Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CDC Cleared Ebola Nurse To Fly With a Fever; Ebola Link To Wall Street Woes?; Nurses To Obama: Use Executive Action On Ebola

Aired October 16, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK0

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN GUEST ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The second health care worker, Amber Vinson, was moved from Dallas to Emory University in Atlanta.

CABRERA: The second nurse sick with Ebola starts treatment this morning, days after taking a commercial airline flight from Ohio to Texas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no way she should have been ton flight.

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR: She should not have traveled on a commercial airline.

CABRERA: Why didn't the CDC stop her and was she contagious? Now the hunt is on for the other passengers on that plane.

Plus, Texas nurses threatening to walk off the job.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is unforgivable that there was a lack of planning, a lack of preparation and a lack of education.

CABRERA: As the CDC director heads to the Hill for a grilling, should the agency have been better prepared?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I were writing the papers, that would be my headline "we need help."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Good morning. Thanks for being here. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Carol Costello today who has the day off. Thanks for joining me.

For the first time, one of the nurses, who works at the Dallas hospital that's under fire for not having proper Ebola protocols in place, well, she is speaking out publicly. Listen to her say what happened when infected patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, came in for treatment?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRIANA AGUIRRE, NURSE, TEXAS HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: It was a little chaotic scene. Our Infectious Disease Department was contacted to ask what is the protocol? And their answer was, we don't know, we're going to have to call you back. We never talked about Ebola and we probably should have.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You never talked about it prior to Mr. Duncan arriving?

AGUIRRE: No. We never had a discussion. They gave us an optional seminar to go to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So they had a seminar they could go to. The hospital wasn't the only one facing questions, though. Today the CDC is under fire after it gave a nurse, who treated Duncan the OK to fly, even though she reported a low grade fever.

The CDC's response after the fact, well, she shouldn't have gotten on the plane. Now there are fears more than 130 passengers may have been exposed, they were put at risk.

This morning multiple schools in two different states are shut down out of precaution. First, let's get to where we are in this Ebola story. That infected nurse, Amber Vinson, is now being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where they have that special bio containment unit.

This is after concerns that there may not be enough medical staff in Dallas, especially if nurses walk out. But that same hospital is still treating another infected nurse, Nina Pham. Both women had contact with the Ebola patient who died last week.

As we mentioned, that Dallas hospital is taking a lot of criticism for not having proper protocols in place. Let's bring in senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen who has been there on the ground from the beginning.

Elizabeth, the hospital issued a new statement this morning addressing some of the specific allegations from the nurses' union, what's the hospital saying?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The hospital is saying, Ana, that these allegations don't match what they call the medical record. They say proper that protective equipment was being used. They say tape was not wrapped around the nurses' necks to protect them. They say the only time that tape may have been used was if the protective gear was too big and so they used tape to synch it up.

CABRERA: All right, Elizabeth, stay with us. I want to bring in CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta into the conversation. He is outside Emory Hospital where Vinson is now being treated. Sanjay, what do you know about her condition there this morning? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: She got here late last night. We expect we'll get an update sometime soon. We know -- you probably saw the video of her walking off the plane, getting into the ambulance, obviously a good sign, Ana overall.

That's the building where she's going to be treated. We know it's the same team that treated Dr. Brantly and Ms. Writebol, five doctors, 21 nurses. That's the core team. They sort of rotate through shifts, but they are going to be the ones taking care of her.

As you know, Ana, they've had a pretty good track record, two patients, Dr. Brantly and Ms. Writebol. A third patient is there now, but also -- is doing well, expected to be discharged sometime soon.

CABRERA: Based on what you know, Sanjay, what is the difference? We know this is a special bio containment unit. So obviously the people there have some expertise in treating highly infectious diseases. What are they doing differently that hasn't happened in Dallas?

GUPTA: You know, I don't know that they're doing anything differently as much as they've just been trained really well. They've done the training, the drills over and over again. We know that when it comes to the protective equipment, I don't know if you've seen some of the images there.

