Hey there, everyone, its high noon in the east, 9 00 a. M. Out west. We begin this hour with breaking news. We are watching two live events about to unfold. First up, the president is expected to speak at any moment at a dedication ceremony in washington. Hell deliver remarks at the memorial for American Veterans disabled for life. Of course, well take you there live when he does. Also this hour, the centers for Disease Control and prevention scheduled to hold yet another briefing. Well bring that to you, as well, as it begins. Meantime. In a few hours, set to depart liberia after testing positive for ebola. Hes expected to arrive tomorrow at Nebraska Medical Center in omaha where hell receive treatment. The same Medical Center where the doctor was successfully treated. Hes now back in a hospital, though, in massachusetts with what appears to be a respiratory infection. Its been treating as pneumonia. They are treating him saying they do not believe, though, it is a recurrence of ebola. Meanwhile, a man recently in west africa who became ill on a flight from brussels to newark does not have ebola. He was discharged on saturday after a full evaluation. And lets go to the briefing there. We can say all of the things that have happened and where we are and where were likely to be going. The patient was diagnosed on tuesday. Within about two hours, we announced that, that evening we had staff on the ground helping the terrific staff in dallas and texas to respond to this case. And we have no doubt that we will stop it in its tracks in texas. Its worth stepping back and saying how ebola spreads. Ebola only spreads by direct contact with someone who is sick or with their body fluids. The core of control is identifying everyone who might have had contact with them and making sure theyre monitored for 21 days and if they develop symptoms, immediately isolating them to break the chain of transmission. Theres no doubt we can stop ebola in this country. Today id like to spend a minute talking about what happened in dallas and whats happening in the u. S. More broadly. And finally, where we are with the epidemic in west africa. In terms of dallas, the work there by the staff of the local and state Health Departments with cdc assistance has been terrific. Theyve been able to assess all 114 individuals who might possibly have had contact. Of those, they were able to rule out that 66 did not have contact. They identified ten who appeared to have had contact with the individual when he might possibly have been infectious. Of those ten, seven are Health Care Workers and three are family or community contacts. In addition, there are about 38 other people in whom we could not rule out that they had contact. And so all of those 48 people will be tracked for 21 days to determine whether they have fever. And if any developed fever, they will be immediately isolated tested and if they have ebola, given appropriate care and determine whether there were any additional contacts to their case. Thats how we have stopped every outbreak of ebola in the world until this one in west africa. And thats how we stopped it in lagos, nigeria, and thats how we will stop it in texas. Going on to the u. S. Situation. Weve seen a lot of understandable concern. Because of the deadly nature of ebola and were really hoping for the recovery of the patient in dallas. We understand that his situation has taken a turn for the worse. We know that ebola is very serious disease and were hoping for his recovery. But because its such a deadly disease, people are scared. And its normal to be scared. In fact, for the Health Care Workers who are caring for people we bith ebola, we want t to have a healthy respect of the risk of any lapse in Infection Control procedure. We want them to channel that fear into being incredibly meticulous about Infection Control. Many people have pointed out initially the individual was not diagnosed. And we have done a lot at cdc and will be doing a lot more in the coming days and weeks. Empower and inform to think about ebola. And anyone who has been in guinea, liberia or sierra leone and has any symptoms suggestive of ebola. And make sure the index of suspicion if that happens, we isolate, assess them and test for ebola. Cdc has already done reached hundreds of thousands of Health Care Professionals with alerts, information, materials, tools, a webinar at least once a week. And well continue to ramp that up working closely with medical associations, with groups of doctors and nurses and others. And this basic issue of making sure that at this time ebola remains top of mind in people who have had a traveled history is something that we will continue to focus on. At cdc, weve seen the level of interest increase. In fact, we were getting about 50 calls or emails per day before the initial patient was diagnosed here. Its up to about 800 calls or emails per day. And we understand the level of concern. We also understand that people would like to do Everything Possible to keep ebola out of the u. S. And we agree with that 100 . Our top priority at cdc is to protect americans from threats. We work 24 7 to do that. In this case, were doing that by many different ways. One of them is working to stop the outbreak at its source in africa. Because as long as cases continue there, theres a possibility that someone will travel, infect someone else, come into this country or another country and possibly have another case of ebola. As long as the outbreak is continuing in africa, theres a risk in other places. Weve long said it, and its worth repeating that an outbreak anywhere is potentially a threat everywhere. But that doesnt mean we cant do anything. One of the things we do is to make sure that everyone leaving those countries is intensively screened with their temperature being taken, questions being asked and being observed to see if they appear to be ill. That screening has removed 77 