What did you think of the night . Nts speech last guest it was an inspiring speech because it was so optimistic and an appreciation of the nations past and a very upbeat look at what we can achieve in the future. Host you have defended the president s handling of the pandemic. What grade would you give him . Guest i would give very highgrade to him. The centers for Disease Control and prevention, not so much. Unfortunately. , the career people who have in been there year after year have disappointed americans not only in the handling of this pandemic but in Previous Global Health challenges, whether it. As h1n1 or the zika virus so big changes need to be made at the cdc. I would like to start by explaining to the audience what the committee to reduce infection deaths does, because i am really here on behalf of the committee to provide a lot of valuable, nonpartisan information about how we can prepare for the next pandemic. Host please, go ahead. Guest the committee to reduce infection deaths, which you can find at hospitalinfections. Org is a national campaign, 18 years old now, to stop infections in hospitals, Nursing Homes and other health care institutions, one of the largest causes of death in the United States year after year. But since covid19 hit our country, it has never been in more demand because our expertise is showing health care professionals, patients and others, how to stop the spread of dangerous pathogens, whether bacteria on surfaces like a benadryl in a hospital, or whether they are airborne such as coronavirus sometimes is, or whether they are droplets,d in large which is how we believe coronavirus is usually transmitted. So i would urge everyone to come to our website, in good times, when we are not threatened with the pandemic. We provide information like this 15 steps to reduce your risk of getting a hospital infection, very valuable information if your loved one is going to hospital. Now more important than ever, because hospitals are riskier places than ever before. When i wrotened, the next pandemic, my purpose was to look ahead at how we can be better prepared as a nation next time a viral pandemic hits or even possibly germ warfare, because people across the political spectrum agree that is risk of germ warfare heightened now that evildoers whether they are rogue states or terrorists, see how many nations can be brought to their knees by a little virus, right . You dont need to build aircraft carriers or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles to attack a nation anymore. So we need to be prepared. The last 15 years, congress ofeived at least 10 reports products of commissions and hearings on how unprepared the United States was. That is through republican and democratic president s like, but they did the most nothing. A major reason we had the shutdown is because of our unpreparedness. The shutdown was justified as a way to flatten the curve and give us time, time to prepare our hospitals, our stockpiles, our supply chains. So here is my list of the six vital areas where we need to be prepared. I will only talk about a couple of them before we open up for questions stock the national stockpile. It was empty of everything we need the most. Build a made in America Supply chain over half the imported goggles and masks and gowns that we use to control the spread of disease are made in china. China is also the second largest producer of imported active ingredients for antibiotics, pain medications and other medications we need as we are treating patients with this virus. Important one. We already achieving a lot in that area. Improved hospital infection rigor our expertise. I will talk about that. Equipment and staff. Nursing homes if the virus attacks the elderly, as this one. 2009 attached children is that of the elderly. Key items use the technology we are at a half to make workplaces and schools safer. We are not doing that right now. And finally, short of Vaccines Development process as much as possible safely so we can have a vaccine while the virus is still attacking unfortunately in 2009, the vaccine was not ready until late december, and the late october. N these are some of the steps we can use to avoid a shutdown next time. Let me focus on a couple. Said, stocking the stockpile, we can check that one because congress recently passed legislation and the president signed it, that will increase funding for that stockpile 38 times over. Unfortunately in the past, theral officials ran stockpile and failed to even request sufficient funds to run that. The medical supply chain already the Trump Administration has signed contracts to put in place domestic production, especially of the key ingredients of antibiotics and for ppe. Let me go onto a key one where our expertise really counts improve hospital infection rigor. This is one of the biggest buyer defense gaps in our nation, although it is not talked about a lot. It is a major reason why we had to flatten the curve. We closed hospitals to elective procedures not simply because of the overwhelming number of patients we anticipated would be in hospital, but also because of the justified fear that hospitals would not be able to prevent the spread of this virus inside the hospitals to patients who didnt come in with it. And we know that is the case. After all, over 75,000 patients a year die from bacterial infections that are spread through hospitals on things like contaminated bed rails, unclean caregivers hands. If hospitals cannot control the a bacterium that has to be spread by touch, how are they ever going to control the spread of an airborne virus . So we need to improve hospital infection rigor. The c. D. C. Warned hospitals in the years leading up to this pandemic that they did not have in place the training and skills to anticipaten that someone would come into the emergency room