At Final Select Subcommittee Hearing, Democrats Underscore Commitment to Putting Future Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Over Politics
Washington, D.C. (November 15, 2024)—Yesterday, Rep. Raul Ruiz, M.D., Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, led Select Subcommittee Democrats in examining lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemic prevention and preparedness.
“As we began the 118th Congress, we had a rare opportunity to take a serious, constructive look at these problems and develop forward-looking solutions to safeguard Americans from current and future threats. And when I became Ranking Member, I stood ready to work with any Member on either side of the aisle who would join me in this objective. But instead of taking steps forward to prevent and prepare our nation for future pandemics, this Select Subcommittee has spent two years fanning the flames of people’s mistrust in public health and weaponizing their fears.” said Ranking Member Ruiz in his opening statement. “As we begin today’s hearing, I want to acknowledge that I welcome its focus, that I wish that we spent more time pursuing this subject, and I hope that we can commit to a forward-looking discussion about the road ahead. Because even after two years, I still believe that it’s not too late to come together and do the work of saving future lives.”
Select Subcommittee Democrats highlighted how our nation’s public health agencies saved millions of lives during the pandemic and laid the groundwork for stronger pandemic prevention and preparedness going forward.
Congressman Kweisi Mfume noted how challenging the pandemic was: “COVID was real time. And there was no playbook. There were no real guidelines. And we learned and we made mistakes in real time. The one thing that I do want to preface all of my remarks with is that we must never ever, ever forget the millions of people who died here and all over this globe as a result of this pandemic. We don't talk about them that much as we get further and further away, but we cannot do an autopsy of what we went through without mentioning the fact that so many lives, so many families were and still are affected by this.”
Congresswoman Jill Tokuda highlighted the vital work of our scientific community that brought us out of the darkest days of the pandemic: “During the pandemic, medical countermeasures like diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics were essential for responding to COVID-19 and saving lives. Research and investment into developing these medical countermeasures even before COVID-19 hit our shores, quite frankly, gave our public health workers, the critical tools they needed to keep pace with the virus.”
- Congressman Ami Bera discussed the importance of longstanding research and public health investments to the COVID-19 response successes: “There are real successes as well, you know, I never would have expected that we would get a vaccine—several vaccines—that were safe in effect efficacious within months, but we did it. Some of that was because of prior investments in research at the NIH and elsewhere."
Congresswoman Deborah Ross emphasized how the public health agencies’ rollout of the COVID-19 saved lives: “The COVID-19 vaccine has saved more than 3 million lives and prevented more than 18.5 million hospitalizations, but I would like to turn to Doctor Marston about how the FDA has continued work to review and approve updated COVID-19 vaccines to help keep Americans safe from new variants as they go about their day to day lives… we know that the CDC played an essential role in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, which got hundreds of millions of shots and arms and amounted to the largest vaccination campaign in our nation's history.”
Select Subcommittee Democrats reiterated their consistent calls for forward-looking investments and reforms that further strengthen future pandemic prevention and preparedness.
- Congressman Robert Garcia noted the need to act on concrete lessons learned during the pandemic: “I am very concerned that, still, the Department of Health and Human Services does not have the same emergency buying power that the Department of Defense has. When we went through the pandemic, much of the purchasing of PPE and testing went through DoD because they have emergency power to purchase in bulk and cut through red tape. That power does not exist for Health and Human Services where I personally, and many others believe, is where those purchases and that direction should be coming from… the second issue I want to note for Members of the Committee is we have to get to a point where we fully fund the CDC’s national wastewater surveillance system. I cannot stress how important this is to preventing future pandemics.”
- Congressman Bera accentuated his hope for future bipartisan work on pandemic: “We ought to as a Congress, in a nonpartisan way, learn from the past but better prepare ourselves for the future… I would hope as we look forward, we actually do a real objective analysis without trying to point blame. We got things right, we got things wrong. Let's learn from that and let's better prepare for the future.”
- Congressman Mfume highlighted the Select Subcommittee’s place in these forward-looking pursuits: “We have a special calling, I think, to find in a bipartisan way those things that will help us in future years as we look back on this, and it is important in many respects, since we are no longer in real time of a disease, that we do that autopsy, do it the right way and make sure that this Congress at least leaves behind at the conclusion of this Select Subcommittee, a path and a way forward, and a number of suggestions and other things that will help us.”
- Ranking Member Raul Ruiz encouraged Congress and future Administrations to continue investing in future pandemic prevention and preparedness: “Thanks to the tireless work of the agencies and the individuals in those agencies sitting before us over the past four years, our nation overcame the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic and has taken meaningful strides to strengthen our public health infrastructure going forward. But the possibility of a future pandemic remains very real. Even today we are facing emerging viruses like H5N1, which will continue to require investments of time and resources to contain. So, we must keep our foot on the gas, even if it might be tempting to let up.”
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