ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Dr. Walensky?
DR. WALENSKY: And I would — thank you. I would echo much of what Dr. Fauci had said. You know, when we released our guidelines and the — and the science said it was safe to do so, we also acknowledge that not everybody is going to feel like it’s time to rip off their masks. For 16 months, we’ve been saying that it’s important to wear these masks to protect yourselves. And now, what we’re saying is — it’s going to be hard to get back to, you know, life as we knew it without these masks, and we’re going to do so tipping our — dipping our toe in the water and having everybody move at their own pace.
We specifically have acknowledged that if you are vaccinated, there is no shame, no problem in continuing to wear your mask. And just like it has been hard to have everybody get masked, I think this is going to take some time for us all to get used to.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Great. Next question.
MODERATOR: Peter Sullivan, The Hill.
Q Hi, thanks. I wanted to ask about the vaccine lottery incentive programs some states have been doing. Ohio, New York, and Maryland all have, you know, lotteries or prize money you can be entered in if you vaccinate. I wonder if you, kind of, think that’s a good idea. And have you been talking to states about that? Are you going to encourage more states to have these kind of lottery incentives?
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Well, from the data we’ve seen, they appear to be working. And I think the reason they work is because the vast number of people who are not yet vaccinated are actually not opposed to getting vaccinated; they’re just not prioritizing it very high. There are other things going on in their lives.
And so things that draw attention to it, like the lotteries in those states you mentioned, are — not surprisingly — very effective, and so we’re enthusiastic.
Next question.
MODERATOR: Jeremy Diamond, CNN.
Q Hey, thanks for taking the question. I’m wondering: How do you all anticipate that declining deaths and cases will affect people’s decision to get vaccinated, especially for those who are still on the fence? And then, secondly, I’m wondering if you guys have an update on the doses that you plan to send abroad, what the timing for that is, and if you’ve settled on a process for deciding which countries will get doses and how many. Thanks.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: So why don’t we start with the first question, which is the impact of — the improving outlook of the pandemic on people’s willingness and interest in getting vaccinated.
Dr. Murthy, do you want to start with that?
DR. MURTHY: Sure. Thanks, Andy. And, Jeremy, I appreciate the question. I think it’s a good one.
Look, it can be easy to look at the circumstances right now with all of the improvements Dr. Walensky laid out — cases, hospitalizations, deaths — and think, “We’re out of this pandemic. We don’t have to get vaccinated or take precautions anymore.” But that would not be the right lesson to take.
The right message, we believe, is that we are seeing improvements because people have in fact gotten vaccinated. And if we continue on this path — get more people vaccinated — we can sustain that decline in cases that we’ve seen in the decline of deaths and hospitalizations. But if we stop where we are right now — if people do not get fully vaccinated; the millions who are out there who still need to — then we will still be at risk, potentially, for more infections in the future.
And we want to protect everybody in our country from this virus, so that’s why we will continue to emphasize that we should keep moving forward with vaccinations. Do not let your guard down. But be — be encouraged and cautiously optimistic that we are absolutely heading in the right direction. We just can’t — you know, we can’t take our foot off the accelerator.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Yeah. There’s good evidence — if people don’t feel at risk of dying of the measles, yet they still get their vaccination. So, I think we just have a much more continued education with the public to do, and many, many more people will get vaccinated.
Jeremy, your other question, which I think you ask frequently, is about the status of doses to other countries. To confirm that, we have committed that before the Fourth of July — and we are waiting on FDA approval — 80 million doses of — which is 13 percent of all of the doses that have been procured in the U.S. — are going to be sent overseas. That’s in addition to the $4 billion commitment that we’ve led with COVAX.
And — so, we are — we don’t have a status yet on either the FDA approval of the AstraZeneca doses, and nor do we have news to report today about where those doses are going.
But I will reiterate something the President said, which is that those decisions are being made on two factors: science and public health, and equity — and no other factors.
Next question.
MODERATOR: Maureen Groppe, USA Today.
Q Hi, can you talk a little bit about how the dating app initiative came about, and also whether this is a first for the White House to get involved in dating sites?
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: I suppose I have to take that question, huh?
DR. MURTHY: (Laughs.) Well, all you, Andy.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Thanks, everybody. (Laughter.) You know, as we were talking about earlier, in all seriousness, people are interested in other things in life besides their vaccine. But the vaccine enables people to get back to the things that they enjoy in life.
And, you know, Dr. Murthy has written extensively, in all seriousness, about the concept of loneliness and about social contact and so forth. And so, while it is, kind of, a funny thing to talk about, the truth of the matter is people do want to get back to their normal lives, they do have questions about making sure that they can do that safely, and that’s great. So, we are — we’re obviously pleased with that. And the fact that this reaches that — those many people.
You know, I think — I applaud the initiative on these companies’ parts. I think it’s their effort. And, you know, we — and we have conversations with them, but this is things that they were — that they’re — that they were doing because they saw a need in their audience base. So, I think that’s — I think that’s the gist of it.
Next question.
MODERATOR: Tommy Christopher.
