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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Ebola Response Team; CDC News Conference

Aired October 15, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

BANFIELD: We've got some breaking we want to bring to you. And that is what's happening on Wall Street. As you've been listening to a lot of the scares about Ebola, the Wall Street numbers are plummeting. In fact, as low as 370 points today.

There are your numbers right now. Not quite 300 down.

Alison Kosik is keeping an eye on things at the stock exchange.

It's really important, Alison, to put this into perspective and context. While Ebola is a big fear and it's making people jittery, it's coinciding with something else.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right. I -- yes. I just want to be clear about that. That Ebola fears may be contributing to a little of what you're seeing. But in the big picture, it's really not all about Ebola.

Let me tell you what this is about. What you're seeing happen these days, all this volatility where we're having more down days than up days in the market is you're seeing a rebooting of stocks. And you're seeing investors respond to what they're seeing and what they're seeing is not great. So let me tell you that some of the things that they're responding to. The data describing the health of the U.S. economy.

And that data is quite frankly mediocre. We just got a retail sales report for September showing that it fell for the first time in eight months. And this is just on the cusp of the holiday shopping season. We're seeing consumers already pulling back. We're seeing a slowdown in economies throughout the eurozone. With countries including Germany fighting off a third recession in six years.

And then we've got deflationary worries not just in Europe. But we're hearing talk about deflation in the U.S. as well. This is after we got an inflation report today that came in disappointing.

So taken individually, all of these reports not necessarily would be much of a concern. But you roll them all together, this creates sort of a snowball effect. And then you take a step back and you look at the big picture and you say, hmm, maybe those record highs that we talked about just a couple of months ago, maybe those record highs aren't justified considering where the U.S. economy is right now -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yes, keep waiting for the real correction.

All right, Alison Kosik on Wall Street, thank you for that.

I want to go over to the White House if I can where Jim Acosta is standing by.

Jim, that news that was just breaking a short time ago, that the president has canceled his travel today, do you have any more information on it?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president was supposed to head up to Connecticut this evening to do an event with that state's gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy. That is now off. The president is going to stay here at the White House. He's going to be holding a meeting this afternoon here with Cabinet officials that are dealing with the Ebola outbreak. And we're going to hear from the president. He's going to make some brief remarks at the conclusion of that meeting, as far as we understand right now.

But, Ashleigh, in just a few minutes, the White House press briefing will be started. And you can imagine that White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest is going to be peppered with questions about the CDC's response to that situation in Dallas. The president has been briefed, we have been told that, about this new Ebola patient in Dallas by his counterterrorism adviser and Homeland Security adviser, Lisa Monaco.

She is now coordinating the response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the response here in the United States.

And as you know, Ashleigh, there have been lots of questions as to whether or not the president needs an Ebola czar, whether or not the CDC is doing all of the right things at this point. So lots of questions for Josh Earnest here in the next several minutes when this briefing gets started -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And one more question for you, given what you just said about this news coming to the president from Homeland Security.

ACOSTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: The statement that came out was a little bit cryptic in that it was lacking a lot of information on who those Cabinet agencies will be.

ACOSTA: That's right.

BANFIELD: Sanjay Gupta alluded to the natural, which would be, you know, the Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation. My guess maybe the CDC would be involved as well. And then you suggested Homeland Security.

Any other thoughts on what agencies might be involved and need to be involved?

ACOSTA: Well, yes, I mean, and that is an issue here, Ashleigh. The Department of Defense is also involved. Remember, they're sending somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 troops over to West Africa to set up those hospital facilities in that part of the world that is really grappling with this Ebola outbreak. So the president wants to hear from all of them.

The Department of Transportation is obviously very important because this latest Ebola patient was traveling on frontier airlines, according to the CDC, before she or he was exhibiting symptoms. And so that is something that the Department of Transportation is going to track down.

And so, Ashleigh, this is -- this is mushrooming into, even though only two patients at this point have contracted the virus that were caring for Thomas Duncan, this is mushrooming into a larger governmental problem for this administration. The president has to demonstrate that he's on top of it.

