White House COVID-19 Task Force, Dr. Fauci Press Conference Transcript June 3

Jeff: (00:00)
It’s fair to say that we’re far ahead where anyone thought we would be in our fight against the virus, and importantly, we have secured enough vaccine supply for all Americans. This is a direct result of the President taking aggressive action, including through the use of the Defense Production Act, the DPA, to mobilize the full force of US vaccine manufacturing and production. Because of those actions and the success of US vaccine manufacturers, we are confident in our supply of our authorized vaccines. As a result, we’re removing the DPA priority ratings for AstraZeneca, Novavax, and Sanofi. For the manufacturers to continue to make these three vaccines, this action will allow US-based companies that supply these vaccine manufacturers to make their own decisions on which orders to fulfill first. For all the progress we’ve made as a country, as the President reiterated yesterday afternoon, we have millions of Americans still in need of protection and communities at risk, because of low vaccination rates.

Jeff: (01:16)
Here’s the bottom line. The bottom line is that if you are un-vaccinated, you are still at risk of getting seriously ill or spreading the disease to others. To help get as many people vaccinated as we can by July 4th, we’re kicking off a month of action, mobilizing an all of America effort, including new commitments with childcare providers across the country to provide free drop-in childcare to allow parents to get vaccinated. Extended hours at local pharmacies for vaccinations, including many pharmacies, will be open 24 hours every Friday starting next week. Commitments from states and the private sector to incentivize vaccinations and celebrate our progress, including free beer for everyone over the age of 21 on July 4th, courtesy of Anheuser-Busch. And the Vice President is a leading We Can Do This national vaccination tour. This national vaccination tour to key communities across the country will help reach millions of Americans who still need protection against the virus, highlight the ease of getting vaccinated, encourage vaccination and energize and mobilize grassroots vaccine education and outreach efforts.

Jeff: (02:38)
As the days get brighter and brighter at home, we’re focused on driving progress to help end the pandemic around the globe. It’s both the right thing to do, and an important step in protecting Americans by helping to stamp out the virus. The President has committed that the US will be an arsenal for vaccines. And our work on vaccine supply is guided by a three-part approach. First, having successfully secured enough supply of vaccine for Americans, we are donating surplus US vaccine supply and encouraging other countries with surplus supplies to do the same. In March, the US shared over four million doses of our AstraZeneca vaccine supply with Canada and Mexico. And the President has announced the US commitment to sharing a total of 80 million doses by the end of June. This is five times the number of doses any other country has committed to sharing.

Jeff: (03:43)
And these 80 million doses represent 13% of the total vaccines produced by the United States by the end of this month. We will continue to donate additional doses across the summer months as supply becomes available, but at the same time, we know that won’t be sufficient. So the second part of our approach is working with US vaccine manufacturers to vastly increase vaccine supply for the rest of the world in a way that also creates jobs here at home. Driven by the aggressive actions that have been taken to accelerate manufacturing and production lines in the US, Pfizer and Moderna have already increased their capacity to produce vaccines for the world. The third part of our approach will have us work with our partner nations, and pharmaceutical companies, and other manufacturers to facilitate the kind of global vaccine manufacturing and production capacity and capabilities that can not only help the world beat this pandemic, but also prepares the world to respond to potential future threats.

Jeff: (04:53)
Today, we’re outlining our framework for sharing with the world the first 25 million doses. To be clear, our approach to ensure vaccines are delivered in a way that is equitable and follows the latest science and public health data. Across the coming weeks, the administration will move as expeditiously as possible and work through regulatory requirements, logistical details to ensure safe and secure delivery of doses. This is certainly a complex operational challenge. One that we take on and will get done. In fact, less than two weeks ago, the President committed to providing one million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines to the Republic of Korea.

Jeff: (05:37)
After making a 2,000 mile journey to California, these one million doses are being loaded into a plane that will take off the Republic of Korea this evening, carrying hope and bringing life saving protection to the one million South Koreans who have already signed up to get a shot. This is just the beginning. We expect a regular cadence of shipments around the world across the next several weeks. And in the weeks ahead, working with the world’s democracies, we will coordinate a multilateral effort, including through the G7, to combat and end the pandemic. Now, let me turn it over to National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. Jake.

