BACKGROUND PRESS CALL
BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS
ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S STRATEGY TO SAFELY REOPEN AMERICA
Via Teleconference
2:10 P.M. EDT
MR. MORGENSTERN: Thank you very much, everyone. This is Brian Morgenstern at the White House Press Office. I am joined by [senior administration officials]. This call will be on background, attributable to senior administration officials. The content is embargoed until the conclusion of the call. As soon as the call concludes, the embargo will lift.
With that, I’m going to introduce [senior administration official] for some brief opening remarks and then hand it over to [senior administration official] for some additional remarks, and then we’ll open it up for questions.
Again, background, senior administration officials, embargoed until the conclusion of the call.
With that, please take it away.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Okay, thank you, Brian. And good afternoon, everyone. Well, this past week, the scientific community issued something called the Great Barrington Declaration. This declaration was written about the pandemic by three of world’s top infectious disease scientists and epidemiologists from Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, and Oxford University.
And that declaration, which came from the entire spectrum of the political world, said that the appropriate policy, the important policy to deal with this pandemic is something that centers on aggressive protection of the vulnerable, opening all schools, opening businesses and society, and ending the prolonged lockdowns.
And that declaration and its policies have now been endorsed by over 8,000 medical scientists and public health officials all over the world, as well as thousands of doctors and over 300,000 citizens.
And the second part of this news is that, over the weekend, the World Health Organization officially changed their policy and strongly stated that prolonged lockdowns must end because of their significance harms. This public declaration and, really, worldwide endorsement by the science community at the highest levels aligns very strongly with what the President has said for months, and that is: Strongly protect the high-risk elderly and vulnerable, and open schools and restore society to function. And that policy stems very directly from his initial statements back in March, when he said the cure cannot be worse than the disease, and has followed -- has been followed with dozens of statements endorsing this policy.
The point here is that the President has, of course, always been using the latest science. His advisements has always been based on the science and the data. And that -- the President’s policy of protecting the vulnerable and opening society is now very publicly aligned with what many of the world’s top epidemiologists and health policy experts have been saying: that is, lockdowns do not eliminate the virus; lockdown are extremely harmful; and the best policy to save lives is to aggressively protect the vulnerable and open schools and society.
And by protection of the vulnerable, that is not just words, that is actions. That is a policy that has always centered around extreme mitigation, including social distancing, extra hygiene, masks when appropriate, as well as massive mobilization and prioritization of protective equipment, and the intense and strategic testing focused on nursing homes and senior citizen centers, new infection control programs in senior congregate settings, detailed community monitoring.
And this protection is also partly the Operation Warp Speed strategy, which is including rapid development of new drugs that’s specifically designed for reducing hospitalizations and saving lives, as well as, of course, the historic pace for acceleration of a vaccine intended to be available -- projected to be available to all of the priority elderly and vulnerable no later than January.
Just very briefly, before I hand it over to [senior administration official] -- you know, we all have to always remember that prolonged lockdowns had been extremely harmful. Any appropriate public policy has to consider the policy to reduce damage and save lives from the virus, as well as save lives and protect society from a harmful policy. And that extended -- you know, protracted lockdown, including some that are being contemplated or newly introduced in various parts of the United States, as well as outside the United States, has really had a healthcare cost, very direct.
We know that, for instance, this past week -- two or three days ago -- the data came out that 46 percent of the top six cancers in the United States were not diagnosed compared to last year. And that does not mean the cancers went away, of course; it means that many of these people will come back with more advanced disease. Delaying their treatments and their diagnoses is very damaging to their health.
We know that 650,000 Americans on chemotherapy -- half of them didn’t get their chemo, even just during the first two months of the protracted lockdown. We know that two thirds of cancer screenings weren’t done. We know that half of childhood immunizations were not done. We know that 40 percent of acute stroke patients were so afraid that they did not come in and seek help via an ambulance.
And this has an extensive impact. So opening schools, opening colleges, and opening healthcare is very critical when you understand the policy that the President has understood, really, like I say, from his early quotes in March.
And I think the next point I want to make, and then I’ll stop, is that these long -- prolonged lockdowns are specifically destructive to working-class people and lower socioeconomic classes in minority populations. And so this is something that the President has -- a focus of his policy has always been aware of. And, you know, this is extraordinarily harmful.
We must have a policy -- a balanced policy, which is what the President has done, and which has been really agreed to by a large number of some of the world’s top scientists, and now even the World Health Organization.
And with that, I will hand it over to [senior administration official].
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. And just to pick up on one of your final observations: You know, we’re looking at the economic data, and one of the things that we’re seeing in the economic data is that these lockdown policies can have very regressive effects. There’s a large economic -- academic economic literature that looks at the relationship between adverse labor market changes and so-called “deaths of despair.” This is the work of Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Either drug overdoses, suicides, diseases of the liver.
And a lot of this literature has focused on the adverse labor market shock and (inaudible) from the People’s Republic of China entering the World Trade Organization, but it also looks at the effects of increased unemployment on these so-called “deaths of despair.” And, in fact, there’s an older literature that finds that a 1 percent increase in unemployment is associated with a 1 percent increase in suicides.
