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Four States Tighten Rules on Ebola Contacts; Should Health Care Workers be Quarantined?; 10,000 Ebola Cases Worldwide; Political Battle over Ebola Erupts in U.S.

Aired October 26, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: West African outbreak zone or treated patients with Ebola to be more specific. Illinois has a similar rule and now Florida is mandating twice daily monitoring for anyone returning from the Ebola affected parts of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Meantime, the fiancee of a New York physician now being treated for Ebola, she is back home. Morgan Dixon will still remain under quarantine.

Dr. Craig Spencer who returned from Guinea last week is now reportedly entering a more serious phase of his illness and his condition has gotten worse.

Our Alexandra Field is outside Bellevue Hospital where Spencer is in isolation.

Alexandra, why are state officials so concerned?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alison, what is interesting here is that we're hearing from the governors from these two states, New York and New Jersey, specifically who came out saying that they need to really take every precaution possible to protect the public health interests.

But some people are concerned that this is something of a mixed message because you've got Dr. Craig Spencer who's being treated here at Bellevue and you had health officials and state and local officials coming out and saying that there really wasn't a risk to the general public despite the fact that he had been in New York City, that he visited restaurants and bowling alley, he'd gone to a park, ridden the subway.

He had officials telling people, you know, to sort of calm their fears, that it's difficult to contract this virus. It's only contracted through contact with bodily fluids. So, while you have the governors now taking every precaution, there are some people who say, does this go too far or why is this necessary?

BLACKWELL: And we see here that the history here shows that health care workers are the ones who are contracting this virus.

What are we hearing from the CDC about those health care workers? FIELD: Yes. Well, this is the concern for a lot of people. Namely,

the CDC and others. They are concerned that if you enact these strict guidelines, these mandatory quarantines for people who return here after having been in contact with Ebola patients, that you simply won't get health care workers who are willing to go over there and do the important work.

We'll read a statement that we got from the CDC. They say, "Health care workers volunteering to combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa are heroes. The epidemic there won't end without them and without their work the U.S. will be at increased risk. We must protect their health, safety and well-being and treat them with respect when they return home while continuing to take action to protect Americans so Ebola does not spread here."

And frankly, Alison, Victor, those sentiments are pretty similar to what we've been hearing from Kaci Hickox, the nurse who is currently in quarantine in New Jersey. She was tested for Ebola, tested negative and has written this op-ed saying that she feels that health care workers are going to be treated like criminals or prisoners if they are forced into this kind of quarantine when they return here.

BLITZER: Yes. She describes the desperate scene where she is placed in a room at the airport for three hours and taken to a tent outside a hospital. We've got a link to that op-ed on CNN.com.

Alexandra Field at New York's Bellevue Hospital, thank you so much.

KOSIK: Let's go ahead and talk about these controversial new Ebola quarantines with professor bioethics -- professor of bioethics Mark Rothstein from the University of Louisville School of Law and Medicine. He is joining me on the phone.

Good morning to you, Mark.

MARK ROTHSTEIN, PROFESSOR OF BIOETHICS, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE SCHOOL OF LAW AND MEDICINE: Good morning.

KOSIK: Let's talk about the 21-day quarantine newly issued by -- the rules issued by New York and New Jersey. What do you think? Is this going overboard?

ROTHSTEIN: I'm afraid that it is. And one of the things that we need to guard against most carefully is that we spread a sense of panic. And coming on the heels of earlier declarations that it was unnecessary. Now suddenly it's necessary, people are going to wonder what they can believe and when people are not sure and distrustful of officials then there's a bad state of panic.

KOSIK: So then what is the middle ground here? We've read in the "Washington Post" that you actually recommended a mandatory 10-day quarantine followed by self-monitoring for those health care workers that are returning.

ROTHSTEIN: Yes. I think that what I would recommend is that we have a reconvening of all the experts and quickly enter a new figure. The longer you have a quarantine, the less compliance there is with it. And the longer and more people that you quarantine, the more distrust there is.

Most of the people who have become ill or overwhelmingly within the first 10 days. Just because there are few stragglers who might get sick later on doesn't mean that we need to have everyone who has exposures quarantined for the full 21 days. I recommend that during the first 10 days there be a quarantine period and if there are no symptoms, no negative tests, then we go back for the rest of the 21 days with self-monitoring.