Jake: (06:19)
Thanks, Jeff. As Jeff said today, we are announcing our plan for sharing the first 25 million US vaccines with the world. I’m going to briefly outline why we are sharing them, how we plan to share them, and where we will share them. First, our goal in sharing our vaccines is in service of ending the pandemic globally. Our overarching aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible, it’s as simple as that. We want to save lives and thwart variants that place all of us at risk. But perhaps most important, this is just the right thing to do. Thanks to the ingenuity of American scientists and the resilience and commitment of the American people, we’re in a position to help others, so we will help others. And as the President has said, the United States will not use its vaccines to secure favors from other countries.

Jake: (07:17)
Next, I want to say a little bit about how we are sharing. We’ve received requests from all over the world and a number of important factors went into our decision about how to allocate these first 25 million vaccines. These factors included achieving global coverage, responding to surges and other specific urgent situations and public health needs, and helping as many countries as possible who requested vaccines. We’ve also decided to prioritize helping our neighbors. We made the decision to share at least 75% of these vaccines through KOVAX. This will maximize the number of vaccines available equitably for all countries and will facilitate sharing with those most at risk.

Jake: (08:02)
And we’ll facilitate sharing with those most at risk. And we decided to share up to 25% of these vaccines for immediate needs and to help with surges around the world. We can share these 25% in a flexible way.

Jake: (08:15)
Finally, I want to talk a little bit about where we are sharing these first 25 million doses. We’re sharing them in a wide range of countries within Latin America and the Caribbean, south and southeast Asia, and across Africa in coordination with the African Union. This includes prioritizing our neighbors here in our hemisphere, including countries like Guatemala and Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, and many others. It respects existing regional networks for vaccine sharing, like the platform of the African Union and African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the regional public health agency in the Caribbean, CARPHA. These networks will help decide where to allocate needed doses in regions with low vaccination rates and to those most at risk, including healthcare workers who haven’t yet gotten their shots.

Jake: (09:10)
Our approach also prioritizes south and southeast Asia, including countries like India, Nepal, the Philippines, and others that are undergoing surges right now. It recognizes our closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, which received our first shared vaccines, and friends like the Republic of Korea, where our military shares a command. And it prioritizes other partners around the world, including countries with low vaccination rates or dealing with urgent present crises, like the West Bank in Gaza, Ukraine, Kosovo, Iraq, Haiti, and others.

Jake: (09:50)
In the days ahead, we will coordinate closely with COVAX and with countries that will receive our vaccines. And as Jeff has said, this is only the beginning. The president has committed to sharing doses on an ongoing basis, starting with 80 million by the end of June. We will continue to donate from our excess supply as that supply is delivered to us. We will work with our international partners to get ahead of the virus, to follow the science, and to help countries in crisis.

Jake: (10:21)
We also know that this won’t be enough to end or reduce the lifespan of the pandemic, and that’s why we’re working with allies and partners to expand the production of vaccines and raw materials, including here at home, as Jeff described, and by building capacity around the world. We’re also working with our G7 partners on a larger effort to help end the pandemic so that the world’s democracies deliver for people everywhere. And we will have more to say about this next week when the G7 leaders meet in the UK.

Jake: (10:54)
We will continue to build on our existing health and health security efforts focused on stopping the spread of COVID-19, increasing vaccination, detecting outbreaks and variants, responding rapidly to flares, and critically, recovering economically here at home and around the world. And we will do so in a way that strengthens our global public health institutions and our ability to come together as an international community to defeat not just this pandemic, but the next one and the one after that. As President Biden said in May, this is a unique moment in history, and it requires American leadership, American science and ingenuity, American perseverance, and the world’s democracies to step up to the plate. Today, I’m proud to say that that effort is underway. Thanks.

Speaker 1: (11:45)
Okay. Now over to Dr. Walensky. Dr. Walensky.

