Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Questions Emerge Over Handling of Ebola Case; Interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci; Secret Service Director Resigns Under Fire; Interview with Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania

Aired October 02, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: America on edge. Growing concern about how prepared the U.S. is to stop an Ebola outbreak. The question, why did a Texas hospital fail to isolate the first patient diagnosed with the virus even though he told officials he'd been in a hot zone?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: New details, we are learning more about the Ebola patient fighting for his life this morning. Reports that Thomas Eric Duncan contracted the virus trying to help an infected pregnant woman in Liberia. Officials are racing to find anyone who has been in contact with him including children.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Paying the price, the Secret Service director is out after a public grilling on Capitol Hill over several embarrassing security lapses so where does the agency go from here and are more blunders bound to surface?

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and welcome to NEW DAY.

It's Thursday, the 2nd day of October, it's 8:00 in the East.

Good morning to you and good morning to you at home.

We begin this hour with the high stakes question. Why exactly did a Dallas hospital initially turn away a man who showed up feeling sick, questioning whether he had Ebola symptoms even though he told them he traveled to the U.S. from Liberia?

That man we now know is Thomas Eric Duncan, became the first person diagnosed with Ebola on American soil. The hospital is now under fire, despite arguing symptoms did not warrant admission at the time that Mr. Duncan arrived at the hospital.

So, how many people may have been exposed before Duncan went back to seek treatment a second time?

Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the latest for us from CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

Obviously, they're going to look at everybody -- family members, people who came in contact with him.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's the biggest goal right now, because what you're describing is how you stop an outbreak. You got to find all the contacts.

Look, we knew this would happen a patient would come here and be diagnosed with Ebola. That's why the CDC, this organization, has been preparing for this for months. But there were some things that didn't go the way they hoped it could. I bet you they wish they could get a do over but because of the result of all of this, a lot of focus now on Dallas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOSEPHUS WEEKS, NEPHEW OF EBOLA PATIENT THOMAS ERIC DUNCAN: We're just hoping and praying that Eric survives the night.

GUPTA: In an exclusive interview with CNN affiliate WCCB in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duncan's nephew speaks out for the first time.

WEEKS: I just want to let you know that we will not sleep just like you, you feel the pain, we feel the pain here, too.

GUPTA: Doctors say he's in serious but stable condition. Duncan is a Liberian national and he traveled for the first time ever to the United States to visit his family in Dallas. "The New York Times" reports he may have become infected September 15th -- that's when he helped carry a pregnant woman who died from Ebola to the hospital.

September 19th, Duncan flies from Liberia to Brussels, Belgium, showing no obvious Ebola symptoms or fever during airport screening. From there, he boards United Airlines Flight 951, en route to Washington Dulles, connecting to another united Flight 822 to Dallas.

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

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

By Tuesday the 30th, the lab results confirm the patient has Ebola. The hospital admits it was a failure to communicate among hospital staff that led to the patient's release after his initial visit.

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

GUPTA: Investigators are now monitoring up to 20 people who were his contacts for symptoms from paramedics who transported him to doctors and nurses in the hospital to his family, girlfriend, and her five school-aged children, but so far, none has been confirmed to be infected.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (on camera): And we just got some new details from Elizabeth Cohen down in Dallas that the family, they were originally told, Chris, that they could just monitor their temperature a couple times a day but other than that, carry on with their lives. We're hearing from Elizabeth the family is also being essentially quarantined, being asked to stay in the home, not leave the home, they're going to even bring food and supplies to the home, so that family stays there at least for the next 21 days, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, and obviously, they're still developing the report and investigating here, Sanjay, but this could wind up being dozens and dozens of people they have to deal with because of the nature of how life is lived. You come into contact with so many people.

And do me a favor. Sanjay, stick around right now.

Let's bring in Dr. Anthony Fauci, director at the National Institutes of Health. Who better to have in this interview Toni Fauci than Sanjay.

