Addressing it, we are joined by Lori Trammell freeman, the ceo of the National Association of county and city Health Officials. Thank you. Host tell us about your association. What is its role and mission . Guest the National Association of county and city Health Officials, we are the National Nonprofit the represent local that represents nearly local 3000 Health Departments across the country in a number of ways. We provide them with resources and publications and guidance. We also are a liaison between our Health Department and the federal agencies. The cdc, health and human services, fema and others. And we basically advocate on their behalf, to ensure that our Government Public Health system is resourced in the correct ways. Host how are most city and county local Health Officials funded . Guest they are funded through their state primarily, our federal government, typically at allocate Health Funding to the states. States across the country, Public Health activities in their communities and the states can also apply for federal funding, have their own funding their localsource Health Departments with as well. Host what are some of the challenges you are hearing from from those across the country since the start of the pandemic. Hearing from those across the country since the start of the pandemic. Guest everything is hyper escalated, the other things that are on the ground with the threat like covid19, our Health Departments are under extreme duress in terms of making sure they have a workforce in place that can address the disease. Other resources on the ground, that they can mitigate the disease in their communities. Without pointing out individual counties or cities. Cities, give us an idea of some of the better practices the local Health Agencies are doing to handle this. Maybe some that arent the are not, the practices that arent working across the country. Guest our local Health Departments are always wellpositioned that something they do, all the time, even when youre not in a pandemic state. They typically have the resources on the ground that get people access to care when they need it. Access to testing. They are also contact tracers on the ground. They find where the disease is and try to mitigate spread with isolation and quarantine where necessary. Without an active vaccine or covid, weto address are left with the triedandtrue Public Health measures, which basically comes down to effectively finding people who are sick and keeping them away from others. Host we seeing rises across the country, as summer has come on and what the weather has warmed. What is your take . Guest our public Health Departments during Something Like a pandemic actually have an stop the spread of disease. And that authority includes taking measures that present prevent the spread of disease. Wearing a mask. Isolating when youre sick or quarantining when youre sick. Those are triedandtrue health measures. What are Health Partners are what our Health Partners are open our economies, is that people are not inclined to follow these best Public Health practices that we know work. We have extremist groups or activists trying to politicize the Public Health advice instead of just recognizing its pure it is pure health advice. Our public Health Departments are apolitical. They dont have political stance here. They just want to keep communities safe and healthy. Host our guest is the chief executive officer of the National Association county and city officials. Health officials. Talk about how those agencies respond to the covid19 pandemic and the rising cases across the u. S. We welcome your calls. 2027488000 in the eastern and central time zones. 2027488001 mountain and pacific. 2027488002, that line we have set aside for Public Health officials. Any kind. State, local or federal health official. You can use that line. Its been a time where Health Officials, both national and local Health Officials have been at the forefront literally in our face on camera, on briefings all the time. What sort of pressure has that put on some local Health Agencies . The pressure at this time, our Public Health officials got into this field to treat the entire communities, feel the community is their responsibility. They are under increasing pressure here to keep their communities safe, especially given circumstances with not everyone to the good advice. Adhering to the good advice of Public Health officials. You are right. They usually fly under the radar. In fact, we would like to say Public Health is successful in doing its job. Water, you have clean food in your restaurants, pulls to swim in and exercise in. They are out front in this particular pandemic. Because they are out front and the carriers of this messaging, they are often targets, as well. Host even prior to the pandemic, the practice, those local Health Agencies to wait in agencies, to wait in terms of a national or local response to a national issue, has the practice been to wait for guidance from federal Health Officials, the cdc, nih . Guest its a close connection. That is really important because its often informed by what we know about the disease, the infection. With any disease there is a period of catch up. You are gathering information, the disease is evolving. It is a well coordinated effort that needs to occur between the federal government, the state and local Health Officials and jurisdictions in terms of the guidance they are giving the public. Often, we do need that guidance and advice to inform the messaging on the ground. Thats informed by the data and science we know being gathered in other parts of the government. Host would you prefer the federal government issue a nationwide mandate for Wearing Masks . Guest in this particular case , because we know this disease spread so quickly, from person, Wearing Masks is going to help us stop the spread of this disease in lieu of having a hardcore vaccine. It is the absolute best practice we have right now, it would be easier to do it, to keep one another safe. To keep our loved ones safe. But the way we are set up as a country doesnt work that way. Our states have the ability to set their own rules. But as ive said, Public Health authority, they do have the ability to stop the spread in their community by wishing these issuing these masks ordered on the ground. Host you touched on this a moment ago in terms of staffing across the country. From the connecticut mirror, hollowed out Public Health system faces more cuts amid the virus. Its been start for decades and lacked the resources to confront the worst Health Crisis in the century. But it has sickened at least 2. 