He had been having fevers at home. Hes 35 years old and otherwise healthy. He began developing symptoms today after he arrived. Four days after returning from wuhan, the man goes to a walkin clinic and describes his symptoms. He tells him where he has been for about six weeks. Seriesvestigation into a pneumonia outbreak has it in a fight a previously unknown coronavirus. In seattle, a city known for its cuttingedge medicine and technology, as well as ties to asia, officials are on alert. The clinic appropriate the isolated him. The Health District contacted the cdc that advised testing. The clinic at the appropriate gear to safely test the patient. He was advised to go home and quarantine. The clinic sends a nasal swab they have taken from the man to the centers for Disease Control and prevention in atlanta. Within 20 were hours, the test come within 24 hours, the test comes back positive. The first covid patient is confirmed in the united states. He is transported to Providence Regional Medical Center just outside of seattle for medical staff are ready. It took us about two hours for us to get our staff, personnel, supplies in place to be able to give the ems the green light to come in. We were ready for. They were ready. Less than three weeks earlier, Providence Regional Medical Center had conducted an elaborate simulation. Pandemic training. Chinese experts report a new coronavirus. We were aware of what was going on in wuhan but it was part of our structure to prepare. We had to go to plan. We had a game plan in place already. We had everyone involved, including the local ems. The people that bring the patient from point a to point b. We had a variety of scenarios. Host the writer and producer of ist series, miles obrien joining us now to talk about this new documentary. What do we know about patient one that we did not learn just there . Guest he has connections to china. Hes a local person with a strong connection there and spend some time there in the wrong time in the wrong place. Its important to get across that he did everything right when he realized he had symptoms. He did not delay. He went right to the walkin clinic. He explained exactly his scenario. He is been very reluctant to come forward. We tried repeatedly to see if he would participate in the documentary on camera but does not want to do so. The concern is, i think, he believes he would be vilified by people for bringing the virus over here, which is completely unfair. Host he was in wuhan for six weeks. Does he know how he contracted it there . That we dont know who he is . What has taken place to keep his name and his identity protected . Guest Public Health officials and the hospital here have been pretty scrupulous about that. He did not go to the wet market where it is believed the virus began in wuhan. He thinks maybe he picked it up at the airport going in or out. Probably out of there given the timeframe. No one knows. A virus like this, presumably there are quite a few more people at that moment in this area and other parts of the country that had it and did not know about it. Part of the story i discovered as anythinguch it began here because people were looking so hard in advance. They knew it was coming and they were looking. Host why is it they were looking forward . Because of their location . Why were they ready . Guest you would predict the pandemic would arrive in american shores on the west coast. That would be the logical assumption. Seattle has strong ties to asia and a strong chineseamerican community. Presumedicials here they would be among the first to see it on u. S. Shores when it arrived. On top of that, there is a pretty the medical Health Technology community here is among the leaders in the epidemiological world. Very smart people who spend a lot of time thinking about these issues that happen to live in seattle. That group of people was really dialed into what was going on in wuhan, was expecting it, look at the traveled patterns, the flights that arrive every day and correctly assumed they would be the first place. Host talk about how the responders there, the medical staff, the ambulance driver, when they went to pick up patient one, talk about how they did that and how they kept him and everyone around him safe. Guest everything they were trained for they had the drill three weeks prior was built around in a bowl epidemic. An ebola epidemic. They took precautions beyond what would be necessary for coronavirus because they assumed it would be something as lethal as ebola. That is why they were so me precautions taken, including the iso pod device, the plastic bag with its own selfcontained filtered air, etc. That was not necessarily the case for coronavirus. More simple precautions are ok. A simple mask and gloves and gown. They decided to presume the west because at that point did not know much about the virus. We know more now. There is still a lot we dont know. Host how is patient one . Guest he is back to his life. He has done well. In the middle of treatment he was not doing well. He was developing pneumonia. Dr. Diaz had heard about this antiviral drug that people are now becoming familiar with. He was able to, in an emergency basis, get approval to use it on a compassionate use basis on him. Within 24 hours his fever broke and not long thereafter he was leaving the hospital. One, andint of anecdote, but dr. Diaz is involved in the chronicle trial. He is seeing a lot of optimism in the results so far. Nothing he has published or wants to share with specificity, but his inclination here is this is a good way to stop the advance of the virus. Host when patient one arrived in the united states, when was that and what happened after it was known he had the virus . Did he then give it to those around him . Guest this is where the plot thickens, greta. He arrived on january 15. All those events you just saw in that clip unfolded in the latter part of january. They did that study. 