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@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Cleaning Crew Turned Away From Ebola Apartment in Dallas; Is Passenger Questionnaire Enough to Protect United States From Ebola?; Interview with Sen. Rob Portman; Disposing of Biohazardous Waste

Aired October 3, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: New concerns about Ebola in the U.S. one misstep after another comes to light. The Dallas County health director says the Ebola situation is, quote, "under control," but can we trust that when so much seemingly has gone wrong?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Is a passenger questionnaire enough to keep Ebola contained or should the U.S. close its airports altogether to people coming from the Ebola hot zone? We will speak with a key U.S. senator.

PEREIRA: And a cleaning crew turned away from that Dallas apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan first got sick. What now? And how will the Ebola waste be disposed of?

Hello and welcome to Friday, 11:00 a.m. in the east. I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. We'll have those stories and so much more ahead @THISHOUR.

PEREIRA: It has been three days since Ebola was first diagnosed on American soil. Concerns certainly are mounting over whether enough the being done to break the chain of transmission.

That apartment in Dallas where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan first became symptomatic? @THISHOUR, it still has not been sanitized. A cleaning crew contracted to do the job was turned away for not having the proper permits to transport the waste from there, the CDC director telling CNN this morning they're still working on it.

Four people remain quarantined inside that apartment. I had an opportunity to speak with the Dallas County health and human services director this morning. He told me that the Ebola situation there is, quote, "under control."

He says the family with whom Duncan was staying is being monitored. There is no outbreak, so everyone should just ease their fears.

BERMAN: So while they that's happening in Dallas, an American freelance journalist working to cover the crisis for NBC News in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola. Ashoka Mukpo was hired by NBC News on Tuesday. He started getting sick Wednesday while working with Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC's chief medical editor. She and her team are being flown home, though she says she thinks they are at low risk for getting sick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. NANCY SNYDERMAN, NBC NEWS CHIEF MEDICAL EDITOR: Well, once he became symptomatic we only spent a few hours together. He and I were working in a workspace when he told me he wasn't feeling well.

He'd joined us 72 hours earlier as an independent journalist and had been in the country two weeks prior to that, so my suspicion is that he was infected before we met him and then he became symptomatic once we met him.

We shared a workspace. We shared vehicles. We shared equipment but everyone here is hyperalert. We have not been in close proximity. No one shakes hands. There's no hugging

So I do believe our team, while we are being hypervigilant, we are at very, very, very low risk for becoming ill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: We're going to take a look at all of the various angles of this story. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with us from Atlanta. Martin Savidge joins us from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

Sanjay, we'll start with you because we know you actually have spoken with Nancy Snyderman of NBC and her crew there in Liberia. What have is the latest that you're hearing?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Nancy and I have been e-mailing back and forth. She -- first of all, they don't know exactly how he got exposed, this gentleman, Ashoka Mukpo.

They're not sure, but as she pointed out, he had just started with NBC on Tuesday and became sick on Wednesday. He became sick, developed a fever, and that's what prompted the test. So obviously at some point prior to that is likely when he got exposed. It takes at least a few days after exposure to start to develop symptoms.

Also, Nancy said she and her team, they're going to quarantine themselves when they come back here and that, as we've been talking a lot about quarantines, what that means is for 21 days they're going stay in some specific spot, not come in contact with other people, and take the temperature twice a day to make sure they don't develop any symptoms.

And, again, if 21 day goes by with no symptoms that's when they'll get the free and clear sign.

BERMAN: So talking about quarantine, Martin Savidge, you are in Dallas right now where, of course, these four people are being shut in this apartment, which is being guarded to make sure they don't leave and no one else gets in there. What is the status? The dirty sheets, the dirty towels that were first exposed by Anderson Cooper, are they still in there? Are they getting any help, those people?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Unfortunately, I believe that dirty linen and all the materials that the Ebola patient may have touched remain inside of the apartment there, this despite all of the statements that have come from state health officials saying they're doing their very best to get that apartment cleaned up for those who are still living in there and also for the concern of any possibility that the disease could spread as a result.

Here's the complication -- and there are many -- the state admits that when they put out a call yesterday for cleaning crews, those who might go in and gather all of this material and clean up the apartment, there weren't a lot of takers.

And eventually they did find a company, and that company, last evening, went to begin the process. However, we're told, once they got there, they were stopped before they even made entry because apparently they didn't have the proper documents or the proper authority to transport the soiled material on a Texas highway. And as result of that, everything was stopped.

So today the CDC says they're continuing to work through this as a department of transportation issue, and they hope to have it resolved today, which would then allow for the cleanup.

But for those who are still trapped inside you can imagine all of this back and forth just adds to the anxiety.

