and to thomas frieden over in new york.nks for being with us. >> nawaz: on the newshour online right now, special correspondent marcia biggs has been reporting for the newshour on the manitarian crisis in venezuela, where many international aid organizations have been blocked from offering aid. now she shares some ways to help local organizations there, who are trying to make a differenc see how you can pitch in on our website, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. please join us tomorrow when judy woodruff sits down with michael bloomberg. i'm amna nawaz. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you e you soon. as major funding for the pbs newshour heen provided by: investments-- what's new? >> well, audrey's expecting... >> twins! plans fidelity, changin is always part of the plan. >> consumer cellular believes that wireless plans should reflect the amount of talk, tex and data that e. we offer a variety of no- contract wireless plans for le who use their ph

frieden: it's a fundamental question, for how long?f that's a one-year figure, thing one for ebola, it was essential to have a five-year allocation so we could really address it in a comprehensive way and get to the root of reducing the risk going forward. ebolail was 5.4on dollars supplemental over five years. this is a much bigger risk than ola. i said and others said, there was no chance ebola would spread widely in the u.s. it just was not in the cards, and it didn't happen. this could definitely spread quite widely in this country. ow how far it will spread. we don't know how severe it will be, whether it will be mild, moderate, or severe. but a pandemic is coming. amna: we know the president has also been communicating about the health and wellness, americans who contracted it, who were moved back to the u.s. after being diagnosed overseas. here's what presirump had to say about them. >> as the disease spreads, if it spreads, as most of you know, the level thate've had in our country is very low and those people are getting bette

frieden about that because the cdc changed it criteria for testing today because of the one patient in california who was not tested for several days because spoededly, they didn't fit the initial criteria. how significant is this new development? >> really, in the u.s. and globally, there are two phases we're going to face when we deal with the coronavirus. the first is where we try to contain. every contact, isolate them and stop it completely. many parts of the world is that that becomes impossible. and then you have to move to a different strategy of trying to manage or mitigate the impact and that's going to require much broader testing, but also preparedness in the health sector. we have to be able to safely surge what health workers do, so they don't get infected. so they don't serve as amplification points for the virus in the community as happened not only in wuhan, with this coronavirus, but also with mers and sars. xtwo other coronavirus that hav spread in hospitals. >> very significant. sanjay, the latest numbers. these are the official numbers and they're probably low, but

us now for more is the former director of the us centers for disease control and prevention, tom frieden forjoining us. can you outline for us, because i think there's a lot of confusion everywhere around the world what you see as the best case scenario with this coronavirus, and what you see as the worst case scenario? well we don't yet know how infectious it is and how dangerous it is. at the best case scenario, it is not that infectious and not that deadly. in that scenario, we would see clusters or outbreaks that could be stopped after weeks or months, then it would go away. we don't think that is likely any more, because we are seeing this continue to spread in many places, spreading explosively in many different situations, in a church, a shop, or health care settings. this looks pretty infectious. how far and wide it will spread? only time can tell. but unfortunately we seem to be in the calm before the storm in most places of the world. in terms of how fatal or deadly it is, as you said, it is less deadly than sars, but we don't know how much less deadly. we are seeing case fatal

tom frieden, be the public spokes people. the american people don't need to hear from donald trump or mike pence about the coronavirus. they need to hear from the experts who know the facts, who know what's happening. what vice president pence should be doing, or whoever else he's brought in to work on this, should be speeding up our response. our response is too slow. we are not getting hospitals ready. we are not getting testing kits deployed. we are not doing the double-time work we should be doing to be getting ready for the inevitable. >> ron klain, head of the u.s. response to the ebola crisis during the obama administration. again, ron, i'm going to get you here, and i'm going to grill you for a long time. >> i look forward to it. >>> a lot more to get to tonight. stay with us. and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise. >>> one of the members of the jury was sick. one was traveling ou

t where, if, for example, in public health, we have been talking abut earlier, i've appointed tom frieden, brght him all the way from india to take over. he went on to runenters for disease control. he was the world's expert in infectiou diseases. that's what we needed. of course, i would appoint somebody like that.ou >> woodruff:re being criticized by some in the american muslim community for your actio. 2011, the associated press reporting on a secret police surveillance program that targeted muslims, focusing on plac where they worked, prayed and socialized. at one point, undfiercover rs were sent with a student on a rafting trip. you said later the surveillance was justified in order to keep the country safe, but there have been independent reviews since at showed not a single arrest was made. >> well, that's good. >> woodruff: that could beo attributedis surveillance. >> number one, remember, you're talking about right after 9/11 when everybody wats perified about another terrorist attack. we were super careful to alwayse obeyaw. number one, it's the right thing to do, number two, th