BANFIELD: Yes. Two patients who shouldn't be two patients.

ACOSTA: That's right.

BANFIELD: That one patient shouldn't have made two patients. And you know how exponential that can be.

ACOSTA: That's right.

BANFIELD: Keep us updated.

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: If you hear of what other agencies are going to be involved, I'm finding that fascinating just to hear DOD as well.

Jim Acosta, live at the White House for us, thank you for that.

Jim just mentioned it. Talked about the military and talked about that kind of an involvement as well. But if someone shows up at a hospital with Ebola, let's just go right down to the base level. What should happen to that patient? Should that patient be treated right there at that hospital or should that patient be transported somewhere farther away to one of the few hospitals in the U.S. that has specialized units that can deal with a patient exactly like that?

We're going to talk about that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Want to keep an eye on our live camera in Washington, D.C. where the White House is set to give us a live briefing.

All of this just coming moments after we learned that the president has canceled his travel schedule today. He was set to travel to New Jersey and Connecticut to meet with the governor of Connecticut, in fact. That is off the menu at this point. There is instead a new meeting that is on the agenda for late this afternoon where the president is said to be planning a meeting with several Cabinet agencies. Unnamed as of yet. But a good guess considering this is about Ebola, the Health and Human

Services agency, probably the Department of Transportation, possibly the CDC, Homeland Security, the person who's been informing the president of what's happening in Dallas, and perhaps the Department of Defense as well.

While we are waiting for this White House briefing, on the right-hand side of your screen, you're probably wondering why you're seeing the weather map. And that's because there is now officially a tornado warning issued for the District of Columbia.

There is the live image right now of the capitol building.

I want to bring in Chad Myers to give me a bit more information. This feels like it came out of nowhere.

You tell me the -- tell me the story and how long this is going to be up for -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's going to be up for a few more minutes. We are going to see this, the rotation that I see now on Doppler radar is east of National Airport over Anacostia moving on up towards southeast and maybe even towards College Park. But the center of the circulation right there, that would be National.

This would be the mall right through here, moving to the northeast rather quickly and eventually -- I used to live right there in Green Bell. So this is going to continue to move on up toward the northeast at least 40 miles per hour. And even if you're not right under that circulation that I just talked about, we're going to get wind gusts here all the way down across the beltway, up here across Bethesda into -- all of northwest D.C. including the George Washington area, and all the way across the bridge here. Up I-95 toward (INAUDIBLE) and the B.W. Parkway.

So yes, a tornado warning in effect right now. If you are in Anacostia, anywhere on up to almost College Park, in that line, take cover now. Get inside a building, get away from the windows. Get to the lowest level, if you can. This is not a big tornado. But you could always get damage with 100-mile-per-hour tornado if it's over your house, that is a big deal. And there's an awful lot of population density in here. So this is why we're worried about this storm -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And then also the capitol, if there are people who are watching this right now, I mean, those are very sturdy buildings. However, there are other places to be finding shelter other than offices, correct?

MYERS: Well, whatever you can do, get away from the windows. You don't want to be -- in your office building looking outside, looking to see the storm. I want you away from those windows because that's the first thing that would break. One tree limb could break that window. And if you're standing by that window, you're cut by a tornado or by an event that may be far, far away from you. So you're putting yourself in danger if you go by those windows.

There is the center of the circulation right there. Here is the National Mall. What I worry about the National Mall is this area right through here, through wind gusts probably 40 or 50 miles per hour. And all those big old trees in D.C. When you get wind like that, they all want to topple over. It's been wet as well in D.C. so the roots are wet.

Things could be toppling over now even as we speak with the main circulation being right there where the red and the green are turning right there on the last graphic. And that will eventually go across and over out of D.C. and into parts of Maryland as well -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: OK. Chad keeping an eye on that for us. Let us know what that story is.