6 million in the u. S. And killed more than 129,000 people across tens of millions of jobs. State and local Government Health workers on the ground are sometimes being paid so little that they qualify for public aid. Guest this is a true crisis in our Public Health system. We need our governmental Public Health system to be wellresourced so that we are ready for this type of threat. Over the past 10 years, we have seen continued cuts to our Public Health investment at the federal level. And trickle down to the local level. When you look at that, the Economic Impact of this pandemic related to payroll and business taxes at the local level, some of which funds those municipalities, though systems as well, this is really a terrible perfect storm of impact to the workforce. We are very concerned about it now and our ability to keep communities safe. Host we go to provincetown, massachusetts, and peter. Caller thanks for taking my call. I have a very serious question. When the president crated the Coronavirus Task force, it was heavily politicized from the start. It was quite large in number and there was this sense it really didnt have a tie to the boots on the ground and able to give directives. It was just cluttered with political messaging. I wanted to ask you upfront, would it have been better for President Trump to create a two have created a much smaller Pandemic Response . Response board . I wouldve recommended the use it on that board along without she and burks and a couple of that board along with a couple of other people and that wouldve been much more effective from the start. Im curious as to what you think about that. Host thanks, peter. Guest that is an excellent question. It brings up the point that our governmental Public Health system in place to address Infectious Disease and other Public Health threats that keep our communities, that have impact on our communities needs to be integral in that response. This whole response from the beginning. That goes from the highest tier of the federal government, that is a 10,000 Strong Agency and some of our best and brightest Public Health experts in the world. Down to our state Health Agencies and local governmental Public Health agencies. Those groups are an integral part of any typical threat like this to our communities. You are correct that we needed and we still need much more visibility to help inform this visibility for those professionals to help inform this response. And get us through this response. So thank you for that question. Host on twitter saying south korea is a robust system. South korea 40 community spread. To avoid community spread. Terry is next in canton, north carolina. Caller good morning. Over the last few weeks, weve noticed the death count has not raised that much. I have looked at our major cities like new york, atlanta, and chicago. Over last weekend, we had over 200 shootings. 14 children under the age of eight murdered by marxist terrorist group called blm that the democrats call peaceful protesters. See your marxist trend because you are sitting here trying to deem that all of. His is trumps fault i think the worst thing in this trumps fault because we have rising cases. I think the worst thing in this country is what the democrats are trying to do. The bernie bros. Out in the street today have called and said they would do this if Bernie Sanders was not nominated. We have people in the streets destroying property, threatening people, you cant even call the police because they are knocking not going to come. People in st. Louis had to sit there and hold off an armed mob of blm marxist terrorists. Host just to let you know we are going to be talking in our last segment about gun violence in the u. S. But to his point, the headline in the washington times. Covid death rate plunges from peak in the u. S. Any response . Guest i would just say that gun violence and antiviolence is also a Public Health emergency. We consider it to be that and its something we have to really Pay Attention to. And address more proactively. Host brandon is up next, fremont, california. Caller i was just curious how important do you think it is to fight the coronavirus in developing countries doing with dealing with heavy global poverty to help prevent pandemics in the future and dealing with it in the states . Guest thank you. Thats an important comment in and question, as well. In order to affect change in our own country, we have to Pay Attention to what is happening in the rest of the world. The rest of the world is at our doorstep normally and traveling is expensive and people are bringing and spreading disease all the time. The centers for Disease Control and prevention, we Pay Attention whats going on globally. We understand what its doing to our own country and its really a matter of keeping our country secure. And the rest of the world does matter and we need to be doing things like helping to support learning from around the globe in terms of Infectious Disease spread and understanding how potentially impact our own Public Health, should we have a future threat like this. The New York Times has a look at health care workers. On the front page, the coronavirus assessment center, some sites ran out of tests on monday and the photo those workers in nashville, tennessee. How concerned are you about the availability of tests . How concerned are your members about tests across the country . Guest not in all cases do we still have available testing across the country to do what we need to do to understand how to stop and mitigate the spread of the disease. We need to make sure testing kits are available widely. And that they are available to anybody who feels like they need to be tested whether to exposure, whether they feel sick, whether they are in an environment prone, maybe they are an essential worker. Its our duty to ensure we have those testing kits and supplies readily available of our at all levels of our communities to help us really mitigate this disease spread while we dont have a vaccine or antiviral. Host ronald in salem, missouri. Caller my call is about the funding that should be happening for the county Health Departments. Im 74 and i can recall the county hospitals and all kinds of local Health Support and we do not have that today. The states keep turning to the federal government. That has got to stop. They have got to fund this to of on a local level. They need to make sure they have supplies available and kept up. So we are not running around borrow, and steal from another country. We had probably the worlds greatest Public Health not too long ago. We had the worlds greatest Public Health system. We let it go. Its a lack of funding doing it and counties are where we need to look. Host ok, ronald. An interesting one we like to share is our country invests a lot of money in health care and treating people after they become ill. 3. 