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good evening and welcome to our event. please silence your cell phones. there are a couple more chairs open up there. if you guys would like. today we are very fortunate to have a test mister reid wilson. he's here to speak about his new book academic. the global health catastrophe. killed over 11,000 people. where everyone is just one or two flights away from major cities like new york city, beijing and london. and even a local epidemic can end up becoming global pandemic. deadly virus spread out of control. and cautions that the world is unprepared for the next unavoidable act epidemic.

a former writer for the washington post. we are extremely pleased to head him with us today. they are available for books -- for purchase in the bookstore. without further ado please let me welcome him. it is really a thrill to be here. with a lot of people in this room. who i end up calling and bothering all day. i wanted to talk about white i tackled this particular topic. we live in a moment that is extremely partisan. in this country and around the world we are deeply divided and distrustful of our government and our institutions and were skeptical about each other.

i spent my entire day writing about this extreme partisanship and america divided within itself. but this is a story of a government and at least the american government that really worked well together. and it worked in a way that saved hundreds of thousands maybe millions of lives. to really come together and try to solve what could've been one of the great catastrophes of our time. in writing this book i spent a lot of time and he told me the story of a moment in february of 2015 when the president invited a whole bunch of responders to the white house to thank them for all of their work. and actually some people in this room or at this event. back in february.

what ron told me was that after that event they went back to the old executive office building where the team had had their offices and they sat down with the survivors and the americans who have survived the bullet virus and just sort of started talking. he ran a lot of response for the national security council told me that they looked around the room then saw kent brantley. who had worked for the samaritan's purse. who'd been a dr. in liberia and contracted the virus. with the hipster liberal from new york. they were sitting next to them. an asian american nurse. in kent brantley's album.

they were struck by this deep diversity of america and the best of america that was sitting around them. it moved me to. and this is this is a story with a million heroes with people who ran towards the disaster when everybody else in the right mind would of been running away. it's a story about people in west africa who even the best educated among them who could've very easily left their own countries.

they built up whatever they could contribute. in talking to 70 people who responded to that. it struck me that this is just a deeply good story with a lot of people who tell the best of humanity. he is an epidemiologist and he spent a lot of his time as a contact tracer. one of the basic jobs. make sure the virus doesn't spread.

they allowed him to speak comfortably. in a ramshackle hodgepodge of corrugated iron and wood. they found countless victims and countless more potential cases. where her 8-year-old child had gone.

putting him at high risk for catching the disease. they gathered around the men and spacesuits. all he brought with him was lunch while they ate, they talked. the mother said her son's father was abusive and rarely present. he would take his son out if the mother objected. the same report they denied making before. the boy's father have come to one of the occasional visits. it would be especially severe. was the higher motor bike taxi.

if the money in the pocket anything that would give it a well-worn look. they sped off in the back of the taxi. they found their son back in their mother's home. this is not data it is rapport. they knew a follow while. enter apology is as important as statistics. understanding the individual is as important as counting them. i love that story and i love so many people.

and a lot of them died. they have a lot of characters who don't make it to the end. they helped bring this virus to bear. they show a complexity of responding to an outbreak of this magnitude. the first is about obama phones. the internet conspiracy that president obama was giving out it turns out it's kind of true and away. in a way that the center for disease control and prevention a bunch of other agencies their trait to figure out a way to track the people from

west africa. they needed to keep tabs on them for 21 days to make sure it was intubation. to make sure that effectively they didn't show up with the virus at some help center that wasn't ready for them. how do you do that was some with someone who doesn't have a cell phone. it turns out you give them a cell phone. a little burner phone that literally came from walmart in this case. everybody that came in to the u.s. and effectively kept track of them for the next three weeks. that brought a really good response rate of about 75 percent of people we were able to keep track of. a small moment in which they

actually may have helped curtail the bullet virus here in the u.s. the notion of the cdc foundation leasing to the second point. how we spend money fast enough in a moment where you've got an outbreak of lease hundreds of least hundreds of cases in a week. how do you allocate your resources in a way that is can adequately fight the sink. in your neck in a go threat government contracting process. that takes forever. you kind of have to work around the system a little bit i think that's at the foundation what that foundation was set up to do. they accept large gifts from groups like pharmaceutical companies they were able to

spend a lot of money on things that were needed really quick. there were moments when someone would make a request for funding for a new computer system and just revolutionized the way people responded he wouldn't do that he would fund all three you can still build two of them the pickups across

all three countries to buy 400 motorcycles that all the optimistic stuff. this is not a totally optimistic story. as i mentioned in the beginning and the next outbreak is coming. it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when and that's because three main factors here. the world is changing

fundamentally. claimant change is expanding the tropics and subtropics. in the subtropics. in the areas where these tropical viruses can fester. the civilization. it's more into nature into areas where they never been before. it's a battle between nature and human and neither is prepared to win in the long run. that means there is more people traveling than ever before which gives them more vectors to actually get to place where they could affect a large number of people. some combination of the worst with the worst of the cup. it's very high mortality rates. could be upwards of 80 or 90%. it's very hard to get.