So, both stay here and have a conversation about this. First question is this, what we want to do here is balance not spreading false panic with making sure that we are calling for responsibility and accountability in getting things right. It does seem that things have changed between how Texas handled it and how we're seeing it handled in Hawaii. Was the Texas situation a wake-up call, Dr. Fauci?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Well, it's regrettable that there wasn't the connecting of the dots. Unfortunately those things happen. That's the negative part about it.

The positive part about it as you say it really is a wake-up call in lessons learned and hopefully in the future, and we might well have other people who come over here without symptoms, get on a plane and land and then develop Ebola. That is certainly feasible and I think because of the attention that has been paid to the situation in Dallas, that people will be very, very much aware of the importance of a travel history, as well as including that travel history into the decision-making.

So, unfortunately, this happened, and I think it's just a human mistake but we'll move on. Right now, they're on the right track. The patient is isolated, being taken care of appropriately, and importantly to this entire concept of not having an outbreak is that the CDC and other health officials are involved in the contact tracing that, done properly, will actually be able to curtail any possibility of an outbreak by just monitoring people on a daily basis for that 21- day period to make sure they do not have Ebola.

CUOMO: Abundance of caution certainly makes sense. Sanjay, let me ask you something and then please jump into the conversation.

In terms of what we do to prepare, the vaccine seems to be really important, and I understand, and I listened earlier in the show when you said, hey, Ebola isn't on our radar and it wasn't a couple years ago, we were thinking about other things that spread through the air that are far more important to stop.

But should we be putting more money in vaccines? Have we missed that opportunity?

GUPTA: Well, I think in terms of missing an opportunity, I don't think it will be available this vaccine currently under trials probably won't be available for this current outbreak. So, hindsight is always 20/20. We wished we started the vaccine trial earlier yes for certain.

Remember, Chris, the numbers have always been so low with regard to Ebola. I think it wasn't just a question of people not paying attention. They thought the numbers were lower compared to flu or some of the other things we've been talking about more regularly.

But, you know, you bring up a really good point and one of the things I wanted to ask Dr. Fauci as well with regard to the contact tracing which is the tried and true method way of stopping an outbreak -- we heard that the paramedics who transported Mr. Duncan to the hospital were asked to be quarantined basically not be able to go out, they're not sick, they're not showing any symptoms.

Why -- who does a quarantine benefit? Who are you trying to keep safe with the quarantine? Now, we hear the family is being quarantined, same question. What is the purpose of a quarantine?

FAUCI: Right. Yes, Sanjay, what I think it is, is what is perceived as the relative risk. The people who were in the emergency response, as well as the family who have very close contact, perhaps even with bodily fluids, they are relatively speaking at a higher risk than some of the other people who came into contact.

So, although all of the contacts will be monitored, when you quarantine somebody, you feel that the risk is high enough, you want to make sure that you don't miss the development of symptoms and have them have contact with somebody else.

So, as you're monitoring them for fever and symptoms, you want them in a place where they're confined, because of the relative chance of their having more of a risk than someone else who would have less close or intimate contact, and it makes sense the family members as well as the people in the ambulance, so I think that's a good call. GUPTA: Chris, the reason I ask that question, Chris, as you know, you

don't start transmitting the virus, you're not spreading it until you're sick yourself. So, I asked about the fact that a healthy person be quarantined, what would be the purpose of that, and that sort of point. Also the family was not quarantined initially. Now, they're being asked to be quarantined.

So, again, you can see, Chris, how -- this is evolving. I mean, this is the first time it's happened in the United States, so this is evolving I think in terms of how they're proceeding.

CUOMO: Also feeds to the confusion, fellas. I mean, you know, what's the message we're giving to American people, don't worry. This is hard to get. You know, you have to be in close proximity, bodily fluids and all this other stuff that suggests intimacy, and then we hear about a broader and broader circle of people being either isolated or quarantined. You understand how, Dr. Fauci, it sounds like a mixed message.

FAUCI: Well. it really isn't a mixed message because the people who are being contact traced are the people who have come into contact with Mr. Duncan after Mr. Duncan had symptoms. You note the people on the airplane who at the time that Mr. Duncan was on the airplane and for the four days from the time he landed to the time he began symptoms, those people are not being contact traced because Mr. Duncan didn't have any symptoms.

