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@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Ebola Cases Could Hit 10,000 Per Week; Nurses to Voice Ebola Concerns; Kentucky Senate Candidate Under Pressure

Aired October 14, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Hello there, I'm John Berman.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Michaela Pereira.

We have so much news for you. We're going to start with startling new figures that have just been released about the rising rate of Ebola cases. Let's give you what we know @THISHOUR.

The World Health Organization says by December -- sobering fact here -- there will be 5,000 to 10,000 new cases each week in west Africa. Even more startling, the death rate has increased now to 70 percent up from 50 percent.

Meanwhile, the first American to contract Ebola in the United States is fighting for her life. Nurse Nina Pham is just 26 years old. The Texas nurse has had a blood transfusion.

She received the blood transfusion from Ebola survivor, Dr. Kent Brantley. They're hoping this will help her. His plasma has anti- bodies that doctors hope will kill the disease. So far we're told that Pham is in stable condition.

BERMAN: Now, Pham had just received her certification in critical-care nursing about two months ago. She was said to be wearing all the right protective gear.

She's been call highly conscientious by her peers, but somewhere along the way there seems to have been a breach in protocol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR MIKE RAWLINGS, DALLAS: They're brave individuals. These doctors and nurses need to be lifted up in our prayers, our thoughts, and we need to applaud them right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Hear, hear. But let's get back to those startling numbers, 5,000 to 10,000 new cases a week in west Africa by December.

PEREIRA: Let's join -- a couple voices join our conversation, senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, virologist Dr. Daniel Bausch. Good to have both of you with us. Elizabeth, I want to talk to you because I think that John and I have been struggling to understand these numbers. We have been warned about the fact that this could rise in dramatic fashion in west Africa.

That's a very sobering number. What does it tell you about the fight against Ebola there in those nations in west Africa?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Michaela, I wrote a CNN.com piece last week that was about -- that said that basically President Obama got it wrong when he said we know how to fight Ebola.

I don't think that we know how to fight an Ebola outbreak of this magnitude, and the magnitude is the important part. It has gotten so out of control -- I saw this when I was in Liberia -- that we just, I think, don't know how to contain it.

We don't -- you see the contact tracing that's happening here in Dallas where they're going after these contacts and visiting them and taking their temperature. That is not happening in Liberia the way that it should.

I met a woman who took care of four Ebola patients by herself without protective gear and she was not followed up on, and she was a super- duper contact.

So I think a lot of these public health measures have just fallen apart in west Africa.

BERMAN: Dr. Bausch, you treated Ebola patients during this current outbreak. You've trained clinicians who've headed to west Africa. You just heard what Elizabeth said.

Do we not know how to deal with an outbreak of this size and nature? Does the fact that the fatality rate has risen to 70 percent indicate that things are getting worse, not better?

DR. DANIEL BAUSCH, VIROLOGIST: I think they're two separate things. This is clearly an epidemic beyond the proportion of which we've ever had, and it is somewhat correct that the ways that we know how to deal with this on a very individual basis, by following up individual contacts, that's just not possible when there is thousands upon thousands of contacts with the capacity we have.

I think the case fatality is a different issue and probably represents more a change in our surveillance rather than a true change.

PEREIRA: We'll let you get that while we ask Elizabeth a question. The perils of using Skype. Sometimes you get another call.

BERMAN: A man in demand.

PEREIRA: He is a man in demand.

Obviously a lot of people are talking about this. Elizabeth, another concern, you talk about that contract tracing, to the situation of the health care worker, the nurse that was part of the critical care unit that took care of Thomas Duncan who passed away from Ebola.

They're saying now in Texas some 70 or so medical workers, according to the Associated Press, also treated Duncan along with this nurse. This is a concern that that -- you know, because they're talking about this as being a potential lapse of protocol, is what caused her to get sick.

But then it then magnifies case by case by case. You're talking about 70 points of contact.

COHEN: Right. If something clearly went wrong -- we don't know where or how with this nurse -- then it's just sort of stands to reason that something might have gone wrong with another health care worker.

