CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Ebola
Interview
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COOPER: Now you can decide for yourself what to make of that and all the rest. What they all have in common is not one of them has anything to do with the brave people actually fighting Ebola nor the people living with it or dying of it.
Meanwhile, a very real debate is heating up tonight over travel bans and whether they're needed to stop the further spread of Ebola in the U.S.
Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is back and joining us, Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
Congresswoman, thanks so much for being with us.
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TENNESSEE: Sure. Nice to be with you.
COOPER: You're -- you're not alone in your support of restricting travel from countries affected by the Ebola outbreak. I mean, your fellow members of Congress feel the exact same way.
All the folks I've talked to in Liberia, with Doctors Without Borders and other groups, they all say a travel ban will make getting our personnel, meaning Doctors Without Borders and other groups, in and out, the hundreds of people they have moving around and the tons of supplies they have going in and out will make it very difficult. Charter flights aren't enough.
To that you say what?
BLACKBURN: To that I say there should be a way to solve this problem. We all know to successfully deal with the Ebola outbreak, what you have to do is isolate it. The best place to isolate it, West Africa. Certainly charter flights, military flights, there are other ways to get supplies in and out.
I also feel like for those 13,000 visas that have been issued and people in the affected zone are wanting to come to the U.S., maybe you're looking at a quarantine there, establishing something like a forward operating base and individuals who want to exit those countries, the affected area, these three countries, would come in for a 21-day quarantine prior to leaving the country and then they -- on day 22, they're free to two wherever they have the confidence that they can move forward, that they are Ebola-free. And I think, Anderson, I think that's a -- it's worthy of discussion.
It's a good work around. When I was at the CDC three weeks back working with Dr. Frieden on some other issues and we discussed Ebola, I said, you know how -- if you're not going to do a travel ban, how about thinking something else.
COOPER: Right.
BLACKBURN: You know, certainly the checks at the airports are one of those steps.
COOPER: I --
BLACKBURN: We have to give the American people confidence that they can trust us. Right now the confidence is pretty low.
COOPER: I get the idea of limiting visas for people from the affected countries.
BLACKBURN: Sure.
COOPER: And making it harder for people to do that or having people kind of try to prove that they haven't had any contact, but how would quarantining people in Liberia, or Guinea or Sierra Leone work, who would actually oversee that given that they don't even have enough personnel actually on the ground, you know, driving ambulances and treating people with Ebola let alone overseeing a quarantine? How would that work?
BLACKBURN: I fully appreciate and understand that, and I think working with organizations like Samaritans Purse, which my church congregation has supported for years, or Doctors Without Borders, the military who is --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Right, but Doctors Without Borders --
BLACKBURN: -- turning out to be in charge there.
COOPER: Doctors Without Borders right now says they're at a breaking point. That they -- they cannot do anymore.
BLACKBURN: I fully appreciate that. I appreciate that. But as I was saying, working with them to say what are the protocols you think would be best. How do we best implement something like this? The point --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But I'm telling you what they say is no, don't do a travel ban. I mean, I talked to Doctors Without Borders last --
BLACKBURN: They're saying not do a travel ban, but they haven't discussed doing some kind of limitation or quarantine there. Anderson, we're going to have to take some type steps to have a way to
more closely isolate this. I think the news that came from Nigeria, no additional -- Senegal, no additional outbreaks. That is so positive. The good news we got out of Texas today --
COOPER: Sure.
BLACKBURN: -- that is so positive. But when you look at the total number of people that have been affected, the escalation rate that is there. The distrust of the American --
COOPER: Sure. I agree. I understand.
BLACKBURN: New York University putting up a travel ban, I think it's time for us to say how do we address this proactively --
COOPER: Let me --
BLACKBURN: Go ahead.
COOPER: Let me bring in Sanjay Gupta here.
BLACKBURN: Sure.
COOPER: Sanjay, I mean, can you -- what's your belief on a travel ban? Could it -- would it make it harder, because I mean, you've talked to folks with Doctors Without Borders like I have. They all seem to say it would it harder to contain the outbreak in West Africa. And until the outbreak itself is contained in West Africa, that's the number one priority.
GUPTA: Yes. And I think that's true. And I think if you look at the rationale behind that, I think it will make sense. And I'll explain that to you.
