Miller-Meeks Questions Witnesses at Hearing on COVID-19

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, February 24th, 2021, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02) questioned witnesses at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing titled Confronting the Coronavirus: Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic One Year Later. Miller-Meeks questioned the witnesses on how the federal government can help local health agencies better prepare, and handle, future pandemics and how to address our needs related to the Strategic National Stockpile.

The witnesses at yesterday’s hearing were:

• Ms. A. Nicole Clowers, Managing Director, Health Care Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office
• Dr. Crystal Watson, DrPH, Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 
• Dr. Ngozi O. Ezike, MD, Director, Illinois Department of Public Health 
• Mr. J. Ryan McMahon II, County Executive, Onondaga County, New York

Rep. Miller-Meeks: I have a couple of very quick questions and then a more lengthy question. So, Mr. McMahon, you mentioned the local public health and local public health funding, and both as a physician and the former Director of the Iowa Department of Public Health.

I'm wondering, and this is one of the things I advocate for, is that, rather than money allocated to the states and then the state decides, could there not be funding go directly to CDC and then go to local public health grants, which would then go to our local public health agencies.

Would that not be a pathway for us to get funding to local public health agencies, so they both have adequate PPE and can vaccinate?

Mr. McMahon: Yeah. I think any time if the intention is to get us the funding finding a way to get us directly guarantees you get us the funding. We have great relationships with our state partners, but certainly there are times where funding goes to the states and it doesn't flow back to the local governments.

Miller-Meeks: Yeah, I had that same conversation with my local public health agencies. And then Dr. Ezike, do you know what the number of non-covid related excess deaths are in the United States during the pandemic?

I ask that because in San Francisco, published in January of this year, I've referred to this pandemic as life versus life, in January of this year, the San Francisco Chronicle published that there were 699 deaths from overdose. It would have been much more then that had it not been for dispensation of Narcan. And this was 57 percent greater than in 2019. So vastly outstripping, and the number of covid deaths in San Francisco at that time were 121.

So do you know the number of non-covid related excess deaths in the United States during the past year?

Dr. Ezike: Doctor we have that number, I don't have it at my fingertips, but our team can get that back to you, but I think we had at least it was at least 20 or 30 percent on top of the known covid deaths and so we would say that those may have been some missed covid deaths as well as other non-covid deaths within that number.

Miller-Meeks:So over the summer, I had found a figure of approaching 98,000 at the end of summer.

My next question, this can just be to Ms. Clowers, or any of the panel members, but again as a physician and former Director of the Iowa Department of Public Health, one of the most concerning things to me at the start of the covid-19 pandemic was the issues of our country had with supply chain of pharmaceuticals and PPE.

Given my time in the military the supply chain is very concerning to me. In particular I was concerned about our country's ability itself to produce medical supplies domestically.

As you know, last spring the Chinese Communist Party issued threats to cut off the supply of medicine to the United States just as the virus was beginning to spread widely in our country. Thankfully the Chinese Communist Party did not act on that threat, but it exposed the vulnerability of our medical supply chain, when we rely on foreign countries and foreign nations for these critical supplies.

Some of the supplies that some countries received were inadequate or deficient. So, Ms. Clowers, in your testimony, you discussed several recommendations for addressing supply chain challenges and I appreciate those recommendations.

What I'm asking is that what lessons can we apply to further pandemic preparedness efforts and are there steps that we as a nation can take to ensure that we have critical medical supplies that are available domestically rather than enacting the Defense Production Act to get those supplies produced here.

Ms. Clowers:Yes, in addition to the recommendations that you that you mentioned, we do need to go back and look at our domestic supply chain as a nation, in terms of how we can make it more robust because what the pandemic illustrated is that when it started we had to inadequate supply of supplies on hand.

The supply chain is made up of a number of players and a number of entities. And so we need to have a better understanding of what everyone has and what their capabilities are, including in that is the Strategic National Stockpile and understanding what's the role that that's going to play and how we were going to stock it stock that stockpile and how we're going to manage it.

Those are important policy decisions for the Congress to consider and you also mentioned in terms of the supply chain that also we often think about PPE right now. But it's the drugs to, most of our genetic generic drugs are manufactured overseas, particularly in China and India, and that creates a vulnerability for us as a nation as well.

Miller-Meeks:Thank you so much, both drugs, PPE, and pharmaceuticals and Strategic National Stockpile.

Thank you so much. I yield back my time. Mr. Chair.

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