 All right, thank you everybody for joining us today. My name is Ted Long. I'm the Executive Director of the New York City Test and Trace Corps Program and Senior Vice President of New York City Health and Hospitals. I'm excited to be here today because today we're announcing the new, first of its kind, Mobile Test to Treat Program. Our mantra in New York City throughout COVID has always been to meet every New Yorker where you are. Two years ago, we started to do this by creating a mobile testing fleet. We grew it, it soon became the largest in the country and it was so successful. We created a mobile vaccine fleet. Then after that, we created mobile units that enabled us to take special care of New Yorkers that were living with homelessness. Now, as I've told our mayor, COVID is like the weather system. A new variant can be a drizzle or it can be a thunderstorm. But we're here today because expanding treatment today will allow us to have a stronger roof over us, whatever COVID has in store for us in the future to keep our city safe and healthy throughout. Now, the last two years have been tough, but today in New York City, getting treated is easy. Under Mayor Adams, we've already distributed more than 33 million home tests. We set up our 212 COVID-19 hotline so that if you take a home test, it comes back positive. You can then call that number, a matter of minutes later, be on the phone with the clinician and then through Ashlyn, Dr. Vasan and our amazing health department. We can deliver you the life-saving medication Paxilvid to your home that same day. Now, for me, this is important because I'm a primary care doctor in the South Bronx. I practice just a few miles from here. And I know that for every 18 of my patients that I treat with Paxilvid, I potentially prevent one of my patients from getting so sick that they'd have to be admitted to the hospital. With our new model, we're making today our treatment faster and easier than ever before. Here's how it works. You come up to our mobile unit here, we're going to swab you with a rapid test. If that comes back positive, you're immediately going to speak with one of our clinicians. If you're eligible, we'll prescribe for you Paxilvid. You walk inside the pharmacy right here and a matter of minutes later, you'll walk out with a life-saving medication. This summer, we're going to be unveiling 30 of these units. Some are going to be in collaboration with local pharmacies just like this one. Some will be able to hand you the Paxilvid pills themselves directly from the mobile units. I want to take a moment to say thank you to Dr. Ashish Jha and to Dr. Tom Tsai and his team for their constant encouragement of us to build out this new one-stop-shop mobile model. This new first-of-its-kind mobile test-to-treat model is the future and is how we're going to help our city continue to recover together. So thank you for joining us here today. Now I'm going to walk us through the agenda. Now for the reason you're really here, I'm going to first introduce our mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. Thank you so much. It's good to be up here in the Heights. And it's even better when you have just an amazing healthcare team, Dr. Long, Dr. Fassan, and Dr. Jarda's here, COVID coordinator from the White House. We spoke and met earlier and the great interaction between the two entities as we move forward and deal with COVID. I said this over and over again. COVID is a formidable opponent. It pivots and shifts and we are clear that we're going to pivot and shift with it. And we're leading the way in the country on how we utilize all of our assets to address this serious crisis that we have faced and that we cycle out of. You know, let the baby talk. We like babies here. You know, let him speak. You know, so I'm proud to be here with this public health team. And we meet every morning in our communications as we stay abreast of what's happening with COVID. And this team has really led the way as we cycle out and as we deal with variants as they continue to just be unpredictable as the future moves forward. And as we focus on these issues, we were the epic center of COVID pandemic at the start, but we're leading the way in prevention and mitigation. What we're doing here, other cities can look at and make the determination how they want to address COVID. And this mobile testing unit is the first of its kind. You know, how many times I say that, Michael? First of its kind. You know, once again, this is going to deal with equity because we talked about the equity issue. Dr. Fassan has leaned into the equity issue so much. And when you are mobile, you can pinpoint the areas that need the support immediately and we can get this unit out to those areas. And that's why we're really oppressed by that. We are now leading the way again by having this mobile unit. This new public health service will help all New Yorkers get access to life-saving treatments. When I had COVID, being able to get my medicine right away, same day delivered to me, to Gracie Mansion, ghost and all, we were still able to survive and get our medicine there. And help protect our city against any new variants, any new variants of future waves of transmission. As COVID may still be a fact of life, but it doesn't have to be the cause of death. And that is what we will continue to say. It is preventable, it's treatable. And caught early, that treatment is really part of what's keeping us moving forward in the right direction. And so I'm proud of this response to COVID-19. We did not allow COVID to define us and we don't want to allow it to defeat us. We looked out for each others as New Yorkers, we continue to do so as New Yorkers, continue to evolve out of this crisis. We, when you look at the numbers, the numbers are clear. 