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Enterovirus Spreads to 42 States; New Interim Chief Takes Over Secret Service; Are U.S. Hospitals Prepared for Ebola?; Interview with Siobhan O'Connor

Aired October 02, 2014 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: NEWSROOM starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin this hour with breaking news.

As one man fights for his life, health workers ratchet up the number of people he potentially exposed to Ebola. The old number quadrupled just minutes ago to 80 people.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is outside the Dallas hospital with the latest.

Good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Carol, we are told -- yesterday we were told they were following 12 to 18 contacts and now we're told that they're following around 80 contacts. 80 contacts of the man who was in the hospital right here who has been diagnosed with Ebola.

What we're told is that many of these contacts are contacts of contacts, in other words the patient had contacts around him, Mr. Duncan, and that some of those contacts then had their contacts and that they're all being monitored, they're taking their temperature, they're watching for signs of Ebola -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, describe to us how concerned we should be that this number has ratcheted up to 80.

COHEN: You know, I don't find it too concerning because they're doing it as that phrase they love to use out of an abundance of caution. The people who really need to be concerned are the ones who had close contact with Mr. Duncan, who were exposed to his bodily fluids. I think they really are trying to have a large and a very wide margin of error here and that's why they've expanded this list.

You know, something else interesting just happened, Carol, today which is that the Texas Department of Health said and told us that four close family members have now been ordered to stay home. They said that these family members were instructed to stay home back on Tuesday, but they said that there was some challenges, the family had some challenges meeting those instructions.

And so now they've actually legally ordered them to stay inside their homes until October 19th. It's a little concerning to hear that they had challenges meeting those instructions, you have to wonder what were they doing, were they out and about? Were they with other people? Those are questions that we asked and were not answered.

COSTELLO: Interesting. All right, let's head to CDC headquarters in Atlanta and our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Now that is a concern. These four close family members. They've been ordered to stay inside their home until October 19th. If they leave or violate those orders they may face criminal charges. Why are authorities so concerned?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's two things to keep in mind. First of all, if they're not sick, they're not really a risk to people around them. We've made this point over and over again but you don't transmit the virus or sure to shed the virus unless you're sick yourself.

What this really means is they have to keep a close eye on these folks and see if they start to develop any symptoms and for whatever reason as Elizabeth was just saying they weren't confident in their ability to do that, maybe these folks weren't checking in to get their temperature checked, who knows? But they said, you know, that abundance of caution they were going to go ahead and just keep them in a place where they could know where they were at all times.

And this is going to evolve, Carol, I promise you. Every time we hear about these guidelines they're always referred to as interim guidelines and they will evolve. So right now this is what they plan on doing. But I will tell you that the whole process by which they actually get these patients traced and all that sort of stuff is a pretty laborious one.

Take a look at how it all works.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): In this hospital, Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, is fighting for his life.

JOSEPHUS WEEKS, NEPHEW OF EBOLA PATIENT, THOMAS ERIC DUNCAN: We're just hoping and praying that Eric survives the night and we just got our hopes up for him.

GUPTA: Doctors say he's now in serious but stable condition.

Duncan is a Liberian national and he traveled for the first time ever to the United States to visit his family in Dallas. "The New York Times" reports that he may have become infected on September 15th. That's when he helped carry a pregnant woman who died from Ebola to the hospital. September 19th, Duncan flies from Liberia to Brussels, Belgium showing

no obvious Ebola symptoms or fever during airport screening. From there, he boards United Airlines Flight 951, en route to Washington- Dulles, connecting to another United Flight 822 to Dallas.

September 20th, he arrives in Dallas and heads to this apartment complex to visit family. Four days later, he starts developing symptoms. He walks into this Dallas emergency room on the 25th of September, vomiting, and with a fever. He tells the nurse he had traveled from Africa, but is sent home with antibiotics and does not undergo an Ebola screening.

September 28th, his condition worsens, he returns to the hospital by ambulance and is placed in isolation. The next day, a family friend calls the CDC complaining that the hospital isn't moving quickly enough with his test results. By Tuesday, the 30th, the lab results confirmed the patient has Ebola.

The hospital admits it was a failure to communicate among hospital staff that led to the patient's release after his initial visit.

DR. MARK LESTER, TEXAS HEALTH RESOURCES EXECUTIVE VP: He volunteered that he had traveled from Africa in response to the nurse operating the checklist and asking that question. Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Now, you know, one thing I want to point out, Carol, this is going to come up again and again. How do you know who to test for Ebola? One of the things obviously take his travel history if the person's been in West Africa and they also have symptoms. It's going to raise your level of concern.