their common mosquito. it's not fatal mentality were it only affects fetuses in the very young. what happens when something with high mortality becomes highly transmissible. and i could be something like the flu it could be a flu from a bird market in china. and right now they are using a flu circulating in china. you've heard of each one and one. those are the two strains that were so bad in this flu season it's mortality rates with 39 percent in the cases that have come out. to put that in context. the spanish flu and the early

part of the 20th century have a mortality rate of about 2.5 percent. this is a readily -- really deadly flu. it's not that easily transmissible the bad news is it's not that easily transmissible yet. all of these viruses are very small. and when they replicate they have a high chance of mutating in some way. and that mutation can make it more deadly or less deadly. more likely to impact the different kind of species and were all just a bunch dicing away. will we be ready. what we spend the millions now on prevention and detection to avoid spending the billions or even trillions of course of writing this i came across he

ran in the new the new york city public health system were not spending the money necessary to build up the kinds of virus fighting bodies that we need around the world. the global public health system is really only as strong as its weakest link. they don't know anything about international borders. and no travel ban is gonna stop some kind of virus from getting back into the u.s. they did a little analysis to try to figure out when the outbreak really seeped into the american consciousness as a really scary thing.

they were coming back and how they should not be allowed back into the u.s. it was great that they were able to go over there but there should be consequences. that tweet has been reached we did that moment was a moment when they grasp this. the new cycle is just so crazy. will we actually act to stop this worldwide.

it is true they have failed to fully fund them. it's not something that happened after just one president. her keep up with the money that was needed. especially for disease surveillance it runs out next year. and they have said they will have to pull out of 39 the millions you spend now save billions on the road. i'm not entirely certain that we are anywhere near the political will it well necessary to actually spend that money to make that effort. with that i'm going to stop

and i would be happy to answer any questions at all and i did not go too far over time. thank you all for listening. i really appreciate it. are there any questions. the time lapse between when the first patient zero was until they figure that out there is obviously this stigma associated. and reported that you have a family member that they have them for the symptoms. and people who have passed away or are associated with them our first responders. defined that also continues to resonate past the outbreak. nobody really wants to open up past experience the question was for those of you that might not have heard was there a stigma from getting ebola

and does it continue and even in the former and national governments. it launched some efforts to reintegrate survivors into the community and take away the stigma to say because somebody has survived their neck and to get again. you know how to be afraid to touch them and employ them. anything like that. and that stigma and that stigma it exists i talked to two of the american survivors i was on a cdc doing some interviews. i ran into nancy writable. i said hello to her. can we talk about this.

i later talked to craig spencer. he eventually declined to talk to me for the buck. he said it was too fresh. serious aftereffects it leaves people with massive depression. and terrifying eyeballs. and it causes some deep and lasting scars. he understood why none of the rest of them wanted to talk to me. even then it was still way too fresh. i was e-mailed back in ford the scars are that deep in that fresh. in all three countries long after the virus left.

i'm just wondering if you can reflect a little bit about some of the lessons that you dropped. that norma's deficit of front line healthcare workers it really makes really makes us much more vulnerable. they might not be quite as fast. killing as many people as was killed there. and they were there. and you can live with that. for a year.

there's actually a case in a situation they've have it for five years. and people developed that. after being in contact with them. an enormous problem in the community. for those who can hear. how do they go with confronting more frontline. that is an evolution i think is ongoing. one of the things that really jumped out to me. the centers for disease control and prevention use to pack it. to combat some outbreaks somewhere in the world. in the course of this outbreak they deployed when the 1400 people. they have totally changed the way it sees itself and its role in the world. a fascinating and they had

described to me. there was a long-standing sort of rivalry is a fair way to describe it. between the public health community they head in a much better working relationship. it will hopefully lead to better deployments better understanding of public health disasters it was as quickly moving as ebola. right now they are warning about the yellow fever outbreak in brazil. and how they think about the world and working together and fighting outbreaks of a lot of kinds. they have collapsed a lot of their bureaucracy in hopes of streamlining things that were marred in red tape.

they have a lot of work to do. and they will be the first to acknowledge that they have a lot of work to do. i've never have a public agency criticize itself as much how do you howdy support the front-line workers. why are we spending so much money why can't they see in it for themselves the fact is they can't. whatever virus breaks out in the country will come here eventually. i'm curious to have your take on the impact of general consciousness and the response needed. to what extent does general consciousness in the public impact the actual response.