Again, if you are in the D.C. area, please take cover now. This tornado warning is set for several more minutes from now. At least until 1:00. So be very, very careful and keep your eye on a radio or something, some kind of communication.

We're also following a live breaking elements of the Ebola story. If you're just waking up or just turning on the news right now, yet another health care worker, a nurse, has been infected. You've probably heard about Nina Pham. This is not her. This is yet another nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital who has tested positive for Ebola.

The hospital responding, a nurses union responding. A lot of complaints about the hospital, the way the CDC has managed this. And the president himself now canceling travel today to instead convene top Cabinet agencies to deal with this crisis.

The news is breaking. We've got a lot more of it right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Welcome back. We're keeping a live eye on the CDC. Apparently ready to have a news conference at any moment.

And while we watch that live mike, think of this, there are precious few facilities across the United States that are specially equipped to safely treat Ebola patients. They're actually called biocontainment units. And there are certain hospitals that can actually deal with it with designated rooms and areas that can treat highly infectious patients. There are only four, four of these centers in the United States.

Well, Sanjay Gupta was just showing you some of the uniforms and some of the protective equipment that some people are using. But not everybody gets them and everybody has different protocols.

But those four containment units that I just talked about, St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana, Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Four. So you may think that these four have a whole lot of beds, right, that

could handle a lot of patients? Surely they could handle a real outbreak across the country. But we are finding out that is without question, not even close to being the case.

I want to bring back CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and also joining me, Gavin McGregor-Skinner, who's an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist who work with the WHO and the CDC.

I was astounded to hear the number, Sanjay Gupta. There's basically, what, like 11 beds total that can be functional at any given time? Is that really true?

GUPTA: Well, you know, we're talking about, you know, very specific biocontainment units that could protect people against a wide variety of infectious diseases, including things that are airborne, keep in mind, Ashleigh. This is not airborne. So I -- you know, I visited the -- Emory, you mentioned that, being one of the centers. Obviously they took care of two patients. They have a much more sophisticated system, they say, than probably you really need to take care of Ebola.

I hesitated a little bit saying that because obviously things haven't gone so well in Dallas. Does that sort of indicate that only these four centers can take care of patients with Ebola or that things didn't go well in Dallas? And that, you know, we should implement what we know how to do better so that all these other hospitals where patients may show up over the weeks, months and years to come can take care of Ebola patients.

I think it's just hard to send them just to these four places.

BANFIELD: One of the things I worry about -- and Gavin, I'm not sure if this is something on your radar. But with all the concerns that are happening and now two health care workers who got sick after being in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan who has now died, should we be concerned that medical professionals are not going to be going to work because it is too dangerous and there are not the right protocols or at least they're not consistent protocols in place at hospitals across the country?

GAVIN MACGREGOR-SKINNER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: We've really got to focus on the health care workers here in the U.S. and determine the level of protection that's required for Ebola. We conduct risk assessments. And when we conduct risk assessments at U.S. hospitals throughout the country, we know that when you put on the protective equipment, no piece of your skin, your body should be showing. You have to be completely covered up. And as long as we stick with that protocol -- we've been dealing with Ebola now since 1976. We've always done it like this. We have to come up with consistent approaches for all U.S. hospitals, all health care staff. And that's not what we're doing at the moment.

BANFIELD: Let me ask you this. I was astounded to see two different sets of equipment just on you, sandal, as you showed the donning and doffing, which was a fantastic demonstration of how easy it is to be infected just by doffing your equipment. But here's the video that you put together of us and I'm showing the viewers now, Sanjay, of you trying to take off what could be contaminated, you know, gear. And this is with the double glove and the surgical gown, the face and the glasses. And if we compare what you're doing and what you were wearing, these protocols, which are, I believe, CDC protocols, to what the actual head of the CDC was putting on when he was in West Africa -- this is video that was shot while he was on a visit back in August to Liberia, this is remarkable. I mean one is a spaceman and the other one is someone who just works in an E.R. I'm not sure I understand why the CDC protocols for the United States would be so vastly different than, say, what looks like an outpost in West Africa. Sanjay, can you answer that?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I - you know, I wish I could give you a better answer, and I hate to sort of - calling out Dr. Tom Frieden on this. I know that he, you know, during that time he was visiting an Ebola ward, he was not taking direct care of patients, so one could argue that, you know, there's all these confusing protocols out there. They say if you're not in direct contact with patients, you don't need quite the same coverage. And yet, as you point out, and I saw that as well, Ashleigh, the head of the CDC in West Africa, not taking care of patients, and yet in that full protective suit.

