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Wolf

Ebola Patient Quarantined; Up to 100 People at Risk of Ebola Exposure; Four Family Members Quarantined at Home; Ebola Exposure; Turkish Parliament Authorizes Strikes; Interview with Rep. Barbara Lee; Obama's Syria Strategy

Aired October 02, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 in London, 8:00 p.m. in Jerusalem, 9:00 p.m. in Moscow. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We begin with a lot of breaking news. The intense effort underway right now to make sure the first diagnosed Ebola case here in the United States does not spread. Here is what we know right now. A federal official tells CNN authorities -- tells CNN, authorities are questioning as many as 100 people in the Dallas, Texas area who may have had contact with the patient, 42-year-old Thomas Eric Duncan. The official says more than a dozen people had direct contact with Duncan and they are now being closely monitored. In addition, four of his family members have been ordered to stay inside their home for the next 17 days to make sure they haven't been infected. Duncan is from Liberia. He went to Dallas to visit his girlfriend.

"The New York Times" says, a few days leaving Monrovia, he had direct contact with a pregnant woman in Liberia, a pregnant woman with Ebola. Duncan took an S.N. Brussels Airlines flight from Monrovia to Brussels. And after a seven-hour layover in the Belgium capital, he boarded the United Airlines Flight 951 to here, to Washington's Dulles Airport. And after a three-hour layover in the Washington, D.C. area, he took United Flight 822 to Dallas, Texas. We're covering the story from all the angles. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, our Chief Medical Correspondent is at the CDC headquarters, the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta. And joining us from New York, Dr. Alexander van Tulleken, an infectious disease specialist.

Sanjay, I want to first play for you and our viewers what Anderson Cooper told us a little while ago about the girlfriend of this individual, Thomas Eric Duncan, because it's pretty shocking to hear had her story. Listen to Anderson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "A.C. 360": Once he started the antibiotics, he started having a lot of diarrhea. He was making a lot of trips to the bathroom. He was not vomiting, according to Louise. But he was, you know, sweating a lot during the night in her bed. The sheets are still on the bed, she told me.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN: : In the -- in the -- in the apartment where she called from.

COOPER: Yes, in the apartment. The sheets that he sweated on are still on the bed. The pillows are still on the bed. The towels he used she has put into a plastic bag or plastic bags. They are still in the apartment. She's not clear what to do with them. The CDC has visited her apartment, she tells me, have told her not to go outside, that she's quarantined. She has to stay inside for 21 days. She's taking her own temperature every hour. She says she's taking the temperature of the young people in the apartment with her. But she's clearly very concerned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Obviously concerned, indeed. Sanjay, that's very, very worrisome, the material that this woman has told Anderson.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, look, some of this is pretty troubling, Wolf. But I think not the least of which is the idea that, you know, essentially, for four days, it sounds like, roughly, Mr. Duncan was living out of this apartment. He was quite sick, it sounds like. And just the towels and the bed sheets, these things that could potentially have some of the Ebola virus on them, have not been cleaned. And it doesn't sound like, at least, she's received instruction or understood the instructions clearly, in terms of what to do with that.

I can tell you, just down the street here from the CDC is Emory where the first two patients came from. And we got an idea of how they handle the waste from the rooms where these patients were cared for. It's -- you know, involves a pretty strict procedure. You bring in bio-containment bags that are special bags. All the materials go in there and then, eventually, the stuff is incinerated. They really take no chances. States have different regulations on this sort of thing. But, in this case, it sounds like she's just simply not going in that room. She's a -- the sheets are still on the bed. The towels still there. And that, from a sheer humanity standpoint, that shouldn't be the case.

I will tell you, Wolf, that even since Anderson first reported that and we've been talking about it, the CDC has commented that medical contractors are going on their way to the apartment to address this very issue and to make sure she -- there's better communication with her as well. But, you know, it's obviously a frightening situation for her. Now, there's nothing to suggest that she is sick or the other people in the apartment are sick. But it is, obviously, troubling.

BLITZER: Dr. van Tulleken, why haven't they been there the past several days taking away those sheets, taking away those pillow cases? She says he was sweating profusely throughout the night. This is before he went to the hospital. She says he was suffering from diarrhea. This is before he went to the hospital. He went to the hospital. He was vomiting. Yet, they sent him back home with some antibiotics. This is a horrible blunder I see unfolding here, Dr. van Tulleken. DR. ALEXANDER VAN TULLEKEN, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: I agree, Wolf. I mean, I think this is absolutely extraordinary. He's now been in hospital for a few days. They've had a long time to get on top of this. And as Sanjay says, it doesn't sound like they're treating her in a very humane way. I mean, not only have they not given her instructions about how to deal with a set of items that none of the rest of us would want to handle without a hazmat suit on. It also doesn't sound like they've made it easy for her not to leave the house. They're now using a legal order to keep her in the house. She should be being brought food, books, clean -- she should have clean linen just because she needs clean linen. The kids need video games. They need a T.V. They need phones. Whatever it is to keep them in the house. And you can do that well. You don't need legal orders to it in the house if they educate people. It doesn't sound like that's happening here.

