Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kurig, and welcome to Next Question. Today,
Speaker 1: on a special bonus episode, we begin to consider what
Speaker 1: life after coronavirus might look like. The pandemic will no
Speaker 1: doubt have an enormous impact on the way we work, learn, travel,
Speaker 1: or even just interact with each other. But before we
Speaker 1: can even get to that, we have to answer my
Speaker 1: next question, when and how can we return to normal?
Speaker 1: And what will normal even look like. This is going
Speaker 1: to be a long struggle until we have a vaccine.
Speaker 1: The virus is likely to be with us and is
Speaker 1: likely to change the way we have to go about
Speaker 1: our lives, even when we begin to come back out again.
Speaker 1: Dr Tom Frieden is the former director of the U
Speaker 1: S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a k a.
Speaker 1: The c d C, and before that was New York
Speaker 1: City's Public Health Commissioner. He's now the president and CEO
Speaker 1: of Resolved to Say Lives. He's called this pandemic world
Speaker 1: War C with the humans against the coronavirus, and while
Speaker 1: it's daunting to think we're still at the start of
Speaker 1: this war, Dr fried is thinking about the future we
Speaker 1: all long for, and he's just released a four point
Speaker 1: plan that will help the country get up and running
Speaker 1: as soon and safely as possible. You have stressed that
Speaker 1: reopening is not about the date, it's about the data.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, explain for us what you think
Speaker 1: the data needs to reveal in order to ensure a
Speaker 1: safer returned to life as we once knew it, or
Speaker 1: somewhat as we once knew it. To get out to
Speaker 1: the new normal, we need to look at three things.
Speaker 1: The first is how widely the virus is spreading and
Speaker 1: whether it's decreasing. You don't want to go out when
Speaker 1: it's about to explode again, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: go out when there's so many cases that they might
Speaker 1: overwhelm health or public health systems. The second is how
Speaker 1: prepared our health care systems are so we can prevent
Speaker 1: healthcare workers from becoming affected and also provide good care
Speaker 1: to people with coronavirus and continuing continuing to provide care
Speaker 1: to people who need chronic care, whether it's cancer screening
Speaker 1: or diabetes care. What we're seeing is people foregoing very
Speaker 1: important services, So that has to be ready, and our
Speaker 1: public health system has to be ready to do what
Speaker 1: I call box it in testing isolation, contact casing, and
Speaker 1: quarantine four corners of a box. If we get that right,
Speaker 1: we can limit the spread of coronavirus from cases and
Speaker 1: clusters so it doesn't explode again and force us to
Speaker 1: come back in. You're such a well respected public health official.
Speaker 1: I do think that a lot of people listening may
Speaker 1: think the numbers, the estimates were we're too high, that
Speaker 1: the number of cases didn't match what people and scientists
Speaker 1: were predicting. Why can you help people understand why that
Speaker 1: was the case, and is it because of the measures
Speaker 1: that were taken. We're learning more about coronavirus literally every day,
Speaker 1: but it would be a big and potentially fatal mistake
Speaker 1: not to take this virus very seriously. Just look at
Speaker 1: what has happened in New York City, where there have
Speaker 1: been seventeen thousand confirmed or probable cases and twenty one
Speaker 1: excess deaths in less than six weeks. That compares with
Speaker 1: thirty thousand deaths in New York City in two years
Speaker 1: of the influenza pandemic. This is the worst health threat
Speaker 1: of our lifetime, and it is very, very dangerous, particularly
Speaker 1: for people over the age of sixty and for anyone
Speaker 1: with underlying health conditions, but also just a variety of
Speaker 1: people in their thirties and forties and get very very ill.
Speaker 1: So this is an enormously deadly pandemic and unfortunately bad
Speaker 1: as it has been, this is just the beginning. The
Speaker 1: virus will be here until we have a vaccine. What
Speaker 1: about until there's a better treatment. The treatment would make
Speaker 1: a really big difference. If we had good treatment for
Speaker 1: this vaccine, and including good preventive treatment, and that could
Speaker 1: come well before a vaccine, that would make a big difference.