Dr. Walensky: (11:48)
Good morning, and it’s great to be back with you today. As always, let’s begin with an overview of the data. Yesterday, CDC reported a little over 9,300 new cases of COVID-19. Our seven-day average is about 15,600 cases per day. This represents a decrease of more than 30% from our prior seven-day average. And more importantly, it is a 94% decrease from the peak of COVID-19 cases we reported in January of this year. This is the type of news I like to deliver, and certainly, these data are encouraging and uplifting as we battle this pandemic.

In other good news, the seven-day average of new hospital admissions is about 2750. That is a decrease of 83% in hospitalizations since January 9th of this year, when we peaked at a seven-day average of almost 16,500 daily hospital admissions. We can all agree these trends are going in the right direction.

And finally, the seven-day average of daily deaths has also declined to a new low of 363 per day, a decrease of more than 16% from the last week.

As the administration kicks off its National Month of Action in the critical month of June, I want to highlight a specific population that we were hoping will join the tens of millions who have already been vaccinated, and that is adolescents. In the month leading up to the recommendations of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for teens and adolescents 12 and older, CDC observed troubling data regarding the hospitalizations of adolescents with COVID-19. More concerning were the number of adolescents admitted to the hospital who required treatment in the intensive care unit with mechanical ventilation. Tomorrow, we will publish a report on this topic with more details in CDC’s morbidity and mortality weekly report.

And it is these findings within this publication, one that demonstrates the level of severe disease, even among youth, that are preventable that force us to redouble our motivation to get our adolescents and young adults vaccinated. Last month, FDA authorized and CDC recommended a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 that can be used in adolescents to prevent disease and hospitalization. I strongly encourage parents to get their teens vaccinated, as I did mine. If parents have questions or concerns, please talk with your child’s healthcare provider, your local department of public health, or your local pharmacist. And of course, until kids are fully vaccinated, they should continue to wear masks and take precautions when around others who are not vaccinated to protect themselves, their friends, family, and community. With that, thank you, and I’ll turn things over to Dr. Fauci.

Dr. Fauci: (14:40)
Thank you very much, Dr. Walensky. I’d like to spend just a minute or so just updating you in the arena of selected COVID-19 therapeutics. I don’t know if you can see the slide, but the first slide that said selective therapeutics is broken up into three major components just to remind you that the work that has been done over the last many months to a year has been three separate approaches. One to target the virus itself, and as you could see, the number of interventions listed there. The other is to moderate an aberrant inflammatory response, moderating the host. And the other are adjunctive therapies, such as anticoagulants.

Dr. Fauci: (15:20)
If we can move to the next slide, which has the red circle around the third bullet, that’s what I want to bring to the attention of the audience, and that is monoclonal antibodies, two of which, the Regeneron combination and Eli Lilly combination, have already been approved for EUA. I’ve highlighted in blue another additional antibody made by GSK and Vir, and if you go to the next slide, six days ago, in a preprint server, some very interesting and exciting data has been published, and that is a randomized, placebo controlled phase three trial of non-hospitalized patients.

Dr. Fauci: (16:03)
… phase III trial of non-hospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 who were at high risk for the progression of their disease, close to 600 people, a single 500 milligram dose of the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab, again by GSK and VIR, reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 85% compared with placebo. It is well tolerated, and there are no safety signals identified, and importantly, in the test tube, this antibody retains activity against multiple variants.

Dr. Fauci: (16:44)
So what we really have now are three options within the arena of monoclonal antibodies. Something that’s important for physicians to know that there is an important option for treating people early to prevent them from going to the hospital. This has been granted an EUA, so it’s available for use, and we encourage physicians to at least consider this possibility as part of your therapeutic [inaudible 00:17:13]. I’ll stop there and back to you, Jeff.

Jeff: (17:18)
Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Fauci. Why don’t we now open it up for a few questions.

Speaker 2: (17:23)
Thanks everybody. And we’re running very short on time, so we’ll just take a couple of questions. Please keep to one question and on topic. First, Josh Wingrove at Bloomberg.

Josh Wingrove: (17:35)
Hi there. Thank you for doing this. Can you say-

Jeff: (17:37)
Facilitate questions?

Can you hear me?

Speaker 2: (17:43)
I can hear you, Josh.

Great. Jeff, can you speak a little bit to which specific vaccines will be sent in the 25 million? I assume it’s safe to say that the AstraZeneca doses remain under review?