BLITZER: Yes, Sanjay, maybe you can -- you've been -- really, you're all over this horrible situation. Explain why only now medical contractors from the CDC, they're going over there to clean up this place, to deal with this situation. He's been in the hospital for a few days. He's been diagnosed the firsts case in the United States with Ebola. And now, here in the United States of America, this kind of situation is unfolding. It seems like it's so -- it's hard to believe this could be happening.

GUPTA: It is hard to believe and there aren't good explanations here. You know, we've asked for some response. And what we heard back is, we're going to take care of it. We're sending these medical contractors out to clean up this waste and to help provide guidance to Louise, this woman, whom Anderson spoke to. But as far as why it hadn't already happened, what the thinking was, was there any rationale or explanation? We didn't hear that part of it. You know, I'd be curious. We know that CDC employees, my understanding, have been going to the house, for no other reason than to help monitor, check the temperature, body temperatures of the individuals who are under quarantine. But what else have they been telling her? Has there been a miscommunication or is this just a dropped ball? Again, we don't know.

We do know, in the other situation that you brought up, Wolf, where Mr. Duncan was initially sent home, that sounds like it was a drop the ball completely. There was a clear, red flag, in terms of his travel history, and that wasn't acted upon. Is this now another dropped ball? If so, very unfortunate. You know, they've been planning for months. What is transpiring here, as historic as it is, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in this country, it was not unexpected. And as a result, they've had months to sort of plan for this and go through the various scenarios. And two big ones here seem to have had some real trouble, the idea of his diagnosis early enough and now the idea of his contacts, these people living in this apartment and how they're being treated.

BLITZER: And what makes me especially concerned also is the information we're getting is it keeps changing all the time. Initially, Dr. Thomas Friedan, a head of the CDC, maybe a handful of people were contacted by this individual from Liberia. Then, it went up yesterday to 18 or 20. Now, we're hearing maybe as many a hundred people have been -- were contacted, were in direct contact with this individual. I want both of you to stand by. We're not going away from this story. There are major, major ramifications going on right now. Stay with us. More of the breaking news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: we're following the breaking news out of Dallas, Texas. In that first case, someone diagnosed with Ebola here in the United States, an individual from Liberia. We're now getting shocking new information from this individual, Thomas Eric Duncan's girlfriend, in Dallas, that her apartment where he suffered, where he was sweating, hasn't been cleaned up. And only now, medical authorities for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are going over there to deal with potentially significant developments.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, our Chief Medical Correspondent, is with us, as is Dr. Alexander van Tulleken, a medical doctor as well who specializes in infectious diseases.

Sanjay, this notion that originally a handful of people were being scrutinized, then 18 or 20, now maybe he was in contact with as many as 100 people. It sounds pretty shocking. What concerns me is the story, the official story from government officials, keeps changing.

GUPTA: It does. It does keep changing. And part of that is not entirely unexpected in the sense that as you get more information about his whereabouts, where he was moving during those four days, you may add more people to the list of people that you want to talk to. It doesn't mean that they're going to be listed as contacts. It doesn't mean that they're going to need to be monitored. My understanding, the number of people that are -- that are being monitored, because there's confirmed contact with Mr. Duncan, is still around 12.

But think of this, Wolf, as throwing out a pretty wide net. Anybody that could have possibly come in contact with him during those four days, they want to be talking to them. Ultimately, many of those people may be found to be not at all at risk, not at all at worry. But that number 12 may go up somewhat. It's not going to go up to a hundred, is my guess by any means, but it is going to go up somewhat. And that's a wide net sort of philosophy when it comes to contact tracing. It's something that, you know, should be done, you know, hasn't been done well in West Africa which is part of the reason the numbers keep increasing over there. They miss people. And they don't want to miss people here -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And in this apartment that is now about to be cleaned up, Dr. van Tulleken, only now, and these are days later, the same sheets where he was sweating, where he was suffering from diarrhea, over hours before he even went to the hospital and then, astonishingly, he was sent out of the hospital, and they gave him some antibiotics and said, you've got some minor, little problem which, obviously, was not the case. I'm worried about the people who have been in that apartment, not only the girlfriend but, what, four or five children were basically spending some important time in that apartment as well. And they were going to four or five different schools in that area. How worried should we be?

VAN TULLEKEN: I mean, I think you're absolutely right to be worried. I've got a five-year-old son, and I wouldn't want him in that apartment. I think there's no question none of us would. So, it's not just about containing this disease. We've also got to treat those people really well. We've got to look after them. And it doesn't sound like they're being looked after, at the moment. And the really worrying thing, to me, about this is, this isn't just doing the job. This is also a drill because this is definitely going to happen again. We don't know if this man deliberately came from Liberia to seek help because he knew he was exposed. It does sound like he knew he had been exposed.

