Transcripts For CSPAN2 Washington Journal Georges Benjamin 2

Guest good morning. How are you . Host i am doing well. Could you start by reminding viewers what the America Public Health Association is. Guest sure, thank you. Youre the National Nonprofit of people who practice Public Health and quite frankly, many of our people, the ones out chasing the virus each and every day. Host what role have you sought to play in the coronavirus pandemic . Ht what is your group been doing . Guest we have been doing a lot of policymakers, the public, advocating for resources and generally trying to push in prohealth agenda based on science p. Host we found out yesterday the number of reported coronavirus cases in this country past the 5 million mark that is doubling of u. S. Cases since the end of june and the last million happening in just the last venting days paid your reaction to that milestone. Guest the challenge is that a lot of this is preventable. We are not paying attention to what we know works. When you look at other nations in the world may be as they get their hands around this terrible, terrible pandemic and we just havent. Host out to be keep from doubling again by early fall or even sooner . Guest the evidence is real clear. Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance and doing lots of testing and good Contact Tracing. That is the way you get your hands around this epidemic. Every nation in the world that has done this effectively has followed that format. Host you talk about other nations in the world and we had the 5 million milestone. India is second in the world in terms of most infections at 3 million, well behind the united states. Do we have more infections in this country because we do more testing in this country . Guest testing identifies people who are infected but you are infected because you are infected but you are infected because this is the disease you pass persontoperson and we have more infections, not necessarily because we do more testing. We are not doing as much testing per capita as other nations. Host how should we be doing our testing . Yo which ages would make to the system if you were in charge of it . Guest if i can make this work we would have a robust testing a system which truly allowed anyone to get the test and most importantly the results would come back within 24 hours so you could act so lewdly do the most content tracing and then inform people and go to the doctor and stayed home and stay from others and the only way to do this is by a robust testing system. Host what do you want to see in the next coronavirus legislation . Guest we need to put a lotot more money on the table and start putting dollars into help state and local so they dont lay off people. Many of the people chasing this virus today as a state and local Health Department levels are about to get laid off because the state is running out of money. I want to see us more rapidly Start Testing again and we only do that withar more resources ad by the way, informed coordinated National Leadership is essential to make that happen. Host in terms of the money are we talking 32 and dollars, 2 trillion, 1 trillion . Weve heard all of those tossed around in recent weeks as these negotiations have gone on. Guest the amount of money that is on the hill is closer t. Two, 3 trillion than the 1 trillion they are talking about but the fact of the matter is, we need to get more money out there and get that money out to the people. Host were talking to doctor vegan, executive director of the mirkin Public Health associati association, talking to him a day after u. S. Case counts soared past 5 million in the country. If you want to join the conversation this morning phone lines are open for you to do so. 202 7488000 if you live in the eastern or central time zone, 202748 8001 if you live in the mountain or pacific time zone and then a special line set aside for medical professionals, 202 7488002 and we would love to have you join us as well in this conversation. Doctor george benjamin, asng people call him this morning to talk about our folks are out there chasing this virus could you talk more about what that meanss and are we talking contat tracing and if so, how much of that is going on in states around the country . Guest you could say the virus like this is that you identify people who are infected and you talk with them and you of course give them the healthcare they need if they need healthcare. And then what you do is plan out who they had been in contact with and then you advise those people on their best medical and you do that until you basically contain the disease. Someone was been exposedha or en if they are not symptomatic need to do what we called quarantined themselves and that means stay at home for a couple of weeks. If they are sick then they will need to be isolated and very well may need medical care. Thats a process that has been going on for a few hundred yea years. It works. It it is not Rocket Science but it has been a real challenge for nation to adopt. Host we have seen the pushback in the past week and months on facial coverings and on facemasks in this contributor much pushback did your folks get when it comes to Contact Tracing . How willing our people to say here is the list of people who i had been in Contact Tracing and here is everyone ive talked to face to face. Guest let me start, [inaudible] we ought to do that because its the first principle and they work. Contact tracing is difficult but if you called me up on the phone and i dont know who you are in you say where were you yesterday and who are u. S. , im probably not going to tell you. There is an art to doing that. There really is an art to doing that. The real challenge we have is getting people to understand that by the way, state and local Health Departments have been doing this for years for things like sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and so we do know how to do that but we dont have enough people or enough people will trained toar basically build that confidence to a group of people that can pick up the phone and call you and talk with you and get you to share that information. Host explained that arts. If you made that call right now how would you do that . Guest me personally i would say look, im doctor benjamin from the Health Department and you were exposed to someone who had