As we enter the third year of the pandemic, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response continues to play a vital role in the COVID-19 response. Yesterday I had an opportunity to spotlight some of our work before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions. Here’s a summary of what I shared with the committee:
ASPR’s COVID-19 work falls workstreams: vaccines, therapeutics, testing, and on-the-ground support.
- Vaccines: ASPR has played an integral role in developing and delivering over 600 million doses of vaccine to date. We have ample supply of both primary and booster doses, contributing to more than 200 million Americans now being fully vaccinated. And, as of Jan. 1, 2022, vaccine (and therapeutics) distribution is being handled by the HHS Coordination Operations and Response Element (H-CORE), a team that resides within ASPR.
- Therapeutics: We are approaching it like filling a medicine cabinet – we are not relying on one type or brand of treatment but are offering states and territories a variety of therapies – including monoclonal antibodies and oral antiviral pills. In total, we have bought nearly 30 million courses of treatments for patients who get sick. We are currently delivering four monoclonal antibody treatments on a weekly basis, and two oral antivirals every other week, at no cost to states and territories.
- Testing: We have invested across the board to increase testing and ramp up manufacturing capacity, including $5 billion to purchase tests and supplies, which has helped us quadruple supply since September. We’ve invested an additional $4.5 billion to purchase and distribute 500 million rapid at-home tests to any American who wants one beginning later this month. We have worked with our FEMA and CDC colleagues to stand up 17 FEMA-funded and HHS-operated emergency testing sites in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and D.C., with plans for sites in more than a dozen additional states in the coming weeks.
- On-the-ground support: Since July, 40 National Disaster Medical System teams – nearly 880 team members – have deployed to support sites in 19 separate states and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to support a range of functions including hospital augmentation and decompression, setting up medical overflow centers for patients, and mortuary support. We continue to deploy supplies as requested from the Strategic National Stockpile and we are in near daily contact with state and territorial health officials to support the local response.
While we continue to see rising COVID-19 cases nationwide, the good news is that we have many tools to keep our families, friends, and our communities safe. The vaccines work against Omicron, especially if you’re boosted. We also have more treatment options than before, with about 4 million treatments available this month.
In ASPR, we’ll continue to do everything we can to respond to this pandemic, while preparing for whatever may come next.