But what you've got to think is, if I was exposed in Liberia, I'd want to get on a plane and come to America and get treated in Dallas. That's a sensible thing to do. So we're going to see more of this, whether it's deliberate or not, and so far we don't seem to be reacting as well as we could. This should all be protocols.

BLITZER: And, Sanjay, if -- you saw the pictures, and it's pretty scary, all the parents of the other kids in these four other schools where these little children were attending those schools, they're obviously very, very concerned. Should they be as worried as they clearly are?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the basic principles we've been talking about is that unless you come in contact with someone who is sick with an Ebola infection, your chance of getting an infection yourself is basically zero, next to nothing. So it's - you know, the people who go to school with someone - some of these kids that we're talking about, I think that their -- the chance for them having any kind of problem is really, really remote.

The kids who were directly in contact with Mr. Duncan, that's obviously of more concern and that's why they are being monitored. They're going to have their temperature taken for 21 days. If it goes up, that's going to be a first sign that maybe something is wrong. It doesn't mean they have Ebola, but it may warrant testing at that point to see what's going on. So that's something that's, you know, ongoing.

I will say something else, that Alexander just brought up, and that is that, so you have a situation now we're learning Mr. Duncan certainly knew, it sounds like, that he had had contact with someone who was very sick with Ebola and then, within a short time after that, he got on a plane. What the screening typically does, and I went through this when I left Guinea a couple months ago, they take your temperature, and then you're also asked a series of questions. Had he answered that he had just been literally carrying a woman who was dying of Ebola, he wouldn't have been - he wouldn't been able to get on that plane. But you're seeing -- you're seeing part of the problem here, Wolf, it does count on self-reporting. And if people aren't completely honest, the system does start to fall apart a little bit.

BLITZER: Because the shocking thing is, Sanjay, and very quickly you can answer this, we're standing by also, there's a teleconference going on from the CDC, the director there briefing reporters. We're going to get some new information. So I know we want to stand by for that. But if he knew he was in direct contact with a pregnant woman in Monrovia before boarding that flight for Brussels and then Washington and then Dallas, it if he was that -- if he knew that that woman eventually died from Ebola, then he got out of Liberia, that's obviously a significant development in this investigation.

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, you know, the screening, you know, protocols would pick that up if he had been honest in talking about that and he would have been asked basically -- not that he can't ever leave the country, but what likely would have happened is that he would have told that he has to monitor himself for 21 days in Liberia, not getting on a plane. So that, obviously, did not happen here at the time that he got on a plane. He wasn't sick, but he had been exposed. And seems like he knew that he had been exposed and still got on the plane anyway. So that is an important detail I think in all this as well, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, so, Dr. van Tulleken, your suspicions is, he suspected he might have been exposed to Ebola so he wanted to get out of Liberia and get to the United States. Is that your suspicion?

VAN TULLEKEN: I think we may never know. We don't know what his decision-making process was. But what I can tell you is, any reasonable person would want to seek help in the U.S. rather than Liberia. And there are lots of Liberians who have been exposed and there are lots of Liberians who can afford to get on a plane. So - but the lesson we learned from this is not that we should close the airports, it's not that we have to, you know, do test -- blood testing in the airports or anything like this. The lesson we learned is, the only way to prevent this happening again is to roll back this disease in West Africa.

And so far over the last few months, basically one private medical charity, Doctors Without Borders, has been doing all the work. They've done everything, basically. And now one country in the world has really stepped up properly, the U.S. We need a massive, massive response to deal with this in West Africa, otherwise it's not just going to be happening here, it's going to be happening all over the world.

BLITZER: All right, Dr. van Tulleken, stand by. Sanjay, stand by as well.

We're going to get back to this story. We'll get back to the briefing that's going on. But there's breaking news right now that we're following.

The Turkish parliament just overwhelmingly now has voted in favor of authorizing the use of military force against ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq. Ben Wedeman is joining us now from Baghdad.

Give us the information, Ben. What have you just learned?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. We understand the Turkish parliament has voted, as you said, an overwhelming majority, almost 400 votes, to just over 90 in favor of Turkish military intervention in Syria. Now, the Turks have long talked, Wolf, about setting up some sort of buffer zone with -- along the border in northern Syria. Now, obviously, they would like to create a situation where all these Kurdish refugees who have flowed over the border, almost 200,000, would be able to go back home and relieve some pressure on Turkey itself, which is already hosting a huge population of Syrian refugees.