Jeff: (18:00)
Okay. I think we’re working on some technical issues, and hopefully we are able to open it up for questions soon.

Jeff, let me know if you can hear me please.

Jeff: (18:10)
Yes.

Great, great. I was just wondering if you can say which vaccines in particular will be sent among the 25 million. I assume it’d be AstraZeneca. Doses remain under review and are not available. Have you decided [crosstalk 00:18:24] or sorted which will be the 25 million?

Jeff: (18:27)
Good question. And thank you for the question. That is correct. The 60 million AstraZeneca doses are awaiting FDA concurrence, so the 25 million will be comprised of the three EUA approved, authorized vaccines, some Moderna.

Speaker 3: (19:01)
[crosstalk 00:19:01] Thanks so much, Jeff. I see this as part of this partnership with COVAX. My question is, does the US still have a final say in where the doses [inaudible 00:19:13] go? Or is it COVAX making that decision? And then just to follow, when will these 25 million be distributed? And are you still confident the remaining 55 will be out by the end of June?

Jeff: (19:27)
Okay. So Jake, why don’t I hand it to you on the first COVAX question.

Jake: (19:34)
Whether the US [inaudible 00:19:37] final say on where the vaccines go, Jeff, was that the question?

Jeff: (19:48)
Yes. Question on COVAX, do you want to handle that? An then I’ll handle the second piece.

Jake: (19:57)
We may be having some audio issues here, but as I understand it, the question was whether the United States still has the final say as to where the doses go that are being shared through COVAX. And the answer is that the US working with COVAX has taken [crosstalk 00:20:11] the doses that are allocated to each of those countries. And we, the United States, have made selections against that list, [crosstalk 00:20:21] in coordination with them, so that we will retain the say in terms of where they go.

Jake: (20:27)
Now, in the case of the African Union, we are sharing with the African Union, who will ultimately be making the determinations about how to allocate within Africa. And in the case of the Caribbean, we’ll be working closely with CARPHA, the public health authority in the Caribbean, who will be making some of the key determinations for where the doses are allocated.

Jake: (20:52)
But ultimately, the United States will have the authority to say, the doses are going here as opposed to there, but that will be done in very close consultation and partnership with COVAX, and crucially, according to COVAX’s formula, and then using the COVAX logistics capacity and delivery capacity to ensure that these doses actually translate into shots in arms that help save people’s lives.

Jeff: (21:20)
So the second [inaudible 00:21:23] we are already sharing doses. Less than two weeks ago the president announced plans to share doses with Korea. As I mentioned earlier, those doses are in flight now. We’ve announced plans to share about 13% of the vaccines produced for the US by the end of June. That’s the most of any nation, and that’s the 80 million. So over the coming weeks, we’ll work to get those doses to countries and get shots in arms as soon as possible. As we do so we’ll work through logistics, like medical agencies coordinating to ensure safety and regulatory information to share, supply teams to ensure that we have the necessary needles, syringes, and alcohol pads, transportation teams to ensure proper temperature storage, prevent breakage, and ensure the vaccine immediately clears customs.

Jeff: (22:16)
So the process to export the first 25 million is underway with coordination with foreign governments. And the president has committed, as we talked about earlier, to sharing 80 million doses by the end of June, and we will deliver on the president’s commitment of 80 million doses by the end of June.

Speaker 2: (22:36)
All right. Last question, and sorry for the technical challenges. Cheryl at New York Times.

Cheryl: (22:43)
Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I wondered if you could be a little bit more specific about the 25% of the doses that you are reserving for immediate use, the flexible doses. Where are those doses going?

Jeff: (22:58)
Over to Jake. [inaudible 00:23:18].

Jake: (23:21)
Technical difficulties persist, but the answer to the question of where the 25% of doses are going is, we will lay out more specifically the precise destination of those. The judgment we make about where those go is a combination of where there are specific urgent situations or where partner countries are facing crises. And so some examples of that include, a portion of those doses will go to India, which has obviously dealt with a surge, and we’ve seen the gripping images coming from that country. Some of them will go to the West Bank in Gaza, which has just obviously endured its own form of crisis over the course-

Jake: (24:03)
Which has just obviously endured its own form of crisis over the course of the past month. Then there will be other destinations for the remaining doses and we will lay that or allow as those doses are prepared and then shipped.

