morning, this discussions on the role faith and religion are playing during the coronavirus pandemic with cbn news david brody. later, sojourners are -- sojourners founder reverend jim wallis. and clear font to know on what her organization is doing to help americans who are food insecure during the coronavirus pandemic. watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern this morning and be sure to watch washington journal prime time on monday. , a member ofauci the white house coronavirus task force, will be our guest live at 8:00 p.m. taking your calls on the coronavirus pandemic. host: we are joined by chris currie. four weeks ago, on the same day

coronavirus was declared a pandemic, you were on capitol hill testifying about preparedness for biodefense. guest: what we were talking about, we issued a report back in february. we started over a year ago. looking at the administration 2018 biodefense strategy. what we found in that report is the strategy [indiscernible] to coordinate the fragmented effort, there are over two dozen presidential appointees. we found -- it was a pretty well put together effort but there were another of challenges we saw. one of those things was setting priorities across all of the different agencies with their different budgets. frankly, we are seeing a lot of these challenges come to fruition. in 2007, we issued a report that

hhs needed to better clarify their roles for what is going to happen in the case of a large domestic pandemic. the one we are seeing now. fast forward to today, a month ago, we are seeing some of these questions about who was responsible for what, what mechanisms do we need to set up.

try to better coordinate. the challenge we saw in this is the sustainability. we still heard from the agency said it would be very difficult to provide that umbrella view of biodefense and make decisions across agencies. they cannot tell each other what to do or spend their money. host: is the white house coronavirus task force part of that mechanism? guest: the task force has become the mechanism for response and that is an important distinction

because the strategy is not a response plan. the time to develop a response plan is not during the response. in 2005, the government developed a pandemic response plan after the other outbreaks. the strategy is more of the day-to-day operational guide and how we approached biodefense and general. how do we plan for these things and dedicate resources so we are ready when something that this happens. host: joining us in this segment of washington journal if you want to join the conversations. the phone lines are split up regionally. chris currie, as folks are calling in, you say we have been harping on this for decades. what is the government

accountability office for those who don't know? guest: we work for congress and we are known as congressional watchdog. we provide oversight over federal programs and spending. we cover the entire federal government, including agencies that have primary responsibilities for biodefense. we have been looking at this from numerous angles so at the highest level, the federal wide by defense planning and strategy that i talked about. even within the individual agencies, what with the department of homeland security do? what would hhs do? what would the u.s. department of agriculture do?

host: what was it about the coronavirus that beat the defense strategy? nearly half a million americans have been diagnosed with it. guest: that is a good question. the strategy was developed as a day-to-day coordination plant. we wanted to see this to have happened about 10-15 years ago when we were first calling for the strategy and for the agencies and the white house to get serious about working together and planning to identify the gaps. not just the gaps but doing something to create resources where the gaps exist. that strategy was just

implemented once the outbreak happened. it did not have enough time to sink down into the larger enterprise to make an impact. the coordination is always a good thing. one of the things we see in the world of disasters or emergencies is -- can you hear it now -- you go back and look for past exercises. you can find tons of documentation that tells you the types of scenarios that will happen for a domestic infectious disease. you can find a number of the gaps we are looking at today. testing, lack of a vaccine, confusion among states about how to get resources from the federal government. what we see in this is that often times, those exercises and those after action reviews are done but rarely is there specific follow-up to make sure we actually address them. host: these stay-at-home orders that have been issued coming from state governors, does it make more sense to do a national stay-at-home order? the way that it has worked has worked well? guest: i think -- for most

disasters like this, the decision-making in our country, we have a federal system. everything starts at the local level and works its way up. we don't have a system where the federal government automatically tells states and localities what to do. our system is working as it was designed to work. the inconsistency across jurisdictions is a huge concern in a case like this where -- especially early on in the event where you still had domestic travel going on and people were moving between states. it is a very tough decision for state and local entities to

make. because it has a huge impact on their local economy and their local tax revenue, so they have to make those decisions carefully. host: let's chat with a few callers. tom from new york. caller: i appreciate you taking the time. i know you are talking about things we are going to do in reaction but to be proactive, has anybody thought about all these ideas you are talking about to prevent it from coming in? why don't we do something that puts it in the other countries? bailing out the airplanes and ocean liners and things like that. why not set up along with the systems in order to get into the country? set up a pandemic. if you have to screen them for their police background, do it all over there. america never likes to fight a war on its own property. i am just throwing it out there. you have the access to spread this around. why not set up places in the other countries? they could set it up here, too. this way we would all be protected. if god forbid something like this happened, we could stop it

