In ancient times, we wouldve called it beast, the mountain lion. It is really a garden boulder, colorado. It is a beautiful place but in many ways, it has been altered by humankind. When you get this wild animal coming into this artificial landscape, you can cause changes in the behavior of that animal. A mountain lions favorite food is venison. Living on the outskirts of this beautiful city where we have irrigated gardens and lawns the city attracted the deer so we have a deer herd living in downtown boulder. The lions moved back into the area. They discovered there were deer in town so the deer were the lions lured the lions. They discovered they can eat dogs and cats. That is food for them so the lions were learning and they have learned that this is where they will find food. There is food up there too but lots to eat in town. In a is a retreat beautiful place for enrichment and enlightenment, entertainment and coming together. The people who were intended to be the audience were really what we call the middle class. The programs at most were very similar. A combination of speakers of the day. What might bey of considered highbrow and lowbrow entertainment. Opera, classical music, and probably what we would consider the bonneville of that day. Watch all of the events from boulder saturday at noon eastern on cspan 2 and sunday afternoon on cspan 3. White house briefing on the administrations response to the bowl epidemic, Officials Say the u. S. Has a Health Infrastructure to deal with it at home and africa. Those taking part, health and Human Services secretary Sylvia Burwell and anthony fauci. This is 45 minutes. Thank you, lisa. Since the outbreak began the United States government has been engaged in preparation both at home and abroad to protect our homeland and stop the epidemic at its source. Weve been working for many months to ensure that the United States is protected. Cdc sent out our first guidance to state and local officials on july 28 and has been followed with six additional sets of guidance and the latest was just issued yesterday. In addition, we have enhanced our surveillance and Laboratory Testing capacity in states to make sure that theyre able to detect cases. Been in regular and repeated contacts with state officials and Health Departments including developing guidance and tools for departments to conduct Public Health investigations. Were continuing to provide guidance for flight crews, Emergency Medical Service units at airports, and customs and Border Patrol officers about reporting ill travelers to the cdc. Were continuing to work with hospitals and Health Care Workers around the country to prepare most effectively both in detecting symptoms and then responding appropriately. As we saw just a few months ago, almost two months ago in Carolinas Medical Center in charlotte, North Carolina, and at mount sinai in new york, hospitals and Health Care Systems reacted and took appropriate steps. Fortunately, in those cases the cases were not positive. We saw emorys ability to handle the first cases that returned from west africa followed by the Nebraska Medical Centers ability to do the same. In dallas, the Public Health system is now handling the case with the protocol that we know controlled this disease. We recognize the concern that even a single case of ebola creates on our shores. But we have the Public Health system and the Public Health providers in place to contain the spread of this disease. We have taken a number of precautions to prevent the spread. Weve instituted exit screening procedures in west africa to prevent those who have been exposed to ebola or sick with ebola from traveling. The department of Homeland Security is in the process of advising all travelers returning to the u. S. From country with ebola outbreaks in west africa to monitor their health for 21 days and immediately seek medical help if any symptoms do develop. The centers for Disease Control stands ready as it has in dallas to deploy expert teams when needed. Finally, our scientists at the food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of health are working tirelessly to develop new vaccines and treatments for ebola. We remain focused on working with our partners on the ground to stop the epidemic at its source and were continuing to take the necessary precautions across the United States government to prevent the epidemic from spreading further. And id like to now turn to dr. Tony fauci, the director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases at the nih to talk a little bit about epidemiology. Thank you very much, secretary burwell. Id like to provide some basic but important facts about ebola and its transmission. Although ebola is an extremely serious viral disease with a high fatality rate, it is not easily transmitted. Specifically, the ebola virus is not easily spread like a cold or influenza. You must come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of a sick person or through exposure to objects that have been contaminated with infected bodily fluids. Ebola is not a respiratory disease like the flu and so it is not transmitted through the air. This is important. Individuals who are not symptomatic are not contagious. In order for the virus to be transmitted, an individual would have to have direct contact with an individual who is experiencing symptoms or who has died of the disease. We have considerable experience in dealing with ebola both in controlling