Last night, I was proud to sign the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' recommendation to use Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine in people 16 and older. This official The CDC recommendation follows Friday's FDA decision to authorize the emergency use of Pfizer's vaccine, as COVID-19 cases continue to surge throughout United States, CDC's recommendation comes at a critical time.

Robert Redfield

This needs to be a partnership. It's not all the burden of the federal government to invest in public health at the local level.

Robert Redfield

We've all done the best that we can do to tackle this virus.

Robert Redfield

I feel confident that the public health partnership that we have -- although it may be modified in some way at a political level -- I don't think it's going to be modified in terms of our public health efforts.

Robert Redfield

There are a number of states - 19, 20 states - that really have had limited impact from it. So I think we will see some states that are, the governors feel that they're ready, we're poised to assist them with that reopening.

Robert Redfield

There are a number of counties within this country that have not experienced really any coronavirus despite testing.

Robert Redfield

We've had a very productive public health relationship, we continue to have that.

Robert Redfield

If we can just maximize that social distancing, we can limit this virus's ability.

Robert Redfield

It's not going to be one size fits all. It's going to be using the data that we have from surveillance to really understand where it is the most important places for us to begin to reopen.

Robert Redfield

That includes early case identification, isolating people who are sick and tracing those that the person has come into contact with while they were contagious, we don't have to go through the serious mitigation steps that we're taking to get us under control.

Robert Redfield

We're very comfortable in responding when we have data that is compelling, cDC, as an organization ... we're not an opinion organization. We're a science-based data driven organization. So I do think this is going to be an independent decision of these health care providers and patients.

Robert Redfield

At this stage, at this moment in time, we're not recommending it, but we're not, not recommending that, we're recommending for the physician and the patient to have that discussion.

Robert Redfield

We're not defenseless, this virus has a very significant weakness, it can't swim 7 feet.

Robert Redfield

Those models that were done, they assumed that only about 50 % of the American public would pay attention to the recommendations. In fact, it would seem, a large majority of the American public are taking the social distancing recommendations to heart -- and I think that's the direct consequence of why you're seeing the numbers are going to be much, much, much, much lower than would've been predicted by the models.

Robert Redfield

One of the [ pieces of ] information that we have pretty much confirmed now is that a significant number of individuals that are infected actually remain asymptomatic.

Robert Redfield

There's been good communication with our colleagues to confirm asymptomatic infection, to confirm asymptomatic transmission, to be able to get a better handle on the clinical spectrum of illness in China, what we don't know though is how much of the asymptomatic cases are driving transmission.

Robert Redfield