The contact tracing is for the people who came into contact with Mr. Duncan from the time he developed symptoms and that's the family, that's the people who were in the ambulance and a number of other people who did come into contact with him. So, it really isn't a mixed message. If someone doesn't have symptoms and is perfectly well, that person is not going to transmit to someone else.

CUOMO: Flipping it the other way, Sanjay, we were reporting about the Enterovirus which you helped us understand and clarify a lot other the weeks, why are we more concerned about Ebola than we are about the Enterovirus when we only have one, maybe two cases, not even in the continental United States, but, you know, it including Hawaii, and yet, we've got 542 different states, it's paralyzing kids, may have killed somebody.

Why aren't we paying more attention to that than we are Ebola?

GUPTA: You know, part of this is the collision of social and science. I mean, you know, people are fearful of Ebola. All they've heard Ebola, this disease in Central and West Africa that can kill up to 90 percent of the people it infect. That's all we've heard about Ebola. There's been movies and books that just really fostered that fear, I think.

But you're absolutely right. And, Chris, let me take that a step further. You know, you talk about Enterovirus, just regular flu virus kills tens of thousands of people a year in this country. Did you know that? I mean, tens of thousands of people a year die from basic flu. We hardly ever talk about it, because it's something we've grown very used to. You know, Ebola's brand new, and I think that's been part of this fear as well.

So I think it's already starting to dissipate. You know, the first patients came here to this country who had been diagnosed with Ebola a few months ago now and already we've started getting used to talking about Ebola in this country.

CUOMO: Well, I have to tell you, I did know, Sanjay, because I listened to you and I have the benefit of learning from you very often on this -- and I'll tell you, it's a great benefit to the viewers in general.

So, Sanjay, thank you. Dr. Fauci, thank you.

GUPTA: Thank you.

CUOMO: I can't think of two men who could help clarify a very scary situation and the more we understand, the better it is for everybody. Thank you to both of you, gentlemen. We'll be back with you on this for sure.

FAUCI: You're welcome.

CUOMO: Mick?

PEREIRA: Great conversation there. Thanks so much for that, Chris.

Now, we turn to a series of embarrassing security breaches that cost Secret Service Director Julia Pierson her job. Pierson was forced to resign, under fire a day after bruising Capitol Hill grilling. Any support she may have had left and crumbled when news broke about an armed security contractor without clearance somehow getting into an elevator with the president in Atlanta at the CDC last month -- a stunning security lapse that was not shared with the White House. The timing of that, made it extra, extra stinging for her.

Let's get more from White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski.

Good morning, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Michaela.

This really follows the trajectory of the V.A. scandal. I mean, you have the whistleblowers coming from inside the Secret Service, the bipartisan outrage, the entrenched culture within the agency and now, we have the resignation.

I mean, Julia Pierson was appointed by the president to turn the Secret Service around and now, here we are a year and a half later, and it needs another try.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI (voice-over): While White House fence jumper Omar Gonzalez was pleading not guilty to federal crimes for storming the mansion armed with a knife, it's not clear if he's been aware of the fallout he leaves behind. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, stop, please.

KOSINSKI: Julia Pierson now resigned as director of the Secret Service. Her terse and answerless answers to an angry House committee this week only riled Congress even more.

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: Is the president of the United States informed?

JULIA PIERSON, THEN-SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: I would assume the president of the United States was informed. I don't know.

KOSINSKI: Details came from whistleblowers she didn't mention. And now, we know one of those newly revealed incidents, a security guard with a gun in an elevator with the president two weeks ago in Atlanta, a situation that hadn't been cleared by Secret Service and violated protocol, the White House wasn't even told about until just before it became unpleasantly public Tuesday.

JOHS EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Director Pierson offered her resignation because she believed it was in the best interests of the agency to which she has dedicated her career.

KOSINSKI: Pierson called it painful to leave --

PIERSON: I'm Julia Pierson.

KOSINSKI: -- after three decades with the Secret Service.