covid19. What we would like you to do, of course, if you have any of the following symptoms we thank you ought to make sure you talk with your doctor and we also want you to work with us to see if we can help identify anyone else you have been around who also may be exposed so you can m help them from getting sickth and saving their lives. In some situations people get sick and can die so i note you may not want to share that information with me but i assure you this information will be held confidentially and we wont share with anyone outside appropriate health authorities. You will not be arrested and you will not be hunted down or put out of the country. Recently want you to help us help other people and look, if you dont want to give me their names okay, here is who you call. You call your friends or the people you have been around in here is my number and you can have them call me. Host how much of a response do you get to that . Do generally get the most people working with you to do that when you put it in that position of being a helper in this process . Or is it 5050 . Guest i have not done this for many years personally but when i did do that as a very junior person and i can tell you people that i talk with and we use that kind of wording it does work. Host doctor george benjamin, our guest this morning. Director of the American Health public association. Here to answer your questions as the u. S. Has passed 5 million account of positive cases of covid. Nancy from pennsylvania is on with doctor benjamin. Caller good morning. Or westion is we have were behind in our area, i believe, for the testing. They didnt ramp it up from just one place with a doctors order that you could go in a medic express without the doctors order and it seems like what has happened when the testing has gone better, i cant say it is that great, the Contact Tracing was so far behind that there really wasnt anything much happening. It was somebody who lived with a person and was had it in the hospital and it took two weeks to get the answer and when i called the Pennsylvania Department of health they saidal that they dont have enough Contact Tracing people. We are all talk and not enough action to be strict on putting these things in place. We need to do what the cdc says and what is happening is were talking about it but not strict on the laws. And they are not laws for mass but we do not enforce the Contact Tracing whether we have to hire more people to get that done but it is all talk and not happening and we are rising because we are not doing what we are saying. As far as the mask, when people say things liketh you should wer a mask unless you have some kind of a health issue that prevents you, right away that is on the door and you see people Walking Around without any masks and this is just not strict and we are thinking that it is not something that has to bee done o control this and curb the spre spread. Host thank you. Doctor benjamin. Guest let me absolutely agree with that. We initially thought we needed 100,000 contact tracers and some people think we need 300,000 now and the last that i knew was somewhere in the maybe 30000 nationally so we dont have enough. Part of it is money, part of it is the time to ramp up the training but this requires a National Effort with the federal government being the biggest cheerleader here, finding the resources and the guidance and we have not had that which is absolutely right. Contact tracing, testing, Rapid Testing if you turn the result is the key to us getting our hands around this. And we are not at all. Host your thoughts on the testing issues specifically. On this headline from usa today, governor mike devine false positive spotlights testing issues looking back on the governors Rapid Testing took on thursday ahead of the president visit to ohio that rapid test giving a positive result but two pcr tests taken later that day ultimately found that the wine tested negative, explain the difference between a rapid and a pcr test and how we make testing more reliable . Guest the answers you just gave is a different test in the ppr test. Its a rapid test and it is known, notoriously known, to have false negatives mean that sometimes your positive and sometimes it says your positive and you are not or false positive meaning there sometimes it says you are positive with the virus and you were not. The falsenegative means it says you are negative but you really have it. Ot its notoriously inaccurate but it does give you a speed. Its a tradeoff. The pcr test and that test, by the way, tests for a piece of the virus. The pcr test looks for the whole virus. It is much more active andit muh more active. If it says you are negative or positive and it depends on the substantially of the test and you have to know that when you are taking the test. I always encourage people to understand when you take that test that like anything else you usually have to have another confirmatory test. One where you can do that is a couple tests. One in the morning, one in afternoon and if they both Work Together and they say they are both sick and give you the answer then that is why you have seen [inaudible] has had some tested or not been accurate when they doneee them at the white house. This test isnt really inaccurate. Host from usa today, list of states saying rapid growth in covid19 cases in the last seven days, hawaii has seen 1149 new cases and that is a change and increase of 99 from the previous week. This is jason from hawaii this morning. Thank you for calling and paired you are on with doctor benjamin. Caller good morning, doctor benjamin. Thank you so much for politicizing this issue about the coronavirus. I was calling in regards to the lawsuit filed by doctors against California Governor Gavin Newsom in regards to the Overly Burdensome Regulations surrounding keeping schools closed, essentially the lawsuit says that the risks to the children are very, very low and that children do not virtually transmit the virus to Adult Patients or two adults. I am wondering if you are aware of this lawsuit and i was wondering why cspan would not ask one of these professors to come on the air. This gentleman happens to be a professor of medicine at Stanford University and this has not received any publicity from the Mainstream Media r. Thank you. Host thank you for the suggestion for doctor