Q Sorry, I — I have trouble with this unmute button.
Okay, well, thanks for doing this. And, you know, I — I have a question, and I kind of hate to bring this up, but I really have — feel like I have to.
I don’t know if you guys saw this viral video from Ricky Schroder earlier in the week, yelling at some poor guy at Costco. But I also — I live in New Jersey, another state that hasn’t dropped the mask mandates. And, you know, it’s been bad all along, but it has gotten even worse since the new vaccination — the guidelines for vaccinated people.
You know, people come down here on the weekends and in the summertime, and they scream at our restaurant workers because they have to wear a mask to go from the door to their table. And, you know, I just — I’m wondering what you guys have to say about all that.
And, I mean, I know Governor Phil Murphy says that, you know, it’s not fair to ask a frontline worker to decide whether or not someone presenting themselves at a business is vaccinated or not. And so, I mean, what do you think about all that?
I mean, there’s — a friend of mine told me that a customer threatened to get her fired because she asked him to wear a mask.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Thanks for the question. Look, the last year and a half has been one of the most intense periods in our lives. People are feeling a lot of stress. And they’re feeling, as Dr. Fauci said earlier, very, you know, normal feelings adjusting. Let’s just treat each other with respect.
Next question.
MODERATOR: Last question, let’s go to Meg Tirrell at CNBC.
Q Thanks. I was intrigued by what Dr. Murthy said about how employers could play a bigger role in helping people get vaccinated.
What would you like to see in terms of them offering on-site vaccination clinics? And what do you see as the barriers for employers to be able to do that?
And if I can add just a second question for Dr. Fauci or Dr Walensky. You know, there’s been a lot of focus on immunocompromised folks and the fact that vaccines may not provide the same protection for them. Do you see monoclonal antibodies potentially being used for those folks preventively? Is that a potential good option for people who don’t get so much protection from the vaccines?
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Let me — let me start because I do have — we’ve been tracking very closely here how employers — and hi, Meg, thanks for the question — how employers are, in fact, creating near-site and on-site clinics. They’re creating — they’re either doing this on their own, through the states, or they’re creating partnerships with some of the pharmaceutical companies, and — I’m sorry, not pharmaceutical companies — pharmacies who are — who are capable of providing that capability.
We have begun a process which we might talk about at some point where we are helping to match up employers who have lots of employees on their sites with people who provide those services, and we think it’s fairly commonplace.
I’m not sure we have any data on this, but — but it’s a great thing for an employer to do and if you’re an employer out there, I would strongly encourage you to do this, as well as giving your employees time off.
Dr. Murthy, did you have anything you wanted to add about that before I turn to Dr. Fauci?
DR. MURTHY: Sure. Well, thanks Andy. And, Meg, thanks for the question. I would just say, look, we really think employers can play a powerful role here. The goal here is to bring vaccines closer to where people are.
Workplaces are obviously a place where people spend a lot of time. And workplaces can help in three ways: by helping build vaccine confidence by sharing information, by motivating people to get vaccines both by encouraging them and also enabling other people to share their vaccination story, and also by improving access. These are three concrete ways.
The barriers, though, that we often see is: Number one, employers may not always know that — about just how important a role they can play and what they can do. They may wonder about logistically how to arrange it — whether it’s a partnership with the pharmacy — or what materials to share. And they also may wonder if it’s actually working.
And this is one of the reasons why not only we set up the tax credit program and other, you know — other tools, but we built the COVID-19 Community Corps to provide a community where people can share best practices, support one another, and take these sort of innovative measures and steps that will help bring vaccines closer to where people are.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Dr. Fauci, I believe the second question Meg asked was about the use of monoclonals as prophylactics.
DR. FAUCI: Yeah, well, certainly it is an issue that we are concerned about is people who are immunosuppressed, particularly profoundly immunosuppressed — such as some of the solid organ transplant patients, but also others who might have autoimmune diseases who are receiving a variety of immunosuppressive agents.
We are doing a major study here at NIAID on just those individuals to determine what the best approach is — whether an additional boost.
The idea of monoclonal antibodies is a reasonable idea. It has not been studied in that context where you give people monoclonal antibody because, again, given the half-life of these antibodies, you would have to give them over a period of time — whether or not it would be feasible to have people who in fact don’t have a good immune response to be given monoclonal antibody every several months. But it’s certainly something worth addressing and worth studying.
One of the other ways of approaching it, which is in the arena of therapy, is to try and get some therapies, particularly direct-acting antiviral agents, so that when people who are in that category of immunosuppressed actually do get infected, you can treat them immediately so that they don’t progress. Or even — the way we’ve done with HIV — to give, actually, prophylactics.
So there are a lot of different options, Meg, that are being pursued because we do really feel that this is a substantial problem that we need to address.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: And maybe in an upcoming session, we’ll highlight the status of the trials of the antivirals at the right time.
Anyway, thank you all. Have a very happy Friday and a great weekend.
11:37 A.M. EDT
To view the COVID Press Briefing slides, visit https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/COVID-Press-Briefing_21May2021-for-transcript.pdf
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