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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

2nd Ebola Case Announced in Texas; Clashes in Hong Kong; Pistorius Sentencing Hearing Continues

Aired October 15, 2014 - 05:00   ET

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

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get an EARLY START on your money this morning. U.S. stock futures lower right now. The S&P 500 ended a three-day losing streak yesterday. Just a month ago, just a month ago, it was an all-time high, but now the S&P is down 6.6 percent, on its way potentially to a correction. That would be 10 percent or more. Investors have been expecting one and haven't had one in a full two years.

Oil prices plunging on weak demand and booming production here in the U.S. Yesterday, look at this, oil prices had the biggest one-day drop in about two years. Crude oil, $81 a barrel right now down from $107 this summer. That's driving gas prices down. The trend expected to continue.

A $55 billion pharmaceutical merger may be the first victim of the president's crackdown on what the government calls inversions. Chicago-based Abbvie announced it's reconsidering plans to merge with U.K.-based shire. The merger announced in July aimed to cut Abbvie's tax rate from 26 percent to 13 percent.

Many critics say that's basically getting rid of your U.S. citizenship for British citizenship for a lower tax bill. The White House doesn't like it. Because of these regulations from the Treasury Departments, to close the loopholes, the merger may be less attractive. Shares of Shire down 25 percent right now.

Brand new on CNN Money, scammers cheating seniors out of a stunning amount of money. A new survey finds elderly victims of financial scams lost 30 grand on average, and were scammed out of more than some scammed out of more than $100,000. These financial abuses range from theft by family members and caregivers, to popular online users like strangers impersonating a present in need.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Al right. EARLY START continues right now.

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BERMAN: All right. Breaking news: listen to this, folks -- a second health care worker in Texas has tested positive for Ebola, this person also in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan who died from Ebola. We're going to have all the details on this new development just ahead. ROMANS: Breaking overnight, protesters and police clash in Hong Kong.

Officers in riot gear used pepper spray to clear a major thoroughfare, we have a live report.

BERMAN: Battling ISIS. Bombs going off in Baghdad as terrorists make advance on neighboring province. Just dire is the situation surrounding Iraq's capital?

ROMANS: All right. Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. A busy morning. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: Yes. And I'm John Berman. It's Wednesday, October 15th, it's 5:00 a.m. in the East.

And the breaking news a just got in a couple minutes ago from Texas, the State Department of Health has just announced that a second health care worker at Texas Presbyterian Hospital has tested positive for Ebola. This was another, a second health worker, who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States.

The health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated, they say, at the hospital. The health officials who interviewed the latest patient they say to quickly identify any contact or potential exposures and those people will now be monitored. Testing for a second specimen by the Centers for Disease Control as they try to find out more information.

Now, while that's going on there are also stunning accusations this morning against the Dallas hospital that treated the Liberian man who died of Ebola last week.

You know what? I want to go straight now to Elizabeth Cohen who is on the phone for us right now.

Elizabeth, this is the second health care worker now diagnosed with Ebola. The second health care worker who treated Thomas Eric Duncan. There seems to be serious questions now about the procedures and protocols in place at Texas Health Presbyterian.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): That's right, John, this is black eye not just Texas Health Presbyterian, but also against the public health system in this country because these workers were supposed to be protected.

Months ago, hospitals were told to make sure they could take care of Ebola patients. And I think what public health officials are starting to realize is that it may just be unrealistic to think that every hospital in this country knows this level of an infectious agent. Hospitals, you know, in general, have struggled with safety issues. Thousands upon thousands of people die from hospital-acquired infections every year.

And so, I think many experts I've been talking to said that the CDC was just naive in thinking that many hospitals could handle these. And these might be calls that we ought to be designating specific hospitals like Emory, like the University of Nebraska, to be handling these patients, not just for the sake of the patients, but for the sake of the workers.

BERMAN: Elizabeth, the question is, on Sunday, we learned one health care worker. This morning, now, Wednesday, we learned there's two. What are the chances that there could be even more? We know that several other workers came in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan. There seems to be serious question now about the procedures that were in place.

So, what are the fears that more people could have been infected?

COHEN: Right. Tom Frieden was very frank about this in press conferences. He said there very well may be more. So, I think there's a pretty good chance we're going to see more of these.

If the protective gear somehow didn't work or the process didn't work for two of these workers, you have to think that very well could be more. And, you know, they are right now at that worrisome window between the time that they would have been infected and the time that symptoms would appear. So, we would be seeing this pretty quickly in the coming days.

BERMAN: So, how does the CDC say it would prevent this in the future? We heard Thomas Frieden yesterday saying they'll have some of the CDC SWAT team that will go to places like Texas Presbyterian should other cases develop?