90% of New Yorkers are vaccinated and that includes even our younger people. Dr. Fassan has been waiting for this moment for a long time. He talks about it often. When it comes down to zero to five year olds, we are making it eligible for them as well. And they're going to get the resources that they need. We, this is an exciting moment for us. New York is back to work, back to school, most importantly, back to life. But we're not going to let down our guards. We're gonna continue to remain focused and committed to this important endeavor and continue our mission of being safe, sane, and prepared. Not panic, but preparation. That's what we have accomplished and that's what we will continue to do. And so I'm gonna turn it back over to Dr. Long, who's going to introduce our next speakers. All right, thank you, sir. Yeah, we'll do questions at the end. So for our next speaker, I'm excited to introduce the White House COVID Response Coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha. Thank you, Ted. Hard to follow the mayor, really is. So let me take a couple of minutes to talk about why this is a very special day. And I wanna start off by reminding us how much progress we've made as a country. Right, think back to where we were two years ago. We've had more than 200 million Americans have gotten vaccinated, more than 100 million Americans have gotten boosted. We have treatments available. We have made incredible progress. And so despite the fact that 100,000 people are getting infected every day, which is not great, we gotta work on that. That's a way down. And so as a nation, we have made incredible amount of progress, but today we're here to talk about New York City. And we are here to talk about New York because New York, of course, was the epicenter of this pandemic. Suffered more than any other city, but also recovered faster, was more resilient. And the way New York has done that is by being innovative, by staying focused on the stuff that matters and has been leading the nation on so many important issues. New York is more vaccinated than the rest of the country, not just for adults, but as you heard from the mayor and you'll hear from Dr. Visan, New York's track record on vaccinating children outpaces so many other parts of the country. We're seeing great uptake of kids under five and vaccinations. That stuff doesn't happen randomly. It happens because of leadership and it happens because of focus. And leadership of the mayor, leadership of the health commissioner and leadership of public health workers and health care workers across the city. Beyond vaccines, which are incredibly important and really the bedrock of our response is also treatments. And that is what we're talking about today. And I want to take a minute to talk about Paxlevid. This is a pill that the US government has put a lot of effort into making sure is widely available. And we have seen over the last two months a huge increase in the use of Paxlevid. And I actually think that's making a major difference in keeping our hospitalization slow, keeping deaths slow. But we've also discovered something else. As we have ramped up use of Paxlevid, we have seen that the penetration of Paxlevid, the use of Paxlevid in communities of color, in neighborhoods with high social vulnerability is not as good as it needs to be. And we have as a nation a real equity challenge in front of us. And again, because we are facing a national problem, we are not surprised to see New York City take the lead to begin to address it. And the mobile test to treat program that we are launching today, as the mayor said, is the first in the country. And the reason I am so excited about this, not just because I love New York and I love seeing great things happen in New York, but because this will become a national model. Once New York begins to do this on a regular basis, it makes it easier for folks like me to talk to mayors and governors across the country and say, what, you're gonna let New York show off and you're not gonna play the game here? Little friendly rivalry moves everybody. And that rivalry is gonna make the country better off. So this is about equity. This is about making sure that everybody who needs and can benefit from treatments gets it. This is about meeting people where they are literally, going into neighborhoods, going into communities and making sure that we're not asking people to come to us, that we are going to them. And that is the ultimate public health. So I am thrilled to be a part of this event today to celebrate this moment. I know New York is gonna continue to lead the nation on so many great things. And again, it happens because of great leadership. And so Dr. Long, thank you for your leadership. Do I just turn it over to Dr. Basan, health commissioner, who's doing a great job for the city of New York and really leading the country. Opsman, to you. Hi, everybody on this chilly afternoon. Good to be with you. I'm not at all hot. Our city's approach to fighting this pandemic has from the beginning been about meeting people where they are, ensuring equity, and setting a clear North Star that is about saving lives, protecting people, and delivering results. The nation's first test-to-treat program right here in New York City, and thanks to Dr. Jha and the entire Biden-Harris administration for their support, is once again setting a standard as we enter into the next phase of COVID-19. The mobile test-to-treat program brings the best of public health and healthcare together to deliver lifesaving treatment in an end-to-end fashion for the people and the communities who need it the most. This work will help us chip away at some of the barriers that in part explain why people of color and people in less economically-advantaged communities have had higher rates and worse outcomes from COVID. We're solving for access, speed, service, and equity with this approach. We're reducing wait times to find a testing site by bringing care to where people are. We're slowing delays in seeing a provider by bringing care to where people are, and we're reducing slowdowns in access to a pharmacy and picking up prescriptions by bringing care directly to where people are. And we're overcoming cost barriers by making this free to the public. This model of convenient, fast, and no cost to the