benjamin, go ahead be to i wont advise on programming except inviting me on more often. [laughter] host go ahead. Guest but with that in mind, one think that is been challenging about this outbreak is we continue to learn each and every day. We made a lot of assumptions based on what we thought we kn knew, based on the previous sars outbreak, different virus and different strain and we thought that kids could always get the virus. Let me be clear, kids are not immune to getting it. We have alwayset said kids cant get it. The question is how sick do they get and how easily do they spread it . Now, more and more evidence is showing us that kids, not only absolutely can get the disease and tend to be pretty efficient at spreading it at least in the older age they can ten years of age or older. I understand that when you go back to school its a big tradeoff. We are trying to tradeoff kids social, emotional needs, there need to be with their peers, their Educational Needs and these are very important. The fact that many kids get their meals at school and we have a nation that still too many people have food insecurity. We have this tradeoff but ive got to tell you that you see what has happened in that camp in georgia and that school in georgia and theyve got nine cases. N we know that there was almost 100,000, 97000 kids who got the disease in the last two weeks or so of july. We know there is over 500 kids who got into that severe multisystem disease that we have been reporting on and we know we had about 86 kids who have died since may. You know, while kids dont get as sick and the risks are lower for them the School Systems are having a really tough time and our elected leaders of both parties trying to figure out the tradeoffs that are involved in this. This is tough stuff. The evidence is, where your ma mask, wash your hands, keep her distance and i was fascinated by the fact in georgia they were excited about closing the school of course after they had these cases. The news story is all about completing the school and yet with a need to talk talk about is wearing a mask and physically distance and washing their hands. That is how you get the disease from other people. You can get it from objects and services but that is right now that is not where the test is entirely. Its got to be on protecting you from me and me from you in the mask does that. Host out to the Eastern Shore to lewes, delaware. This is tony. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I like to make a couple of comments. I agree with doctor george benjamin, we need to get more money to the stage but its got to start from the top. Just this past weekend you see these bigig gatherings with the motorcycles in south dakota and then you see kids on the news that walk through the halls with no masks and how are they inspected to curb this virus if they dont Pay Attention to the doctors and the scientists and go out here and do what we are supposed to do. People on the beaches out here not Wearing Masks and these kids think they are untouchable. They think it is a hoax. This virus is not going anywhere and these people are complaining about these but do what you are supposed to do and then get tested and find out where this virus is going. Host doctor benjamin. Guest i agree. The failure of our nation compared to other nations that are much more effective has been unified with National Leadership. And supporting the governors. Many much more than they have done as a nation. We have terrible, terrible risk communication. Parts of our country still think this is a hoax. They dont think this is happening. That is the problem. You know, all i can do is ramp the size my message. I know everyone will get tired of me saying this but i have said, you got to make mask wearing cool. We got to deal with reality. What you do when johnny comes home from school and he has treated his h batman mask that someone else for their spiderman mask. What we do to educate our kids better so they understand and i was afraid to go to school. How do we build the infrastructure so that we can do Remote Learning . Far too many kids have to go home and quite frankly dont have an infrastructure to do the distance learning. Weve got to figure out how to do this a lot better. Theyre too many schools are country they dont have school nurses. Even if they go back to school who will provide the medical support for those kids in school. We not gotten them resources so every school in america has a school nurse but that seems like a sound investment to make. Host from the east coast to the west coast this is jerry in huntington beach, california. Good morning. Caller good morning. I agree with everything llvirtually everything doctor benjamin has said, particularly amon Contact Tracing. I tell you we could use Something Like cell phone tracing or Something Like that. If they got the military involved they are trained in America Public<\/a> Health Association<\/a> is. Guest sure, thank you. Youre the National Nonprofit<\/a> of people who practice Public Health<\/a> and quite frankly, many of our people, the ones out chasing the virus each and every day. Host what role have you sought to play in the coronavirus pandemic . Ht what is your group been doing . Guest we have been doing a lot of policymakers, the public, advocating for resources and generally trying to push in prohealth agenda based on science p. Host we found out yesterday the number of reported coronavirus cases in this country past the 5 million mark that is doubling of u. S. Cases since the end of june and the last million happening in just the last venting days paid your reaction to that milestone. Guest the challenge is that a lot of this is preventable. We are not paying attention to what we know works. When you look at other nations in the world may be as they get their hands around this terrible, terrible pandemic and we just havent. Host out to be keep from doubling again by early fall or even sooner . Guest the evidence is real clear. Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance and doing lots of testing and good Contact Tracing<\/a>. That is the way you get your hands around this epidemic. Every nation in the world that has done this effectively has followed that format. Host you talk about other nations in the world and we had the 5 million milestone. India is second in the world in terms of most infections at 3 million, well behind the united states. Do we have more infections in this country because we do more testing in this country . Guest testing identifies people who are infected but you are infected because you are infected but you are infected because this is the disease you pass persontoperson and we have more infections, not necessarily because we do more testing. We are not doing as much testing per capita as other nations. Host how should we be doing our testing . Yo which ages would make to the system if you were in charge of it . Guest if i can make this work we would have a robust testing a system which truly allowed anyone to get the test and most importantly the results would come back within 24 hours so you could act so lewdly do the most content tracing and then inform people and go to the doctor and stayed home and stay from others and the only way to do this is by a robust testing system. Host what do you want to see in the next coronavirus legislation . Guest we need to put a lotot more money on the table and start putting dollars into help state and local so they dont lay off people. Many of the people chasing this virus today as a state and local Health Department<\/a> levels are about to get laid off because the state is running out of money. I want to see us more rapidly Start Testing<\/a> again and we only do that withar more resources ad by the way, informed coordinated National Leadership<\/a> is essential to make that happen. Host in terms of the money are we talking 32 and dollars, 2 trillion, 1 trillion . Weve heard all of those tossed around in recent weeks as these negotiations have gone on. Guest the amount of money that is on the hill is closer t. Two, 3 trillion than the 1 trillion they are talking about but the fact of the matter is, we need to get more money out there and get that money out to the people. Host were talking to doctor vegan, executive director of the mirkin Public Health<\/a> associati association, talking to him a day after u. S. Case counts soared past 5 million in the country. If you want to join the conversation this morning phone lines are open for you to do so. 202 7488000 if you live in the eastern or central time zone, 202748 8001 if you live in the mountain or pacific time zone and then a special line set aside for medical professionals, 202 7488002 and we would love to have you join us as well in this conversation. Doctor george benjamin, asng people call him this morning to talk about our folks are out there chasing this virus could you talk more about what that meanss and are we talking contat tracing and if so, how much of that is going on in states around the country . Guest you could say the virus like this is that you identify people who are infected and you talk with them and you of course give them the healthcare they need if they need healthcare. And then what you do is plan out who they had been in contact with and then you advise those people on their best medical and you do that until you basically contain the disease. Someone was been exposedha or en if they are not symptomatic need to do what we called quarantined themselves and that means stay at home for a couple of weeks. If they are sick then they will need to be isolated and very well may need medical care. Thats a process that has been going on for a few hundred yea years. It works. It it is not Rocket Science<\/a> but it has been a real challenge for nation to adopt. Host we have seen the pushback in the past week and months on facial coverings and on facemasks in this contributor much pushback did your folks get when it comes to Contact Tracing<\/a> . How willing our people to say here is the list of people who i had been in Contact Tracing<\/a> and here is everyone ive talked to face to face. Guest let me start, [inaudible] we ought to do that because its the first principle and they work. Contact tracing is difficult but if you called me up on the phone and i dont know who you are in you say where were you yesterday and who are u. S. , im probably not going to tell you. There is an art to doing that. There really is an art to doing that. The real challenge we have is getting people to understand that by the way, state and local Health Department<\/a>s have been doing this for years for things like sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and so we do know how to do that but we dont have enough people or enough people will trained toar basically build that confidence to a group of people that can pick up the phone and call you and talk with you and get you to share that information. Host explained that arts. If you made that call right now how would you do that . Guest me personally i would say look, im doctor benjamin from the Health Department<\/a> and you were exposed to someone who had covid19. What we would like you to do, of course, if you have any of the following symptoms we thank you ought to make sure you talk with your doctor and we also want you to work with us to see if we can help identify anyone else you have been around who also may be exposed so you can m help them from getting sickth and saving their lives. In some situations people get sick and can die so i note you may not want to share that information with me but i assure you this information will be held confidentially and we wont share with anyone outside appropriate health authorities. You will not be arrested and you will not be hunted down or put out of the country. Recently want you to help us help other people and look, if you dont want to give me their names okay, here is who you call. You call your friends or the people you have been around in here is my number and you can have them call me. Host how much of a response do you get to that . Do generally get the most people working with you to do that when you put it in that position of being a helper in this process . Or is it 5050 . Guest i have not done this for many years personally but when i did do that as a very junior person and i can tell you people that i talk with and we use that kind of wording it does work. Host doctor george benjamin, our guest this morning. Director of the American Health<\/a> public association. Here to answer your questions as the u. S. Has passed 5 million account of positive cases of covid. Nancy from pennsylvania is on with doctor benjamin. Caller good