right there. if you want to come into america, let me swab you. that could stop it right there. host: that is tom out on long island. guest: tom's point is great. what he is talking about is bio surveillance which is a big word for trying to find the outbreaks as soon as they happen wherever they happen. the u.s. does have infrastructure around the world, the cdc, the department of homeland security, to screen for these types of things. he makes a great point. there is going to be a look at our overseas approach to surveillance and travel before people get on a plane and come to the u.s.

host: on twitter, michael has a comment. the world health organization is supposedly the organization that coordinates information on the disease. host: that's true. the world health organization, its goal is to provide information to all countries and allow countries to make those decisions themselves. it does not have the authority to make countries do anything. the idea is that the countries can gather the information. the truth is, every country makes its own decision based on its own specific type of government and culture. the world health organization is in that information role, he is correct, but it does not translate to specific country by country action. host: this is kim from nashville. caller: i just wanted to make a

comment. these agencies fema, they do not pay the money after the disaster. the government pays that. i feel like it should be coming up with plans. i watched the committee meeting one day where the politician asked, how does that how much does fema make? how much do we pay fema? he could not give a number. he had no idea. there should be more oversight. i just had surgery and i cannot breathe well and i am having a hard time talking. host: we will take the point. chris currie. guest: i'm really glad you asked the question about fema. they have a huge role. it is the first time they have ever been in this position and providing disaster response.

the way they work, they provide assistance to people and jurisdictions that are hit by disaster, like a hurricane or earthquake. in this case, they are in the lead role for responding to a 50 state pandemic and trying to figure out how to help people in each of those states. her point is a great point. host: beaver falls, pennsylvania. this is tony. caller: good morning, c-span. i want to ask the gentleman, why did he lie about the crimson contagion exercise that took place a couple of years ago? he stated it took place a couple of years ago when it took place last year between january and august. it mirrors what is going on today ironically. there was another exercise that took place year in october

called event 201 and johns hopkins led that exercise. it was another pandemic exercise. ironically, johns hopkins is the same entity that is providing these death stats and the stats of the people who have the so-called coronavirus. this is awfully strange to me. host: why do you call it a so-called coronavirus? caller: i need c-span to stop asking irrelevant questions. this question is about the callers, not the irrelevant questions. host: the crimson contagion was done over a year ago and it lasted -- things do not happen in one day.

they last for a long time and then they report out on these later. he makes a point about the importance of exercises and after action reviews after exercises. as i mentioned before, one of the things we find in the world of emergency management, often times, these after action reviews -- they identify gaps, what resources are lacking, and where the problems will lie. the challenge we see, once those are done and everybody goes back to their normal life, the after actions are not tangibly followed up on. there is not accountability across the federal government. it is fragmented. or addressing each agency. this is something we will have

to get better at as we are learning from this event. and as we prepare for the next resurgence of this, we will have to hold agencies accountable for taking specific steps for addressing these gaps. host: paul out of sarasota, good morning. caller: i am the head of the largest airline passenger organization and we have been concerned that the federal government, which solely controls air travel, has not required the airlines and airports to comply with the cdc guidelines. things like social distancing, masking, testing or screening of passengers. i would like to ask the guest, what, if anything, they have done to ensure when these things hit, that air travel is not the main spreader of the virus. clearly, that has not happened. we listen to president trump, he says it is completely voluntary to comply with these guidelines. guest: i completely agree with you about air travel. in 2015, we issued a very

specific report to the faa and the department of transportation very concerned about the lack of a pandemic plan for the airline industry specifically. that was five years ago. we made a number of recommendations to better plan for this and address it. the reason for that is exactly what the caller just said. in our modern world, unlike 1918 with the spanish flu, we have always anticipated that this -- how uncontrollable this is going to spread because of international and domestic air travel. the u.s. has an incredible amount of domestic travel as well. it is a great point and it is something, i think, it has been lacking in the area of planning and something we need to get a better hold on. host: there has been a lot of focus on the white house