And that number, that 70 number the Associated Press came up with, that sounds reasonable to me. A federal -- an official telling me that there were dozens, dozens of health care workers who are in this situation.

BERMAN: And, Dr. Bausch, you're still with us. I know you've been involved with training people.

The issue that gets me here is, can you do all the right things? Nina Pham was wearing the protective gear. She says she followed the instructions.

But can you do all the right things if you're a health care worker and still --

PEREIRA: Nancy Writebol is another example. Yeah.

BERMAN: The answer is no. There are scientific principles that govern this. This is a virus. We know how it's transmitted, and so in a pure, technical way if you did all the right things you would not become infected.

However, the margin of error is slim, and so small errors and errors that may not be noted by health care workers, especially ones who are not used to doing this, they of course can have high consequences.

PEREIRA: Dr. Bausch, one final question. You probably are hearing us on CNN talking about that Mark Zuckerberg has just added $25 million to the fight against Ebola, donating to the coffers of CDC. This is in addition to what the Gates Foundation has contributed. I think it's $50 million.

Is money the answer here? It seems to me that we're desperate for a serum, a treatment. We need something quick and fast. Is money going to help all that?

BAUSCH: Money is something that we definitely need. I don't think -- if you imagine even if we had a cure right away, how would we distribute that immediately to thousands of people across west Africa? So that's another challenge.

It is something that would help. I think the problem is one of just logistics. We can say that we have the money, that we want to put a man on the moon tomorrow, but the absolute logistics of implementing that are extremely challenging.

PEREIRA: Yeah, a great point.

BERMAN: Forces of all kind are needed to be here to be sure, so that $25 million donation, I'm sure, is welcome in the medical community.

Dr. Bausch, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much for being with us @THISHOUR.

PEREIRA: One of the aspects that we've been talking about are these nurses that are on the front line. Ahead, we're going to hear from a nurse who says the protocol needs to change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATY ROEMER, REGISTERED NURSE, NATIONAL NURSES UNITED: We cannot blame the health care providers who are on the front lines who are risking their lives to provide care for patients and who are then faced with possible infection themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Up ahead, we're going to hear from her. We'll ask her what she thinks of the CDC's response to Ebola in the United States.

BERMAN: And then look who turned up. That's Kim Jong-Un. That's a photo of the North Korean leader.

What does this photo tell intelligence officials? And beyond that, what more do we know about his disappearance?

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people in the medical facility, medical people in the medical field, they don't know real well about this disease, but Nina is like other nurses. She always think about the patient first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Yeah. That's what nurses do best. They're always thinking about others and caring for others.

That was a family friend of the Dallas nurse being treated for Ebola. I spoke with him on "NEW DAY" this morning.

Nina Pham, that nurse, now the patient, and the latest example of how healthcare workers are some of the most vulnerable people to the disease.

BERMAN: Yeah. They are putting themselves in harm's way. I do not think there is any question about how brave they are. PEREIRA: Absolutely.

BERMAN: The question is, do they have the adequate training and protection to keep themselves safe? Thousands of nurses across the country plan to meet tomorrow in a conference call to voice their concerns.

Katy Roemer is a registered nurse in Oakland and a member of the national nurses' union that will have that call tomorrow.

PEREIRA: We'll talk about that call in just a moment. But first of all, Katy, thanks so much for joining us today to talk about this. I know it's something that is top of mind for you and your colleagues.

We want to talk about something -- and, again, we are not trying to blame the victim here at all. That's not what we're doing. But we do want to talk about where maybe protocol is failing.

We know that Nina Pham, the nurse in Dallas, said she was wearing the protective gear, she followed the protocol.

Help us understand, though, in a situation like this where there could be steps that maybe that protocol could have been broken.

ROEMER: So, first of all, I wouldn't actually start with the -- where the steps could be broken.

PEREIRA: OK.

ROEMER: I would start with did Nina have the kind of training to use the equipment that she needed to have to properly use the equipment? Did she have the right equipment?

We're talking about the protocol here and where she or any of the other healthcare providers might have failed in utilizing that protocol, but did they have the equipment that they needed to keep them safe?