But, Carol, take a look at this graphic. We put this graphic together to sort of give you get a better idea of how the health care teams are going to be approaching this issue. High risk folks obviously with direct bodily contact of bodily fluids, they're going to get tested no matter what. But look at the next two categories, Carol. It's a lot on that screen but this is important, low risk people, people who may have lived in the same house but did not necessarily have bodily fluid contact, they're going to look at those folks and determine that they are sick and if so they may get tested. No known risk so a person who just comes back from maybe was visiting West Africa but had no contact with anybody with Ebola, likely they're not going to need testing those folks.

But if they're sick for some reason, maybe they didn't know they had come in contact with someone with Ebola so they're going to -- they're going to -- they may test them because of that. So you get an idea, it's not an absolute thing. If you have a fever and travel to West Africa, it doesn't mean you're automatically going to get tested for Ebola.

COSTELLO: It just sounds so confusing and that's disturbing. We're going to get into that in just a little bit. Sanjay Gupta live from the CDC this morning, thanks so much.

Also next hour Dr. Gupta will answer your Ebola questions. Tweet them to us at CNN using #ebolaqanda. And of course we'll get to as many of your questions as possible.

There's also word this morning that another patient in Hawaii is undergoing testing for Ebola. Health officials in Honolulu are tight- lipped about the case saying only that the patient shows symptoms consistent with Ebola and a number of less fearsome illnesses like flu or malaria. The patient is in now isolation and in the early stages of testing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MELISSA VIRAY, DEPUTY STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST: What we've asked the hospitals tell us about is anyone with a travel history and anyone with a fever, and when those two come together, we've asked them to be very careful and in an abundance of caution while you're working them up for whatever else might be going on, also make sure you isolate against Ebola just in case that is the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Health officials won't say whether the patient had recently traveled to West Africa or for how long they've shown these symptoms. The hospital says it is equipped to deal with Ebola if the tests do come back positive. No word on when those test results are expected.

So the big question many Americans are wondering this morning, are U.S. hospitals properly equipped and staff adequately trained for Ebola?

CNN's Kyung Lah walks us through one hospital's protocol.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The first line of defense in containing any sort of potential Ebola outbreak in the United States are our nation's hospitals. We are at Los Angeles County USC Hospital and this is their emergency room.

Like all emergency rooms there's a check-in. At this particular hospital a registered nurse does that check-in. If you have nausea, headache and have traveled to West Africa, this hospital's Ebola Virus Protection Protocol kicks in. You may notice that there are signs all over this hospital asking if patients have traveled in the last three weeks to West Africa.

Is that enough to raise alarm?

DR. PAUL D. HOLTOM, LOS ANGELES COUNTY-USC MEDICAL CENTER: It's certainly enough to raise alarm particularly with the outbreak of Ebola going on.

LAH: Do they ever end up sitting in the waiting room? HOLTOM: No, they were sick in the emergency area, then people would

have a risk of being exposed to the virus.

LAH: Containment is the key here?

HOLTOM: Containment is absolutely the key. They'll be brought depending on how sick they are, maybe by a wheelchair, maybe by a gurney and then they'll be transported here into the isolation room.

LAH: What's the first step for health care workers?

HOLTOM: The first step before seeing a patient is always to wash your hands. She puts on a mask, an N95 protective mask, and then she's going to go ahead and put on her protective goggles. She's going to put on a gown that's impervious to water or any bodily fluids.

LAH: Is this enough protection?

HOLTOM: This is enough protection. In Africa of course they have a very different situation. If I were in Africa I would also use a much higher level of personal protection, but this is more than enough protection from any of the standard infectious diseases that we see.

By recommendations for Centers for Disease Control we also have a sign-in sheet. Everyone who enters the room will sign in.

LAH: This looks like a normal hospital room.

HOLTOM: Well, it is a normal hospital room other than the fact it has a special air handling system.

LAH: Let's say the patient vomits on the sheets. What happens to those sheets?

HOLTOM: Well, it doesn't really matter whether they vomit on the sheets or whether they're just on the sheets, all of the sheets for a patient who has suspected Ebola will be disposed of as bio-hazardous waste.

LAH: Are we able to contain Ebola in America?

HOLTOM: I think that we are. I think the case in Dallas, if the cases before weren't a wake-up call, really has made everyone very aware that all hospitals need to be prepared for the possibility of seeing someone coming from West Africa who has Ebola.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: So this physician very confident that Ebola could be contained if a suspected case were to come into his hospital.

Something else we should point out, Carol, is that he is warning the public they should not be alarmed as well because he does believe that it is very likely that there will be another suspected case walking into a U.S. hospital, given the state of international travel -- Carol. COSTELLO: All right. Kyung Lah reporting live for us this morning.