But the protective equipment that they've used here to protect the health care workers goes above and beyond what we saw the protocols were from the CDC, and it sounds like it was used in Dallas. That's part of it in terms of the confidence to take care of the patients.

The confidence that they are keeping themselves as protected, I think makes a big difference. Keep in mind, Ana, there's no magic potion or some cutting edge treatment that is offered at Emory that is not offered in Dallas.

Experimental medications can be given in Dallas and was given to Mr. Duncan. A blood transfusion from a survival of Ebola can be given here as well as Dallas and was. It's more I think the training and the confidence.

CABRERA: Well, one final question for you. It has been suggested by other doctors on our air that perhaps instead of self-monitoring to try to stop the spread of this deadly virus.

Maybe these people who have the close contact, the health care workers, other people who may be at risk should be given blood tests regularly to see if they might have Ebola because that would show up there first before you feel physically the symptoms. What are you hearing about that and what can you tell us?

GUPTA: I think there could be value in that. When it comes to that sort of screening test and a rapid one done early, you want to be sure it meets a couple of criteria. That is that it's sensitive enough to pick the virus up even when the patient is not yet sick. It's got to be able to do that. If it doesn't do that, you might get what's called a false negative, meaning you think the patient is free and clear and, in fact, they're not. You've also got to make sure you don't run into the situation where you get false positives.

Where, in fact, the test for some reason comes back as a positive test and the person doesn't actually have it. You've got to make sure it's a good test and it still needs to be confirmed at a place like the CDC here in Atlanta.

CABRERA: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Is that Elizabeth? Are you trying to chime in? Go ahead, Elizabeth.

OK, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much for joining us. Frontier Airlines, by the way, has sent a memo to employees saying it's grounding two pilots and four flight attendance for 21 days after Amber Vinson flew on Flight 1143 with a low grade fever. They're showing the abundance of caution now.

We know she has full-blown Ebola at this moment. We're told she is in worse condition than her colleague, Nina Pham, who is being treated in Dallas. Frontier Airlines says it's keeping the aircraft out of service for a few days. It's also being extensively cleaned. In fact, they say they are cleaning it four times over.

I want to bring in Professor Arthur Caplan. He is the head of the Division in Medical Ethics at New York University, and also joining us for this conversation, CNN aviation analyst and former NTSB managing director, Peter Goelz.

Peter, we'll start with you and talk a little bit about these airline procedures. We hear Frontier Airlines saying it's going over and above CDC guidance. Is this to try to rebuild confidence in the airlines? Have they already taken a hit?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think there's no question it's designed to rebuild confidence. The airplane cleaners are really the forgotten people in the airline business. They're paid minimum wage. They are minimally trained. They're under great pressure to turn these planes around. They are underequipped.

This is an area that needs to be addressed. Right now, it's a gray area on supervision. Nobody oversees what they do, no federal agency. So I think Frontier is doing the right thing, but there are broader questions here for the airplane cleaners.

CABRERA: People are scrambling to be better prepared, Arthur. The CDC's chief is going to be in the hot seat today before Congress, at least at this congressional hearing. What does the CDC need to do to restore confidence that it has the situation under control because it doesn't look like it right now?

ARTHUR CAPLAN, DIRECTOR, MEDICAL ETHICS, NYU LANGONE MEDICAL CENTER: Well, you get this constant drip, drip, drip, a patient here, exposures there, somebody coming out of quarantine. I say the first thing they need to do is say, you know what? We're going to have five or ten more cases, be ready for it.

We're going to get more exposures. We have troops in Africa, 3,000 of them. One is likely to come back somehow or another getting exposed. Let's be prepared not for nothing to happen. Let's be prepared for managing a few more cases. They're not going to -- no one should panic about that.

They're under control. The other thing I think he needs to say when questioned is, look, it's great to try and shut down the borders and worry about all that. If we don't get on top of this epidemic in West Africa, if we don't deploy more people to shut that epidemic down, we're going to get more leakage.

You can't stop the thing at the border if there's an enormous festering epidemic in West Africa. You got to get enough boots on the ground there. Let's send some more equipment, more doctors, more disinfectant there.