And one of the things is that this is very much concentrated at the lower end of the income distribution, given the pattern of job losses in March and April.
And the one thing that we’re very concerned about looking ahead is the effects of this on inequality. So in 2018 and 2019, we actually observed, for the first time in recent history, income wage, wealth, and equality were declining in the United States. But now there’s a real concern that, you know, with each lost year of job experience, we observe a decrease in lifetime earnings of about 3 percent. That’s 0.25 percent per month of lost job experience. And this is very much, again, concentrated at the lower end of the income distribution, given the composition of job losses in March and April.
And we also see it especially with some key sectors not fully reopening. So, in particular, schools. There are some real human capital deficits that can arise there because not all students have equal access to remote facilities. And that both varies across the income distribution, but it also varies across ethnic groups. A lot of (inaudible) is suggesting that African American and other underrepresented minorities have lower access to broadband Internet, so remote learning is going to relatively adversely impact those students.
And the thing about these human capital deficits is that they compound over time. So this is the research of James Heckman at the University of Chicago, who finds that early childhood education effectively provides the operating system on which you can subsequently write new software. And so some of these early human capital deficits arising from school closures and remote learning can compound over time. So this could really, ultimately, have a very substantial long-term, persistent impact on inequality.
And, in fact, we estimated, with a just few months of outright school closure earlier in the year, it may have reduced lifetime earnings by 2 to 3 percent. And again, that’s going to disproportionately impact both the lower end of the income distribution.
And then, furthermore, when we’re looking at some of the economic data and data on education, we find, actually, that a lot of children in lower-income households derive nutritional support through the school system, and a majority of child abuse is discovered and reported in the school.
So these are some areas in which, you know, economic policies can adversely -- can have adverse impacts on health (inaudible).
MR. MORGENSTERN: Okay, thank you. With that, Operator, why don’t we open up to a few questions with the time we have remaining?
Q Hi, thanks for doing the call. Quick question: I noticed that none of the epidemiologists or infectious disease experts working for the White House Coronavirus Task Force are on this call, but you are, and you appear to be endorsing the Great Barrington herd immunity plan. Why are none of the qualified infectious disease experts and epidemiologists on this call endorsing this plan?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, I think you’re misinterpreting the purpose of the call here. We’re not endorsing a plan. The plan is endorsing what the President’s policy has been for months. The President’s policy -- protect the vulnerable, prevent hospital overcrowding, and open schools and businesses -- and he’s been very clear on that. We’re not endorsing a policy.
What we’re pointing out here is that scientists all over the world, from all political spectrums -- this is not -- their statement is not a political statement. Their statement is a science statement. We’re just reporting the news here. There’s nothing changing about the President’s policy whatsoever.
Q Hi. So, I’m based out of New Jersey. There are states and there are different governors that are considering increasing restrictions. I looked over the WHO statement, and it does seem to indicate that this is for getting it under control, but -- like, the lockdown. But I’m wondering what happens if there is an outbreak and it is out of control, and it is tied back to specific communities and specific activities. If it’s not lockdown, then what do you think needs to be in place?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Exactly what I said. What the WHO is saying is this idea of -- and you can see -- I think their reaction to this is first recognizing the level of epidemiologists and medical scientists that have put this forward, but secondly, recognizing what’s happening, for instance, in Europe, where these people thought that they got rid of the virus by, sort of, locking down.
And the reality is that the virus does not disappear by restricting activity. What happens is that you can, sort of, flatten the curve, which is what we and others did in the beginning, and that was appropriate because that bought some time to make sure hospitals weren’t overcrowded and some things, like new drugs could be developed, resources could be mobilized and produced, massive PPE was produced, hospital beds were set up and mobilized to help prevent the overcrowding, et cetera. And drugs were developed.
But what the world has realized: that the lockdowns do not get rid of the virus. And so what it did was, in Europe, for instance, now they’re seeing resurgence of all these cases because they, sort of, falsely thought it went away. And so now, while it’s getting colder in parts of Europe, they’re getting a resurgence of cases when things like social distancing are very difficult.
So what we’re seeing is that the virus is not eliminated. The resources -- and the President has been focusing all these resources on places where nursing homes -- where the elderly are in congregate settings, like nursing homes; where elderly frequent, like senior centers. We have just shipped tens of millions of tests -- of state-of-the-art tests, rapid point-of-care tests; every single nursing home has that that’s certified in the United States. Senior centers and other environments -- Visiting Nurse Associations, where they interact with elderly.
We’re prioritizing as much as possible because the point here is to save lives. The point -- that’s the point of this, and I think people are recognizing that the point is not just stop all cases without understanding that you need to really do it to save lives.
I’ll give you an example: There are 78,000 so-called cases in college campuses, since college classes resumed. But that was from forced testing of college campus students that were asymptomatic. And there are, so far, to my knowledge, 13 hospitalizations, 7 of which are at one university, and zero deaths.
So, I mean, these cases of asymptomatic healthy people are not the goal. The goal is to make sure that we can do everything we can, as I’ve outlined, to protect the high-risk people while understanding that healthy people can get back to work and stop destroying people’s lives, stop really delaying medical care, stop making a further divide by socioeconomic class because the lockdowns destroy more commonly the people in working class and poor people.