Michaela and John?

PEREIRA: Absolutely. That anxiety must be very high.

Sanjay, you actually had a chance to talk to the head of the CDC, a guy everybody wants to hear from now. You pushed him on how this is all being handled, the treatment and the discovery of this first patient diagnosed on U.S. soil.

Specifically, you pushed him on this note that they didn't know how to dispose of the waste. Let's listen to him, and I want you to talk more about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR: I think the issue that we've been challenged by is what do you do with the waste. That's been an issue that we have been working intensively with the Department of Transportation, which regulates the movement of the potentially infectious waste.

That situation I'm confident will be resolved today. We hoped it would be resolved yesterday, but I think we'll get it resolved today.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PEREIRA: Sanjay, when we first started talking about Ebola in west Africa this year, the CDC was aware of questions about whether we would see Ebola in our country.

Wouldn't they have started planning for that eventuality and wouldn't it have involved what do we do with this medical waste?

GUPTA: You would think so. It's easy to point out all these deficiencies, and there have been many of them, as we know. I think this is one of those cases where the devil is in the details.

I think we focus on the big things, experimental therapies and vaccines and public health preparedness. What do we do with the waste? It may have been lower down on the list, but all the sudden it's come very much to the top of the list because it was something they should have paid more attention to, and they just didn't.

In a hospital, if the patient in a hospital, there's very specific protocols on what to do with the waste -- biocontainment bags taken to a specific location, incinerated, all these different things.

Here you have a situation where, as Martin said, you're contracting a commercial company to do this work. They have their option to say, look, Ebola, no thanks. And so there's no mandate. You can't force them to do that. And that's part of what they're working through.

And then they've got to figure out how to be able to transport it because the transportation department says we don't want that particular sort of biohazard traveling on our roads.

It doesn't always make sense scientifically, but that's some of the obstacles they're running into.

BERMAN: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Martin Savidge, thanks so much for being with us.

A lot here to discuss. Another subject, we know Ebola is here. We know how it got here. So is it time to close off U.S. airports to anyone coming from countries that are part of the Ebola hot zone?

PEREIRA: And we look at ISIS. They have entered a city on the Syrian/Turkish border. Are air strikes helping to degrade the terror group or will there need to be more boots on the ground? We'll talk about it, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: United Airlines is reaching out to the almost 400 passengers on the same flight as Thomas Eric Duncan and referring them to the CDC.

United says it does not believe these passengers are at any kind of risk of getting Ebola.

PEREIRA: But that it's doing all of this out of an abundance of caution. The airline says in a statement, quote, "Per the CDC, there is zero risk to any passengers who flew on these aircraft, and we continue to clean and route the planes throughout our network as usual."

The bigger question could be, should any airline be flying to countries in this so-called hot zone in west Africa?

BERMAN: Is the risk simply too great that the disease could connect its way to the United States?

You have to listen to what our aviation analyst Mary Schiavo said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Should we be flying to that part of the world at all right now?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: No. we should not because an airplane presents a very unique threat vector.

When you move an airplane from west Africa to the United States, it's like you're moving a small village here from west Africa because it's not only the passengers.

You've got the caterers and the water, the people who clean the bathrooms, the people who put luggage on board. You've moved this whole little city with the potential problems not to mention passengers on board.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I want to bring in Senator Rob Portman from Ohio. He's a senior member of the homeland security committee.

And, Senator, I know you're calling for better passenger screening coming into the United States, but I hope you just heard what Mary Schiavo said.

We've talked to her on a variety of subjects and she always is in the "keep calm and carry on" camp. This time she says ban the flights; it's a no-brainer. What do you think?

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R), OHIO: John, I think in general we need to be more aggressive in addressing this, and I've called for that in the past month. At a minimum, let's do active screening.

As you know, we are not acting in a way that we should be in terms of asking passengers where they have been, where whether they've been in contact with someone who's had Ebola, and that's one reason we're having the issues that we're having.

So, right now, it's what's called a passive questioning. If someone exhibits the symptoms, then the customs and border patrol folks are allowed to take them aside, but it should be much more robust.

And I don't understand, frankly, why the CDC isn't existing on that and directing our customs and border patrol folks to do that.

PEREIRA: What, in your estimation, does more robust screening look like? Because you and I have both flown, as has John. It already is quite an endeavor at the airport, especially if you're flying internationally.

Give us an idea of how it would be implemented.

PORTMAN: Michaela, when you and I fly and come internationally, we get asked whether we've been around livestock, we get asked whether we've been on a farm, whether we have fresh fruits or vegetables.

It's amazing that simple questions from people coming from west Africa are not being asked.