and in preventing outbreaks. This is based on experience with almost two dozen outbreaks in Central Africa since the virus was first isolated in 1976. The key elements to that control and the prevention of outbreaks when ebola rises in a community is to first identify cases, isolate them, care for them under conditions that protect the Health Care Workers, and, importantly, perform Contact Tracing. People in direct contact with a sick ebola patient should be monitored for symptoms for at least 21 days. If no symptoms arise, the individual is cleared. If symptoms arise, the person is appropriately isolated and cared for. This formula has worked very well over many years. The situation in west africa has been very difficult, largely due to the lack of an adequate of an Adequate Health care infrastructure to deal with the outbreak. I want to reiterate what the secretary said. Our Health Care Infrastructure in the United States is well equipped to stop ebola in its tracks. As the secretary said, in addition to managing the issues associated with containing the situation in dallas as it exists today and addressing the very dire situation as it exists in africa today, we are working very aggressively and energy etically to test a vaccine, to prevent ebola and therapy to treat it. Now id like to introduce the administrator of usaid, dr. Shah. Thank you. Id like to take a moment to describe the effort in west africa which has been noted includes a major effort to control the disease, includes specific actions to deal with the secondary impacts of the crisis in several west african countries including making food, water, and Government Support more available, and the effort to build out an International Coalition as lisa previously discussed. Our response in west africa started in the spring and accelerated dramatically over the summer. This coordinated civilian response included the largest ever Disaster AssistanceResponse Team from usaid, the large eliot largest ever more than a hundred Persons Centers for Disease Control capability deployed to liberia, sierra leone, guinea, and countries throughout the region, and efforts partnering with our department of defense colleagues to more than double the laboratory and diagnostic capacity in west africa to ensure that cases could be identified and positively confirmed. Since that time, weve helped deliver more than 120,000 sets of personal protective equipment, build out ebola treatment units, provide Technical Assistance for airport screenings throughout the region, and increase the basic capacity of what has been a weak existing Health Care Infrastructure to deal with this disease. As the president noted in his comments at the centers for Disease Control a few weeks ago, our strategy now is clear. First, we are investing in a strong, incident command system at the national and local level throughout the region to identify cases and trace contacts. Second, we are building out ebola treatment units so that enough bed capacity exists for as many positively identified patients as possible to receive isolation and treatment. We are on path to put in place the w. H. O. Plan of more than 2800 beds in liberia according to their thrines and in the past several days have seen significant new ebola capability come online including the largest treatment unit in liberia the new island clinic which we helped build and staff. Third, were engaging in an Extensive Community care strategy that includes a ten to 20 bed Community Care units that are placed throughout Rural Communities and help isolate patients in those communities and support the distribution of hygiene and protective equipment kits so families can protect their patients and their families. Weve distributed more than 9,000 of those kits together with unicef and the World Health Organization and are on path to have about 10,000 arriving country arrive in country and be distributed through liberia on a weekly basis. In recent days weve been successful in scaling up the effort to identify, reach, and in a safe and dignified manner deal with bodies of patients who are deceased from ebola. We now have more than 50 safe burial teams with full protective equipment and careful protocols in place. Were noting that more than 3 4 of all bodies this liberia of positively identified patients are now being cleared safely within the 24hour period. This is critically important because that is an important existing mode of transmission. I further note that the scale up of centers for Disease Control and u. S. Aid efforts through june and august was quite significant but the complexity of building out ebola treatment units and providing the Logistics Support in terms of protective equipment and medicines required the significant Additional Resources brought by the department of defense and announced by president obama. So im pleased to introduce general david rodriguez, the commander of Africa Command to describe those specific efforts. Thank you. Thank you, administrator. As we deploy americas sons and daughters to support the comprehensive United States government effort led by the United States agency for international development, well do everything in our power to address and mitigate any potential risk to our Service Members, civilian employees, and their families. As director shah or administrator shah mentioned, the areas that were focusing on are command and control and that is to help support and coordinate the efforts of both