You know, somebody said, and I picked up on it: Lockdowns are a luxury of the rich. And I think we always have to keep that in mind. That’s what appropriate public policy is. There are health issues, there are other issues that translate into health, that my colleague has outlined, that are critically important here.
Q So, I have two questions. First of all, when you talk about getting, I guess, life back to normal, with mitigation in place, what do you say to those people who see what happened at the White House, where you had a super-spreader event; the President was in the hospital and sick? What do you say to those people who are concerned about, that when you talk about getting out there and doing more things, they see that, at the White House -- which has all the resources in the world -- you had this very serious super-spreader event?
And then my second question is, kind of, following up on that: When you talk about sending tens of millions of tests to all these nursing homes, it seems like, at the White House, there was this focus on testing, but testing doesn’t prevent people from getting the virus. And even if you have asymptomatic people in the community getting it, they can interact with people who work at these nursing homes.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That’s right.
Q They can interact with people who work at these senior centers. So isn't that part of the concern, of (inaudible) some of these asymptomatic cases? Because then the senior citizens still get exposed.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, that’s a very good question, and I would like to answer that, because the point of the testing in the nursing home -- maybe this is a misconception and it’s my own failure to articulate this: It’s not just simply testing the residents of the nursing homes.
What we are doing here is we are -- CMS has mandated testing at the minimum of every staff member. The cases come into the nursing homes, as an example, from the staff; they don’t come in from the nursing home residents. And you’re pointing this out, and that’s a very astute observation.
And so the testing that’s being done is focused on, yes, we’re testing the residents, but we’re really testing -- more focus on the residents and the visitors to the -- I mean, the staff who work in the nursing home and visitors. And so what we’re doing here is very carefully monitoring these community spread, and you can do that by virtue of who’s coming into the emergency rooms, who are sick.
And we have mandated at least a minimum of once-a-week testing of every staff member in a nursing home. And in places where there’s high community spread, we have sent tests so that we have two times a week, three times a week. Every person who works in a nursing home -- because, you’re right, that’s the critical entry point. The nursing point is a tinderbox of risk, and these are very vulnerable people.
So we need to stop the cases from coming in, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re focusing the testing -- you’re right, testing does not stop a virus. But what testing does is -- the purpose of testing is to make sure that we can stop the entrance of a virus by knowing who’s entering high-risk environments particularly. That is exactly true. You’re exactly right. That’s the purpose of the testing.
Now, in terms of the White House event, if I can answer that very briefly -- I mean, I think it shows a couple things. We have a very safe, as you alluded to, environment here to protect, you know, the President of the United States and the Vice President. That’s a special environment. Not everybody has that kind of environment. And even with that environment, even with significant mitigation steps that we all here obey very religiously, the virus is not totally eliminated; the virus is there. And it’s true that we can do -- it’s challenging, of course. And we do everything we can to protect the vulnerable and the high-risk individuals.
But that’s exactly what’s part of the point is that, you know, we need to take everything into account here. We do not eliminate all cases. We cannot eliminate all cases. And so what we do is we focus on saving lives because we’ve learned a lot about the virus. This is not March/April.
What’s happened since March/April is it’s very clear who are the high-risk people and who is not high risk. It’s very clear that we have -- you know, we’ve done a pretty good job, and the case fatality rate is down 85 percent since the peak of March/April. Hospital length of stays are down to one third they were in March or April. Hospital mortality is down to one half of what it was in March or April. Now, that’s partly due to just advances in our medical care, from doctors and nurses and medical staff, but it’s significantly also shown, by the President’s own hospitalization, from some of these new drugs that were developed during Operation Warp Speed.
So I think people have to be aware that, yes, the virus is very dangerous, but it’s dangerous for a certain subset of the population. Most people, it is -- they do extraordinarily well. In fact, the survival rate, as outlined by the CDC -- I mean, for children are 99.997 percent of people who get infected don’t have a -- survive. And the overwhelmingly consensus is that children are at extremely low risk from anything, including a serious illness from this disease. It’s extremely low risk.
We also know how to treat the disease better, and we know that, you know, people are -- that are getting the cases right now are younger, healthier people.
So I think Americans should be cautiously optimistic about what’s going on here -- again, not understating the danger to the high-risk people. I mean, everybody knows that 200,000 people died. That’s extremely serious and tragic. But on the other hand, I don’t think society has to be paralyzed, and we know the harms of confining people to their homes. And, by the way, inside the home is where most of these cases spread.
So we have to do as good a job as we can, better and better -- and it’s challenging -- at protecting the high-risk people. But we also have to get schools open because of massive harms to our children, and workplace open and society open, because we’re destroying people.
MR. MORGENSTERN: I think we are about out of time here. We’re actually a little bit over time. So I will thank [senior administration officials] for their time. And we are at the conclusion of the call, so the embargo is lifted. Again, it’s on background from senior administration officials. Thank you all for joining. Have a great day.
END 2:37 P.M. EDT |
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