6 trillion. What people dont realize is only 3 of that is actually invested in Public Health. The very prevention activities that keep people from getting sick in the first place, thats that keeps them healthy. This is what our state and local and this gentleman is absolutely correct. We need to reinvest in our Public Health infrastructure, we need to do it now to ensure we can come through this. But also be ready for the next time. We need to do it because it will save us money in the long term. For every dollar of prevention , we will save far more dollars from people getting sick in the long term. Host the administration is has termed the development of vaccine and the distribution of the vaccine when it becomes available as operation warp speed. Has your organization been informed about how the vaccine might be distributed and administered nationwide . Guest those plans are rapidly developing with the announcement of operation warp speed. Weve been involved in conversations and are looking to our this work informed by state and local public Health Departments. They are the ones, our local Health Departments unite the public against many other diseases. They are in a position on the ground in the communities. Giving us the vaccine dissemination and our state Health Departments need to be involved as well. Once again, we dont go down the road we started out. Out with this Pandemic Response and not having governmental Public Health informing the work. We are working hard to ensure that our governmental Public Health system is strengthened and that investment and infrastructure can be in place to be ready for the next emergency. Host robert in waldorf, maryland. Caller good morning. Once again, the bureaucracy, this is the job of the cdc to head these off. These things off. This is what theyre supposed to do. They didnt do that here. Why do we call this the covid virus . It came from china which im sure everyone would acknowledge. This is a biological weapon and why no one wants to call it that is beyond me. You guys sitting here claiming this is nothing and we need to wear masks. Its a ghost, its a figment of your imagination and you can control the American People with this for as long as you want. If you really believe that this disease, this virus has killed 130,000 americans, we agree that it came from china, does that not deserve a retaliatory response on china . If it killed 130,000 americans , why dont you tell the American People where this virus came from . Host going to let you go there. Do you have any response . Guest i think they could come from around anywhere in the world and theyve originated regardless of where they originated, it is a Public Health threat. We need to do that by proactively understanding where they are across the world and how they can potentially affect the future and the key is being prepared and responding appropriately. Theres a lot we can learn from this particular Pandemic Response. There have been mistakes made , certainly, and i think we should learn from those. Acknowledge those and understand how they happened and allow it to prepare us for the next time. Host we will hear from jenna in pennsylvania. Caller i have a question about the budget and the covid19 crisis. I know President Trump wants to cut the International Budget further. With covid19, do you think its possible again . Guest i think we need to be investing strongly in our own governmental Public Health infrastructure. However we know from the last gentlemans call that these diseases that sometimes originate in other parts of the world and so to the extent we need to maintain some level of involvement with the rest of the world and understanding Infectious Diseases response. We do need put dollars there as well so that we are not isolated from the rest of the world and not understanding how things can potentially affect us in terms of Public Health. Host the ceo of the National Association of county and city Health Officials talking about the spread of the coronavirus around the country. The line for eastern and central time zones. 202 7488000. 2027488001 for mountain and pacific. If youre a Public Health official, that line is 2027488002. Lori freeman, how many members does your association represent and how many states does that cover . Guest there are nearly 3000 local Health Departments across the country, representing every state in the country and their there are also and there are also Health Departments in u. S. Territories as well. Host about the spread of some of those cases, states restore restrictions as cases and hospitalization spike across the u. S. They write that the nevada and arizona reported the highest number of coronavirus related hospitalizations in recent days. The sevenday averages in 12 states hit new highs with the , biggest increases in west virginia, tennessee, montana. The seven day average a record high and in arizona they write 89 of the states intensive care the states intensive care bed units were full monday morning. The recently hardhit states passed 100,000 cases. In the Nations Capital is john, go ahead. Caller i dont want to attack this young lady or her organization. However, the majority of the vaccine testing that is going on worldwide is taking place in black and african and darkskinned countries and nations. Some of these nations are objecting to being used as guinea pigs for a vaccine that ultimately i dont want to say the majority population because theyre not really, but here in the United States at any rate and in western countries, more white than black. There are 62 nations worldwide where the vaccine testing is going on and if you just take a map and markout these nations, you will see its almost the entire continent of africa and the other nations not in africa are darkskinned nations. Some of these people are jetting objecting to being used as guinea pigs and lab rats, those are there words. Bill gates and some others are behind the funding of this testing. So when she says we know whats going on in other countries, we care about whats going on, im not hearing any evidence beyond a platitude. Host we will let her respond. Guest we absolutely do not condone any testing that involves that degree of use of populations that are already vulnerable to disease and vulnerable to other conditions. To livell take you coverage here on speech on cspan. Thank you for joining us at the hudson institute. We are here with fbi director christopher wray. It is my pleasure to be back at the office and an honor to join the director in todays conversation. Christopher wray currently serves as director of the fbi. He has served in a number of roles within the federal government i
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