Center for Health Security senior scholar Dr. Caitlin Rivers testifies at U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space & Technology on SARS-CoV-2 Variants
Center News
May 12, 2021 – Caitlin Rivers, PhD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, provided testimony at a congressional hearing on the variants SARS-CoV-2 that have emerged and the urgent need to continue to scale up genomic sequencing of COVID-19 cases in the United States.
The hearing, COVID-19 Variants and Evolving Research Needs, was convened by the United States House of Representatives United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.
Dr. Rivers testimony provided an update on the variants of concern, a way forward through the COVID-19 pandemic, and explained the importance of investing for this response and to prepare us for future pandemics.
“Continued vigilance to current and future variants is essential to ensuring that we maintain our encouraging trajectory. We must expand our genomic surveillance efforts domestically, and work with partners and allies abroad to ensure global coverage. The United States is a world leader in science and technology, and we have the opportunity, using those capabilities, to lead the world through the rest of the pandemic.,” testified Dr. Rivers.
Read the full testimony. (PDF)