We are asking for the optimal personal protection equipment that includes hazmat suits and respiratory protection, a buddy system for watching us put that equipment on and take that equipment off, and training prior to having to do this.

And I -- you know, I don't know, but it sounds like that, you know, across the United States, we do not have that. That's not what's happening across the United States. And that's what our national survey has shown.

BERMAN: You're asking for these things. The question is, from whom? Who is not responding to these requests that you and nurses around the country are making, because they seem like reasonable requests?

ROEMER: Good question. The hospitals are not responding. Ultimately, the hospitals, the different hospital organizations, are responsible for providing the training, putting in place the -- making sure that we see the protocol, that we understand it, that we're able to ask questions about it, that we're trained in the use of the equipment, that we can put that equipment on, take it off, that know how to dispose of that equipment properly.

And so far the hospitals across the United States are not doing so. When we're surveying nurses, we are seeing that the nurses are saying in pretty overwhelming numbers that they don't have what they need.

Eighty-five percent of the nurses in the United States in our survey are saying that they have not seen a protocol for -- they've not had face-to-face contact to be able to ask questions. Seventy-six have not seen a protocol to deal with, specifically, an Ebola patient. That's unacceptable.

PEREIRA: So, Katy, the buck doesn't necessarily stop with the hospital administration. I understand you're saying from the nurses it's the hospital administration.

But the hospital administration, are they looking to a governing body, like to the CDC, to provide those guidelines on what should be done?

ROEMER: They are looking somewhat to the CDC guidelines, but at the same time, those are just guidelines, right? So they are not obligated to follow those guidelines, right?

And we have a really pretty fragmented healthcare system here in the United States, so the different hospital corporations responsible for implementing this have pretty free choice in terms of how, if, when, what equipment that they use to do so.

And, you know, again, we -- are they not doing it because they don't want to use the resources to do it? They don't want to pay for it, that this is an expensive proposition? I don't know. But I would ask that question, because it seems to be at least part of the problem.

BERMAN: Katy, knowing what you know, would you feel safe treating an Ebola patient right now?

ROEMER: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I would need to keep myself, the patients in the hospital, the community safe. I would want to have training ahead of time so that I know how to use this equipment. The really dangerous points in using the equipment, the personal protective equipment, including the hazmat suit, is when you're putting it on to make sure you don't have any breaches and when you're taking it off, even more importantly, so that you're not contaminating yourself or other surfaces. And we have not had that training and most of the nurses in the United States have not had that training and that's what we need. And I know we're talking about - excuse me, go ahead.

BERMAN: Sorry, I was going to say, you raise important questions. Katy Roemer, we really want to thank you for being with us.

PEREIRA: And also, this conversation that's going to be had tomorrow, all of the nurses coming together for the conference call at the National Nurses United., they're going to have this conference call to voice their concerns about the supplies, the resources, the instruction, the mandates they need and the support they need. Again, they're on the front line on this. And we've seen one already get sickened.

BERMAN: Alright, ahead for us @THISHOUR, you know, it is a question as simple as, what's the weather like outside? But one Senate candidate can't seem to answer it. The question is why?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: So, it is a question that should be about as controversial for a Senate candidate as what did you eat for lunch? But somehow it is a question that has become central for one of the most pivotal Senate races in the country. That radical question to a Democrat, did you vote for President Obama?

PEREIRA: You might recall last week, Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes balked when a Louisville newspaper pitched her the very same question. You know it was all but certain to come up once again when Grimes sat down for her only debate against Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES (D), KENTUCKY SENATE CANDIDATE: There's no reluctancy. This is a matter of principle. Our Constitution grants, here in Kentucky, the constitutional right for privacy at the ballot box, for a secret ballot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Joining us, our Political Commentator and Democratic Strategist, Donna Brazile. Hello, Donna. And Doug Heye, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff to former House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor. Good to see you, Doug.

Alright, Donna, I'll start with you. Constitutional right? I'm not sure I recall, ever, a candidate running on a platform of ballot box privacy.