patient community care should be the new normal in healthcare, not only during pandemics. Like all human rights, healthcare shouldn't be hard to come by, especially for the most vulnerable. Strategies like test-to-treat represent the next pillars of our COVID response. As we prepare for whatever this virus throws at us and as we ready for the fall. We are over the last several months and for the first time in two and a half years seeing a clear break between cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and the widespread distribution of Paxlevid is one part of that. Test-to-treat makes getting Paxlevid even easier and reaches into communities and connects with vulnerable people. And the past weeks and months has taught us a lot about how this virus and these variants are behaving. In addition to studying the effects of new tools in our armament. And while we continue to see a lot of transmission here in New York, we're also at a different phase of the pandemic that demands new analytical tools to match our assessments and communications about risk with reality. Accounting for the multiple inequitable realities faced by New Yorkers and Americans of different stripes and different situations, which is why today we're reevaluating our color-coded risk alert system. As we said, we were going to do every three months. Taking into account what we've learned over these recent weeks and where we are as a city and as a society in terms of our perception and the reality of risk from COVID-19. So in addition to our thanks again to the federal administration and thanks to the mayor, of course, I finally want to recognize Dr. Long, the fantastic work of T2 health and hospitals and of course my colleagues at the health department. This kind of partnership and strategic alignment to meet unified public health goals is the best of what we are as a city. And it's certainly new and even stronger day in our interagency collaboration between the best public health department and the best public hospital system in the world. Mayor Adams, again, has been consistent in his mantra, pivoting and shifting. I've taken it on as my mantra as well, to face whatever the virus throws at us. And this launches once again an embodiment of that ethos. We'll do whatever it takes to meet the needs of New Yorkers, especially those most at risk. Thanks, and we're really looking forward to the work. We'll do the press and then we're gonna come to you, okay? Okay, mommy. Off topic too, but on topic. So on topic, now the beginning of this is you've got three mobile test units and three pharmacies partnering. Like, can you talk about the expansion aspect of this? How quickly do you expect to expand it to other locations? How many other locations? What's kind of the overall scope of this end game for? Thank you for the question, Michael. So in seven days, we're going to be expanding to 10 units. That's seven more than the three that we currently have. Right now we're working through being able to, again, have some units be able to dispense the Paxilvid directly from the units. But at the same time, we also wanna work with our local trusted pharmacies that are pillars of our communities. So we're looking forward to having our model be able to be flexible and to, based on whatever community we're in, meet the needs of that community with the resources that they have here. At peak when we have, or I shouldn't say at peak, when we have the 30 units up and running, we'll be able to do 6,000 tests a day. We'll be able to dispense 600 treatments a day. That's our capacity when we have 30 units up and running. Is there any 30 pharmacies too? Well, so the model will be mixed. Some will be pharmacies. Some will be dispensing the medication directly from the mobile units. But that's the overall capacity. Got it, thanks. You're welcome. So my question, I just wanted to clarify on eligibility. Can anyone get this vaccine? And then also for Dr. Jha, I know there's a 8,000 vaccines for monkeypox coming to the state. There's growing concern, obviously, there. Could you just, you know, share your message on people who are worried that that might not be enough? I'll start and I think I'll turn to Dr. Jha if he wants to share more on the monkey box question. So we do have eligibility criteria for the Paxilvid medication. The way it works again is you go here, you have a positive test. Our clinicians are at the table right there and they'll go through both your eligibility and they'll go through, there's some drug-drug interactions with Paxilvid. So we'll go through all of that with you. So if you go inside the pharmacy and walk out with Paxilvid, you are eligible and we've taken care to make sure that you're safe to take the medication. And just to build on what Dr. Long said, eligibility is determined by the FDA on this. And basically anybody who's at elevated risk of having a bad outcome is eligible. And then I've got to make sure that you can take it from a drug point of view. In terms of monkey pox, yes indeed. So the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration rolled out yesterday, it's planned we have about 56,000 doses across for the whole nation right now. 8,000 of those can go to New York, as New York is eligible to get 8,000. But that's as of today, we are getting a lot more vaccines for monkey pox in the days and weeks ahead. So my expectation is we're gonna see many more thousands of vaccines coming. Next week and the week after that, we're working really hard to expand the testing capacity, sorry, not testing, vaccine capacity of how much vaccine we have. And so I think you're gonna see a good number of vaccines. So for people who are concerned, they wanna get the monkey pox vaccine, we are gonna make sure that New York gets what it needs to meet all those needs. So that. Where can they? Have you made a decision about that? When you say vaccination, you talk about is it gonna be mandatory or not? Yes, we are still, we're meeting, we're discussing, they come up with the best way to do it. We want to do it in a way