Italy Sets Measures to Reduce Crowds Against Coronavirus
CABRERA: Of the more than 510 cases of coronavirus here in the U.S., there are two states with more than 100 confirmed cases in each, Washington State and New York. New York has 105, including the 16 new cases the governor announced just today in his state. He also warned residents about the risks ahead if this virus continues to spread.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK: The real danger is twofold. One, if it continues to spread, we're going to have that take drastic containment measures, which means you basically shut down everything, which is what China did. That's bad for the economy, it's bad for business, bad for society. Second, it's the vulnerable populations. Senior citizens, elderly, people with compromised immune systems and underlying illness. That is what we're trying to stop. And the way to do that is to fight the spread. You fight the spread through containment, which is testing.</s>CABRERA: Just this afternoon, New York senators Chuck Schumer and Krissten Gillibrand -- Kirsten Gillibrand I should say -- sent a letter to the CDC and the FDA asking to give local hospitals the authority to run their own tests. And with us now is Dr. Syra Madad who is a special pathogen specialist, recently featured in a Netflix docu-series about pandemics. Doctor, really great to have you here. Is there a threat to individuals if they can't get tested?</s>SYRA MADAD, SPECIAL PAHOGENS SPECIALIST: So, across the nation, as we know, diagnostic testing is ramping up, and how much this is going to ramp up by the end of the week. Obviously, it's one of the guesses that is out there. But certainly, I think in terms of preparedness, there's a lot going on the national front. Health care systems and public health are ramping up for this, obviously, situation. A lot of localities are taking a blended approach from containment and mitigation, so it's one of those things that, you know, we're just seeing how things play out over time.</s>CABRERA: So, if people can't get tested, though, what does that mean for the rest of us?</s>MADAD: So, we want to obviously increase testing as much as possible to be able to detect, you know, individuals that may have coronavirus disease, but at the same time, we know that the virus itself cannot be contained. And obviously, you're seeing a lot of community transmission. And so very quickly, we go into the mission phase, which essentially means reducing the number of infected and employing, you know, social distancing measures because what we're trying to really at the end of the day do is slow this fast-moving train and ensure that, you know, when we hit peak time, we can kind of, you know, drag it a little bit, so that way, you know, that way health care systems are not surging exponentially.</s>CABRERA: The U.S. surgeon general told our colleague, Jake Tapper, this morning right now there are 75,000 tests available to the public. By next week, he hopes there should be over 2 million tests available. Have you had any trouble getting tests at the NYC health system?</s>MADAD: So, I mean, testing is ramping up across the board and, you know, the FDA has authorized commercial and private laboratories to be able to do testing and so a lot of them are coming online, which is great. And so I think, you know, over the next days to weeks we will obviously see a number of cases detected, which should not be a surprise to obviously the general American public. This is something that is expected, as, you know, obviously you're detecting more cases and you're ramping up testing. You're going to see more cases increase, but this is where we want to make sure people understand. Everybody has a role to play. One of the questions that we often get is, you know, I'm not a clinician, I'm not a health care provider, you know, what can I do to, you know, help the situation? And this is where everyday preventative measures come into play. So when we say, obviously, cover your cough or your sneeze, you know, staying away from those that are sick. If you're sick, staying home, you know, washing your hands often. These are tried and true methods that have proven to be effective, you know, in previous outbreak. They're going to be, you know, effective in this current outbreak. And then the way that each locality responds is different. One of the things that, you know, folks should also understand is that, you know, every incident is local and what that means is that what you're going to see play out in the state of Washington is going to be different in terms of what we're going to see in New York. Because it's going to be depend on obviously the number of cases and how severe they are. And that will help determine the very social distancing measures that are going to be employed.</s>CABRERA: When the coronavirus first started to show up here in the U.S., you said in an interview that anything can go wrong will go wrong because this is something you just can't predict. Have you seen evidence of that so far?</s>MADAD: That's right. I mean, these types of events are, you know, unpredictable. We don't know where they're going to start or how they're going to start, but we know that they will start. It's one of those things that we know history has shown us time and time again, how vulnerable we are as, you know, not just the United States, but across the world. These infectious disease outbreaks are inevitable. If you look at some of the stats, you know, at any given year, the World Health Organization tracks over, you know, 100 or 200 outbreaks happening globally. And obviously those that warrant the attention of the global community, those are a handful. But this really goes to show you how important preparedness is. And when we talk about preparedness, we need obviously political support and financial support. But on top of that, we need sustainability. And so you may remember, in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak, you know, Congress, you know, allocated millions of dollars here in the United States and we developed this tiered structure of assessment hospitals, front line hospitals, Ebola treatment centers, and that funding was only for five years and it's set to expire actually, this year, just in a matter of months. And you know, only the 10 regional centers are getting funded, not the entire tier structure. So not only do we need funding and political support, but we need sustained funding to continue this infrastructure that we've built, you know, across the nation for infectious diseases.</s>CABRERA: Just quickly so that people can have some tangible things on what they can do to help themselves. Some people have to travel, we've been told, you know, older people should restrict their travel, but if people have to travel, what are some best practices for them and what should they be doing?</s>MADAD: So, it's against the everyday measures that public health officials constantly harp upon, because again, they actually work. So, washing your hands often, cleaning high-touch surfaces, you know, if you know that someone is sick, obviously keeping at least a six- feet distance for them if you can, things like that. So, you know, CDC has some really great information of, you know, what you can do in these types of situations, but really a lot of it falls into common sense.</s>CABRERA: Should they be, you know, wiping down airline trays? Should they be wearing special gloves, those types of things?</s>MADAD: So, again, you know, wiping down high-touch surfaces, cleaning and disinfecting those high-touch surfaces. Do you need to wear gloves? You now, I don't think that's needed, as long as you're washing your hands often. You know, at any given time, an individual can touch their face or mucous membranes up to 20 times. So if you're washing your hands often, when you're touching these types of high-touch surfaces, those things go a long way. So it's just really, again, those common sense measures that people just need to understand that actually work and that we all have a role to play in these situations.</s>CABRERA: Dr. Syra Madad, thank you very much.</s>MADAD: Sure.</s>CABRERA: Up next, she went after him during a previous debate, but now Senator Kamala Harris says Joe Biden is the right choice for president. Plus, Bernie Sanders scraps a planned speech aimed at African-American voters at the last minute. We're live on the campaign trail to find out why.