Now, the interim director, Joseph Clancy, is also a long-timer who headed the presidential protection division and retired three years ago.

But it's the culture within the agency that seems stubborn to change. One former Secret Service agent told us things like the front door alarm being turned off because White House ushers didn't like the occasional loud noise points to what he calls a dangerous acquiescence at the upper levels of the service, a desire to please the boss.

He says few supervisors were willing to insist on things being tougher when they should have been and it infuriated officers below them, leaving some now to turn whistleblowers, finding willing ears in Congress.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Agents in this agency said they were hesitant to raise security concerns with their supervisors. Ladies and gentlemen, something is awfully wrong with that picture.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: Among the other issues that will bear more scrutiny now are training, staffing, and morale -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: That morale issue is going to be big. But maybe with a change in leadership, morale could take an upswing. That's the hope, I suppose. CUOMO: But the leadership matters if only because you have to own the mistakes and that wasn't done here.

PEREIRA: Accountability, right?

CUOMO: Right, and that's the fear is that you're protecting the most important man in the world and you've got to be honest about what happens.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: So, we'll keep following up on that one.

And also, we're going to go back to this situation in Texas -- a hospital just let a man with Ebola go home for days and as a result he was in contact with a lot of other people. It raises the question for all the talk about how prepared we are, are hospitals ready to deal with the virus? We're going to discuss this with a senator who says there are questions and he has a better idea. What is it? Ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

The concern is obvious, how could a Dallas hospital let a man leave knowing he had been to Liberia. He told them that, and showing symptoms of what could be Ebola and what will other hospitals do when confronted with the same situation?

Let's bring in Senator Bob Casey. He's a Democrat from Pennsylvania. He's also on the Subcommittee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

So, this is relevant to your work down there in D.C., as a citizen and as an elected official. We keep being told we're ready, the U.S. knows what to do, we've got the systems in place and then the Texas hospital seems to not follow an obvious trail, let alone protocol.

What's your take?

SEN. BOB CASEY (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, Chris, I think we are prepared overall in a broad sense, way back in 2006 legislation was passed to put in place a strategy, a national strategy involving not just the federal government by way of the Centers for Disease Control and Health and Human Services, but a whole range of things the federal government would do in conjunction with state and local authorities and other emergency responders and other players.

But there's no question in this case that preparedness has been tested and I think it's going to call for if not a review of the existing statute, certainly a review of how the communication occurs between federal authorities all the way to the local level to local hospitals.

CUOMO: Now, what do you think? Are we spreading false panic here even though we're trying to be scrupulous and about just making sure that what confuses people is answered. What is your level of concern? CASEY: It's pretty high, because even though this is very much

isolated so far, if we have mistakes like I would assert the mistake in Texas was made, if that becomes more routine, then you might open up a window of vulnerability that wouldn't have been opened up otherwise.

CUOMO: But it seems to be a wake-up call systemic problem at this point because in Hawaii, it's being handled differently there, a patient who as of yesterday hadn't been tested for Ebola, but treating as though maybe they could have it, seems there's more awareness of risk.

CASEY: I think so. When you have a national strategy and resources to surge the so-called ZMapp response, which is a great tool we have, you still have to have at the local level partners who understand that they've got to get it right and they have to do their own preparedness and own drills and review and constantly update their protocols.

CUOMO: Now, fair point, Ebola was not on the radar. It was something that's remote and usually small numbers of cases. Sanjay has been very effective in communicating that.

But now, it is on the radar. It is really spreading. The CDC says you could have well over 1 million cases abroad in the not too distant future.

So, do you shift resources, do you make changes on the governmental level to address specifically this?

CASEY: Well, I think just today, you're seeing some reporting that the federal government because of the authority granted in that original 2006 act which we updated in 2013 is able to kind of surge when it comes to ZMapp -- in other words, you have a response, a countermeasure as they call it, and they're able to surge that and engage a lot of private sector entities to reduce more of that.

So, I think we have surge capacity, we have a lot of authority but this is going to be a test, and I think we have to constantly evaluate as it plays out whether or not we need to adjust the law or whether or not it's just better communication and better drilling and reviewing of protocols and under the broad umbrella of preparedness.

