DR. ALI KHAN: Good morning, Amy, and thank you for the opportunity.
I think that story is a little bit more nuanced. So, the type of data that's going to the assistant secretary for preparedness and response is capacity and utilization data in terms of how many hospital beds are being used, how many ICU beds are being used. And that data has always traditionally gone to ASPR and not gone to CDC. What we're not seeing is that public health data is being rerouted to CDC rerouted from CDC. So, that story about where that specific bit of data is going may be a little bit nuanced, because it's always gone to the assistant secretary for preparedness and response in the past.
AMY GOODMAN: But the stuff that's being bypassed from the CDC, the significance of the public not then being able to see it?
DR. ALI KHAN: Now, that would be an issue if the data is no longer available to the public. If you read the original memo, which I did, this was all about streamlining data to a single capacity data and utilization data, so how many hospital beds are being used, how many tests are being performed in hospitals, to one site, so that multiple federal agencies are not asking hospitals for the exact same thing. This is what hospitals have asked for. They do not want to send data to multiple federal agencies. They want to send it to one place, that is then shared everywhere else. So, as long as the the real test is, "Is this data still available to the American public?" is the real test.
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: Dr. Khan, there have been some issues or some criticisms about the CDC data in terms of the fact that there's always at least a week lag time between the time that the agency gets the information and the time it's released. Do you have concerns, given the fast-moving nature of this pandemic, that there is a need for the CDC to be able to make data available more quickly?
DR. ALI KHAN: Oh, absolutely. This has been an issue from day one of this outbreak, which is a timely data and transparency of data. Countries that have managed this outbreak -- well South Korea, for example, Singapore all of their data is completely available to the public, and they're very timely in getting that data, and they use good metrics for how their response is going. And the U.S. has never adopted that strategy to the current day.
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: And speaking about other countries, what's your concern about the U.S. response to the pandemic compared to some other countries, like South Korea or New Zealand?
DR. ALI KHAN: That's an excellent question. So, this, without a doubt, is the greatest public health failure in our nation's history, and it just continues to be in freefall. So, we peaked at about 30,000 cases in mid-April, and then we squandered two months of lockdown and economic collapse by failing to get our disease contained, and now we're up to 60,000 cases a day. I mean, that's completely out of step with the rest of Europe, with Oceania and East Asia.
So, many all those countries have not only just contained their outbreaks, resumed their economies, started back schools, but some countries have just gone all out and said, "We're going to zero." So, New Zealand has eliminated disease. Right? A number of other countries have eliminated disease. China, with 1.4 billion people, has gone nine days without a domestic case. So China is going for elimination, too. So, we are clearly the outlier with this uncontrolled response here in the United States failed response here in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ali Khan, what is the U.S. doing wrong?
DR. ALI KHAN: So, it starts, goes right back. So, you know, in the early days, I said it was lack of imagination. So, you know, the U.S. had sort of been sucker-punched by this outbreak. But at this point, it's very clear: We don't have a national strategy based on the four principles that everybody else has used to get rid of this outbreak. Simple four principles, right?
So, the first principle to contain this outbreak is leadership. So that's integrated, whole-of-government leadership from the local, state to national level. We still don't have that. We can't agree on so many things that are important.
The second part is, get down community transmission. And this is the role of government, to make sure we're testing and tracing. Nobody is talking about that anymore isolating cases quickly, finding those contacts nor does anybody talk about the metrics around that.
The third thing is community engagement. And that's our role, right? Wear a mask. Please, wear a mask. Wash your hands. Social distance.
And the fourth thing is, do what you can to make sure that people who are hospitalized are more likely to survive. And the one drug we know that does that right now is dexamethasone.
So, those are four simple principles, a national strategy, four principles. We can get our disease contained like so many other countries all over the world.
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