I can tell you that the Doctors Without Borders have been taking care of patients in that - in many places that are tough spots in rural, central and Western Africa and have had very good luck - a very good track record, I should say, of not having patients transmit the virus to health care workers. They have had a couple, but not many considering the thousands of patients they've cared for. So that seems to work.

So, you know, back to your earlier question, Ashleigh, should we transfer patients to just these four centers or can we do at these big hospitals what people have been able to do in really, really tough parts of the world successfully? Why can't we do that here?

BANFIELD: Right. It's just remarkable. And I want to come to the defense of Dr. Frieden somewhat in that that may have been the only gear protocol that was available to him at the time, so he put on what was there for him as opposed to he chose to have something much better than his own protocol back in the U.S. And you're shaking your head, Gavin. Why are you shaking your head?

MACGREGOR-SKINNER: The level of protection is based on risk, a risk assessment. And the risk here is, let's look at the patient. Ebola patients, after they develop a fever, rapidly go into having lots of vomiting and diarrhea. We see projectile vomiting, projectile diarrhea all the time. This diarrhea and vomiting contains billions and billions of virus that splash around in the environment in the room you're working in. If you're not totally protected, if you're not 100 percent covered up with no exposed surfaces, you are going to get Ebola virus on your body. As Sanjay showed when he demonstrated, the CDC guidance for putting on and taking off PPE (ph), which is taken off the CDC website.

GUPTA: Yes.

MACGREGOR-SKINNER: Now, risk assessments are showing that is not sufficient for Ebola virus where you only get one chance. One chance only.

BANFIELD: And you don't have a buddy who's watching you. I mean I -- from what I've experienced and heard from those who have been there, in West Africa there's a buddy system and it's someone who is not dealing with the stress of what you've just witnessed of people dying and people in horrible illness. It's someone whose job is just to watch your protocol to make sure that you doff your equipment properly.

And, Sanjay, here is a simple question that I'm not sure you or anyone else is going to be able to answer. (INAUDIBLE), their protocol is to dip your gloves in bleach and to bleach your equipment and your gowns and everything before you take them off, to kill any virus that might be on it, before it can get on your skin. And if we could just roll that video of you taking your suit off and getting the chocolate sauce on your arm to show how simple this is, why is that, Sanjay? Why wouldn't we dip ourselves in bleach before we do what you're showing us right now?

GUPTA: I think we're going to hear a change in protocol, Ashleigh. I - you know, to your point, I don't know. I have a - I have a better answer, I mean it should be done. And that's a fairly easy step. And when I was in Guinea, that is what people did. You dipped your gloves in. In fact, you dipped your gloves in. You took one layer of gloves off. you dipped your gloves in, you took the second layer off. So there -- and then they had a spray machine that was - or really it was just spray bottles, but they sprayed down your gown to give you every chance of not actually having any contact with any possible contamination.

Why it seems to - I mean Gavin, you know, has seen this firsthand, but, I mean, I was shocked too that the CDC protocol left a large part of my neck exposed. I just -- why wouldn't you give yourself every opportunity to be safe?

There is a balance. You don't want to put so much gear on that you can't actually do your job. And again, we've seen these doctors in these tough areas around the world do their jobs and be safe at the same time. We could do that here.

BANFIELD: Well, the nurses' union was very -- what you just said, Sanjay, the nurses' union was very upset that these nurses had their necked exposed and the - I think the patchwork, you know, panacea to that was just put tape, you know, medical tape on it, which, if you pull off, could create some kind of an abrasion where, you know, potentially an infection site.