Speaker 1: That could decrease death rates, decrease overcrowd against care units,
Speaker 1: help people be safer. So yes, the treatment would be terrific,
Speaker 1: but we don't have one yet. And and do you
Speaker 1: see I know there's been a lot of global cooperation
Speaker 1: among scientists and researchers. Do you see anything that gives
Speaker 1: you optimism about a potential treatment that may pre come
Speaker 1: before a vaccine? So far, nothing is working out and
Speaker 1: a few of the things that have looked at have
Speaker 1: not proven to be effective. I am encouraged that there's
Speaker 1: really good global collaboration that the World Health Organization is
Speaker 1: helping to link together scientists from all over the world. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: paywalls have come down on scientific publications, and preprints have
Speaker 1: gone up. These are two big changes in how medical
Speaker 1: science works. So we're learning more really fast, and I'm
Speaker 1: encouraged that if we do identify a good treatment, will
Speaker 1: find out about that quickly and I hope then be
Speaker 1: able to apply it widely. But we don't have it now,
Speaker 1: and what we need to do now is to stay
Speaker 1: home so that the virus doesn't explode again. That's our
Speaker 1: most blunt weapon against it, and box it in. That's
Speaker 1: our most precise weapon against it. That's how we can
Speaker 1: prevent an outbreak. From becoming an academic, I want to
Speaker 1: talk more about how to restart the economy and some
Speaker 1: of the things that you have in mind, But first
Speaker 1: I'm curious Dr. Freedom. Have you been able to or
Speaker 1: have scientists been able to get a better understanding of
Speaker 1: some of the mystery surrounding COVID nineteen. The fact that
Speaker 1: some people are affected so intensely and are incapacitated and
Speaker 1: often killed by this virus, and others can be completely asymptomatic.
Speaker 1: It's got to be more than just underlying conditions or
Speaker 1: or someone's age. What are some of the things that
Speaker 1: we're learning about how this virus operates. We're literally more
Speaker 1: every day, but there's still a lot we don't know.
Speaker 1: We do know that age is the strongest predictor of
Speaker 1: how bad this infection will be, and kids under the
Speaker 1: age of twenty rarely get seriously ill from it. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, people over sixty often do. It's often
Speaker 1: fatal for them. We don't know which underlying health conditions
Speaker 1: are riskiest. Diabetes, kidney disease, lung disease, heart disease seeming
Speaker 1: the most concerning, but that's something will learn more about.
Speaker 1: We don't know whether some people have more severe disease
Speaker 1: because they were exposed to a bigger amount of virus
Speaker 1: what's called the innoculum. And one thing that I'm very
Speaker 1: intrigued by, although there's no proof of this, is that
Speaker 1: there may be very subtle genetic differences in different strains
Speaker 1: of this virus that may be associated with higher or
Speaker 1: lower severity of illness. That's just a theory at this point,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence to support it, but it's something that
Speaker 1: would be a clue as to how we might make
Speaker 1: a vaccine that might immunize people without making them sick.
Speaker 1: Can you help me understand that better. When you say
Speaker 1: a different, a more powerful strain, explain what you made
Speaker 1: by by that. For people who aren't scientists or doctors
Speaker 1: listening to this, well, the first thing to say is,
Speaker 1: we have no idea. We don't know why some people
Speaker 1: get sicker than others. It could be they're exposed to
Speaker 1: a higher dose or a noculum of the virus, but
Speaker 1: we know that if they have underlying conditions that could
Speaker 1: make it worse. And there is a possibility that there
Speaker 1: are certain types of this virus. It's all Sarah's cove too,
Speaker 1: it's all one particular species of coronavirus, but there are
Speaker 1: already a lot of genetic differences within that species. And
Speaker 1: one theory that some of us are beginning to wonder
Speaker 1: about now with no evidence, just something that should be investigated,
Speaker 1: is whether some of the strains that are circulating are
Speaker 1: less deadly than others, and might account for the fact
Speaker 1: that you're seeing a very high proportion of people with
Speaker 1: no symptoms at all in some outbreaks and a very
Speaker 1: low proportion with no symptoms at all in others. The
Speaker 1: New York Times, in fact, had a front page piece
Speaker 1: about a seemingly healthy guy who was on a ventilator,
Speaker 1: I believe, for thirty two days and came out the
Speaker 1: other side pretty miraculously. But he seemed to be very
Speaker 1: atypical for someone who would be made so seriously from
Speaker 1: this virus. No one should be overconfident about this virus.
