I know we heard a little bit about this in today's hearing, because states are beginning to open up. I mean, I'm right now in a state, Indiana, that's beginning to open up. Are we at a point where scientifically, you know, you are hearing that the testing is sufficient for us to be opening up? I would say it's a real mixed bag right now. I think there are some places where they are presumably ready to do that, particularly in rural areas where they don't need to do a lot of testing. But I think that saying that we are ready is a bit of a stretch in many, many places. And I think there's been a huge focus on the number of tests that will be available, not that are available now, but will be available in the next couple of months. But I think that that kind of misses the mark to some extent. So Richard, if we are now testing as a country, you know, more people than many other places, what are the remaining challenges? Because it sounds like, you know, the U.S. has certainly

ramped up its testing. Right. Testing is just the first step, because what you need to do with testing is once you identify people who are positive for the disease, you need to have the capability of tracking them down quickly. And this is a huge challenge because this disease actually spreads before people are symptomatic in many cases. And so that's going to be a real challenge to stay ahead of the disease. All right. Well, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll have more highlights from the congressional hearing this message comes from npr sponsor story point wines maker of story point a bold new wine brand with a rich layered taste profile enjoy story point wine while you connect with those you love

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Ayesha, one of the central tensions during the pandemic has been how much the response to the crisis should be coordinated at a federal level versus a local level. And that question or that issue was raised today by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He was talking about the tradeoffs between having kids out of school, you know, around the country and maybe them missing school in areas that haven't had as big an outbreak. So he asked Fauci about this. So I think we ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what's best for the economy. And as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don't think you're the end all. I don't think you're the one person that gets to make a decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there's not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy and the facts will bear this out. Yeah, so I mean,

he was basically kind of challenging Fauci and then Fauci replied. I have never made myself out to be the end all and only voice in this. I'm a scientist, a physician and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence. There are a number of other people who come into that and give advice that are more related to the things that you spoke about, about the need to get the country back open again and economically. I don't give advice about economic things. I don't give advice about anything other than public health. Yeah, I found this an interesting little exchange, partly because I think Tony Fauci is sort of is the oracle in some ways on this. And I think he was treated that way today

by senators really on both sides of the aisle, sort of coming and asking his opinion about anything scientific. And when it got too far off of science, as Fauci demonstrated in his conversation with Senator Paul, he kind of said, well, hey, that's not my department. But I think it is really interesting because the buildup around this hearing was so much around Anthony Fauci is going to come, he's going to talk, he's going to, you know, be, you know, unleashed, if you will, because he won't have the president hovering behind him and he can say whatever he wants. But he stuck really closely to his public health message and was also careful to continue to, you know, when people brought up things that were

clearly, where science diverged from where the Trump administration seems to be heading, he was always very careful not to criticize the Trump administration, but he did really go back to say, here are the facts as I see them. And one place where that came up a lot, I think, was in talking about opening too soon because there seems to be so much pressure and momentum for doing that. And on several occasions, he addressed that question when senators mitigation, you really must have in place the capability of responding when you do have the inevitable upticks in cases. That will absolutely occur. on it that will prevent us from getting the kind of rebound that not only from the standpoint of illness and death would be something that's unacceptable, but it will set us back in our progress towards reopening the country. Right. So there he is talking about really making sure

that we are prepared from the standpoint of testing. This gets back to the issue of testing and contact tracing and being ready to isolate people when they're sick. So back to the main public health message here, that is an uncomfortable truth for people who are really eager to get the economy humming again. So what Fauci is stressing is that, look, this isn't going away, that even as we open up and even if you follow those guidelines, that you'll still have more outbreaks and states have to be ready to and prepared to deal with that. And that's something that the White House is talking less about now and more about just this idea of everything kind of getting back to normal over these phases. But there's still like work to do, right? And that's that. Richard, thanks so much for coming on the show. Sure, anytime.

That was Richard Harris from NPR Science Desk. And I know it's only Tuesday, but Friday is going to be here before we all know it. And we need your help for our weekly roundup. At the end of the week, we always share the one thing that we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. And we want to know what you can't let go of. You can let us know by recording yourself. Tell us about it in 20 seconds and email the file to us at nprpolitics at npr.org. We can't wait to listen to it. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.