morning. Or westion is we have were behind in our area, i believe, for the testing. They didnt ramp it up from just one place with a doctors order that you could go in a medic express without the doctors order and it seems like what has happened when the testing has gone better, i cant say it is that great, the Contact Tracing<\/a> was so far behind that there really wasnt anything much happening. It was somebody who lived with a person and was had it in the hospital and it took two weeks to get the answer and when i called the Pennsylvania Department<\/a> of health they saidal that they dont have enough Contact Tracing<\/a> people. We are all talk and not enough action to be strict on putting these things in place. We need to do what the cdc says and what is happening is were talking about it but not strict on the laws. And they are not laws for mass but we do not enforce the Contact Tracing<\/a> whether we have to hire more people to get that done but it is all talk and not happening and we are rising because we are not doing what we are saying. As far as the mask, when people say things liketh you should wer a mask unless you have some kind of a health issue that prevents you, right away that is on the door and you see people Walking Around<\/a> without any masks and this is just not strict and we are thinking that it is not something that has to bee done o control this and curb the spre spread. Host thank you. Doctor benjamin. Guest let me absolutely agree with that. We initially thought we needed 100,000 contact tracers and some people think we need 300,000 now and the last that i knew was somewhere in the maybe 30000 nationally so we dont have enough. Part of it is money, part of it is the time to ramp up the training but this requires a National Effort<\/a> with the federal government being the biggest cheerleader here, finding the resources and the guidance and we have not had that which is absolutely right. Contact tracing, testing, Rapid Testing<\/a> if you turn the result is the key to us getting our hands around this. And we are not at all. Host your thoughts on the testing issues specifically. On this headline from usa today, governor mike devine false positive spotlights testing issues looking back on the governors Rapid Testing<\/a> took on thursday ahead of the president visit to ohio that rapid test giving a positive result but two pcr tests taken later that day ultimately found that the wine tested negative, explain the difference between a rapid and a pcr test and how we make testing more reliable . Guest the answers you just gave is a different test in the ppr test. Its a rapid test and it is known, notoriously known, to have false negatives mean that sometimes your positive and sometimes it says your positive and you are not or false positive meaning there sometimes it says you are positive with the virus and you were not. The falsenegative means it says you are negative but you really have it. Ot its notoriously inaccurate but it does give you a speed. Its a tradeoff. The pcr test and that test, by the way, tests for a piece of the virus. The pcr test looks for the whole virus. It is much more active andit muh more active. If it says you are negative or positive and it depends on the substantially of the test and you have to know that when you are taking the test. I always encourage people to understand when you take that test that like anything else you usually have to have another confirmatory test. One where you can do that is a couple tests. One in the morning, one in afternoon and if they both Work Together<\/a> and they say they are both sick and give you the answer then that is why you have seen [inaudible] has had some tested or not been accurate when they doneee them at the white house. This test isnt really inaccurate. Host from usa today, list of states saying rapid growth in covid19 cases in the last seven days, hawaii has seen 1149 new cases and that is a change and increase of 99 from the previous week. This is jason from hawaii this morning. Thank you for calling and paired you are on with doctor benjamin. Caller good morning, doctor benjamin. Thank you so much for politicizing this issue about the coronavirus. I was calling in regards to the lawsuit filed by doctors against California Governor Gavin Newsom<\/a> in regards to the Overly Burdensome Regulations<\/a> surrounding keeping schools closed, essentially the lawsuit says that the risks to the children are very, very low and that children do not virtually transmit the virus to Adult Patients<\/a> or two adults. I am wondering if you are aware of this lawsuit and i was wondering why cspan would not ask one of these professors to come on the air. This gentleman happens to be a professor of medicine at Stanford University<\/a> and this has not received any publicity from the Mainstream Media<\/a> r. Thank you. Host thank you for the suggestion for doctor benjamin, go ahead be to i wont advise on programming except inviting me on more often. [laughter] host go ahead. Guest but with that in mind, one think that is been challenging about this outbreak is we continue to learn each and every day. We made a lot of assumptions based on what we thought we kn knew, based on the previous sars outbreak, different virus and different strain and we thought that kids could always get the virus. Let me be clear, kids are not immune to getting it. We have alwayset said kids cant get it. The question is how sick do they get and how easily do they spread it . Now, more and more evidence is showing us that kids, not only absolutely can get the disease and tend to be pretty efficient at spreading it at least in the older age they can ten years of age or older. I understand that when you go back to school its a big tradeoff. We are trying to tradeoff kids social, emotional needs, there need to be with their peers, their Educational Needs<\/a> and these are very important. The fact that many kids get their meals at school and we have a nation that still too many people have food insecurity. We have this tradeoff but ive got to tell you that you see what has happened in that camp in georgia and that school in georgia and theyve got nine cases. N we know that there was almost 100,000, 97000 kids who got the disease in the last two weeks or so of july. We know there is over 500 kids who got into that severe multisystem disease that we