Speaker 1: Thirty year old doctors, nurses, and others with no underlying
Speaker 1: conditions have become desperately ill, and some have died from it. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: no one is immune from this virus. Maybe people who
Speaker 1: have been recovered from it, maybe, but barring that, there
Speaker 1: is no natural immunity. And that's why we're so concerned.
Speaker 1: Not only have there been more than seventeen thousand COVID
Speaker 1: deaths in New York City so far, it could get
Speaker 1: two or three times worse, and other parts of the US,
Speaker 1: other parts of the world haven't gone through that yet,
Speaker 1: so they're at risk of explosive outbreaks. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Dr Tom Threeden on our COVID testing fiasco, We're back
Speaker 1: with Dr Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC. Testing
Speaker 1: is such an important factor, Dr Frieden, But gosh, that
Speaker 1: seems to have been a massive ship show. Excuse my French.
Speaker 1: In terms of getting the testing up and running. What
Speaker 1: the heck happened here? We still have far too few
Speaker 1: tests compared to what we need. The CDC stumbled early
Speaker 1: on there was a problem with their test kit. Their
Speaker 1: test kit has worked fine for two months and we
Speaker 1: still have a major shortage. That's because it's really a
Speaker 1: three leggedge to it. You need the CDC providing tests,
Speaker 1: to public health laboratories, hospitals developing their own tests, and
Speaker 1: the commercial laboratories figuring out how they provide very large
Speaker 1: volumes of tests. And this has been increasing, but too slowly.
Speaker 1: And that's why we've just released guidance on who should
Speaker 1: be tested, because right now we don't have enough tests
Speaker 1: for everyone, and therefore we really need to scale up
Speaker 1: testing for those who need it most, including people whose
Speaker 1: lives may be saved by being tested, or people who
Speaker 1: when we know they're infected, we can isolate them and
Speaker 1: prevent a large and deadly outbreak of the disease. So
Speaker 1: when you say are you talking about elderly people and
Speaker 1: those with the underlying conditions, I mean who is in
Speaker 1: this subset of people who should be tested right now?
Speaker 1: Most important are people with symptoms who are being hospitalized
Speaker 1: for our overage sixty or who have underlying health conditions.
Speaker 1: Next most important is anyone in a congregte facility who
Speaker 1: has symptoms. That's a nursing home or a homeless shelter,
Speaker 1: or a prison or a jail. Next is health care
Speaker 1: workers who of symptoms so we can make health facility
Speaker 1: is safer. And anyone who's a contact of a case
Speaker 1: who is symptomatic, plus all people hospitalized where COVID is
Speaker 1: spreading to prevent hospital outbreaks of COVID, it's really important
Speaker 1: that these individuals get tested because that can greatly reduce
Speaker 1: the spread of the infection. And when there is an
Speaker 1: outbreak in a conic facility, then it's important, uh then
Speaker 1: that all they are get tested, whether or not they
Speaker 1: have symptoms. But just to test those groups is over
Speaker 1: a million tests a day and we're doing at most
Speaker 1: a quarter of that now I know about a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand tests a day, so less than a
Speaker 1: quarter of that certainly. And when are we going to
Speaker 1: be able to have enough tests available? What about that much?
Speaker 1: Bally hood Abbott laboratories fast tests that you could get
Speaker 1: the results in you know, five to eighteen minutes what
Speaker 1: happened with that. There are tests that are um point
Speaker 1: of care and they're available right where the patient is,
Speaker 1: like the Abbot test, but they're low volume. They take
Speaker 1: less than fifteen minutes, but you only do one at
Speaker 1: a time, so you can only do four patients per
Speaker 1: hour on one instrument. In contrast, some of the large
Speaker 1: tests may take a day to come back, but you
Speaker 1: can do thousands of hours. When we have the tests
Speaker 1: that we need at what you say, a million a day.
