>> of ten to 12 and each holds up to 100,000 fish so a farm itself can contain 1 million or more fish. >> because of the proximity they find many dwelling hosts. with their book salmon wars sunday night at 8 p.m. on q-and-a at the white house press briefing the coordinator for the outbreak updated reporters on the health crisis. he talked about efforts to distribute a vaccine for the

virus. this is just under 20 minutes. >> good afternoon, everybody. today we have two guests with us in the briefing room, the monkeypox coordinator and deputy coordinator doctor dimitri to provide an update on the progress against the outbreak and take a few questions. do you want to go first? good morning and thanks for having me.

here's the briefing room today. we want to provide an update on the progress we are making. as we announced a couple weeks back we have ample supply to vaccinate the highest risk individualsdi against monkeypox. all jurisdiction towards therm vaccine approach, which means that jurisdictions have effectively transitioned towards ane approach that has gotten moe shots into arms but also without sacrificing the effects. over 70% of all in the united states today are given dermal he.ma to reach the population where they are and trusted locations across the country and equity has to be a key point embedded throughout the response. this past week we saw how

successful that approach is because the direct allocations in atlanta and oakland were thousands of shots were administered during these events. in fact, over 3,000 doses were administered and their affiliated events and nearly 4,000 doses were administered in atlanta. that means thousands of individuals are getting there protection against monkeypox so they may not have otherwise. these demonstrate the strategy is working. we also accelerate our efforts to prevent vaccines to places and people that we know will make a difference. as announced last week, we are launching a new program that allows the departments to request vaccines to use innovatively through strategies to reach black and brown

communities. today we are announcing we are providing more vaccines to upcoming across the country. first idaho where 820 doses will be made available for the weekend of pride and a second, 10,000 doses to california and of the folsom street fair and in san francisco toward the end of the month. we will continue to pull every lever and meet people where they aree in this outbreak and we are already seeing progress. we are encouraged by the progress we are making right now. you will see the chart to my left we have data from 35 jurisdictions that's just over half of all jurisdictions that are directly receiving the vaccine but over 460,000 doses have been administered.

keep in mind of 4 the population at the highest risk is approximately 1.6 million so even with this partial view we have now from the reporting jurisdiction receiving strong progress getting shots into arma so now the supply is less of an issue we need to make sure we focus on maintaining demand by making sure people know that effective and safe vaccines are available for those that can benefit. alongside the vaccination efforts we scaled access as well as ensuring that lgbtq plus individuals know how to reduce the risk. together the efforts are leading to positive trends and data over the last couple of weeks especially in the hardest hit areas. the growth rates meaning how quickly the virus is spreading his trending downward and some

of the areas involved earliest in the outbreak. places like new york, california, texas and illinois are seeing significant declines in growth rates over the last month. to put a fine point to it, back in july, cdc estimated that it took eight days to double nationwide. by mid-august it was 25 days showing encouraging signs of progress. the positive trend as we are seeing also speak to the actions that individuals have taken across the country to protect themselves against the virus that includes changing their behaviors and seeking and testing vaccines. butt the data also underscores the fact we cannot be complacent and we must aggressively continue the work to get clear prevention guidance and vaccines veout to individuals and communities where it continues to spread quickly.

the increasing access through the interventions and event allocations in partnership with our outreach and engagement efforts to continue to be critical as we fight this outbreak. thank you. >> what steps are you taking to make sure? >> a lot of steps before they came in and creating a toolkit for universities and we also have engagement with the higher executives at the universities to make them aware of the resources that we have so that

includes a combination of these resources to focus on the settings as well as thete information and how vaccines are accessible and available so it i is a multilayered approach where we provide appropriate information to make sure that it goes to the right folks and that we gave the resources to not only figure out what the behavioralha intervention and wt biomedical things can be used in the event of the cases. if there is a case in college and everyone knows what to do. ogiven the way that this is spreading, the risk in the settings is low. >> there's fewer cases among men who had sex with men.