KOSIK: But won't that --

ROTHSTEIN: People who are sick are not going to be hiding out. They're going to want to seek treatment immediately. They're going to want to monitor themselves. And so we can build on that and cut down the length of time and number of people in quarantine.

KOSIK: But wouldn't that 10-day quarantine that you're suggesting give that false sense of security to that possible Ebola patient that they're OK? So after 10 days they'll think I can just go and just go about my merry way, I can go to the grocery story, I can go hang out at the playground with my kids and their -- and my kids' friends.

Does that give a false sense of security? Because the reality is doctors seem to agree on is that you can become symptomatic up to 21 days.

ROTHSTEIN: Right. There are cases where people get sick up to 21 days. I've read where some supposed experts say they need to quarantine people for 42 days. I mean, there's sort of no limit to how far you want to extend this to have a, quote, "margin of safety." But it becomes a self-defeating policy.

I think the CDC was closer to having the right answer originally through the self-monitoring. But unfortunately, some mistakes that CDC has made has really undermined their credibility.

KOSIK: Now this weekend in Florida Governor Rick Scott signed an executive order mandating twice daily, 21-day health monitoring for people from the CDC designated Ebola affected areas. Do you think that this is enough?

ROTHSTEIN: Well, I think he's in a better position than the mandatory quarantine people. I think 10 days of quarantine is reasonable. If you want to go to 21 days of mandatory self-monitoring, I mean, that's another approach. What I don't like seeing is all the states now jumping in and coming up with their own guidelines because people won't know what to believe and you have elected officials sort of competing to who can be the safest for the population.

Our public health system is decentralized and fragmented by nature. And we need to have greater coordination and agreement among folks in charge so that we can sort of speak with one voice.

KOSIK: I can see that. Different states coming up with different rules can be very confusing.

Mark Rothstein, thanks so much.

ROTHSTEIN: My pleasure.

BLACKWELL: All right. So we've been talking about these new mandatory quarantines in New York, New Jersey and Illinois. There is one nurse at least who knows this quarantine firsthand. Her name is Kaci Hickox. She was returning from treating patients in Sierra Leone, landed in Newark, New Jersey. She says she was greeted by rude airport and health officials and was put in a 21 forced quarantine.

Will the new policy discourage others to help Ebola ravaged countries, Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone? We'll talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. is visiting the three Ebola ravaged countries in West Africa. Ambassador Samantha Power, she landed in Guinea this morning. She'll also travel then to Sierra Leone and Liberia, and then head off to Brussels. Now Power is there to see what the U.S. and the U.N. can do there on

the ground to prevent the spread of this deadly virus.

KOSIK: Isha Sesay is live in the capital of Nigeria, Abuja.

Hello to you, Isha. The World Health Organization reports that --

ISHA SESAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Alison. Hi there, Victor.

KOSIK: Hi. The World Health Organization is reporting that there are more than 10,000 Ebola cases worldwide. Almost half of the cases will end in death. And almost all of them will be in the countries that Ambassador Power is visiting.

What is it really going to take to get these countries to get control of this fight against Ebola?

SESAY: Well, hi there again. Just to lay the groundwork for our viewers, 4,922 people have already died in this outbreak and in terms of what it will take to stop it, it is what international powers, international leaders have been saying for a number of weeks and months now. They need more aid. They need more medical personnel.

It is not a mystery when it comes to how to contain this outbreak. That is well documented and well known. What it will take is the international community stepping up and providing what is needed in these affected countries. By that, I mean more medical personnel. They need more aid in terms of beds, in terms of better diagnostics, in terms of creating more isolation units. They need more of everything.

And Samantha Power herself has said in recent hours that that world just isn't stepping up, Alison and Victor. People are making pledges saying that they will give what is needed and they're not following through. And the reality is the longer they fail to honor those pledges, the worse it will get in those three worst affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

BLACKWELL: So, Isha, you're standing there in the capital of Nigeria, one of the success stories declared by the World Health Organization as Ebola-free. There's been, as you know, this heated debate in the U.S. over banning flights from those three countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. We know that countries there -- many in West Africa have closed land borders, travel bans.

Is the issue as controversial there? And is that part of why Nigeria has been so successful in fighting Ebola?