Speaker 1: We'll really have to rely on the federal government for
Speaker 1: getting this right. They have to coordinate it. They have
Speaker 1: to make sure the entire supply chain is there, from
Speaker 1: swabs to transport media, to re agents to test kits,
Speaker 1: to machines for testing, to providing the test results. Remember,
Speaker 1: testing is just the first step. Testing is really important,
Speaker 1: but it's not the answer. It's a part of the answer.
Speaker 1: It's about testing, isolating people who are positive, tracing contacts,
Speaker 1: and quarantining the contacts. I can do those four things.
Speaker 1: You can keep the virus in the box so we
Speaker 1: can go out. Let's talk about contact tracing. Tell us
Speaker 1: about that. What do you mean by contact tracing? Because
Speaker 1: I understand you call it an old fashioned shoe leather
Speaker 1: effort of sending human beings out to ask people who
Speaker 1: they've been in contact with. But that could require an
Speaker 1: army of something like three thousand people. So how do
Speaker 1: you organize an effort like that? Contact tracing is hard work,
Speaker 1: but it works. It's traditional public health work. In fact,
Speaker 1: every day, all year round, health departments all over this
Speaker 1: country and all over the world are doing it for tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: for measles, or sexually transmitted diseases HIV and other conditions.
Speaker 1: But we have to do it on a much wider
Speaker 1: scale now it's specialized work. Contact tracers need to be
Speaker 1: able to develop a human bond with patients. They need
Speaker 1: to be able to answer their question is medical, social, emotional.
Speaker 1: They need to be able to link them to services,
Speaker 1: whether it's medical services if they're sick, or social services
Speaker 1: if they have needs, or community supports. That contact tracing
Speaker 1: process supports patients and those they may have exposed so
Speaker 1: that the virus can stop with them, so that they
Speaker 1: can isolate themselves in the case of patients, or quarantine
Speaker 1: themselves in the pace of case of contact, and if
Speaker 1: they do develop the illness, they don't spread it to others.
Speaker 1: That does take time, It takes effort. If we look
Speaker 1: around the world, Singapore, with the population of five point
Speaker 1: six million people, has more than a thousand people doing
Speaker 1: contact tracing. That gives you a sense of the scale
Speaker 1: of the effort that will be needed. Tens or maybe
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people will be needed, and that
Speaker 1: sounds impossible, but it's essential if we're to come out
Speaker 1: as soon and safely as possible. And that gets sent
Speaker 1: running back home again because we see an explosion of cases. Well,
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that. When you
Speaker 1: see the governor of Georgia starting to open up things
Speaker 1: like bowling alleys and barber shops and nail salmons, what
Speaker 1: what do you think? I think, first off, if you
Speaker 1: look at the stay at home orders around the country
Speaker 1: and the data that's come out since from groups like
Speaker 1: Facebook and Google that have analyzed what population movements were
Speaker 1: people stay at home before the rectory statement they heard
Speaker 1: what was happening, I think you'll see some some people
Speaker 1: certainly coming right out and other people waiting. We do
Speaker 1: have to get ready for the COVID world, for the
Speaker 1: new normal where we're going to use hand sanitizers before
Speaker 1: we go into a building, we're going to say six
Speaker 1: ft away from people to the greatest extent possible, where
Speaker 1: we're going to have masks on to protect others as
Speaker 1: well as ourselves. Whenever COVID has spread in an environment,
Speaker 1: certain things are certainly beyond reasonable. You would not want
Speaker 1: to open movie theaters at this time. That does not
Speaker 1: make sense. While you've still got a lot of cases.
Speaker 1: You really try to avoid gatherings of ten people or more.
Speaker 1: You try to keep people together in one group so
Speaker 1: that there is so that if there is spread of COVID,
Speaker 1: it stops there and doesn't explode in society. Remember, if
Speaker 1: the virus spreads widely, it's not just the people who
Speaker 1: volunteered or hum of their own accord we're in public
Speaker 1: that are affected. It's the health workers who they could
Speaker 1: infect and could die. It's the grandmothers and grandfathers, and
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters and children of those they in fact
Speaker 1: who could get very sick. So we have to be
Speaker 1: careful and do this in phasis understanding that when we
Speaker 1: loosen the faucet and come out again, it maybe three
Speaker 1: to six weeks before we see a surge in cases,
Speaker 1: because it takes about a week from exposure to infection,
Speaker 1: about another week to get very severely ill. So it'll
Speaker 1: be weeks before we see the impact of these and
Speaker 1: we don't know whether whether we'll be on our side
Speaker 1: or not, and whether warm or weather will be helpful.