60 people. Try to imagine thinking about all the people you come in contact with over the course of a period of time for 10 minutes. Yet to give the guy credit for figure out who those people were. They did this investigation. The presumption was there was no spread at the time. It turns out later with more thorough and detailed genetic testing there had been some spread. The story actually shifted from washington. Kland, what happened there was a cluster of severe respiratory illness inside a nursing home. The Wider Community outbreak was discovered, because a doctor at the evergreen ce theal in kirkland, on cdc gave permission, started testing sick people in the hospital and immediately he got positives. It was so overwhelming. He had 32 positives in his hospital. Most crucially, some had no connection to that nursing home. To sleuth out the fact there was Widespread Community spread of the coronavirus at that time. Host what to the governor and state officials do next . Guest they went public pretty quickly. Within about a week or so, a state of emergency occurred. The Business Community acted almost unilaterally. Microsoft and a lot of big players immediately encouraged people to stay home. There was all most an automatic response here. Not a lot of indecision about it, frankly. They came forward and very quickly some of the precautions that are now so familiar, social distancing, sheltering at home, were put in place here. They acted quickly. The data we are seeing now suggests what they have done has worked. Host i want to invite viewers to join in on the conversation. Their questions and comments for you, miles obrien. In the eastern part of the country, 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. Medical professionals, we want to take your question and comments. 202 7488002. You can text us with your first name, city and state at 202 7488003. About abrien, you talk tale of two washingtons. What did you mean . Part as i just told you, of what drew me to this location, not only because it was first and as a science correspondent i was interested in how the people on the ground used shoe leather to figure this whole thing out. It is a detective story after all. The relationship between the Scientific Community here and the politicians, the policymakers, is not adversarial. Science and data are actually at the center of a lot of decisions here. That i found interesting and frankly in this country these days kind of rare. I came here to see how it all works or doesnt work. Playing that in contrast to what we are seeing in washington where for decades of discounting and diminishing and ignoring the advice of expertise and the Scientific Community, political leaders in washington did the same in the midst of a pandemic. To do that frankly cost lives. I felt like that was an important story to tell. Host what is happening in washington at this time . Washington, d. C. . People here were coming to terms with the fact there was widespread Community Outbreak of coronavirus, much bigger than anybody could have imagined, it was difficult to detect this one. In some cases the symptoms are mild. There is a 14date incubation period. Its difficult to really identify it. The real key is testing. Testing remains this theme throughout the story, even to this moment today. Cdc, the centers for Disease Control, was in the midst of trying to get testing kits out to the nation so people could try to quantify the problem. The cdc made a crucial decision not to use a test developed in germany and adopted by the world health organization. The cdc generally does its own testing. It is the Gold StandardHealth Service in the world. They went their own way. Unfortunately the test they created did not work. Precious time was lost at that time when tests should have been out here and elsewhere trying to identify the extent of the problem. It was worse than that because there was a local lab here at the university of Washington Medical School wherever researcher actually created his own he called it a homebrew test. It worked in the lab. He try to get approval from the fda to use it here locally to try to understand the operating. He ran into just a bureaucratic rick wall. Brick wall. It took weeks to get through the red tape. In the end, again, precious time was wasted on the testing front. The testing was crucial on the front end. Is crucial to date as we think about how we get back to work and get back to her lives. Host miles obrien is our guest this morning from pbs newshour on the new documentary airing one, thebout Patient First coronavirus patient on american soil. Robert obrien, the president S National Security advisor wrote seven decisions the president made. First, the president assembled a team on january 29. He established the Coronavirus Task force. January 30 one, mr. Trump ordered travel restrictions barring foreign nationals whod recently been in china for mentoring the united states. Third, arch 11, mr. Trump suspended travel from foreign nationals who had been in european nations. Is that ive 16, stretch public resources, the president issued the 15 days to slow the spread. For many weeks he pushed for the innovative use of therapies to fight the virus. Sixth, mr. Trump announced the cdc would issue guidelines recommending americans use cloth