SESAY: No, I mean, let's begin on Nigeria's course of success, you know, I spoke to Dr. Faisal Shuaib who headed Nigeria's Ebola Operations Center. And he said quite simply, Victor and Alison, that the reason they were able to succeed is because they used contact tracing.

You guys have heard them talk about this over and over again. And that's when you track down people that have had direct or indirect contact with people suffering from Ebola. They were able to do that efficiently here in Nigeria, find those people when they began to show symptoms or were at high risk. Take them out of the general population.

That's what they did here. That is why they were successful here. And that's what it will take in those other three countries we keep talking about.

In terms of the border issue, very controversial here as it is in the Western America and in Europe. Because the reality is that we can't say this enough, if you isolate yourselves, if you close down the borders, all you're doing is you're making it more difficult for aid in terms of personnel and in terms of supplies to get to those countries. And you make it harder for those essentials to get to those countries, you make it harder to contain the outbreak.

So you can't turn away from this and think you'll be safe if you close your borders. The reality is we live in an interconnected world. People will find ways to sneak across borders and Ebola will make itself present in your country. What people need to do, what the international community needs to do, they need to step up and they need to get the aid to those three worst affected countries -- Alison and Victor.

KOSIK: OK. Isha Sesay, reporting live from the capital of Nigeria, thanks.

BLACKWELL: Four states we know are taking precautionary measures against travelers returning from those West African countries after a New York doctor got sick with the virus there.

So here's the question, and I think a lot of people at home have their answer ready, is the politics of Ebola outweighing the health concerns? Our political panel weighs in when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The Ebola panic is spreading around the U.S. The panic is. A new mandatory 21-day quarantine for travelers returning from West Africa, those countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to New York, New Jersey and Illinois. Also twice a day health monitoring in Florida has made health care workers furious. Many of them.

Let's bring in CNN political commentators Maria Cardona and Ben Ferguson. Of course we have a Democrat and Republican with us now. But we also have a Democrat and a Republican governor who enacted these new mandatory quarantines.

I'm going to start with you, Maria, hopefully we can get past the political bickering on this. Was this necessary and was this enacted properly?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I'm not an Ebola expert and I don't think anyone on this panel is, but I have listened to all of the advice and the reports coming from the experts, the doctors, the health care workers, the infectious disease experts, who are all saying that this is a knee-jerk reaction that doesn't lead with the science, and yes, politicos all over the map including my Democratic friends are using fear to lead with this, instead of the facts.

And I think that they are coming into this situation where they're not focused on the reality of the situation. They are responding to what they believe are what the public wants and that I don't think that that is a responsible way to lead.

And it's frankly going to lead and could lead to this outbreak getting worse if we don't have health care workers and we don't have doctors stepping up to the plate to go to the hot zone where this needs to be contained, because they're furious about how they're getting treated and what the policies that are being enacted here in the United States are. I think we really need to be concerned about this.

BLACKWELL: Ben, what do you think? New York, New Jersey, mandatory quarantines?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, I don't blame them at all. And the reason why I say is being in Dallas, where we trusted the authorities, we trusted the CDC, we trusted the federal government, and it was a failure, and I think these governors, Republican and Democrats, are in a situation where they realize the CDC was wrong.

On September the 16th, when they came out the likelihood of it coming to America --

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: But you also trusted the state officials -- FERGUSON: But they said it was so unlikely. You know, it's not going

to get here. We had the president say it's not going to happen. The CDC director, I think many governors say --

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: County officials took the lead here, too, Ben.

FERGUSON: What did you say?

BLACKWELL: County officials took the lead on this here and city and federal supported them.

FERGUSON: Well, but they --

BLACKWELL: So you can't just blame the president.

FERGUSON: Sure. But you have county officials that trusted the guidelines of the CDC, and they were a failure, and so when you're a governor, your job is ultimately, when you realize that you have no faith in the federal government to do this and handle this the right way, when you see health care workers in New York, health care workers, calling in sick, faking that they actually need to go to another hospital so they don't have to go to work, I think that tells you a whole lot about the health care society and how many of these people say oh, it's fine, I'd treat them until they actually have to deal with them.

And look at New York now. You actually have workers that are saying I'm not going to work. You had the same thing happen in Dallas where they said get these patients out of here because we don't trust the protocols of the CDC. So, you know, you have experts say oh, it's fine. Well, ask the experts that have to deal with Ebola and they're saying, I don't want to deal with this because I don't trust the protocol.