CABRERA: We're hearing the question how could this woman have gotten on the plane, how did she get the OK to fly, especially since she was in a 21-day window of Ebola exposure and especially when she had a fever.

Peter, the CDC is saying she shouldn't have flown. She says they told her it was OK. Do you think at the airports we're at the point now where they need to question every passenger, have you been exposed to Ebola?

GOELZ: I don't think passengers could answer that question. I will tell you flight attendance and flight crews are concerned, but they've been through this before with SARS, MERS, N1H1. They are more alert, more concerned about it. They are watching carefully.

They are making sure that their aircraft are fully equipped with the equipment necessarily including gloves and wipes. Sure there's a level of concern. Let's see whether the CDC's plans at the six airports when fully implemented work.

CABRERA: All right, Arthur Caplan and Peter Goelz, thanks to both of you for being here. We appreciate your time this morning.

Still to come, we hope you'll stay with us because investors, we'll talk money, investors taking another hit right now as the Dow opens. Should they blame Ebola's fear factor? Alison Kosik, what do you think?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm saying it's not the only thing weighing on Wall Street. Fears of Ebola are impacting certain sectors of the market. I'm going to have details coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: The Dow opening sharply lower today. You can see it is down 155 points as we speak. The rocky week, it seems, on Wall Street continues, at least for now. Are the big losses linked to the Ebola crisis or are investors worried about something else? CNN's Alison Kosik is in the New York Stock Exchange area for us this morning -- Alison.

KOSIK: Ana, you know, we're getting whiplash from this market for a variety of reasons. The biggest are concerns about slowing growth globally specifically I'm talking about Europe and China. Also there are worries about deflation in the U.S.

But yes, Ebola is a factor in the market's tumble and also it's weighing on the psychology of the market. You can see the fear about Ebola in the numbers. I want to show you how travel stops have been hammered over the past month.

The worry is that if Ebola spreads in the U.S., it could keep people from flying. The numbers for October for Delta down 10 percent, United down 9 percent, and Southwest down 11 percent.

It's not just the airlines either. Hotels like Starwood are down 15 percent for this month. Cruise companies are getting hit as well. Interestingly enough, whether Ebola is a real threat, while traveling or not, isn't really what's driving the market. It's about perception. That's what you're seeing investors really act on -- Ana.

CABRERA: All right, Alison Kosik, thanks for staying on top of it for us.

Still to come this morning, a nurse at the Texas hospital that's become the center of this Ebola crisis at the U.S. is slamming her employer saying she still fears she could contract the disease at work. Could she and other nurses now walk off the job?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: As nurses all around the country are asking their hospitals for better training, more equipment, to deal with potential Ebola patients, at least one group is asking President Obama to step in and he, himself, set national standards.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSEANN DEMORO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL NURSES UNITED (via telephone): We're asking the president of the United States, and we're serious about this. This shouldn't be about us having to picket individual hospitals, the state of California, make demands and fight through the press.

This should be the mandate in this country. The onus should be on the nurses to provide the best and highest level of patient care that they can provide in their loving, kind, humanistic manner. They shouldn't have to be policy wonks in terms of trying to figure out how to get the resources they need to care for their patients.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Those comments coming during a conference call that was held by the National Nurses United, a union of nurses, after two caregivers who worked with Thomas Eric Duncan contracted the virus.

Now one of their colleagues fears for her own health saying she, quote, "can no longer defend the Texas hospital that employs all of them."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANA AGUIRRE, NURSE, TEXAS HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: Knowing what I know, I would try anything and everything to refuse to go there to be treated. I would feel at risk for going there. If I don't actually have Ebola I may contract it there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Joining me now, Pam Cipriano, the president of the American Nurses Association, a group of professional nurses, three million members, and also with us, Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases and public health specialist.

Pam, I want to begin with you and talk a little bit about those comments we just heard. First, do you think the president should intervene in some way and, two, why aren't nurses being provided with the right garments? Is it a money issue?

PAM CIPRIANO, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION: Ana, I think the president has begun to step up his involvement and again really looks to the CDC to provide leadership. We're also asking the CDC to clarify and upgrade their requirements so that all nurses and front line health care workers can be safe.