Speaker 1: We hope it will be, but the plain truth is
Speaker 1: COVID is here to stay unless something surprising happens or
Speaker 1: we get a vaccine, and that means we have to
Speaker 1: get used to a new normal where we're going to
Speaker 1: have to be more careful for our own sake and
Speaker 1: especially for the sake of those most vulnerable in our communities.
Speaker 1: Once you get the virus, does that make you immune?
Speaker 1: That's still a big question Mark two, isn't it Tom?
Speaker 1: We don't know. There's more information coming out every day,
Speaker 1: and it may be a few weeks or a few
Speaker 1: months before we know. First off, there are antibody tests,
Speaker 1: A lot of questions about those. A lot of the
Speaker 1: tests that are on the market don't work well, so
Speaker 1: the results are not reliable. Even if you have a
Speaker 1: good antibody test, knowing what it means is not clear,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're immune. Even if it does, how long
Speaker 1: will that immunity last there's so much we don't yet
Speaker 1: know about this virus. But the more we learn, the
Speaker 1: more we can do to protect people. What I keep
Speaker 1: thinking about, which I know I shouldn't, because this is
Speaker 1: seeing the glass is half empty, is even if there's
Speaker 1: a vaccine for COVID nineteen, how concerned are you that
Speaker 1: another virus, even after a vaccine is developed maybe around
Speaker 1: the corner. Dr Freeden Katie, It is absolutely inevitable that
Speaker 1: there will be another health threat. Whether it will be
Speaker 1: as bad as COVID nineteen or worse, we don't know.
Speaker 1: What's not inevitable is that we will be so woefully
Speaker 1: underprepared next time. And we can avoid being underprepared by
Speaker 1: investing in public health in this country and around the world.
Speaker 1: That means establishing systems to find, stop and prevent health
Speaker 1: threat where they emerge so they don't spread around the world.
Speaker 1: That means ending the practice of selling exotic animals for
Speaker 1: food and markets. That means ending the practice of bush
Speaker 1: meat consumption in Africa where viruses can emerge. That means
Speaker 1: strengthening our early warning system so we know where diseases
Speaker 1: are spreading and can rapidly investigate them and stop them.
Speaker 1: If at all possible. All of this is within reach,
Speaker 1: and with the trillions of dollars that we're losing because
Speaker 1: of COVID, it's clear that it would be the height
Speaker 1: of irresponsibility not to invest in our public house protection
Speaker 1: system in this country and around the world. Well, we
Speaker 1: come back, how to emerge into the new COVID world.
Speaker 1: Let's return to my interview with Dr Tom Frieden. It
Speaker 1: seems to me that we're going to need a nine
Speaker 1: eleven Commission type evaluation about not only this country's response,
Speaker 1: but the global response. Knowing that you don't want to
Speaker 1: get too far into politics, you're the former director of
Speaker 1: the CDC, So how would you assess the government's handling
Speaker 1: of this crisis, both the administration and other agencies, including
Speaker 1: the CDC. Let's start with CDC. CC clearly had a
Speaker 1: problem with the laboratory tests and with responding to that problem.
Speaker 1: I would like to see an independent investigation of that.
Speaker 1: I have no confidence in investigations that are done by
Speaker 1: others who might benefit from selling there was one problem
Speaker 1: or another. There's an excellent laboratory science unit at CC.