Among the people Eric Duncan came into contact with are five children who attend four different Dallas area schools. The school district sent out an automated message to parents alerting them of the situation but naturally some families are pretty nervous about sending their kids back to schools.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It has been confirmed that five students may have come in contact with an individual recently diagnosed with the Ebola virus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think I'm going to bring him until, you know, go to the doctor, check him and then see if he's OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The superintendent says the possibility of children contracting the virus is extremely low, but the district is making several changes out of an abundance of caution. In fact, they sent people in, you know, covered from head to toe to scrub down the schools to make sure, I don't know, the schools were cleaned of any bacteria.

The events in Dallas are highlighting the fear that some Americans are feeling about the potential spread of Ebola in this country, but is the fear warranted, and how prepared is the United States to deal with such a threat?

Siobhan O'Connor is the health director for "TIME" magazine. She joins me now.

Thanks for being here.

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR, HEALTH DIRECTOR, TIME MAGAZINE: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: So I just want to, like, read to you some of the contradictory things that are happening in Dallas right now.

O'CONNOR: Sure.

COSTELLO: So the kids Duncan came into contact with are staying home, schools are being scrubbed down, the classes will take place today. The ambulance workers who transported Duncan to the hospital, they're free to move about but the ambulance itself has been taken out of service. Four of Duncan's family members have been ordered to stay home out of an abundance of caution. If they don't stay home until October 19th they could face criminal charges.

But I thought Ebola wasn't transmitted -- wasn't an airborne disease so why would that be?

O'CONNOR: Well, first of all, it's important to make that very, very clear. Ebola is not an airborne disease. It can only be transmitted through contaminated bodily fluids like feces and urine and vomit and blood. So most people don't, in general day-to-day contact, you do not come into contact with those things from another person.

So I think what's happening here is there was a blunder when the Dallas case was first sent home on September 26th, and now it's kind of playing catch-up and of course correction.

COSTELLO: So why wasn't a protocol put into place in every American city in light of the fact that two American doctors -- I guess one was an aide worker, another was a doctor -- were treated in Atlanta for Ebola.

O'CONNOR: Right. I mean, the CDC's protocol is -- has been very clear from day one, which is that people traveling from West Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, in particular, who present with flu- like symptoms during flu season don't discount the possibility that they may have Ebola and that is what happened here. I mean, there was a mistake. Hopefully this will bring to light the urgency of every case being presented taken seriously.

COSTELLO: How long will it take cities across America to get it together?

O'CONNOR: My suspicion is that this is getting enough attention that people will be on high alert. I mean, this virus can be contained. We do know how to contain Ebola and unlike in West Africa where, you know, it's completely out of control and the resources are not there to contain the virus, we have the health care system to do that.

So we need to follow the steps which is, you know, isolate immediately, contract trace which is why, you know, the people who had been in contact with the gentleman in Dallas are being monitored and questioned and in some cases asked to stay home. Those are the things that need to be done for 21 days, which is the incubation period for Ebola.

COSTELLO: I want to go back to these four close family members who are being ordered to stay in their home.

O'CONNOR: Sure.

COSTELLO: That just seems -- I mean, I understand the fear, I do, but it seems extreme to me, and nobody's explaining why these people have been ordered to stay inside their homes until October 19th.

O'CONNOR: Right. I suspect that as the day goes on, more information will come out. I think it's very important, one thing about Ebola is that fear of Ebola is far more contagious than Ebola itself.

So, the more questions hanging in the air how contagious are these people, why do they need to stay in their home, will there be blowback for them being told to stay in their home answers have to come quickly about this one.

COSTELLO: Siobhan O'Connor, thank you so much for being with me. O'CONNOR: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I appreciate it.

Our expanded coverage of the Ebola outbreak will continue after the break.

I'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Another major health concern in the United States: more than 500 people in 42 states have been sickened by the Enterovirus, the respiratory virus has been striking kids across the country forcing some of them to spend time in intensive care, including a 10- year-old girl named Emily Otrando, who died less than 24 hours after being admitted to a local hospital.

In addition to Enterovirus, Emily also suffered from a staph infection. Enterovirus may also be linked to a mysterious neurological disease that's leaving some children with weak limbs, like a California boy who was not diagnosed with Enterovirus until weeks after he first fell ill.

CNN's Paul Vercammen has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sports fan, Will Baker, is 8 years old, minutes older than his twin, Emma, a piano player, a right-handed infielder who several weeks ago suddenly lost the use of his throwing arm.

CHRIS BAKER, WILL'S FATHER: It's heart breaking because there's so many things he does so well. That he needs his right arm for.