pandemic response team and what happened to it back in 2018. can you tell that story? guest: i want to go back even further. one of the things we pointed out and other folks have pointed out after us, we have always been concerned about a lack of leadership level. back to 2011, we recommended there should be a focal point at the national level. at the time, it was given to the national security council. the bipartisan commission on biodefense recommended five years ago that it be the vice president. i am aware of the pandemic office that was disbanded. anything that pulls away that central oversight over all those agencies is not a good idea. it is part of the national

biodefense strategy that was issued in 2018, several high-level coordination mechanisms were developed and people -- omb, nsc, all of those agencies were part of the committee and that was supposed to be the day-to-day coordination and communication mechanism for biodefense. that is sustainable across the ministrations regardless of the white -- across administrations regardless of the white house and what they decide to at the national security level. host: less than 10 minutes left with chris currie. taking calls on the preparedness and response to biodefense strategies and specifically to the coronavirus. lisa in california.

good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i read the pandemic plan of 2017 update and it would have been wonderful if we would have been going by that. it says we should have been practicing social distancing ahead of time. we should have put that in place the moment they found out about it. we should have been doing it. it talked about the private sector businesses to be ready to help the supplies. it talked about the stockpile and how it is supposed to help the states. i do not understand why we bothered to update it in 2017 if we were not to do anything with it. guest: it is a great point. i have looked at that plan.

i have read it from cover to the back and it is almost eerie, some of the recommendations that are in there. she mentioned the social distancing. it talked about the cascading economic impact. it talked about school closures. it is a great point that we had some of these plans on the shelf. to some extent, the plans are being executed as they were written. but i think what has been lacking and partly this may be a communication issue by the has -- what is difficult in this is communication. this does not happen often like natural disasters have become. people are very accustomed to in they listen to forecasts and

evacuations when it comes to hurricanes. the last pandemic we had in this country was 2009 and that was h1n1. h1n1 did not have the effects this one did. population is not used to hearing some of the terminology like social distancing and stay-at-home orders and things like that. we have to get much better at that. now that this has happened, we will get much better at planning for this and there will be more resources. charleston, west virginia, good morning. -- i thinkm calling the president and the team are doing a good job. they are doing an excellent job. what disappoints me is when they say the death toll does not look

like it is going to be as high as reported, they act like they are sad because it is lower. i think they have done a good job. a lot of people are upset over the daily news conference. i think it is wonderful. when we had the other virus, h1n1, i cannot remember the president coming on tv and trying to reassure the people. i think they are doing a wonderful job. that is my comment. y'all have a wonderful day. host: want to take us back to h1n1? guest: it is a great analogy because it was our last pandemic. we had some things in between like ebola and zika but those were largely offshore threats. it,, 90 million people got 20090 people died from

until 2010. not a an influenza and novel coronavirus. iat is interesting and when go back, we issued a report on everything that happened during the h1n1, we found was at the beginning of that, a lot of the pandemic plans are being used now, similar structures were beginning to be put in place. very quickly, it ramped down. the mortality rate was not going to be as high. it was not making people quite as sick either. pieces of the scary pandemic plan that were already there did not go into effect. one of the things we reported in 2011 after we studied the situation, it was a very big scare but we cannot become complacent because it was not as

bad as we thought. some of the pieces of the plan that were not executed, such as this issue of what happens when we need something from the stockpile distributed. we still need to plan for the really bad scenario. host: time for one more call. this is bill in albany, new york. caller: good morning. my question is regarding prescription drugs. i understand china makes 90% of preachers to -- prescription generic drugs. that is a great question. i know this is something that are looking at. many countries overseas make different chemicals that are

drugs. prescription this reliance on foreign countries for our medical and prescription supplies and vaccines is a huge area of concern particularly when there is a worldwide run on those drugs. it will be a major concern if and when we have a vaccine for this or antiviral drug, will we have enough of that drug to treat our own people? host: chris currie works with the gao unpreparedness issues. always appreciate your >> television has changed, but our mission continues. we have ready primary election coverage, the presidential impeachment process, and now

from the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of the programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app. and listen through our free c-span washington journal program or through our social media feed. c-span, created by private industry and got to today by .our television provider americanesident of the medical association talked about the coronavirus pandemic. she called on states to enact stay-at-home orders and to rely on science, not politics, when making decisions. welcome to the national press club. 113th president of the national press club. i'm the former general manager of cbs radio network.