CUOMO: Senator, let me get your take on another urgent situation with the Secret Service, the Director Julia Pierson has stepped down. Do you believe that was appropriate?

CASEY: I think at this stage they need a new start. It's unfortunate the way this has played out because you have a great agency that has provided protection to presidents for a couple generations that does it well every day, and yet when there's a terrible mistake made, I think sometimes the only response to that is a change of leadership.

CUOMO: Was the mistake the problem or was the covering up of the mistake the problem?

CASEY: I think both are, there's no question about that. When I think if you don't have immediate transparency in that circumstances, it's bound to catch up with you.

But I think she did the right thing, it's a difficult decision to make as an individual but I think it should move the Secret Service in the right direction but it will take a while before we can evaluate whether or not they've gotten the message.

CUOMO: A lot of outrage, often outrage from Congress, with all due respect, winds up becoming animal unto itself and doesn't necessarily become the heat doesn't necessarily become light of change. Is a little bit of this becoming a smear campaign on the Secret Service?

CASEY: Well, I think when you're asking questions in those hearings, I think you should seek to be constructive and probing and not simply to get a sound bite or attention, and I get concerned that some members seem to be a little concerned about getting the sound bite rather than getting the truth. I think overall, though, a lot of the questions asked, began to shed some light on the problem and should lead to a constructive plan forward.

CUOMO: Yes, as we do the reporting on it, you start to get a little suspicious because how did this man get over the fence and up there? I haven't heard what we hear in our reporting which is they're working on the fence, the alarm was turned off. That's how he was able to get over it. Had you been told that?

CASEY: I wasn't aware of that.

CUOMO: The dogs, why weren't the dogs there? The dogs are supposed to be there. The dogs had been muzzled and removed because one of them went after the Obama's dog -- we have a source telling us -- and that's why they weren't immediately there and the dogs have been greatly restrained, they don't get to roam freely anymore. I haven't heard that.

CASEY: Well, and even -- and you're right, I don't happen to be on the relevant committee but I think even committee members are probably going to be probing.

CUOMO: But facts matter. Seemed like they wanted to yell at Pierson and get her to stop down, that's fine. But the question is, how do you change it?

The bullets -- that's really scary -- the bullets hit the White House. How the Secret Service not know. Well, the woman who reported it said she heard shots, they heard shots all the time, she never said they were directed at the White House. They're not allowed supposedly onto the second floor of the White House so how would they have found them if they didn't know they were fired at the White House and not on the second floor? That's a really important fact.

Lastly, the contractor in the elevator that's what got all of us. Let a loaded man with a loaded weapon, contractor. He's a security guard. Doesn't that matter in terms of the level of scrutiny? If it's a security guard, was the Secret Service that wrong in that instance?

CASEY: Well, there's certainly a problem in that instance in terms of how they do background checks. We know that federal contractors, we've trouble with those, the background checks as it relates to contractors for years. So, the Navy Yard indicated that, the terrible shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington.

So, this probably spotlights existing systemic problems in background checks and in other rules, but I think the one thing that was said on CNN -- I can't remember who the guest was a couple days ago even the question of the use of force becomes a very complicated question.

CUOMO: Right.

CASEY: Very easy to say someone jumps over the fence, why can't we shoot them? Well, even police officers have a measure of restraint that's imposed upon them. Secret Service are no different.

So, we're going to have to be -- I think we're going to have to be measured in trying to arrive at those facts before we start doing categorical assessments of the Secret Service.

CUOMO: Senator Bob Casey, thank you so much.

CASEY: Good to be with you.

CUOMO: Appreciate your perspective. Great to have you on NEW DAY.

CASEY: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. We're going to have more on the Ebola diagnosis ahead with a panel of experts and your questions as well. So, please bring them into Twitter. Use the #EbolaQandA.

Plus, everyday people changing the world, the Top Ten CNN heroes of 2014 is going to be announced in just moments. Anderson Cooper is here to reveal who made the list.

Senator, stick around. We'll give you a preview on that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)