unidentified, the carrying a virus like this one. New york City Hospitals took 2016,tests in 2015 and and in many cases, failed, to do the right thing to protect people in the emergency room and the rest of the hospital from becoming victims of an unidentified pathogen. The best example of this and quite an eyeopening story, i should, is the story of sars which reached the western hemisphere in 2003. Travelers from the east, from asia, came to canada, in this case, and landed on the same day toronto and then vancouver. Vancouver had a very rigorous culture of Infection Prevention in the hospital. The man who arrived here unknowingly carrying sars unwittingly went into the emergency room. He was wished into a negative pressure room, everyone gowned and gloved and put their goggles on, and no one got sars. But in toronto, which has a very lax culture of infection control, the man was left sitting in the emergency room for 16 hours. A patient. Three beds down on the right who was therefore heart attack got sars. Sars. To the left got all in all, 77 of the people in toronto who contracted sars got it in the hospital. They were hospital patients, doctors and nurses, or even hospital visitors. So it is key that all hospitals have more rigorous infection oftrol to limit the impact an unexpected pandemic, because, often the first place you will see it, and this is true with covid19 right here in the west coast of the United States, the first time you will hear about it is in an emergency room. Preparing , unfortunately, was an afterthought here in the United States, although there were several red flags. Half of all the deaths in the United States have occurred among nursing home residents. Half. If Nursing Homes have been wellprepared, if we had rushed resources and staff to Nursing Homes right at the beginning, we could have cut the mortality rate certainly by double digits. Some of those elderly patients would have died anyway, but many could have been spared covid19. Host Betsy Mccaughey, let me pause so we can get to some calls because our time we only have about 15 minutes left with you. Guest sided white to i did e points, very important. One is that we are not using the technologies that are already available as we discuss how to open up the country. The c. D. C. Issued a 17page guide a few weeks ago on how to open up the u. S. It could have been written 50 years ago, maybe even 100. Says, desks six feet apart in schools. We have technology right now like antimicrobial keyboard, antimicrobial coatings for desks, doorknobs. Studies show that people contracted the virus by touching the same doorknob. Copper push plates. And most important perhaps, technology that can be installed right in the hvac systems in schools and office buildings, as they already are in many types of businesses food processing, fast food outlets like chickfila they have these hvac installations that automatically continuously, nontoxically deactivate verses in the air and destroy them on surfaces deactivate viruses in the air and destroy them on surfaces. This would make us safer. Five years ago. , my organization, the committee deaths,e infection awarded the highest award we give to a new technology, diluted hydrogen peroxide. At that time it was just an idea with a lot of data behind it to back up its efficacy. Now i have joined the board of that company as a patient advocate because i know it can be transformative. So, the fact is that we have the technologies to make these venues safer, and we ought to be using them. Now i invite some questions. Host ok. Beth in evanston, illinois, democratic collar. Caller hello. When you first came on, you said that you thought the president was doing a good job and that we werent prepared. Paper andwas a whole instructions written that said the virus would probably come from china, and we had people in china that he removed. Plan, andd this whole he could have been a hero but he chose not to read or listen to it. Thefar as the Schools Congress the senate hasnt given us many for that, so how would we ever afford all those technologies . Guest i will address the schools first, because i dont want this to be a political event, although i dont believe the president has taken very important steps, including closing off travel with china, something the democrats opposed. Lets start with the schools, which is the current issue. Almost all of the studies show that for the primary grades, children are not particularly vulnerable to this virus. It is very rare. For example, here in the United States, the c. D. C. Reports many future of and have succumbed to covid19 than to the ordinary flow. Many fewer children have succumbed to covid19 done to the ordinary flu. Not one teacher was infected by students in the school. Have a lot of evidence, which is why the major Patriotic Organization in the United States has arched opening ups, because there is a terrible cost in terms of Health Children who are deprived of their ability to go to school. As for the technologies i mentioned, actually, there is a lot of money that has in proposed has been proposed for the schools. The key here is that shutting down the economy is more costly than investing in technologies to enable the economy to open up safely. Host jack in michigan, republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Betsy, she is awesome. Great job. She needs to get more results of out there. Everybody was confused, everybody trying to blame somebody about the virus once it got here. It did come from china, we know that. Lets fix the problem. Keep up the good work, betsy. Have a great day. Guest [laughs] thank you. Let me at this point interject another set of facts. The president i was very surprised, included a bit of this in his speech last night. I have seen columns like Paul Krugmans column in the New York Times saying, if only the u. S. Was more like italy, right . I would urge everyone watching who is particularly interested in this to go to the Johns Hopkins website. Every day it is updated to include the fact comparing whats happening in each country with covid19. One of the most important things to look at is the case fatality rate and also deaths per million population. You will see that despite Paul Krugmans claim that you would be better off in italy, the fact is the u. S. Is doing much better than many of these European Countries on saving lives from the coronavirus. For example, when i look at the case fatality rate, 3. 