they pulled the funding and sent people already in the field to respond to the outbreak. how did the american spur the outbreak or help it. in a lot of cases it's an important lesson. and they applied it. even before they left office. every presidential administration takes the last president was no drama obama. he was in charge and that's the way he conveyed the fact that he was in charge and on top of things. the fact is the american public in a lot of ways saw that as being two hands off on a really scary really terrifying crisis.

what people perceived as a lack of engagement is actually them trying to convey they learned some lessons. even before the outbreak was contained. it was much more proactive. .. .. it was included that day in pres. obama's security briefing

and i keep saying we, cdc and other groups started to send a few people over, deploy a few teams to the area but it didn't pop in public consciousness until july and august is one of the scary moments for a lot of ngos was when the peace corps decided to pull out of liberia, sierra leone, the peace corps has a reputation for being the last people to pull out. at that point the american response started to ramp up, millions of dollars spent almost every day, a new allocation of money as part of the american consciousness and in september the obama administration decided to send 3000 american troops from the 101st airborne into liberia.

there is a weird sense, we got lucky, the world got lucky this outbreak happened where it did. the united states created liberia. the uk has a close relationship with sierra leone, the french have a close relationship with the canadians. if this had happened when 3000 american troops showed up in liberia it was hailed as a blessed event was the approval rating in the united states of america is something like 99%. they absolutely love us imagine if this happened in pakistan or indonesia or other parts of africa, the democratic republic of congo, that reaction would not have been the same and fight its way in before was able to do anything. in a weird, sad, perverse way we got lucky it happened in a place so close to the fantasy

building coalition game. coalition building fantasy game. you know what i mean. yes, sir? >> can you elaborate on the main failure? >> the main failure, i am critical of who in the book though to their credit they have done a remarkable round of trying to figure out how to make things right. the who is a strong organization. it is not - people assume the who is the organization that responds to a crisis and sends in doctors, supplies and equipment but they don't. who was created in the wake of world war ii in an effort to pressure countries to self-report outbreaks so that through shame essentially, could declare an outbreak in a

country that would be bad publicity and operate in ways that help contain the outbreak. who has a director on each of the 6 populated continents. that director was chosen by the health ministers, the director of african programs who lived in congo, 2500 miles from west africa, was the patron of the health ministers in these countries. back in geneva, the bureaucracy had built up over years and years so that they couldn't move things as fast as possible, didn't have the funding to move things as fast as they possibly could and at the end of the day this is an agency that was not prepared, they don't have lists of doctors who volunteered to go

into a fight the way drs. without borders did or the public health service which is an amazing organization i barely knew about before i started writing on this. the world expected them to be there and they just weren't. bureaucracy was too big. the lists that were necessary to begin a response were not there and they dragged their feet. doctors without borders raised the alarm about the ebola crisis and this could become a significant outbreak. the tweet that marks them is on twitter. i find that pretty remarkable. in the forward-looking positive sense they have done a lot to build those lists, to be in a position to respond and actually do that. margaret chan, former director, gave a speech to donor

contributions, you expect us to be there. we can't do any of this, she was pointing a finger around the world including the united states. >> the situation in new jersey with the nurse, quarantine and other domestic political things that are going on. any of those things affect the response? or is that domestic consumption chatter? >> the politics of the moment got ugly at the time, impacting the response itself. republicans put a lot of pressure on the obama administration to do something quickly like appointing a single person who could oversee the ebola response.

the options, two republicans, johnson and frank wolf, maybe. two republicans offered - colin powell, bob gates who had written a scathing anti-obama book and mike leven who was a former hhs sec. and was running mitt romney's transition during the 2012 campaign. thanks but no thanks to those names and they ended up -- closer to the fold. domestic politics was the thing that got people's attention, the call for quarantines and a travel ban and in new jersey, a young nurse named casey hickox spent an exhausting day flying

back from west africa, she had sat and watched a child die in this treatment board she was in, absolutely horrifying, and counting the number of people who did die in this treatment board. and she showed up in border patrol. in west africa, and screened by officials. the things she maintains is she was pissed, her face was flushed and that gave her the elevated temperature. and in the newark airport, not in the hospital but intends, governor chris christie in new

jersey did not respond to ebola terribly well and governor andrew cuomo ordered anybody coming back from west africa because teen for 21 days despite the fact that traveling back to maine, had to amount her own pressure campaign, she wrote an op-ed in the dallas morning news, called cnn a few times which is real handy because a friend of hers had a producer at cnn and said she had been kept prisoner because she had gone over to help in the situation that demanded the help and chris christie diagnosed her from afar and said she was obviously sick. christie went so far as to brag about that on stage during one of the republican debates just before dropping out. and travel bands, virtually any

public health official is the wrong message to send. liberia, sierra leone and ginny could not have stopped the operate on their own. coming in from outside, europe, the us, the african union doctors did a remarkable amount to stem the tide of the outbreak. how to get there if there are travel bands around the world? the wrong idea, a good thing policymakers never implemented it. >> you quantify it, tom tillis win in north carolina. he is really good at stack. >> and left new jersey and went to maine, pulling far behind.