people who wouldve boarded planes and didnt because of the screening that cdc staff helped those countries implement. And i can assure you that the leadership of each of those three countries wants to make sure that screening is as good as it can be. Because they need the airlines to keep flying, otherwise they wont be able to keep their societies moving. And we wont be able to stop the outbreak there. In addition, of course, we work with Health Care Workers around the country so theres rapid identification of cases and, of course, were now looking at the issue of entry screening. And were looking at all possibilities. There have been suggestions from people in congress, from the public, from the media. Well look at those and see what works to protect americans and to make sure that whatever we do doesnt unintentionally actually increase our risk. If we make it harder to fight the outbreak in west africa, we actually increase our own risk. Those are the criteria that were using, working across the u. S. Government, there are many agencies focused on this. And well be committed to doing whatever we can to further increase the safety of americans. Getting finally to the issue of whats happening in west africa today. The situation remains very fluid. Its striking when i speak with the cdc leaders who are there and weve sent now 135 top disease detectives and they work not only at the national level, but down to the county and district level in each of the three countries. One of the things thats quite striking is the diversity of the experience. This isnt west africa. This is three individual countries. Each of the individual countries has its own patterns of disease spread. In some of them, there are districts that have not had a case of ebola. In some, there are a handful of cases in those districts. Were moving at looking at each of the 62 districts across these three countries to see what more can be done to cone down this forest fire to prevent it from spreading to areas that it hasnt spread yet. To put out the sparks and places where its got a huge problem to isolate as many people as rapidly as possible. Weve seen Real Progress in the response over the past 1 to 2 weeks. The department of defense being on the ground has made a big difference, they were moving out and helping with operations. Weve seen usaid increasing support for families who want to respectfully and safely bury people who have died. And thats very important. Because it reduces the spread of ebola. While were still not ahead of it, were certainly getting further along than we were before. Im looking forward to briefing president obama on the situation in west africa tomorrow. And to further ensuring that the president s direction that we move rapidly to do as much as we can to stop this is what we are doing not only at cdc, not only across the u. S. Government, but globally. Were seeing a tremendous Global Coalition committed to doing this. So thats a bit about where we are in dallas and the u. S. And globally. And before i turn it over to my colleagues in texas, just to highlight that one thing that happened didnt get much notice in this past week. It happened to be on tuesday. The day that we announced the diagnosis, we published a report on what happened in nigeria. When they had a single case and they didnt do any Infection Control, they ended up with 19 secondary cases, additional cases. But because of a rapid Public Health response, effectively tracking nearly 900 contacts, it appears theyve been able to stop the outbreak in nigeria. Though we cant give the all clear yet, it does look like the outbreak is over there because of good Public Health action. Im confident that anywhere we apply the fundamental principles of Infection Control and Public Health followup, we can stop ebola. Thank you, dr. Freeden. Next speaker is dr. David lakey, the commissioner of the Texas Department of state health services. Dr. Lakey . Good afternoon, this is david lakey and i want to thank dr. Frieden for the support of the cdc working on this effort right now. As one effort and one team. As i start off, again, i want to say that my thoughts and prayers and our thoughts and prayers are with the patient right now. Obviously hes critically ill. But also with the family as theyre going through this event. And the contacts that have been identified that are obviously have concern about whats going on with them right now. And with the hospital workers that are caring for this ill patient right now. As i said earlier, were doing our work in partnership with the cdc, and our local Health Department here in the state of texas. A lot of very important hard work is taking place right here in texas, in dallas to ensure that the people of dallas are safe. Now, the good news is that we have had no more cases. And no one has reported any symptoms, and were happy about that. And were reassured still very cautious to make sure we continue to care for individuals, monitor the situation the way it needs to be done. Our focus here is to closely monitor every contact and the possible contacts. And identify all the and we have identified all the contacts and our priority in Public Health is to continue tracking those individuals. We wanted to make sure that we are closely monitoring them, and thats what we are focused on. Also, as we are monitoring individuals, as we identify needs they may have, were working through our command structure to make sure those issues are addressed. Making sure that the food issues are identified, or if electricity was turned off during the storm that those issues are resolved. Weve also, you know, the neighbors, obviously have had concerns and weve tried to provide Health Educators in the community to help address those issues. Our focus is to make sure that you are informed of whats going on and understand how the Public Health system works and what the risks may be. That the Public