We want really nurses to be able to talk to their organization about the protective equipment that they need and speak up. I think the nurse that came forward from Texas Presbyterian is very courageous.

I think we've learned that in the early days of their exposure, taking care of an Ebola patient, perhaps not all the right equipment and procedures were available. We know that's being rectified.

CABRERA: Dr. Gounder, the hospital has come out and is prepared to go before Congress and say we made mistakes and we're deeply sorry. Knowing that they're admitting to making mistakes in how they handled this and seeing the repercussions, should there be any action taken against this hospital or even the CDC for how it's handled it?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND PUBLIC HEALTH SPECIALIST: Well, I think there are a couple of different people who might want to take action against the hospital. You have Duncan's family, and I think the delay in initiating care for Ebola, the two-day delay between when he was discharged from the hospital and when he was readmitted was a critical period of time.

With treating Ebola, timing is everything. In addition, because the hospital didn't appropriately implement infectious control procedures, they have nurses exposed with a deadly virus. God forbid, if they were to die from that that would be on the hospital. CABRERA: I want to ask you, Pam, about these fears that nurses might be walking out of the hospital there in Dallas because they still don't feel they're being given enough protection and there still aren't proper protocols in place. What are you telling your members across the country?

CIPRIANO: We would really encourage them to talk to their leadership. It's very important that this be an issue of dialogue and calm, but very targeted action. We can't get responses when we have picket lines. What we really need to do is have the one-on-one conversations with our staff and leadership and management to say here is what we need.

Here is the education, here is the training, here is the equipment, and we want to be assured that we can safely take care of our patients and also keep ourselves safe.

We're really encouraging them to contact their state nurses association if they need more resources, but really begin that dialogue. We know many, many hospitals, if not all, have really stepped up their efforts, particularly in light of what we've learned in the last couple weeks.

CABRERA: Pam, do you have confidence that the nation's hospitals can protect their workers against Ebola?

CIPRIANO: You know, we have to keep this in perspective. There are only a few patients presented in the United States. We have to focus on screening being very important, nurses are on the front lines as well as in hospitals and clinics to be able to identify a patient who is at risk.

If so, there must be swift action to take that patient into an isolated area and making sure we're taking care of them appropriately. Again, following all the guidelines as they are perhaps revised and strengthened to make sure we're keeping all of our workers safe.

CABRERA: Dr. Gounder, how many more Ebola patients do you think we might see?

GOUNDER: Well, there are estimates that have actually come out today looking at the epidemic in West Africa and how many more cases we could expect to be imported in the U.S. at this rate.

It's about on the order of a dozen or two dozen more imported cases and the affected health care workers, since those are the people most likely to be infected by somebody coming over.

But remember, the epidemic in West Africa is spiraling out of control. Right now, we're dealing with 1,000 new cases per week. In two months, 10,000 cases per week are what the estimates show. If that's the case, the number of importations are going to continue to rise.

CABRERA: I know we've talked about this, but I do want you to remind us why it wouldn't make sense, according to some health care professionals to stop flights to and from Africa to the U.S. GOUNDER: Right. So first of all, there are no American carriers that fly direct between West Africa and the U.S. People are traveling, as did Thomas Eric Duncan through other cities. He went through Brussels. You would have to block not just flights from Africa, but ports of entry in Europe.

So that becomes very logistically problematic and has a huge economic impact. In addition, when you start to do things like banning travel, people who are desperate will find a way, but they'll travel under the radar.

And if they do develop symptoms of Ebola, will be less likely to come forward for medical attention because they'll be afraid of deportation, detainment, et cetera. And you're going to have more spreads.

CABRERA: All right, Dr. Celine Gounder, thanks for that and for doing such a great job explaining all of that. And Pam Cipriano with the American Nurses Association, thanks to you too.

CIPRIANO: Thank you.

CABRERA: Stay with us. Still to come, more than 4,000 people we know already have died from Ebola. Global health experts warn this still could get worse. Up next, we'll take you inside a lab that could be close to finding a cure for this virus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)