the third candidate who was doing okay, 10% or 15% dropped out of the race because they hated the incumbent governor so much, and keep casey hickox in quarantine, she said thank you, no thank you and took a bike ride with a partner in a public show of science and the governor of maine was reelected, paula page won a second term in no small part, in some part because of the ebola outbreak. 2014 was a bad year for democrats. tom tillis ran anti-ebola ad, a candidate in michigan who ran

and ebola ad. and lost to the incumbent. and critical of republicans cut funding to ebola. sen. mark pryor in arkansas. is that right? more than 17. the political conversation was entirely negative. and mark pryor, and lost because of arkansas. one more. >> how do you think they would handle if the ebola outbreak

happened under donald trump, how would they handle it? >> how would the trump administration and join outbreak right now? he has already tweeted, i am sure. fortunately he has a better base than previous presidents have. the cdc knows what is doing. the global system is better. would the president create and ebola czar like the last one and who that person be? i'm not entirely sure. let's hope it doesn't come to that. the fact is throughout its entire history, cdc has been underfunded and efforts to fund global health and pandemic surveillance and things like that has been woefully underfunded. under republican administrations, democratic administrations, the ebola supplemental after the midterms

in 2014 was one of these bills that pass really quick and republicans, the ones who came together to do it made sure it was not a christmas tree bill like something everybody hangs their favorite amendments on but there was one earmark offered by tom harkin, then outgoing senator from iowa who put a lot of money into the ebola supplemental to build a public health capacity inversions of the cdc and a lot of other countries. will does congress do anything about it? of the democratic congress do anything about it? the impetus, the hardest vote in politics, spending on prevention even if it's only a fraction of what we spend on coverage is more difficult than spending to solve the disaster. i think i will stop and answer any questions later. thank you for coming.

really appreciate it. [applause] >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> on booktv's afterwards program,

>> that is all this weekend on booktv, television for serious readers. for a complete schedule, visit booktv.org. >> here are some of the current nonfiction audiobooks according to audible. topping the list, the unsolved murder in west cork ireland from investigative journalist sam bundy and documentarian jennifer ford.

>> them of these authors have or will be appearing on booktv. you can watch on our website, booktv.org. >> former fbi director james comey's new book a higher loyalty is set to release tuesday, april 17th. the washington post, new york times and other media outlets obtained copies and reported on its content this past week was the washington post quotes the book as saying with regard to the trump administration, what is happening now is not normal. it is not fake news, it is not okay. the post also reports mr. comey calls atty. gen. sessions both overwhelmed and overmatched by the job. according to philip rucker of the washington post, the former fbi director writes about

donald trump that i have one perspective on the behavior i saw which while disturbing and violating basic norms of ethical leadership, may fall short of being illegal. former longtime new york times chief book reviewer writes about a higher loyalty that the central themes comey returns to throughout this impassioned book by the toxic consequences of lying and the corrosive effects of choosing loyalty to an individual over truth and rule of law. the republican national committee has set up a website to refute the former fbi director's allegations. they write james comey wants to portray himself as a nonpartisan by the book boy scout rather than a politically motivated washington insider. a higher loyalty is already a bestseller and will be widely available in bookstores on

tuesday, april 17th. watch for coverage of the book on booktv on c-span2 in the near future. >> this weekend on c-span, live today at 5:30 p.m. eastern, road to the white house 20/20 avenue have to democratic party and with former missouri secretary of state jason kander and sunday at 6:30 p.m. eastern a road to the white house 2020 coverage continues with montana democratic governor steve bullock in iowa. on booktv on c-span2. today at 7:30 p.m. eastern a feature on black classic press in baltimore. and at 8:00 eastern, for the book a benedict option, a strategy for christians in a post-christian nation was on american history tv, today at 4:55 eastern prominent figures in american law including supreme court justice elana kagan on the late thurgood marshall and sunday at 4:00 pm

on real america, two cbs face the nation programs from 1968 with republican california governor ronald reagan and former alabama governor george wallace. watch this weekend on the c-span networks. [applause] >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen and thank you, bill. my husband, jim, and i are thrilled to be here