I thank the witnesses for coming today.
My colleague, Mr. Strahl, spoke about the priority list and maybe it shouldn't be politicized. I understand that the priority list that was made during the H1N1 outbreak was based on scientific evidence and epidemiology, but I don't think we should forget about the psychological portion.
For people who work as first responders, the quality of their work would also depend on their state of mind. If the person is afraid to be in contact with people and the person's primary task is to be in contact with people who may be sick, how do we balance this? Let's say we're not going to put firefighters or police or anybody else on the list. We have scientific evidence for pregnant women, etc., but others can wait. It should be balanced, in my view. I think they should be on the list.
When you identify a strain, how do you know who is going to be affected the most? I would assume that you base it on the evidence that is perhaps after the fact.
Can you identify the risk groups based on the virus strain that you've identified?