have been reporting on and we know we had about 86 kids who have died since may. You know, while kids dont get as sick and the risks are lower for them the School Systems<\/a> are having a really tough time and our elected leaders of both parties trying to figure out the tradeoffs that are involved in this. This is tough stuff. The evidence is, where your ma mask, wash your hands, keep her distance and i was fascinated by the fact in georgia they were excited about closing the school of course after they had these cases. The news story is all about completing the school and yet with a need to talk talk about is wearing a mask and physically distance and washing their hands. That is how you get the disease from other people. You can get it from objects and services but that is right now that is not where the test is entirely. Its got to be on protecting you from me and me from you in the mask does that. Host out to the Eastern Shore<\/a> to lewes, delaware. This is tony. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I like to make a couple of comments. I agree with doctor george benjamin, we need to get more money to the stage but its got to start from the top. Just this past weekend you see these bigig gatherings with the motorcycles in south dakota and then you see kids on the news that walk through the halls with no masks and how are they inspected to curb this virus if they dont Pay Attention<\/a> to the doctors and the scientists and go out here and do what we are supposed to do. People on the beaches out here not Wearing Masks<\/a> and these kids think they are untouchable. They think it is a hoax. This virus is not going anywhere and these people are complaining about these but do what you are supposed to do and then get tested and find out where this virus is going. Host doctor benjamin. Guest i agree. The failure of our nation compared to other nations that are much more effective has been unified with National Leadership<\/a>. And supporting the governors. Many much more than they have done as a nation. We have terrible, terrible risk communication. Parts of our country still think this is a hoax. They dont think this is happening. That is the problem. You know, all i can do is ramp the size my message. I know everyone will get tired of me saying this but i have said, you got to make mask wearing cool. We got to deal with reality. What you do when johnny comes home from school and he has treated his h batman mask that someone else for their spiderman mask. What we do to educate our kids better so they understand and i was afraid to go to school. How do we build the infrastructure so that we can do Remote Learning<\/a> . Far too many kids have to go home and quite frankly dont have an infrastructure to do the distance learning. Weve got to figure out how to do this a lot better. Theyre too many schools are country they dont have school nurses. Even if they go back to school who will provide the medical support for those kids in school. We not gotten them resources so every school in america has a school nurse but that seems like a sound investment to make. Host from the east coast to the west coast this is jerry in huntington beach, california. Good morning. Caller good morning. I agree with everything llvirtually everything doctor benjamin has said, particularly amon Contact Tracing<\/a>. I tell you we could use Something Like<\/a> cell phone tracing or Something Like<\/a> that. If they got the military involved they are trained in Chemical Warfare<\/a> which is basically what this is. We havent taken this disease as seriously as we really should in this country, particularly at the top. The problem is a quick example that one of the gardeners got covid and from what i understand he was told to quarantine and that was what they told him and he lived with a bunch of other people in the house and did not live with them but they got they were young and they got very sick and the goal of this thing should be to protect older people like me and its younger people get it it will not hurt them that bad but we need to start thinking about ways to track down this nonsense we are hearing from trump and other people about how its a fight but theyre not fighting it effectively. Its a joke. Host doctor benjamin, could you follow specifically what the caller mentioned with the use of technology in Contact Tracing<\/a>. Guest yeah, let me tell you google and apple have a project going that is neat. Basically you put an app on your phone and if you have covid and you put your information in the gap and then if you happen to be around someone else then notify them they have been exposed that they have covid and it gives them a number to call. It doesnt shield youre information with them but it does say been exposed to something and then says call this office and they can work without the permit. Virginia has used this product very recently. Its a neat way to use an app. What i like about it, its critical for the apps out there because what it does is builds it on top of the existing Public Health<\/a> Contact Tracing<\/a> infrastructure which is what i like about it. It enables us to do our work so and there are more and more people out there who are using apps. There are other apps that are being used and there are a lot out there but i am not someone whos real familiar with all of them but i know they are out there and i am the older guy, 57 and this is my kids really understand this and they are much younger than i and and they understand the Technology Tools<\/a> but the more we can use technology the better. Host fifteen minutes left with doctor benjamin of the America Public<\/a> Health Association<\/a>, hp ha is where you can find them online. This is ted out of washington new jersey. