WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday at a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing on addressing the Omicron variant asked Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Dawn O’Connell, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), about best practices for keeping students safely in the classroom and expanding access to testing with at-home PCR tests.

In a question to Dr. Walensky on best practices for schools navigating Omicron, Murphy empathized with parents and educators and stressed the importance of keeping students and teachers safe in the classroom: “[P]art of what I think is frustrating for a lot of parents is that the guidance they're getting from their schools, it changes. I get it. Educators are sort of adjusting to the variant changes as technology changes, but…has anything changed since the last time you were here about what you are recommending for schools to stay open?”

Murphy continued: “I appreciate what you said in the last hearing is that schools should be the first places to open and the last places to close. Man, as the parent of two public school kids, I couldn't agree more. The trauma on these kids during this pandemic has been significant. And the data tells us that especially for poor kids and kids of color, distance learning just doesn't work.”

As the demand for at-home tests increases, Murphy asked Ms. O’Connell about the potential for at-home, affordable PCR tests. He also highlighted Detect, Inc., a Guilford-based company that has developed an at-home, PCR-quality rapid test: “There are some, you know, interesting research going on about the ability to make PCR tests available at home. And there's companies all over the country, including one in Connecticut, that you know, believe that with some additional investment to bring those tests to scale, we could get PCR tests into families' hands at home for a cost that is at or below what we're currently charging or companies are currently charging for antigen tests. Is that a possibility?”

Murphy also defended Dr. Fauci from Republican’s baseless attacks on his character and work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH): “On social media, I follow many of President Trump's advisors and family members and they make a sport out of attacking you personally in some of the most vicious, hateful, ugly ways that are possible. They do it because it gets clicks. They don't do it because they're legitimately engaged in a honest debate about the science revolving, surrounding COVID. Those people attack you because it gains them political followers. And so I appreciate the fact that you're willing to stand up for yourself and for your colleagues, who have been dragged into the political muck…”

You can read Murphy’s full exchange with Walensky and O’Connell below:

MURPHY: “Dr. Fauci, thank you. Thank you, first of all for what you do. You shouldn't have to put your life at risk. You shouldn't have put your family's life at risk to simply stand up and do your job to try to protect my constituents from a pandemic disease. And thank you for calling out this agenda for what it is: an attempt to score political points to build a political power base around the denial of science and around personal attacks on you and your family.

“On social media, I follow many of President Trump's advisors and family members and they make a sport out of attacking you personally in some of the most vicious, hateful, ugly ways that are possible. They do it because it gets clicks. They don't do it because they're legitimately engaged in a honest debate about the science revolving, surrounding COVID. Those people attack you because it gains them political followers.

“And so I appreciate the fact that you're willing to stand up for yourself and for your colleagues, who have been dragged into the political muck not because those that follow President Trump are interested in a honest science-based debate about how to attack COVID, but because they see political opportunity. So thank you Dr. Fauci, for your work, for the panel's work and for sticking up for yourself, which is not always easy.

“Dr. Walensky, I want to take my time to just do a little bit of an update on best practices for schools. I know we talked about this a lot here. But you know, part of what I think is frustrating for a lot of parents is that the guidance they're getting from their schools, it changes. I get it. Educators are sort of adjusting to the variant changes, as technology changes, but what has changed since the last time, has anything changed since the last time you were here about what you are recommending for schools to stay open?

“I appreciate what you said in the last hearing is that schools should be the first places to open and the last places to close. Man, as the parent of two public school kids, I couldn't agree more. The trauma on these kids during this pandemic has been significant. And the data tells us that especially for poor kids and kids of color, distance learning just doesn't work. So I'm grateful that I've got a governor who's gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that the federal dollars are used to keep schools open, but anything new that you can share with us about what you're recommending for schools to stay open for the rest of the year?”

WALENSKY: “Thank you, Senator Murphy. And in fact that you took the words right out of my mouth. Schools should be the first places to open and the last places to close. We had a Delta surge in the fall and 99% of our schools were safely open. And one of the things that's majorly different between September of 2021 and today is we have pediatric vaccinations. We have vaccines that are available for every child over the age of five, and the children who are in the hospital now are largely those who are unvaccinated.

“So first and foremost, one of the most important things that's changed is we should be getting our children and our teenagers vaccinated. And if our teenagers are eligible, we have boosters available for our teenagers as well. So we saw through the Delta surge that we were able to keep our children safely in school before we had vaccines.

“So now today, what do we have for our children? We have vaccines, of course, that we can use. We have school testing programs, we have new science that demonstrates test to stay. This is where a child might be exposed in the classroom, but if they're exposed, they don't have to stay home in quarantine. They can test every other day or twice a week and stay in the classroom safely. And what that has demonstrated is hundreds of thousands of person days, of children in school rather than at home.

“We have new science that has demonstrated the value of masking. Three and a half times increased risk of school outbreaks if you're unmasked in schools versus if you're masking in schools. And just this week, we updated our K to 12 guidance so that it's consistent with our isolation and quarantine guidance for the general public so that people can come back to school after isolation after five days.”

MURPHY: “Thank you, Dr. Walensky, for that and for your commitment to keeping our schools open. Final quick question for you, Ms. O'Connell, talking about in home tests, obviously a lot of focus on in home tests today. But these are antigen tests. There are some, you know, interesting research going on about the ability to make PCR tests available at home, and there's companies all over the country, including one in Connecticut, that you know, believe that with some additional investment to bring those tests to scale, we could get PCR tests into families' hands at home for a cost that is at or below what we're currently charging or companies are currently charging for antigen tests. Is that a possibility?”

O’CONNELL: “Senator Murphy, thank you. We share your interest of course in seeing as many tests available for the American people as quickly as possible. And at BARDA have worked very closely with several of the manufacturers that you mentioned for these at home PCR tests. We've contracted with one of them and have reached 5 million per month manufacturing capacity in contract with them and continue to look at the others in ways that we can support them.

“I would also like to say NIH colleagues in a program called RADx, the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics, are working very closely with many of these companies as well as they go through the development stages. So we remain very committed to the work that these companies are doing and look forward to partnering with them as they begin to bring these products forward.”

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