VERCAMMEN: The San Diego third grader is one of the latest children in the United States some clustered in Colorado, and in Boston, to suffer from weakness in limbs, neurological illness, and cranial nerve dysfunction. Will's parents asked us not to show video of his face, now swollen by steroids.

CARNE BAKER-BAILEY, WILL'S MOTHER: Not knowing was definitely the hardest part for me.

VERCAMMEN: After weeks of agonizing tests, uncertainty, doctors finally told Will's divorced parents, their son had a --

BAILEY: Positive nose swab for the enteroviral virus.

VERCAMMEN: As with other cases in the U.S., Will suffered from a respiratory illness before being hospitalized with weakness in limbs.

The Centers for Disease Control are now asking America's hospitals to keep their eyes open to similar cases. But the CDC says it does not know if there's an association between the Enterovirus, EVD68, that's circulating and paralytic conditions that children like Will are experiencing. It's a maddening mystery for parents.

BAILEY: We just have to look at the positive and he's here. And start teaching him how to write stories and do sports with his left hand.

VERCAMMEN: Will's fingers on his limp right arm still move well enough for him to play piano.

BAKER: It's just amazing and he's inspiring, at the same time.

VERCAMMEN: Will's parents say the prognosis is not good for their son regaining full use of his right arm. But Will told us off-camera, he still dreams of playing first base in the major leagues.

Paul Vercammen, CNN, San Diego.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Still to come in THE NEWSROOM, an embarrassing series of security lapses forces Secret Service chief Julia Pierson to resign. Will the agency's new interim leader be able to bring change or will it be more of the same?

CNN's White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski is live this morning.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You're right. How to fix problems within the Secret Service has become a very public debate. We will have the latest, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONAN O'BRIEN, COMEDIAN: A lot of problems with the Secret Service. Today, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson submitted her resignation. Yes. Actually she jumped the White House fess, ran across the lawn, dove through a window and handed it to the president.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, that was funny.

But jokes aside, the Secret Service can you see have a new was this morning, the agency's first female director Julia Pierson resigned after a series of embarrassing security lapses, including a knife- wielding fence jumper who was able to break into the White House and enter the East Room. In Pierson's place, someone who knows the duty of protecting the president well, this man, former special agent Joseph Clancy. Let's bring in White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski to tell us

more.

Good morning.

KOSINSKI: Hi, Carol.

Right. This is a career member of the Secret Service. Joseph Clancy was a special agent for a while. He eventually headed up the presidential protection division. He ended up retiring in 2011. So, President Obama is asking him to come back.

You know, it's interesting over the years you see many, many pictures of President Obama and the first lady on their various trips, you see Joseph Clancy right there at the president's side. He's somebody that's well-known and well-liked by the president and others.

And we've been hearing from people who were close to the White House and we haven't heard a negative word about him. It's been accolades saying that he is perfect for the position, that he can get the job done, a battle-hardened veteran of the Secret Service.

But, you know, all that said, he is a career Secret Service agent, and one of the big questions and big problems people have been pointing to within the Secret Service is the culture, this feeling that agents and officers were unwilling or fearful even to tell their supervisors about problems, unwilling or fearful to question their supervisor's judgments that they thought at times were not appropriate.

So, he's going to have to show that he's willing to tackle that issue, which is deeply entrenched. I mean, Julia Pierson was hired to do that and she was dedicated to that. She listed during her testimony this week ways that she tried to change that culture, but we see in many ways now it just didn't work.

So, he has a big job ahead of him. Other issues he's going to have to deal with are staffing problems, the need for more training, as well as low morale, Carol.

COSTELLO: Any idea of the changes he'll make once he assumes this interim position?

KOSINSKI: I think he's really going to have to start with the morale, to get with people at all levels and say, what are the problems here? What's going on? What do you think needs to be changed that your supervisors haven't been doing?

It's not to say it's all the fault of one layer within the Secret Service, because it could be a problem of budget, staffing, different procedures, which is just part of the way things are done at the Secret Service, some of that might need to change.

Already, we've seen changes procedurally and within the security at the White House. So, going to have to go a step further beyond those kind of initial scratches on the surface and really dig in and quickly, because we've seen this reach a critical level where you have someone run across the lawn and get inside the White House.

Now, granted that has never happened before and it's been talked about many times over the last few days that in five years, there have been 16 people who jumped the fence and this is only one who got very far from the fence at all, but the fact that this has happened and then the long string of other incidents not all of them security breach related but some of them the tarnished Secret Service's reputation. String of incidents that he's going to have to address and make sure it's not just the fence jumper incident doesn't happen again, but that a lot of these things don't happen again, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Michelle Kosinski reporting live from the White House this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, should flights to the United States from the Ebola hot zone in West Africa be limited or even banned? Would that really stop any potential threat to this country? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)