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call and thank you for your time doctor period one thing i think the trouble that confuses the public out here and maybe one reason why they are not responding as they should is because if anything else, you like to know the origins because this is where we can understand it. At this point i dont hear enough of health experts, politicians or anybody talking about exactly if we could have a little more information on where, how and why this thing started, did itd come from a la . Did it come from a bat . Did it come from the water . Is there anyway we can get more insight . I note that would help me and my friends and communicating and i talked too a lot of people. How could it be so unknown . Why cant we pinpoint a little bit that it was more made and a lab and it comes like from an animal but no one can tell us. Guest well, let me just tell you. We know a lot about this virus. There are people who actually studied coronavirus. It is a family of viruses. It can cause, not this particular one, let me be clear about that, it can cause the common cold and it is in the same family of the sars virus that we saw years ago and its often the same family of viruses what we call the middle eastern respiratory system that a respiratory virus people get from camels. We do know these viruses and by the weight there are millions and millions of different kinds of these Infectious Diseases<\/a> out there. They periodically mutate and techange and you know they attak us and they change. This is not uncommon. This is how ebola got here and the ika got here and even influenza which changes everyza year ultimately it came from an animal because it caused an infection. We know a lot about it. Having said that, it is generally thought that it evolved from bats because bats have a b lot of coronavirus and that is generally where people can get came from. In this particular case we believe the first introduction into humans was in china and right now there is no obvious clear evidence that it was made in a lab. And by the way we know that nature is very efficient at creating these kinds of diseases. And it does it all the time. I would like to be able to pinpoint and say yes, someone did this and that happen in this happened and that is how it came to us but quite frankly, you know, common things occur commonly in nature commonly changes viruses and those viruses at some point do injure human beings. And that is the best i can tell you but i can tell you that the task today is for us to contain it and get better treatments for it in a vaccine for it but there is a lot of ways we can prevent other people from getting it and we are just not using those tools effectively. Host hampton, new hampshire, this is jamesburg good morning. D caller good morning doctor benjamin and good morning host. I have a question in my and my heard . Host yes, sir. Caller my question was this. , my understanding is is this a behavioral driven disease and they are various rates of infection in this country and apparently very high and other countries they seem much more controlled so is this a totally driven by behavior or i wonder what doctor georges opinion is of why is there such divergence responses to this apparently mutating condition and why this is occurring so far differently in various countries that are reporting their findings . Guest initially the initial experience in most countries is the same pit the difference is and how we have responded to it, both in our nation and in our country and in others. That is when the disease hit we did not rapidly ramp up a new cadre of people who could do Contact Tracing<\/a> and we got behind the ball on testing which never really caught up and we are a big country so please understand we are a big nation but it does take more effort for us to do would be need to get done but then in those areas that did not pay a lot of attention as they ought to have early on they had huge disease spikes and even though they sheltered home we did some of the things we need to do and we did not do it long enough. We reopened our society too early in many places. And we are seeing the results of that. New york was much more effective at bringing this up breakdown then texas or florida as an example. You asked about the behavioral aspect. The behavioral aspects are on the prevention side. We know that wearing a mask, washing your hands and keeping your distance works. W it turns out the mask is a lot more effective than any of us even thought. Quite frankly, earlier in the thing i was one of those folks that thought im not quite sure whether you would need to wear a mask but i am a mask convert for sure. From a common sense perspective, you know, when youre talking to someone and that stuff comes out of your mouth if i wear a mask it doesnt come out my mouth and spray on you. If you wear the mask it doesnt come out of your mouth and spray on me and so it dramatically introduces my exposure to you and your exposure to me. The mask works as a functional tool. From a behavioral perspective if we do those things mask wearing, hand hygiene and keeping our distance we would have a better control in this disease then we have today. Host on the Contact Tracing<\/a>, how long does it take to train somebody up to be able to do that and how many of those folks are in the pipeline and what states are using that most effectively . Guest well, you know, i dont have a good idea of what states are using it most effectively but some of the things i thought to the great job turned out to not be so but there is the online test john hopkins has about you know ten, 15 hours of education to give somebody the book knowledge they need, usually you help people and you just have to scale up. I think talking to people part they encourage people to give them the information is an artio form and that takes a while to learn but to get the book knowledge you can get those in a few hours. And then there are a lot of people using volunteer workforces and a lot of people are hiring people but the secret here is to link it to the existing governmental Public Health<\/a> infrastructure. Is that is the way to do this. If there is a school or a job that is involved in testing and trying to integrate their testing for their employees they have to integrate that with a certain level for the Health Department<\/a>. Host back too the phones ths is jay in riverdale, maryland. Good morning. Caller yes, good morning. This cable bill is very extensive so please dont cut me off. I have a followup question. After this experiment im worried about that same because there has been no successful vaccine has been out to fight covid but my comment is leading to my followup question. Italy was once the epicenter of the source for the virus but the country called in human doctors with the cure, interferon and onnow they have totally reversed their situation and they are modeled for europe so why wont the commercial media