Kevin: (24:16)
Next question.

Jeff: (24:22)
We’ll do one more question to Zeke at AP.

Zeke: (24:26)
Thanks you all for doing this. Can you say, Jeff, where the doses are coming from? Are they coming from states excess inventory or the pool of federal supply right now, or directed from the manufacturers, number one? And then for Jake, could you explain how this is consistent with the presidents guidance that there will be no strings attached to these vaccines? If the US is still maintaining ultimate say so about where these doses go and reserving all these doses for bilateral partners, such as giving to allied troops, rather than just… Why not just give it all to COVAX to the world to be shared where it’s needed immediately?

Jeff: (25:05)
So in the first question, the dose is the 25 million doses are coming from the federal pool of supply. The doses that are at the states level, those states have ordered those doses. And we’re working with those states to administer shots in arms so that the millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated can get vaccinated as soon as possible. Jake, over to you.

Jake: (25:28)
Sure. First and critically, the United States is not asking anything of any country to whom we’re giving doses. We’re not seeking to extract concessions. We’re not extorting. We’re not imposing conditions the way that other countries who are providing doses are doing. We are doing none of those things. These are doses that are being given, donated free and clear to these countries for the sole purpose of improving the public health situation and helping in the pandemic.

Jake: (25:56)
The Korea situation is unique as the president said, when President Moon visited, the animating purpose behind that is actually about the protection of American forces and the forces who serve alongside American forces, the Korean troops, who are standing shoulder to shoulder with us in that country. So it is a unique case, and the kind of unique case for which we want to retain some flexibility, which is why we’re giving the majority, the 75% or more of our doses through COVAX, but maintaining the capacity to allocate doses outside the COVAX formula as necessary. Korea’s one case of that. The West Bank in Gaza, as I mentioned, is another case where, we’re not asking anything of the people of Gaza or the West Bank, but we feel that given what they are dealing with in the situation on the ground there, it is only right and proper and good for the United States to actually allocate some doses to that country. The same is true with some of the other allocations that we will make.

Jake: (26:58)
The president made a commitment to ensure that India received doses and giving them not just an allocation under the regional portion of this through COVAX, but an additional allocation from our discretionary portion was something that he wanted to do. Again, the basic bottom line on this is that the United States is not doing this as some kind of back and forth deal where we’re getting something for what we’re giving. We are giving these for a single purpose. It is the purpose of ending this pandemic and we are doing so in a way consistent, we believe very strongly, with the public health requirements that will help hasten the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jeff: (27:43)
We have time for one last question.

Kevin: (27:53)
All right, well, keep going. Let’s just go to, Ouija for CBS.

Ouija: (28:01)
Thank you so much. My question is actually for Dr. Wilensky, as you launched this big push for vaccinations ahead of July 4th, and this morning on CBS, you listed several reasons for why people may not be getting vaccinated yet. I’m wondering if you are making educated guesses, or if you have any data and figures to show why some people are still holding out, especially in the south where rates are relatively low.

Jeff: (29:00)
[inaudible 00:29:00] the vaccines has grown across time. As people have neighbors and friends and faith leaders and doctors who have been vaccinated and advised them on their own decision. And the important thing here is that the most trusted messengers are local messengers, including doctors and faith leaders. So we need to bring the vaccines to where people are and answer the questions that people have. And we are confident that more and more people will get vaccinated leading up to the 4th of July. Should we try to do one more question, Kevin?

Kevin: (29:50)
I think we got to wrap up, but thank you, Jeff. Jeff, we can wrap up.

Kevin: (30:14)
We will wrap up now.

Jeff: (30:20)
I don’t know if people can hear me. I apologize for the technical difficulties. I think we should probably end at this point and look forward to-

Kevin: (30:28)
We’ve ended-

Jeff: (30:29)
… follow up questions and to briefing again next week. Thank you everybody.

White House COVID-19 Task Force, Dr. Fauci Press Conference Transcript June 3

Other Related Transcripts

Stay updated.