In an email to the New York Times late Monday, Fauci indicated he will emphasize the benchmarks in a three-phase White House plan on when to reopen individual states — to which many are not adhering.

“The major message that I wish to convey … is the danger of trying to open the country prematurely,” Fauci wrote to the Times. “If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines … then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country.”

Scheduled to appear in the Republican-led Senate alongside Fauci are Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services who is in charge of coronavirus testing.

All will testify using videoconferencing after Katie Miller, Vice President Pence’s press secretary who participated regularly in the administration’s task force briefings, tested positive for covid-19.

The hearing before Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is titled “COVID-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School.” But Democrats on the panel also plan to seize the opportunity to focus on shortcomings in the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic to date, including why key steps to contain the coronavirus weren’t taken earlier.

“This will be one of the first opportunities for Dr. Fauci to tell the American people the unvarnished truth without the president looking over his shoulder,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during remarks on the Senate floor on Monday, adding: “Let it rip.”

The panel’s chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), plans to ask the health officials what level of testing and other criteria states should reach to reopen schools and what the administration will do to help states get there.

Both Alexander, whose office disclosed that he will self-quarantine in Tennessee for two weeks after an aide tested positive for the coronavirus, and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, will participate in the hearing remotely.

Murray plans to focus on reports that the White House interfered with guidance from public health experts and how the federal government will properly distribute a vaccine once it is eventually developed.

“The fact of the matter is, President Trump has been more focused on fighting against the truth, than fighting this virus — and Americans have sadly paid the price,” Murray will say in her opening remarks. “Still, President Trump is trying to ignore the facts, and ignore the experts who have been clear we are nowhere close to where we need to be to reopen safely.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), another member of the Senate health committee, said in an interview that he wants to compare the U.S. government response to the coronavirus pandemic to that of South Korea, which has been lauded for aggressive testing and tracing measures to contain the outbreak.

“I just think it didn’t have to be this way,” Kaine said.