COHEN: Right. And I think -- I think that the thinking there is, if we could just send the SWAT in, we can get this hospital in order and we can get them to change their ways and do a better job of protecting their workers. But I think there may be a newer level of thinking which is wait a second, if these teams haven't been drawn, if the hospital doesn't have such a safety track record, can you really send a SWAT team in and fix it?

And I think that's going to be discussed at the highest levels of the Centers for Disease Control. Is it possible to parachute in and fix things? I'll tell you, safety measures are tough to do. And they're a pain in the neck to do.

They're not easy. It's a lot easier not to do them. And hospitals in general, many of them have been accused of just not being tough enough, not being rigorous enough. So, I think questions will arise can you just parachute in and fix hospitals, or do you want to just designate certain hospitals that have a great track record?

BERMAN: Four hospitals right now that have the systems and buildings in place to deal with this.

ROMANS: You know, Elizabeth, what sort of surprises me is the CDC, Tom Frieden you just pointed out, you know, he said, in hindsight, he wishes they had a go-team right away to go in there. Are we learning now that Washington needs to be there right away and make sure we're using the same protocols across the country?

COHEN: I think we're learning that, but I also think that we're learning that federal officials need to be less trustful of hospitals. Over the summer, I said to federal officials, wait a minute, you're really going to trust that whenever anyone in this country walks in with a fever, that they will be asked a travel history, when nurses are not used to asking that. You're just going to put information on the CDC Web site, have webinars, and they're going to change the practice of thousands of nurses everywhere?

And I think they really just think that would work. I think the feeling is, well, we're telling them this so they'll do it. And I think that hospitals put a snap to it quickly, but I think they were a little overconfident about a hospital's ability to do all of this.

BERMAN: It does raise the question, Elizabeth, was Texas health Presbyterian up to this? You know there was the single Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan. Now, there are two more. These two new patients are in the care of this hospital. Are there concerns that this might not be the right place for them?

COHEN: I think there definitely are concerns, I'm hearing it from officials. I'm hearing it even earlier with the experts.

It's really two separate things. One is treating the Ebola patient and saving that individual patient which can be complicated and which often involves being very aggressive and getting experimental treatments. The second issue is keeping the workers safe. And I think there are concerns that this hospital is having trouble with both of those things.

ROMANS: And now, even a second nurse, now they have to go back and immediately do what's called contact tracing, right, where they have to find every single person that a health aide or health worker was in contact with. Then you've got a bigger pool of potential infected patients?

COHEN: Well, hopefully, that pool will be small as it was with Nina Pham. I'll tell you why, they don't have to find every single person who this worker came in contact with over a period of days. They just have to start when they started feeling sick. You are only infectious when you're sick with Ebola.

So, they just have to ask the worker, when did you start feeling sick, who did you have contact with from that time until the time you went to the hospital? For Nina Pham, it was only person.

ROMANS: One thing about nursing in particular and health aides and the people who are really in direct constant contact with the patient, Elizabeth, these are people who are really -- especially if you're treating somebody with Ebola, if you're a nurse, I mean, it's kind of nerve racking to think of how much contact you're having with not -- with protocols that are not really set in stone here.

COHEN: Well, you know, it's interesting, I think the protocols -- they're not set in stone. But the protocols are pretty established.

ROMANS: Right.

COHEN: It's practicing those protocols and have a team approach. I mean, I think whatever profession you're in, you know that your team forms well when you're a team and when you drill and you've thought it through. That hasn't happened, it's hard to perform.

You know, I think nurses may be especially at risk because they just spend more time with patients than the doctors do. A nurse who treated an Ebola patient said to me, we're talking liters and liters of bodily fluids. I don't want to get too graphic, but it's copious amounts of fluids coming out of these Ebola patients. And keeping that, you know, off your skin, that's not easy.

BERMAN: Elizabeth, we're going to let you go in a second to let you do reporting on this, this information coming out minutes ago that a second health care worker, health worker, has tested positive for Ebola in Dallas.

You spent a lot of time there over the last couple of weeks, Elizabeth. I just wonder if you can give us a sense what the atmosphere in the medical community is like right now? Is it one of confidence? Is it one of anxiety? Is it one of anger?

COHEN: I was speaking with a physician in Dallas. He said this is a scary time to be a health care worker. And I think that that sentiment is probably shared not just by physicians in Dallas, but in other parts of country as well. You just don't know who's walking into your office. And fever and abdominal pain and nausea and vomiting are such common symptoms.

And so, it's hard to know if someone walks in with those symptoms what -- you'd need to ask the travel history. How close do you get to them? I think this is causing a fair amount of anxiety among health care workers in general.