PEREIRA: But who's to say they'll to the truth?

PORTMAN: -- have you been in contact with someone with Ebola.

BERMAN: In this case --

PORTMAN: Well, they're required to tell the truth under law. As you know, they can be prosecuted if they don't tell the truth, so it needs to be seriously undertaken by both the exit screening and the entrance screening. But let's at least ask the question. It is amazing to me that we have now gone, really for several weeks, knowing that this problem is out there. I've been calling for active screening for some time. We checked again this morning because, look, I'm trying to work with the administration on this and I would hope that they would be taking this more seriously, both in Africa in terms of a more aggressive response there, and also here at home.

I'm also very concerned that we're not prepared. The Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security has, as recently as a month ago, issued a report saying that we're not ready for a pandemic, should that occur. In other words, we don't have the right equipment stockpiled. Much of it is out of date. We are not prepared in terms of a plan to deal with it. And we've been clearing the Department of Homeland Security to ask them, you know, what are they doing in response to this Inspector General's report. We can't get answers back.

So, I just don't think we're as prepared as we should be. I think, unfortunately, this is another example where the administration was not as engaged early on as they should have been and now we're playing catch-up.

BERMAN: Senator, I guess I go back to my first question here. Would you consider or could you support banning flights from the Ebola hot zone coming to the United States? Banning them all together?

PORTMAN: Well, that's something we certainly ought to look at, John, and I do think the countries in West Africa have a strong interest in ensuring that there are adequate exit screening and that they're working with us to avoid any issues on those flights, because for their economy this would be a huge problem. But I think that's something we're going to have to look at because if we don't get more serious about this, it will spread.

And by the way, when you look at what's happening in Africa today, I think we were relatively late to the game. Now we're in there, that's good. I applauded the administration when they finally took steps to actually begin quickly in Liberia to take a more aggressive approach, but we've got to move and move very quickly because the disease is spreading so quickly, it's estimated, as you know, that by mid- January, just a few months from now, there could be up to a million people infected. We've already seen, obviously, huge devastation in these countries. The 4,000 figure you've heard is believed to be underreported, in terms of the number of deaths, so this is something where, overall I just think we need to be more aggressive and take a more robust approach.

PEREIRA: Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, thanks so much for joining us. We'll obviously be discussing this for days and weeks to come as we see this issue not going away any time soon.

It was interesting listening to some of the concerns of Liberian- Americans. We had a guest on earlier on "NEW DAY." They're concerned about the stigma that could be attached. Other West African people are concerned about the stigma attached. And they don't want to see flights closed down, because they're concerned the people in West Africa will all but be abandoned and they say, quote unquote, to "the New York Times," they're concerned that that part of West Africa, they would be doomed.

BERMAN: And their people say if you ban the flights, they won't be able to fly in with the help that is needed. Nevertheless, it is something that the senator and others want discussed. 18 minutes after the hour. The sheets and towels that the Dallas Ebola patient used still have not been removed from his apartment.

Ahead @THISHOUR, a biosafety expert explains why disposing of this waste isn't as easy as taking out the trash and why bioterrorism might also be a concern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: So the sheets that Thomas used and the towels that he used, what have you done with those?

VOICE OF LOUISE, PARTNET OF EBOLA PATIENT: They are in a plastic bag.

COOPER: In your apartment?

LOUISE: Uh-huh.

COOPER: So you put them -- you took them off the bed and put them into a plastic bag?

LOUISE: No, only the towel is in a plastic bag. The rest of his stuff, stayed the same on the bed. The bed sheets, everything is on the bed. COOPER: So the sheets that he used, that he slept on, that's still on

the bed?

LOUISE: Yeah.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Anderson Cooper there speaking with the girlfriend of the Liberian man who has been diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas. Thomas Eric Duncan has been in isolation at a Dallas hospital since Sunday. As you just heard, though, the apartment where he stayed still has not been sanitized.

BERMAN: Even more shocking, four people -- Duncan's perhaps girlfriend Louise, her son, and her two nephews -- are still living there. They are inside that apartment. They cannot leave until health officials confirm that they do not have Ebola. And that could take weeks.

Joining us is Sean Kaufman; he's president of the biosafety firm, Behavioral-Based Improvement Solutions. He was also a member of the CDC's response team for the anthrax attacks, and also the SARS outbreak.

PEREIRA: Sean, we're really glad you could join us because we have a lot of questions about all of this. The cleanup, et cetera., and you're the guy to ask. We know that a hazardous material crew went to the apartment yesterday. They were turned away, essentially, because if we understand it correctly, they didn't have the right permits to transport this infected material.

Help us understand the transport, the responsibility, the health concerns, et. cetera, of disposing of and transporting such waste.