Speaker 1: I would want to see them do an internal report
Speaker 1: and then have an external highly expert group through the
Speaker 1: National Academy of Sciences look at that and provide transparently
Speaker 1: what went wrong and how to prevent that from going
Speaker 1: around in the future. That doesn't change the fact that
Speaker 1: the CDC is a fantastic institution with twenty public health
Speaker 1: professionals who devote their lives to protecting people from health
Speaker 1: threats and who are our elite troops in this war
Speaker 1: against coronavirus. They are working day and night. They are
Speaker 1: doing an enormous amount to strengthen states and cities around
Speaker 1: the country. Their website, CDC dot gov remains the best
Speaker 1: place to go for information, advice, and guidance on how
Speaker 1: to protect ourselves, our workplaces, and our communities. In terms
Speaker 1: of the US response, more generally, can I can I
Speaker 1: interrupt for two seconds? So well? I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I've done work with the CDC. I have so much
Speaker 1: respect for the people there. But something did go terribly
Speaker 1: wrong in this instance. What do you think happened? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I there. The CDC laboratory itself was able
Speaker 1: to do testing throughout this process and never got overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: The problem came in sending out tests that didn't work
Speaker 1: well and then the bigger problem was not responding to
Speaker 1: that problem rapidly. I don't know why that happened, but
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that should be looked at.
Speaker 1: Tom the current the current CDC director, Robert Redfield, he's
Speaker 1: defended the agency and said, quote, it was really the
Speaker 1: responsibility of the private sector and the clinical medicine apparatus
Speaker 1: to develop widespread testing. That's correct, He's absolutely right. It's
Speaker 1: a three legged school. You've got CDC providing tests for
Speaker 1: the public health departments, You've got hospitals developing their own tests,
Speaker 1: and you've got the commercial sector developing the tests for
Speaker 1: large numbers of patients. And you can know for certain
Speaker 1: that it's correct because the CDC test has worked fine
Speaker 1: for two months and we still have a major shorts
Speaker 1: of tests because those other two legs got started very late.
Speaker 1: CDC said on January we have to behave as if
Speaker 1: this is a pandemic. But it wasn't until more than
Speaker 1: a month later that the Food and Drug Administration loosened
Speaker 1: regulations to allow the private sector to begin developing their
Speaker 1: own tests. And it wasn't until early March. And whose
Speaker 1: fault was that? I think you've got to look at
Speaker 1: HHS and FDA for that, and what about the administration
Speaker 1: and the task force that was well in place before that.
Speaker 1: I find the organization of this response by the administration
Speaker 1: very confusing. I don't know what the role of FEMA
Speaker 1: versus the task Force versus the Vice President versus the
Speaker 1: White House Coronavirus Coordinator versus the Chairman of the task
Speaker 1: Force is. In our work at Resolve to Save Lives,
Speaker 1: we advise countries fall around the world how to respond
Speaker 1: to an epidemic, and one of the main ways of
Speaker 1: doing that is to organize so that there is a
Speaker 1: single incident manager and a single trusted, not partisan spokesperson,
Speaker 1: and that those people report to the head of state,
Speaker 1: and that the policy decisions are made by the head
Speaker 1: of state. But the operational response has a clear line
Speaker 1: of accountability and a clear nonpartisan communication. I wish we
Speaker 1: would see that in this country. Well, it's been anything
Speaker 1: but that. As many people have complained about the nature
Speaker 1: of these briefings, the role of the CDC has been minimized,
Speaker 1: if not completely, uh you know, erased from the whole process.
Speaker 1: Dr Fauci and Deborah Burkes don't seem to have much
Speaker 1: of a voice. Do you think it's been dangerous that
Speaker 1: the President of the United States, who is certainly not
Speaker 1: a scientist, is the one that is talking and communicating
Speaker 1: with the American people and even making crazy suggestions, even
Speaker 1: in sarcasm, uh to, about injecting disinfectants. I'll feel safer
Speaker 1: when we're hearing from this DC regularly, people like not
Speaker 1: just Dr Redfield, but also Dr shook It, who was
Speaker 1: the prior director of the National Center for Immunization and
Speaker 1: Respiratory Disease, Dr Masign, other experts and viral public the
Speaker 1: public health response to viral lung diseases. These are our
Speaker 1: top experts, not just in the country but in the world,
Speaker 1: and we're not hearing from them. Don't you think that's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'll feel safer when we're hearing from them. You're being
Speaker 1: very diplomatic here, Tom. So let's just before you go,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the future. You say COVID nineteen is
Speaker 1: here to stay. So when you think about the future,
Speaker 1: do you think do you agree that social distancing will
Speaker 1: continue for months to come? What about this idea of
Speaker 1: immunity passports that will allow those who have been affected
Speaker 1: returning to the workforce, Um you know, tell me what
Speaker 1: you envisioned for the future. If a VACS scene is
Speaker 1: not created anytime soon, and there's no treatment anytime soon,
Speaker 1: we'll be going back to a new normal. That normal
Speaker 1: will include hand sanitizers at the entrance of every building,
Speaker 1: mask wearing in public, physical distancing wherever possible. We don't
Speaker 1: yet have the science to know if community passports will work.