ROMANS: Would you say, Elizabeth, that the American response so far has been clunky to the Ebola threat?

COHEN: I think part of it ha been relatively smooth. For example, the contact tracing in the community in many respects had gone smoothly. And we've seen that nobody in the community has gotten sick. And they're getting towards the end of their incubation period.

So, I think in some ways that has gone well. I think what really hasn't gone well is keeping track of health care workers. Again, because I think there was this confidence. They're wearing protective gear. They're health care workers.

You know, the hospital is protecting them, I think that some of that confidence and some of that trust was -- you know, may have been misplaced.

BERMAN: Elizabeth, we're going to check back with you in a little bit. We're going to let you make some phone calls right now and remind people what has led up to this.

Again, we just got the breaking news that a second health care worker has tested positive for Ebola in Texas. Now, before we got this news, even before word that a second health care worker was testing positive, a national nurses union was claiming that the guidelines were constantly changing at Texas Health Presbyterian and there were no Ebola protocols for Ebola treatment.

The union cited nurses at the hospital who would not to protect them against hospital retaliation. The hospital released a statement last night saying, quote, "We have numerous procedures in place to provide a safe working environment, including mandatory annual training and a 24/7 hot line and other mechanisms that allow for anonymous reporting.

ROMANS: The CDC responded sayings, quote, "committed to their safety." Earlier Tuesday, CDC Director Thomas Frieden, he admitted that health officials did not do all they should have to prevent Ebola from spreading from Thomas Eric Duncan to the Texas Health Presbyterian health nurse who cared for them.

And now, this breaking news that there's a second health care worker in Dallas who has tested positive for Ebola.

Now, Frieden promised Tuesday to put a team on the ground within hours after confirmed diagnosis anywhere in the country.

All right. Thirteen minutes past the hour.

Violence erupting overnight in Hong Kong as pro-democracy protesters try to take a major road encircling police. Officers pushed protesters back with pepper spray. They arrested dozens.

Meanwhile, police promising to investigate six officers captured on video by a local TV station taking a pro-democracy protester to kick him during a street clearing operation.

Manisha Tank is there with us in Hong Kong, live with the very latest.

What you can tell us, Manisha?

MANISHA TANK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, as you say, we saw these clashes overnight. What police are trying to do is retake these areas, an eight-lane highway full of traffic, and it's caused severe congestion box the roads are off limit, Christine.

So, the police have had the increment step-by-step approach in the past few days. Apart from the use of tear gas two weeks ago, we've seen great restraint from the police. But we've seen overnight was, as you say, the use of pepper spray they say to help disperse the crowds to get rid of the barricades so they could actually take them down.

But, yes, this video has now emerged which is raising serious questions, Christine, about the police and their conduct.

ROMANS: Indeed, that video making the rounds of pro-democracy activists.

Thank you very much, Manisha Tank in Hong Kong for us this morning.

BERMAN: All right. It's quarter past the hour right now. We're going to have much more on the breaking news. That breaking news, the second health care worker in Texas has now tested positive for Ebola.

ROMANS: The other big story we're following this morning, Oscar Pistorius closer to learning his fate and we're learning a stunning twist that could involve blood money.

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BERMAN: All right. We have major breaking news from Texas: the CDC just minutes ago announced that a second health care worker at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has tested positive for Ebola and has now been isolated. The CDC calling the diagnosis of a second Ebola infected health care worker, quote, "a serious concern."

Now, this was another health care worker who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States. The health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated at the hospital. Officials now working to identify anyone who came in contact with that worker.

But now again, these are two people who have treated Thomas Eric Duncan. Two people who now have Ebola, raising serious, serious questions about the protocols in place at Texas Health Presbyterian.

ROMANS: Twenty minutes past the hour.

Another big story we're following this morning. Oscar Pistorius back in court today for a third day of his sentencing. Prosecutors have claimed the athlete offered a large sum of cash to Reeva Steenkamp's family after he kid her but it was considered, quote, "blood money".

CNN's Diana Magnay following the trial, has the latest live from Pretoria.

And we should say this was a big surprise in the courtroom when it was revealed that Oscar Pistorius has been paying $600 a month to the families of Reeva Steenkamp who have been cashing those checks but is now blood money.

Fill us in, what a bizarre turn.

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a bizarre turn. I think the Steenkamp family weren't expecting that piece of evidence to come up in court. It transpired that yes, indeed, for the last 18 months, $600 a month was going to the Steenkamp family while simultaneously bringing a civil suit against him on grounds of trauma and loss of income. Apparently, their income was supplemented or supported altogether by Reeva. And so, this in a way was to keep them going.