2 in the u. S. In the u. K. It is nearly 15 . In spain, 8 . France, 12 . Even germany is a bit higher. Get covid19, your chances of surviving it are significantly better if you are treated in a hospital in the u. S. Than in europe. Of course, that doesnt include chances of getting the infection. That is why you would look at the second set of figures, deaths per million population. There again, the United States is doing significantly better thanthe uk, then spain, sweden. A little higher infection rate than france. Over, it is unfair when people say, if only the u. S. Were doing as well as europe, the fact is we are doing quite well compared to other European Countries. I would say only germany has exceeded our performance. Host in hollywood, alabama, democratic caller. . Uestion or comment caller i have a comment about President Trump and how he dealt with the pandemic. I think that he has gone against the science, ok . Governorso let the be the people responsible for reacting to the virus, especially in the early stages. It seemed like he didnt want to have a national response. He wanted to shrink federal government and so he went to the governors to be the ones that dealt with the pandemic and not himself and his administration. Guest that is a great question and i am glad you asked it. Let me address it in two ways one is constitutionally. It is the governors, under their state constitutions, that have the authority, not the president , to lockdown businesses, to require people to wear a mask, and to issue other Emergency Health edicts. The president does not have that authority. Secondly, i would urge you t look at the size of the United States. It would be like the European Union imposing a onesizefitsall plan on all of the countries from germany all the way to france, spain, portugal, greece it would not have worked, because, like the European Union, in the United States, this virus has moved from one part of the country to another. There was a serious lockdown in new york and new jersey. In my view, it was unsuccessful, those two states have the capita thanh per any nation from covid19. But it would have been extremely foolish to lockdown arizona, for example, when the pandemic was speaking on the east coast and there were very few cases on those other places. So the very size and and variation within the continent of the United States makes that kind of onesizefitsall National Plan scientifically unwise. Let me say one more thing about science now that you brought it up. Hindsight is 20 20. We now have the benefit of hindsight. I am not criticizing the countries who shut down, but i will say they used partial rezoning. They did what they thought was best partial reasoning. They did what they thought i will say they used partial reasoning to minimize the deaths from covid19. But they used suffering and death the huge suffering and death as a consequence of the shutdowns itself. For example, we know that 1 uptick in the Unemployment Rate produces a 3. 3 increase in opioid deaths. N and we see those soaring now. It also produces an almost 1 increase in suicides. We know it produces more alcoholism. All deaths of despair. That was not taken into consideration by the scientists, who only looked with a laser focus on how to reduce the. Ovid19 infection but we know that an unemployed person is 63 more likely to die than somebody who has a job, and we are seeing all the terrible effects of the shutdown now, the health effects. That is why it is so important to plan ahead for the next pandemic or a resurgence of this virus, in a way that makes it shut down absolutely not the solution that the will consider a second time. Host we will go to brooklyn bianka republican. Caller good morning. I am very pleased you are in today. Educating us with what you know you have basically opened my eyes because at this point, we are here in new york and we still dont know what we are going to do with the children. They have no plan for us. I was thinking maybe you could enlighten us and let us know, maybe we can do something or have some type of meeting with all the parents where we can basically come up with ideas, and maybe the mayor of new york, which really we are not too happy about because he doesnt have a plan. Guest [laughs] right. Let me comment on a story that was in the New York Post just yesterday. This is how technologically behind the times they are. In new york, they told the teachers and other people preparing the schools to take a piece of toilet paper on a stick, like an ice cream stick and let and hold it up toward the ceiling and the how much ventilation and air flow there was. In this day and age when kids lives are at stake, we can do a that, and it is disturbing to me to see that the centers for Disease Control and prevention has not been much more forwardlooking, much more schoolsive in helping and also places of business learn about the technologies work,an make returning to returning to school, and surviving the nest pandemic and there will be more to come, we are in a Global Environment now that we will be prepared for them. Host bark from houston, texas. Democratic caller. Caller thank you for taking my call. , cspan, forys giving us an opportunity to