It's somewhat problematic, however, because they could be going into areas that are currently partially under the control of Kurdish militias which are aligned with the PKK, the Kurdish workers party, which was engaged in a decades long war against the Turkish state. So we're dealing with a very complicated situation. In a sense it's a war within a war itself.

Now, we don't know at this point exactly what the Turkish government is going to do now that they have the green light for parliament, but it certainly changes the equation on the ground and we'll see how it sort of turns out in the coming days.

Wolf.

BLITZER: I just want to be precise, Ben, has the Turkish parliament voted to authorize Turkish military force against ISIS in Syria or in Syria as well as in Iraq?

WEDEMAN: No, this is specifically in Syria, not in Iraq, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, I just wanted to be precise on that and clarify. All right, that's an important development. A significant development in the NATO ally Turkey getting ready to get involved militarily in some way, which way precisely that remains to be seen.

All right, stand by, Ben Wedeman, we'll get back to you for more about that.

Let's get some reaction to what's going on. Representative Barbara Lee is joining us. She's a Democrat from California.

Congresswoman, thanks very much for joining us.

You support the president's decision to go to war against ISIS, not only in Syria, but in Iraq as well?

REP. BARBARA LEE (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, first, let me say that the authorizations that the administration are using, the ones that they're using for the strikes, I believe is the 2001 authorization that I voted against. It was a very broad authorization and I think that authorization, as well as the 2002 authorization, should be repealed.

We should be in Washington, D.C., right now, as Congressmen McGovern and Congressman Jones, myself, we wrote to the speaker August 28th and indicated to the speaker that we saw the expansion of military strikes and that the American people deserve to have their representatives in Washington, D.C., debating, just as the U.K. parliament did, just as the Turkish parliament did, whether or not the use of force would be something that we would authorize the president to engage in. And so I think, bottom line, Wolf, we need to be in Washington, D.C., the American people need to hear the debate with regard to the costs and the consequences of the use of force and then make a decision and cast a vote.

It's premature to say how anyone would vote, I believe, because we haven't even had that debate. So I urge and encourage our speaker to really grant our request to do that. The American people deserve their members to exercise their constitutional duty to engage in a debate so people will know exactly what is taking place and what the costs and consequences are.

BLITZER: A lot of people would like to see that debate, but Congress is in recess, as you know, until after the midterm elections on November 4th. You voted against the authorizations to use force in Afghanistan back in 2001 right after 9/11. You voted against going to war against Saddam Hussein in 2002. The war started in March 2003. You're not very happy right now that the president of the United States has authorized these air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, are you?

LEE: Wolf, those resolutions that I voted against were blank checks for perpetual war. Circumstances change. We're now dealing with not necessarily al Qaeda. The resolution that I voted against in 2001 was so broad it was against any nation, organization, individual connected to 9/11. It casts a broad net.

I think, right now, we should go back and discuss, debate, and really put forth to the public exactly what the costs and consequences are of the use of force. Those resolutions should be repealed. Other members I know, and on a bipartisan basis, I think we've said very clearly, we would want to see those repealed and then engage in another debate. And so I, for one, like many members, really believe that prior to engaging in an increased use of force and in a war that has not been authorized nor declared, that the American people should have their members of Congress go on record and really engage in a debate so we know what this means to our national economy, to our national security, and what this means in terms of building schools and infrastructure and our health care system in our own country and then make some decisions as it relates to the benefits and the costs of the use of force.

BLITZER: All right, but as Congress, you know, stays in recess, they're not going to have that debate for at least another five, six weeks. Who knows if they're going to do it even during the lame-duck session. We might have to wait until next year.

Here's the bottom line question. In the immediate weeks ahead, is the president doing the right thing by launching these air strikes against these ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq, yes or no?

LEE: In the immediate weeks ahead, I believe that we have to be very careful in moving forward because we do not want to see any more danger, any more hostilities, any more anger and hostilities towards the United States, Wolf. We have to be very careful in how we use the use of force. The administration, the president as commander in chief, I think he's done a very good job in developing some regional strategies, but I don't want to see the military strikes undermine a political and diplomatic initiative in the region that would lead to a more permanent, first of all, disabling of ISIS and a more permanent solution. This is a war that has to be fought by those that are being affected in the Middle East, yes. The president has laid out the fact that there is no military solution and, yes, that in the future this could be a possible threat to the United States, ISIS. But in the meantime, we have to make sure that the diplomatic and the regional initiatives are not undermined by the military use of strikes and force.

BLITZER: All right, Representative Barbara Lee, thanks very much for joining us. I know you've been very, very critical of the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the way all of that unfolded. We'll see what happens in the immediate period ahead. Thanks very much for joining us.

We're following the breaking news, the Turkish parliament has just debated and decided to go ahead and support some sort of Turkish military involvement in Syria, not in Iraq, in Syria. Much more of that coming up.

Also, much more on the breaking news on the Ebola crisis in Dallas, Texas, when we come back.

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