that is thoughtful and that is not going to decrease our number of students who are in schools, but Dr. Fassan and the team is really flushing through. And we want to notify parents as early as possible so that they can be prepared. And within the next few weeks, we'll know exactly how we're gonna move. In short, the requirement, how do you make it? Well, we're hoping, and Dr. Fassan can talk about that more, this is expertise, we're hoping that parents are gonna see the full benefits of the vaccine, the way we see it in other smallpox, measles, mumps, and we are a society where vaccines have played a major role in preventing the spread of these viruses and diseases. But our goal is to really educate parents as much as possible, put money in a public relation campaign, and try to get parents to really be a part of this team of getting our children vaccinated. You wanna touch on anything else, Dr. Fassan? Oh, that's great. Pretty much whatever the mayor said. I mean, we're here to build confidence amongst parents, which is why, particularly for our under five vaccine rollout, we've really leaned on pediatricians. And we want this to be incorporated into your normal conversations around making medical decisions for your child. I have three kids of my own. One of them is under five. And I'm getting them vaccinated, but it's a conversation with pediatricians and trusted people around whom you make, and with whom you make medical decisions for your child. But look, I think we're also waiting for products to become fully licensed by the FDA. That builds a lot of confidence in our student required vaccines. Most of our student required vaccines are fully licensed products by the FDA and mandated by the state. And so, you know, we're working with the state. We're working with our federal partners to really decide what's the right timing and when and if we bring in a student vaccine requirement. And so we're under consideration now. It's definitely something we're talking about. Good boy, mommy. Good boy. Thank you. I'm wondering if you could give us a little bit of a sense of the supply here. How much pops limit does the city currently have? How much are you expecting in the coming weeks and months? Just a sense of the supply would be great. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the funny thing is we actually have ample packs of it. And so to be perfectly honest, I don't have the number off the top of my head because we haven't had any supply issues in recent weeks and months. In the beginning, of course, of our rollout, we decided to partner with an online pharmacy to do same day deliveries in an environment where there was very little packs of it around the country and very relatively little in our city. But now we're kind of a wash in packs of it. I mean, is that fair to say? Maybe you want to talk about the federal supply. Very quickly say, we've been working really hard on the federal level to make sure that there's plenty of supply. And what we want is for jurisdictions like New York City to figure out how to get to its people. And our job is to make sure we get plenty of packs of it to New York. And so it's been a great partnership. And I don't want you to know the number. I never want you to think about it. I just want you to know that when New Yorkers need packs of it, there will be packs of it for New Yorkers. Anti-virus like packs of it using race as one of several factors. Is that a best practice? And so why if not, why not? Yeah, so first of all, I think packs of it should be widely available to all Americans. Again, within the eligibility criteria that FDA has laid out, I think different jurisdictions in terms of targeting where they're going to make sure that packs of it is more easily accessible, what tools you're going to use, different jurisdictions are going to take different approaches on this. But the bottom line is that when I look at the clinical data on packs of it, which is the clinical trials were good, the real world experience is even better. And so my view is we still have a virus out there that's killing a lot of Americans. We should be doing everything we can to make sure every American who's even remotely eligible gets it. And we should absolutely be making sure that people who have been disproportionately harmed by this virus have easy access to the two packs of it. Is recent acceptable factor? May I have a stand? I will, but let me just have this. Yes, go ahead, go ahead, ma'am. Okay, thank you. We'll try. Thank you. So it's found to be in the clinical trials, 89% effective. The way I talk to my patients about it, and I do this, I'd see patients every week in South Bronx. I tell my patients that I have COVID, for every 18 patients that I care about, that I treat with packs of it, I'll prevent one of the patients that I care about from getting so sick, which I don't want to see that they have to go to the hospital. You're like Michael. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. So, I think it's very important to respond to the Department of Justice investigation on the sex crime unit in the New York City Police Department of, you know, there's no higher level of priority for us to ensure that victims of sexual assault receive the right treatment, investigation and resolution. And we're looking forward to partner with the Department of Investigation to fully cooperate with it. We were not sitting on our hands. The police commission immediately started taking actions towards what we perceived as how to make sure that unit is a professional unit. And so we think that the Department of Investigation is gonna conduct their review, and we are going to be supporting whatever information they need from our agency. But we're also going to continue to move forward. The police commission has already taken steps, and we're gonna continue to do that now. And that is our concern. But since this is an inactive review, we don't want to in any way give the appearance we're trying to persuade review. And so let's let the Department of Justice do their job.