my question is do you think that eta is a reflection of more testing or is it possible it's spreading more easily and the risk is higher than originally thought? >> i think what the data showed is that the population received increasing infections and also represents other mechanisms that could be other close contact in the household et cetera. i don't think it is a harbinger right now. >> is the goal to eradicate? >> iwe've seen important strids in the direction by creating more coverage in the populations that are at risk.ns so creating that level of

immunity would be important but also thinking about the global environment and making sure we don't just address what's happening in the u.s. but also think about the rest of the world because infections that have been there will happen to us as well. [inaudible] how long will it be before you go out and have to get more from congress? >> we are working right now to identify additional funding needed both in vaccine supply to not only replenish what's been used which is critical if there's another event, but also to provide additional vaccine and have it more available if needed duringnd this event. also there is a number of other things we are pursuing with technology testing and research to continuegy to watch this evet and study as it progresses to include other types of looking

at the treatments that are being provided and of those kind of things. so, we have enough money right now to make the key decisions we need to make as it progresses we need to replenish what we've used and be able to have additional funding. >> how much longer will you have the funding? >> it is a part of the supplemental. as it goes into the fiscal year we would be looking to hopefully working with congress to get that money to make those investments in the stockpile and make sure the replenishment plus additional funding is needed. as a result of this outbreak there has been expression of concern in the community and

lgbtq about the stigma specifically related to men so what can you say as it relates to those concerns of the stigma being attached across the country? >> of the role of the governmental public health to model excellent behavior and i think we are proud of the work that we've done to create the non-stigmatizing language to inform people what they needgm o do to stay healthy. so first making sure we are modeling the right behavior and putting out materials that speak to the community in a way that doesn't stigmatize them. it's the responsibility and it's important but i think that in media in the way that we communicate with students in universities and with hundreds who need to know about this making it clear this is a virus and i would like to say it's not smart. it can distinguish based on their sexual orientation or gender so everyone needs to be aware and the folks that are

overly represented in the outbreak. those that are embracing the stigma as another impact in particular the assistant by going into a restroom. can you help clarify? >> this transmits often in the setting of sexual exposure. there are other mechanisms including if you touch objects and individuals that had monkeypox or if you had a prolonged exposure to respiratory problems. with that said, signaling to people and other men in the communities that it's important to have awareness as a critical part of the messaging while not generating the concern and focusing on the inspection as linked to an identity so it's not it just happened to be in

the social network. >> and the racial disparity fewer cases are seen close to 75% now. what specifically are you doing? >> it's great. i think to reach out to people of color it begins with the fact that its vaccine accessible so addressing a lot of these issues and gaps it's really about making the fee available. that means making sure we have more vaccines and all of the work to create a more vaccines as well as in the u.s. it's been important but we have all of these equity interventions that include i think bob told you about a couple of large ones ethat have been wildly successfl with thousands of vaccines that went to the community and i've also gotten vaccines in community health centers as well as the sites observed the population. so, the low hanging fruit is

that and now we are onto the next level making sure that everyone who needs it gets it. >> whatud organization are you working with to help get the message out and to help you lessen the number. >> from the very beginning before i was at the white house, one of our primary objectives that served the black and brown community so a lot of the communication there has been about facilitating the material as well as provide important tools to help.

forr example, many of the events that we worked with in atlanta was with organizations, local jurisdictions, and that's what the story of success is about. it's not just a vaccine allegation but the intense community engagement that happens onns the ground because ultimately it's a local event andd so giving the tools people need to be able to reach out is what we've been doing and the support of organizations have been pivotal. >> are there any other organizations? >> it'snt the event with many other organizations we engaged with national organizations that are on umbrella organizations to focus on community-based groups that serve, so it is a long list but it is a continuous piece of

work to make sure that we stay engaged. >> whether or not you are sharing the vaccine. >> when we are discussing the strategy, the part of this is to have a new team that focuses on global land we are having the conversation on how to conduct the global vaccine efforts. >> as one of the leads in the state department and the white house national security staff we've established a global task force across different federal diagencies to focus the coordination to other countries

to ensure for those that may not have the resources to do that and so working to determine who that is and what we can make availablee to support us on thoe efforts not only in terms of the vaccine but in terms of some of the more technical expertise so working closely with those organizations to be able to support them.