here and even cspan, big fans, doesnt even talk about is a cure used in italy and in over 50 other countries, interferon to be. People are dying and there is no discussion about it. Doctor, are you aware of the interferon . That leads my followup questi question. Guest im certainly aware there have been some randomized controlled studies and nations are looking at interferon. Interferon is a molecule that does interfere with some virus viruses. I dont know what efficacy is and i have heard through some sources that i have that they have had some good outcomes from it but i cant verify those in those emails that someone sense but i do know there is a range of studies looking at that as well as a whole range of other theories that are out there. The challenge we have is trying to do enough for those studies and getting enough people in the studies so they can prove that they work. I wont denigrate the study because im not aware of the outcomes but i am aware that some folks in cuba and some scholars in cuba have believed that they have [inaudible] and they certainly are willing to share those. Host j, running out of time for a quick followup. Caller yet, my followup question is okay that is fine but im talking about specifically italy. Italy was the epicenter of the virus in europe and now after the cuban doctors and im talking of not about Clinical Trials<\/a> but the doctors from cuba have come to italy and now they are going back to normal with other or 50 other countries. Host got your point. Doctor benjamin. Guest i dont know about the study in italy and im not seen that data but i can tell you and do know that in italy there is effective Contact Tracing<\/a> testing, mass grain, handwashing and physical distancing. As thats the centerpiece of their prevention efforts. But in terms of the treatment efforts i am not up to speed. Host you. Host it represents six minutes on your cable bill. We appreciate your call. Joel is in bellevue, illinois, good morning, go ahead. Caller actually belleville, illinois. Host go ahead. Caller thank you for taking the call but im this disease will really kill us all. We could have lip service all morning long but unless or congress or whomever will impose penalties for not Wearing Masks<\/a> we will all get this disease and this big bank rally out in south dakota they will affect each other and then they will return to their families and infect them and if their families will calm and infect us. I think the time for talking and convincing is over. I think we need some real laws and penalties to crack down on individuals. Host you want fines or jail time . Caller yeah. I say lets get a fine and then for a second offense it is jail time. They are endangering peoples lives. That is exactly what is going on. People who do not wear masks or disregard thehe health of their. Ellow people and now i was at a store yesterday and 75 of the individuals were wearing a mask. Stores and force a no shirt, nor shoes policy sost why not imposa no mask policy for the time being . It is not that big of an inconvenience. Host doctor benjamin. Guest yeah, im in the camp to strongly encourage in the challenge have is finding how to get best compliance and some people like me craft a rule and i dont want to break the rule and then i dont awful want to overprotection willing to do it. But still people will be defined even if you pass a law to do that. Human behaviors always tough to predict. Ive got to tell you one thing, in those nations that have stood behind Health Recommendations<\/a> and said this is the best Health Guidance<\/a> we have, these are elected leaders that head stand behind it, wear the mask and then model that behavior, wear the mask themselves, those nations have had a much higher level of compliance among the population than those nations wiat have been wishywashy. And we have been wishywashy. Host time for one or two more calls with edward out of keyport, new jersey. Good morning. Caller yes, seen the [inaudible] host did you catch that . Talking or concerned about bacterial resistance in future pandemics. Guest this is a virus. Its not bacteria but just to point that out. Some of the antiviral agents getting resistance over time but not yet. I think right now we are okay but his disease continues over several years and if we dont use them effectively you can get antiviral resistance. Host doctor benjamin, and the last couple of minutes we have with you i know you are on capitol hill last month or earlier this summer testifying one of the issues you talked atout was the impact of the disproportionate impact that this disease is having on minorities in this country but could you bring us uptodate on the latest numbers on that front . Guest yeah, we are still seen a High Percentage<\/a> of africanamericans and native americans and both with hospitalizations and deaths, disproportionate to nonhispanic whites and that is because of exposure, many of those individuals have public facing jobs so they are out and about and sanitary workers and hospital workers that i are in Nursing Homes<\/a> and they are susceptible because they have chronic diseases, diabetes, Heart Disease<\/a> and lung disease and kidney disease. Quite frankly the real challenge one of the caller said earlier about multi general households, if you go home and are infected you areo likely to give it to a family member. If you are in a household with multigenerational family or multiple households in that family or smaller house where you cant really effectively quarantine you will infect your family and so that is what we are seeing. And we need to fix it. We need to make sure, by the way, we have access to testing and early on that was not equal and we need to make sure that we provide adequate care to all the people that get it on equal basis. Host we will end it with there, doctor benjamin, executive director of the american Public Health<\/a> association, hp ha. Org. We appreciate your time. Guest john, thank you for having meet. Host with 85 days to go before election day0","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia601907.us.archive.org\/11\/items\/CSPAN2_20200810_180500_Washington_Journal_Georges_Benjamin\/CSPAN2_20200810_180500_Washington_Journal_Georges_Benjamin.thumbs\/CSPAN2_20200810_180500_Washington_Journal_Georges_Benjamin_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}