Now, according to their lawyers, Oscar Pistorius offered to pay a lump sum to settle the lawsuit. But when the fact that the $600 a month came out in court yesterday, the family issued a statement saying they decided to repay all the money, that they didn't want any kind of blood money, and that they were dropping the whole lawsuit itself.

It does shed not a particularly good light on them, especially in the light of the fact, Christine, that they have been now been making quite a bit of money out of media interviews they've been giving, Christine.

ROMANS: What a crazy turn. And still sentencing procedures for him.

Diana Magnay, thank you so much for that.

BERMAN: Complicated web that is, isn't it.

ROMANS: It really is.

BERMAN: All right. Twenty-one minutes after the hour right now.

We do have very important breaking news this morning, from Texas, a second health care worker has tested positive for Ebola. We learned that just minutes ago. We'll have more details, coming up.

ROMANS: In this edition of "Road Warriors", just when we're getting used to using our phones whenever we want on plane, flight attendants are saying not so much. The country's biggest flight attendant union suing the FAA to ban using handheld devices during takeoff and landing. Yes, the union says the devices are distracting during safety instructions. It could even become projectiles during turbulence.

Last year, the FAA decided airlines could allow gadgets gate to gate if they wanted. In the federal court, the union lawyers said people use devices violates another rule about stowing luggage at take off and landing. But the FAA's lawyer argued small items like phones don't count.

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ROMANS: I want to get to breaking news this morning, just in, contact tracing under way for a second health care worker. A second worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Two health care workers now tested positive for Ebola. The second worker is in isolation.

The CDC just announced this positive testing. A second test is being done to confirm the diagnosis. The CDC calling the diagnosis of the second infected Ebola worker a serious concern.

This was another health care worker who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States. Now, the health care worker reported a fever Tuesday, was immediately isolated at the hospital. Health officials are working to identify anyone who came in contact with that worker. That's what the contact tracing is.

BERMAN: On the phone with us right now, Dr. Alexander Van Tulleken. He's an expert in tropical diseases.

Doctor, thank you so much for being with us to cover this breaking news. And a second health care worker has tested positive for Ebola in Texas.

This really raises two questions right now or two points. Number one, it really does seem that there were serious problems in the protocols in Texas Health Presbyterian. Not one, but two health care workers testing positive for Ebola.

And second of all, Dr. Tulleken, can you truly stop this virus in a hospital setting?

DR. ALEXANDER VAN TULLEKEN, TROPICAL DISEASES EXPERT (via telephone): I think those are both interesting questions, it does seem -- the other concerning thing we now have two patients being treated in the hospital where the virus has spread. So, it certainly raises the question, can we stop the spread of the virus in this hospital if he's people were not trained?

All the questions we've been raising the last few days about whether or not there should be designated hospitals with designated Ebola teams caring for these patients, yes, this would seem to add massive amount of strength to the case.

The other thing I'm very concerned about is to know what has been going on with the teams. We know that Nina Pham was not in active surveillance after taking care of Thomas Eric Duncan. And so, the question is, are many more of these health care workers potentially exposed, are they still looking after other patients? And are they undergoing routine blood tests? Because we do have a test for Ebola that can potentially find the virus before the symptoms develop. So, those are the questions we like to be answered today.

BERMAN: Are there more cases out there that you don't know about? You bring up a great point, Doctor, which is, you know, we have treated other Ebola patients in the United States. In Atlanta, in Nebraska, and Ebola did not spread in those places, but it has spread here, at Texas Health Presbyterian.

The question is, why? What went wrong?

VAN TULLEKEN: Well, I think when you look at -- the thing to say is I think that Texas Presbyterian Hospital from everything we can understand is a good hospital where you would get good care for a very wide range of illnesses. But Ebola's very unusual.

And looking after it requires a very particular set of procedures with protective gear. We have two questions about the protect give gear, one is the CDC protocol good enough? Even if you do the protocol perfectly, is it good enough? I think now the answer is probably not. Bear in mind if you work for a charity in Africa, in a field hospital, you would be wearing more protective equipment than either of these nurses was wearing.

ROMANS: So, let's talk about --

VAN TULLEKEN: The second --

ROMANS: Go ahead.

VAN TULLEKEN: No, that's fine. You go ahead. ROMANS: Well, I have this question about hospital-acquired

infections. Even on a perfect day, you have hospitals in the United States and in Europe, quite frankly, that have trouble stopping hospital-acquired infections. This particular case is really, really stunning. You're talking liters and liters of body fluids coming out of this patient who is highly, highly contagious.

If they can't control these kinds of -- if they can't control bugs on a regular day, do we have what it takes to control something like this?