Speaker 1: There are some countries that have started that we'll need
Speaker 1: to learn more, but it's inevitable that until there's a
Speaker 1: vaccine or an effective treatment, you're going to see travel bands.
Speaker 1: You're going to see quarantine of travelers. We're even seeing
Speaker 1: countries like Canada and Australia block people from going from
Speaker 1: one state or province to another. If one state has
Speaker 1: controlled it and another state hasn't, it's almost inevitable they're
Speaker 1: going to try to keep people out who are going
Speaker 1: to bring this in and create another explosion of cases.
Speaker 1: Have you seen anything positive on Horizon Tom in terms
Speaker 1: of a vaccine or something that at least is showing promise.
Speaker 1: The most promising thing I've seen, Katie, is real global collaboration,
Speaker 1: that people are working together, that we understand that it's
Speaker 1: us against them here and them as a microbe, us
Speaker 1: as all humans. And the more we can learn from
Speaker 1: each other, the more we can partner with each other,
Speaker 1: the more of us are going to get through this
Speaker 1: safe and health. Do you see somebody who could be
Speaker 1: or an organization that could be the head of a
Speaker 1: global response if this happens again, so that people all
Speaker 1: over the world have really the most up to date
Speaker 1: scientific information, that the messages aren't contradicting each other, that
Speaker 1: people aren't kind of competing for resources, so that everyone
Speaker 1: can be operating from on the same page. The World
Speaker 1: Health Organization is essential. We helped create it, were a
Speaker 1: member of it. It has strengths and weaknesses. It's done
Speaker 1: relatively well in this outbreak, but clearly there are things
Speaker 1: that need done better, and how that should be done
Speaker 1: is something for a discussion in the coming months. We
Speaker 1: know that we need a better way to track where
Speaker 1: outbreaks are emerging and a better way to help countries
Speaker 1: drive down the risk of outbreaks like this and stop
Speaker 1: them as soon as possible. And what did you think
Speaker 1: of the President saying he's going to defund the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization? Since the US is the bigger funder, it's
Speaker 1: something like four million dollars annually. This is the time
Speaker 1: to increase, not to decrease, our funding for public health.
Speaker 1: Dr Tom Freed, and thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: Really really appreciate it. Thank you, and thank you for
Speaker 1: your interest, knowledge and commitment to health and public health.
Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure speaking with you. Okay, right back
Speaker 1: at you, Thanks Tom, Thanks so. Dr Tom Frieden a
Speaker 1: public health expert, former head of the CDC and now
Speaker 1: President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives. And that
Speaker 1: does it for this bonus episode of Next Question. For
Speaker 1: the most up to date information on the coronavirus, as
Speaker 1: Tom Friedman said, go to the CDC and World Health
Speaker 1: Organization websites and for a look at the people behind
Speaker 1: the pandemic, from the victims to the heroes and the
Speaker 1: moments of good news in between. Subscribe to my morning
Speaker 1: newsletter Wake Up Call by going to Katie correct dot com.
Speaker 1: Our regular episodes of Next Question with Me Katie Currekt
Speaker 1: are released weekly every Thursday. You can find those and
Speaker 1: subscribe on Apple Podcast, the I Heart Radio Act or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. So until next
Speaker 1: time and my Next Question, I'm Katie Currect thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Next Question with Katie Couric is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. The
Speaker 1: executive producers are Katie Currik, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Our show producer is
Speaker 1: Bethan Macaluso. The associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clements.
Speaker 1: Editing by Derrek Clements, Dylan Fagan and Lowell Berlante, Mixing
Speaker 1: by Dylan Fagan. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more
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