But I think Congresswoman Blackburn, I think what you're saying I think is a little different now than a travel ban because I was listening to your comments at the hearings the other day and it sounded like at that point you were very in favor of a travel ban, asking people to take their temperature for 21 days before they leave is not a travel ban.
But anyway, with respect to travel ban specifically, part of the problem is when we talk about porous borders, I think people think we're talking about the United States. And I think what Dr. Frieden and Dr. Fauci, who are head of the CDC and head of the NIH Infectious Diseases think it's West Africa we're talking about. People would leave those countries, go to other countries in West Africa, possibly fly out of those countries and as a result be hard to track and trace.
They could go to another busy city, in New Delhi and Shanghai somewhere. And then it becomes a question of people over there exposed, are you banning travel from those countries as well?
Here's the point. It doesn't really seem to work. And these things have been tried before. You can understand again the sentiment as to why it seems logical, but it just doesn't work.
Simultaneously, and this is perhaps a bigger problem, Anderson, to your point, is that no matter how much you try and address a problem, if you institute a travel ban, it's going to worsen the problem in West Africa. You're just not going to be able to get the same resources in.
I've been over there. And people have seen -- said this over and over again. So you are going to make that problem worse. Already they're talking about 10,000 cases a week. If that number gets worse, the whole world is going to feel the impact of that.
BLACKBURN: Anderson, if I could -- if I could add something there, one of the reasons I think you have to look at a travel ban or a quarantine is this. You know, you'll say, well, it doesn't work. People are going to get out of these countries anyway. Other African nations have implemented a travel ban on this affected region.
And to the American people who are listening to this, they say, oh, really? We don't need laws or the rule of law or rules or regulations because not everybody will apply by this?
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I guess I just don't understand how --
BLACKBURN: Try to break the rules?
COOPER: Right. I mean, A, on the travel ban, again, I haven't made up my mind on this, I'm not taking a position. But every expert I've talked to who is actually working on the ground, to a person says this is going to make it harder to get personnel in and out who need to get there. Doctors Without Borders has 300 personnel on the ground on rotating shifts and tons of supplies. And that's just one group.
Samaritan's Purse has a lot of good people as well. And I still don't understand, I mean, you name Doctors Without Border and Samaritans Purses are somehow going to oversee some sort of a quarantine of all the people --
BLACKBURN: No, I did not -- I did not say that.
COOPER: But who would, though?
BLACKBURN: I said I'm certain they would have ideas on -- that could be implemented just like with the CDC guidance. We should have been listening to them early on for the initial guidance.
COOPER: Right. But there's not enough people on the ground or money --
BLACKBURN: May sound abhorrent of that process.
COOPER: But there's not enough people on the ground or money being given right now. BLACKBURN: No. But, OK, but look we're sending -- we're sending the
U.S. military. I have 1500 constituents that are getting ready to go over there. With Ft. Campbell. And will be a part of this process.
COOPER: Right.
BLACKBURN: Building these hospitals and serving as a support agency. And I can tell you there are a lot of people that are not happy about that. But they do feel like that it is imperative that we find a way to limit travel --
COOPER: But you don't want U.S. military personnel quarantining West Africans.
BLACKBURN: No, I don't.
COOPER: Right. So --
BLACKBURN: I don't.
COOPER: You've yet to name anybody who's actually going to oversee this quarantine?
BLACKBURN: And you know what? We supposedly have a czar who is going to be working on this now. We have individuals who are tasked with overseeing public health. We have an HHS --
COOPER: So you're saying let them come up with that.
BLACKBURN: -- and DHS assistant secretary who do not -- that we haven't heard anything out of.
COOPER: OK.
BLACKBURN: I mean, they're supposedly dealing with bioterrorism. This is a problem we can solve.
COOPER: All right.
BLACKBURN: Do I have every working order of it right now? Absolutely not. But I think we've got a lot of good people that can figure this out because --
COOPER: All right, Congresswoman.
BLACKBURN: -- we're here to work and help solve the problem, the American people need to restore some trust.
COOPER: Congresswoman Blackburn, appreciate you being on. Sanjay, as well.
BLACKBURN: Absolutely. Good to be with you.
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