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know what, perhaps she should have just said look, I am a moderate Democrat, or a Clinton Democrat, or she could say I'm a southern Democrat. Whatever, a pragmatic Democrat. I don't want to make too much of this because I thought the substance is more important than the sound bite. Her refusal to answer the question, of course, has caused this to become a quote/unquote national story.

Alison Grimes is a terrific candidate. She has the right policies, the right ideas. She can explain her differences, not just with President Obama, but with Mitch McConnell and pivot as to whether or not she ever tells us who she voted for.

Honestly, I don't care. I like President Obama, I still have the T- shirt. I can explain why I voted for President Obama. I can't put words in her mouth, but I'll tell you what I would say. I would say I voted for President Obama because I wanted to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. I wanted to make sure the that we keep jobs in America, not outsource them. I want to make sure that we get the Senate functioning and Mitch McConnell has no plan to do that. I want to make this about Mitch McConnell and not about my secret. That's all.

BERMAN: Donna, you say you don't care, yet the fact she said it is keeping her from talking about the very things that you say you want her to discuss. Doug Heye, interestingly enough, you have experience with just this type of situation. You worked for the Republican National Committee.

DOUG HEYE, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO ERIC CANTOR: Thanks for reminding me.

BERMAN: Well no, it's a good point. In 2006, you were at the RNC dealing with a very unpopular president at the time, George W. Bush. The Republicans were about to take a shellacking in the congressional elections. You know, what is the right way to distance yourself from an unpopular president?

HEYE: Well, I think it's a tale of two candidates right now. Alison Lundergan Grimes doesn't want to tell you who she voted for, and I understand why. It's just a bad strategy. You know, one, she was a delegate in 2012. Do we think she was some renegade delegate who stood up to the president? No. And she also has no problem talking about how she voted for Hillary Clinton in 2008. So, so much for the sanctity of her secret ballot.

Look on the other hand at Mary Landrieu, a Democrat in Louisiana. She's put out one of the best ads that we've seen in the campaign trail so far, talking about how she's standing up to the president. We can argue whether or not she's really doing that, but she's put together a smart, substantive campaign talking about that. Lundergan Grimes is basically trying to hide behind some shell that's not only artificial, but doesn't allow her to go on the offense against Mitch McConnell, and doesn't allow her to talk about any issues that voters in Kentucky really care about, because she just comes off as -- political and phony.

BRAZILE: But Doug, at the end of the day, do you really care who she voted for? We know who she voted. I mean, there's no secret here, Victoria. All I'm saying is that she should explain to the Americans - she should tell Kentuckians, look, Mitch McConnell would like to disconnect --

BERMAN: But Donna, let me interrupt. Everybody always likes to complain about process here, and say oh, we're focusing too much on the process, but she did this and it 's what people are talking about. It's not just the media.

BRAZILE: Her refusal is a mistake.

BERMAN: It looked strange. You can't deny that is looks strange.

BRAZILE: Okay, but we're not going to get all her secrets or her dreams. Some women want to keep it close to their vest. Some people, like me, like to get it off their chest. So, let's give her a break. Mitch McConnell needs to explain to the folks in Kentucky, especially

the 500,000 that now have insurance as a result of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, what is he going to do? He said I'll disconnect you guys, I don't want Obamacare anymore. There are many substantive issues that we need to get out of Mitch McConnell and Alison Grimes.

As to her vote, okay, mistake. I would just say, I'm an Obama Democrat, I'm a Clinton Democrat, I'm a southern Democrat. But you know what, just say, I'm a lovable, likable, Democrat, please vote for me.

PEREIRA: I might have to hashtag, it's not a secret Victoria. Donna, Doug, this was a great conversation.

HEYE: I don't know how Donna found out my middle name. It's --

BERMAN: I know, I know. Imagine that.

PEREIRA: Revelations here @THISHOUR. Thanks to both of you, appreciate it.

BERMAN: Alright, ahead for us @THISHOUR, how much do you really know about Kim Jong-Un? We're going to speak to a doctor who knows the North Korean leader's family intimately and you will not believe the secrets he tells, including plastic surgery.

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