masks. Seventh, since the extent of the danger became apparent, mr. Trump at his tina contracted with more than 10 ventilator team have contracted with more than 10 ventilator suppliers to fight production. Guest i think there are couple of things missing from that. Testing is such a key component of this. The fact the u. S. Was caught flatfooted on the testing front and made that crucial decision is a decision that will be looked at with some criticism. No question about that. The other factor here is the operating took off x financially, has outbreak thenentially as average do, protection equip and has been a consistent problem which lingers to this day equipment has been a distant problem which has lingered this day. The full weight of the u. S. Manufacturing capability through the defense production act to produce the kind of things to intect these people is still fits and starts. Dpa administration has used in some cases, including yesterday indicating it might be deployed in some fashion to ramp up the testing capability. In the case of the ventilators, this is a good newsvalue story. The anticipated need for the ventilators has not been what was expected. Me, as, the experts tell reflection of the fact what we are all doing right now, staying at home, staying apart from each other, is working. Cases where the administration has responded. There are some big gaps in there as well. We need to make sure as we march forward here we dont overlook the fact the testing is lacking in the personal protective equipment its a correlated issue. You have to be fully garbed to do the testing. As we march forward we need to make sure those the supply chain is running smoothly. Certainly in this country, if we turn on a dime world war ii style, we can do it. Host you can watch the full documentary tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on most pbs stations. You can watch it online at pbs that work frontline pbs. Org frontline. Isabel from new york. Caller hi. Im impressed with the amount of information the gentleman has gathered and devoted himself to being very specifically exact on what he is looking for. I am very grateful for people like him. I think he mightve answered some of my questions. As a new yorker, im wondering with all the wonderful data if you have gathered and knowledge, what do you think we need to do to get better on this . New york seems to be out of control still. The testing you just mentioned. Somebody at home wants to know if they have this virus or not, yet they tell us delays and this and that. Mail me a test or Something Like that. What you think of this, if i may ask you this . Guest thank you. I appreciate that. This is a key point. We live in a world of 23 and me where the test kit capability, the infrastructure to do that is not unfamiliar to all of us. Why shouldnt we all be able to identify at least if the cold you had a month or so ago was more than a cold and you have the antibodies and you are safe to go back to work . Thats a crucial piece of information. Andre all right now at home pretty fearful about the consequences of going to a restaurant. Until we can identify who has got it now, who has had it, whose immune and who has antibodies, we are stuck in neutral here. That is a key point. In new york what we are seeing was bad. The population density of new york increased the challenge dramatically. We watched that all unfold. The numbers are better than now there now. Im sure this will be studied more scientifically down the road. The only thing that has changed in new york his people stayed home and socially distanced. The virus does not do that on its own. The virus will spread until it runs out of hosts. The fact that kerr was going you curb is going down, cant say its a natural occurrence. We took action. We have to keep her i on the prize here. If we get impatient and get back to our lives to soon, the experts tell me we will have a complete resurgence at the same level we have right now come june and july. This is not the time to slow down. Host hollywood, florida. Mitchell, good morning to you. Effortsi noticed in our e and emphasis on the economy versus testing he hit the nail on the head. This virus spreads. Lets take the scenario of the it is going to spread. It is obvious. So we thank you for stressing the point to use the scenario that some of these governors are putting the economy versus our health and our safety. Educating is necessary, and its going to come back to haunt this trump administration, who were caught flatfooted from january until now. You for your question. I think this idea that there is a choice to be made as to whether the economy tanks, or people die. That is essentially the decision that is being made. We will put it this way. Too soon,ack to work in other words, get the economy back going, and we get sick again, where are we then with the economy . So its just a matter of having some patience, letting this process work its way through. Until we have a vaccine, which unfortunately is at least one year away, all we can do is what we are doing now. Testing, we have are pretty much stuck doing this. Because he makes a very good point. Who is going to go into the barbershop safely, not knowing who has it, who does not, where the virus is . People could be carrying without being symptomatic. Everybody inow that barbershop has had it and has antibodies, but we do not have the information. So knowledge is the key here, and that is why the gov. Cooper thank you for joining us for todays update on covid19 in north carolina. 1oday we are reporting 695 confirmed cases, 427 people in the hospital, and 213 deaths