usaid and the international community. We are also working on training the people who man and manage the ebola treatment units. Were supporting the engineering efforts to build out the ebola treatment units and were also doing an effort in the area of logistics, which this is a tremendous logistics effort as the administrator pointed out. For our soldiers prior to deployment, well provide them the best equipment and training that we can. We are assessing risk based on the Service Members mission, their location, and their activities in execution of their operations. Were implementing procedures to reduce or eliminate the risk of transmission, as Service Members go about their daily missions, including the use of personal protective equipment, hygiene protocols, and monitoring. Prior to redeploying Service Members back home, we will screen and identify anyone who faced an elevated risk of exposure and take all necessary steps to minimize any potential transmission in accordance with the International Standards that our medical professionals have given us. In the end our equipment, training, procedures, and most of all the discipline of our leaders and our force will help us to ensure that our team accomplishes its mission without posing a risk to our nation and our fellow citizens. Thank you. Thanks very much, general rodriguez. First i want to thank our the folks who are with me at the podium. But most importantly, the dedicated military medical and Development Professionals that they represent and who are working so hard on this problem. I think with that were happy to take your questions. Ms. Monaco . Yes. You talked about these ebola country. Why not do more active screening, like ask people have you had a fever, have you been in contact with people . Thats been done at least in some countries and other circumstances. On the face of it, it would seem a reasonable thing to do. I think this goes directly to what dr. Fauci talked about and secretary burwell. We are taking steps to address the source, the people coming from the source countries and we think those are the most effective steps we can take. The temperature testing, the questionnaires, testing for fever, and making sure that people who are symptomatic and as dr. Fauci said and dr. Tom friedman has talked about this repeatedly, you cannot get ebola other than from direct contact with bodily fluids of somebody who is at that time symptomatic. So the most effective way to go about controlling this is to prevent those individuals from getting on a plane in the first place. I think it is important to remember that since these measures have been in place, dozens and dozens of people have been stopped from getting on flights in the region. But we now know people have gotten on planes anyway, so why not have the u. S. Customs and immigration people ask them, clearly, its not effective to do it merely on the african side. I think what weve seen is weve had an individual in texas who did come to this country and later became symptomatic. That person is now being isolated and dealt with and significant Contact Tracing is being done. Your question about passive versus more active screening is i think understandable. But as secretary burwell indicated, weve taken a number of steps to ensure customs and Border Patrol individuals are, teams are trained to identify a symptomatic individual and where they do present people who may be symptomatic, they have instructions about what to do and how to handle that. That is all of which is to say that we are constantly going to evaluate what may be the most effective measures we can take. Secretary johnson is constantly evaluating that with his team and in consultation with the medical professionals. Right now the most effective measures we think are focusing at the source countries and taking the steps, the very concerted training and precautionary measures and notification measures that weve taken with the cdc folks here on the receiving end. Talk kind of in broad terms about hospital procedures here and obviously in dallas and break down a couple points. Im wondering specifically lessons from the dallas situation. And while we have you here, maybe you can tell us what the u. S. Knows about the latest state video weve seen with the hostage and another american as well. On the latter issue, julie, let me just address that and then ask secretary burwell and dr. Fauci to address the medical measures in texas within the constraints that im sure you understand safely operating. If it in fact proves to be authentic it is a demonstration of the brutality of isil and our hearts go out to the british aide worker who we believe is in that video and the remaining hostages and their families. This is again yet another just very clear example of the brutality of this group and why the president has articulated and is moving out in a comprehensive way to degrade and destroy isil. Let me now turn to my colleagues on the latter part of your question. With regard to the efforts that the cdc is pursuing and weve been pursuing, as i mentioned, weve had the efforts in charlotte we saw and we saw it work in mount sinai. We have a case here actually i think everyone knows howard and the question there. And so the systems are in place. We continue to communicate. We continue to give good instruction. I think it is important to reflect on whatever lessons we learn, we build and incorporate. As i said, weve issued the seventh of these