Gavin, I have to go, but I just need to ask you this. Dr. Alexander van Tulleken suggested that the only kind of gloves that anyone should be wearing if they're dealing with Ebola patients are something called Nitrile gloves. Is that the way I pronounce it. They're the purple gloves. So if there's any breach in the gloves at all, you can actually see your skin through the gloves, as opposed to those latex gloves, where you may not be able to spot a breach?

MACGREGOR-SKINNER: The reason you wear those sort of gloves is a lot of people have reactions, allergic reactions to latex. But I just want to say one thing about, CDC has a hospital preparedness Ebola checklist guidance on their website. On page three of that website, they say, use the buddy system for patient care and for putting on and taking off PPE (ph). It's not just about the buddy system. It's about hospitals having the management, the implementation and the supervision systems in place to -- and having an observer with a checklist. And we don't do this in hospitals often at all. And -- but for Ebola, you need a person, an observer with a checklist to say, look, you just made a mistake, let's fix it right now and decrease the risk. And that's not happening.

BANFIELD: Yes. That's that buddy system that we were just talking about, that it's so critical.

And speaking of the CDC, we're watching that live news conference. It's set to get underway any moment.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, thank you both for your insight. It's just been so valuable to us.

Again, a live news conference is coming to us. And as we wait for the CDC to give us any new information on what's happening in Dallas and elsewhere in the country, knowing now that the latest victim to test positive for Ebola had a flight the day before, Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 on October 13th from Cleveland to Dallas, we are also learning new information about that patient, Amber Vinson, according to Reuters, is her name. And Elizabeth Cohen is going to come to us live with that new information.

Meantime, look at your screen. If you were on that flight, please call 1-800-CDC-INFO.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Live news conference now underway. Let's go and listen in on Tom Frieden, who is updating us on the newest patient who's been - who's come down with Ebola in Dallas, Texas. Let's listen in.

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR (voice-over): Transferred to Emory. We're working very closely with the hospital in Dallas to promote a safe environment for the care of everyone at that hospital, for the patients and for the health care workers.

We have continued with our intensive investigation and interventions to understand what may have happened and to increase safety. Our investigations increasingly suggest that the first several days before the patient was diagnosed appear to be the highest-risk period. That was the 28th, 29th and 30th. These two health care workers both worked on those days and both had extensive contact with the patient when the patient had extensive production of body fluids because of vomiting and diarrhea.

Today we are continuing to intensively assess the exposures of all other health care workers at that facility to identify how many others may have had that level of intensive contact. I will note that those days are days prior to diagnosis and prior to when the CDC team was on the ground.

In terms of contacts, there were 48 contacts to Mr. Duncan before he was isolated. None of them have developed symptoms so far. There was one contact of the first health care worker before she was isolated. That individual has not developed symptoms at this point. For the second health care worker, the individual diagnosed today, we have identified three contacts at this point before isolation.

Going back to the care of Mr. Duncan, there are approximately 50 other health care workers who entered the patient room during the time of his hospitalization. We're reviewing those and ensuring intensive follow-up of all of those individuals. We're also planning for other eventualities in case we get additional cases in the coming days.

And with that I'll turn it over to Mr. Skinner for questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holly, I believe we're ready for questions, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your touch tone phone. To withdraw your request, press star two. Again, star one to ask a question.

And Kate Snow with the NBC News, your line is open.

KATE SNOW, NBC NEWS (voice-over): Hi. Good afternoon. I'm wondering if you could clarify anything about what these two women were doing exactly, what kind of roles they had in the hospital? And is there any indication as to how they may have become infected? Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Director Frieden, I'll turn that to you.

FRIEDEN: Thank you. It has been stated publicly that the first patient is a nurse. I will just say that the second patient, as well as the first, had extensive contact with the patient when they were having substantial amounts of both vomiting and diarrhea.