SEAN KAUFMAN, BEHAVIORAL-BASED IMPROVEMENT SOLUTIONS: Well, I think it's a catch-22 here. And what I'm saying here is that I, ideally, would love to see that the family has the waste removed from the facility or from the home. But I would also like to make sure that the people who are actually going in the home to remove the waste are qualified, well trained, and know what they're up against. So when we get waste, we have to not only make sure that it's handled properly, but we also have to make sure that it's secured. Because if we don't make sure waste is secured until it's disposed of and inactivated or incinerated, it could fall into the hands of someone who wants to do something really bad with it.

BERMAN: And that's certainly something to think about that I think a lot of people -- it has not occurred to a lot of people. Sean, we just looked at the pictures of the crew that was sent to the house. This looked like a, you know, a residential crew that comes to clean up mold in your basement. We're talking about Ebola here. Why is the government even asking this commercial outfit to come over? Why aren't there government officials in the moon suits we've come to expect who are ready to go to get this kind of substance when it's out there?

KAUFMAN: Well it is surprising the way that this has been handled, but I will tell you this, a lot of focus has been on the worst case aspects of Ebola. But there is something that's very special about Ebola and the special part about Ebola is that it is a lipid envelope virus, and I don't mean to get technical. But what I mean say is that it is the easiest of all viruses, of all infections, it's one of the easiest to disinfect and decontaminate for. So, as long as we get good contact time and as long as we know what we're doing and how we're doing it, it's very, very easy to inactivate and it's very, very easy to kill.

PEREIRA: Well there's a number of people, too, that are just wondering if we can't isolate the situation, get these poor people out of there to a safe place where they can be handled with dignity and compassion and get them any medical care they need. We'll leave that aside for now because I want to talk to you because I understand you're going back to West Africa?

KAUFMAN: Yes, Michaela, I am.

PEREIRA: What are you going to do there and how are you feeling about heading back there?

KAUFMAN: Well, I'll be honest with you, I think, I am honored. The folks at MSF, CDC, Samaritan's Purse, all the NGOs who are stepping foot over there are heroes, in my opinion, and I have to tell you that I'm honored to have a chance to go over there.

I leave this Sunday. I will be teaching doctors and nurses how to handle folks living with Ebola in a compassionate and honorable way, because that really is the key. I heard you mention about stigma, and if we punish folks, if we use policy to punish folks, if we put folks down or scare them away, all we're going to do is suppress this horrible outbreak and it's going to spread even further.

BERMAN: We're lucky that we have people like you who are trained and know what they're doing and are willing to go deal with this situation. And the hot zone is in Africa, West Africa. And I think we realize that it's not going to make any difference what happens here if it's not fought over there. You've dealt with crises in the past. We mentioned anthrax, we mentioned SARS. I was in Toronto during the SARS outbreak. How does this compare to them? What's scarier?

KAUFMAN: Well, I'll be honest with you, I think whenever you're facing a new threat, you're always scared and I think the biggest issue -- and someone once famous said, I don't know who it was but, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. When we start making decisions based out of fear we may start doing things that increase people's risk and so for example, shutting down airlines, flights in and out, we've got to make sure that our decisions are calculated, they're strategic, they're based on a great risk assessment.

But I would say the No. 1 thing to overcome right now is the stigma. We saw it with anthrax and the postal employees, we saw it with SARS and Chinatowns, and we are seeing it right now. And the story's unfolding. We are seeing how stigma has a strong influence on suppressing, not only people telling truth, but suppressing the real facts behind a patient's case history.

PEREIRA: Well Godspeed, Sean Kaufman, and maybe you'll do a favor for us. We'd like to keep in contact with you as you travel there, get a sense of what's going on on the ground, the challenges you're facing. Maybe we can pull up the old Skype on the interwebs and have a conversation with you or you can fire us an email to let us know what the reality is there and how they're dealing with the situation, okay?

KAUFMAN: Will do, thank you so much.

BERMAN: There's been so much back and forth here, and Sean is really one of the first guys that we think has put it into perspective with his vast experience and says, hey, this is what is of concern and this is what is not.

PEREIRA: Think about it. We talked in the early days about the fear in some of these tiny West African villages, the fear of outsiders, the fear of these people in the big white suits coming. Imagine now, when there is more of a sigma attached to it. When there is more confusion about certain aspects of the treatment and the care, et. cetera.

All right, ahead, three sheriff's deputies are now on leave as a precaution, after they went into the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan first got sick.

Ahead @THISHOUR, what are their chances of catching the virus? We'll talk with a medical ethicist about the latest developments in the first Ebola case diagnosed in the U.S.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)