BLACKWELL: Maria, you said that you're listening to the medical health officials. We had one on this morning. Alexandra Field spoke with him who said that quarantine is the only thing that breaks the link. So if we know that to be true why is quarantine a bad idea? Especially if we know that these health officials work with people who tested positive for Ebola.

CARDONA: Sure. Well, because there are a couple of reasons. I think you've had way more experts coming on TV and you had several on this morning that are saying that a quarantine will actually keep health care workers from traveling to the hot zone and again, if we're focused on the science, we understand that if you are not exhibiting symptoms, you are not going to pass it on to others.

This is not an easy disease to pass on to others. You actually have to come into contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is exhibiting symptoms and who is actually sick, so again, we are not leading with facts here. We are leading with fear and what I think needs to happen is for all of those experts to get together and maybe there's a middle ground here, you had somebody talking about perhaps a 10 -day quarantine.

There are actually focus on policies where you have monitoring and tracking every single day of every single health care worker that comes back to the United States from the hot zone.

FERGUSON: Maria --

CARDONA: I think that is a good idea. So we need to focus on things that work.

FERGUSON: You and I actually --

CARDONA: Not on things that are focused on fear.

FERGUSON: Look, you -- you and I agree on one thing, Maria, and that is that we should get some of the best people in the room together. But again, here's the problem. You had the Ebola czar because of the federal government and paperwork not being able to attend the first meetings after he'd been named because his paperwork wasn't done which goes back to the core point, people have lost faith and governors have lost faith in the CDC.

And you can get a bunch of experts in the room, but the people that have been asked to take care of the Ebola patients after what we saw happen in the protocol in Dallas have said, I don't want to be in that room. So I would trust the people that are in the medical field who do not want to be in the room treating these people when they say we're not prepared and ready for this, and I don't want to go in there because I don't trust the federal government.

That is what the people I would listen to the most. So to say that we have this under control is unrealistic, based on how many people got Ebola that were treating people with Ebola in Dallas alone.

CARDONA: But again, we have to look at the facts, Ben. How many people have died in the United States from Ebola who have contracted it here in the United States? Zero.

FERGUSON: Well, there's one that died here.

CARDONA: You only have one -- you only have -- yes, that person did not contract it in the United States. So again, let's focus on facts. There's only one person currently in the United States with Ebola and that person contracted it --

FERGUSON: Do you trust the CDC?

CARDONA: -- and that person contracted it abroad. I do trust the CDC.

FERGUSON: See, I don't. I think they got it wrong.

CARDONA: Yes, I do trust -- I -- well, and so then that -- so then you're one of these people, Ben, who are focused on spreading the fear. And what is a little bit --

FERGUSON: It's not spreading the fear. It's watching their protocols change.

CARDONA: What is a little bit -- you know, what is a little bit laughable here.

FERGUSON: Their protocols changed.

CARDONA: Well, the protocols changed as the situation changes. They have tightened up the protocol as they should have.

FERGUSON: Not when you're treating Ebola.

CARDONA: And so what is a little bit laughable here is you have Republicans up in arms, you know, you mentioned the Ebola czar.

FERGUSON: And Democrats, Maria, and Democrats.

CARDONA: You have Republicans -- listen, no, you haven't listened to me. You have Republicans up in arms.

BLACKWELL: Last (INAUDIBLE), Maria.

CARDONA: When the president focused on appointing an Ebola czar that didn't have any medical experience and then Republicans go and completely ignore all of the advice from the medical experts. So you can't have it both ways. Let's focus on the facts.

FERGUSON: Maria, I didn't even bring up that aspect of it.

BLACKWELL: Got to wrap it.

CARDONA: And let's not lead -- let's not lead with the fear.

BLACKWELL: We've got to call it there, Maria Cardona, Ben Ferguson, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to have you two on together.

CARDONA: Thanks, Victor.

FERGUSON: Thanks.

CARDONA: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Alison?

KOSIK: And much more news to tell you about this morning, the next hour of your NEW DAY after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Alison Kosik in for Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell, just shy of 8:00 a.m. here on the East Coast, coming up on 5:00 on the West Coast. And we're starting with the new battle lines being drawn in the political fight over containing Ebola in the U.S.