Health system works to prevent and contain these risks and i know its been noted several times, but obviously a lot of people are listening right now. I want to reemphasize that ebolas not spread by the air. And people are not contagious unless they have symptoms. This cant be stated enough. And i think it needs to be reassuring to the individuals that are listening today. There are hospitals across the state of texas and across the nation that are on the lookout for any additional cases. And thats what we want. We want hospitals to be on high alert and identify individuals that have a travel history to the areas that are affected. And come in with any symptoms that could be consistent we bow la. So if these individuals can be identified quickly and that Health Care Workers can be protected. Were going to theyre going to call on us and thats exactly way we want the system to work so theyre identified as a concern that they can get the testing that needs to be done. So were all on high alert right now, and thats where we believe it should be. We continue to plan for contingencies and a lot of work is taking place to make sure whatever happens that we are as prepared as we need to be to address those issues. So, again, doctor, i want to thank you for the partnership between the cdc and the state of texas and dallas city and county as we Work Together to ensure the safety of the people in dallas. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Lakey. We are now listening to the end of that cdc News Conference. Most notably, the news from texas there, the headline being there are no reports of any symptoms. Anyone with increased symptoms there for ebola. They are certainly watching very, very closely, the nine people that had come in contact with mr. Duncan to remains in the hospital there on your screen. Also proceeded by the cdc director who said a couple of notable points. First, he will be briefing the president tomorrow on an update on all the ebolarelated activities and what the cdc is doing to prevent that from further spreading in the United States. Also, he spoke about 77 people having been on a plane at least bound for a plane, at different points in africa. They were prescreened and taken off of planes. These people did not make it anywhere on to a plane or heading to the United States. That is very good. Tells us that the prescreening activities there in africa are working again. 77 people that were taken off of planes who potentially couldve come here to the United States. There are federal Health Officials who say a man recently in west africa became ill on a flight from brussels to newark. This person does not have ebola. The cdc said this man was discharged from a hospital on saturday. He got a full evaluation. To pick up on what airlines and airports should be doing. Theres a new op ed in the Washington Post that suggests they should screen for ebola as they do for terrorists. And joining me now, professor, thank you for joining me. First up, the news from dr. Tom freeden at the cdc that 77 people were screened. Give me your thoughts on that. Well, the doctor made excellent points when it comes to medical interventions. But screening for ebola has tremendous number of similarities to Aviation Security screening, except its much more difficult because when a plane lands, you end up knowing if the screening has been, in fact, effective. We bow ith ebola, it may take 2 to express itself. I believe that the medical interventions which are being employed are very, very strong. However, the difficulty is that were dealing with a disease that expresses itself over such a long period of time, we have to take extraordinary actions on the transportation side, as well. By your description, it would mean you go through the prescreening process on flight, but then if youre on an eighthour flight, transcontinental or coming across the ocean, you think we should be screened on the other end, as well, to see if theres heightened temperature . Is that what you would want to have done . Well, i think the temperature screening has actually been overplayed. If you take ibuprofen, you can suppress the temperature. And the onus of the passenger to establish that 21 days before they get on an airplane that they have not had contact and are risk free. Then after they land, there should be a 21day period where they are responsible for reporting in on a daily basis. This sounds very around 5060 people a day. Were talking about maybe 1,000 people. This is doable and it would reduce the risk very, very significantly. And it would be commensurate of what we see with Aviation Security except its suppressed within a oneday period. You have heard there have been calls for the u. S. To ground flights to and from the ebola plagued countries. But youre writing it would be a draconian measure. The countries are already poor and have limited resources for health care, isolating them would have humanitarian consequences. So halting flights would have the opposite affect, is that what youre saying . Theres no evidence that halting flights at this point would add value to the situation. I agree that we have to get people into the country to cause the condition to be controlled. If we dont do that, it will continue to spread to other countries including the United States. We dont want ebola to become the next Homeland Security crisis of the year. We dont want to see another september 11th for ebola. And the only way to protect that is to get it at the source. We dont want to stop flights. Something you write that security measures implemented after 9 11 taught us a lot about what not to do. We learned that finding the one person that tends to harm out of several million passengers is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. The best way to find them and stop them from entering the u. S. Is how in your esteem . The best way is to find the people who have absolutely