Nonprofit the represent local Health Departments across the country in a number of ways. Them with resources and publication, 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 , our Government Public Health system. How are most city and county local Health Officials funded . Funded through their , our federally at ment, typically allocate Health Funding to the states. In the states can also, have their own funding the resource the local Health Departments as well. What are some of the challenges you are hearing from the heroes from those across the country since the start of the pandemic. Everything is hyper escalated , the other things that are on with the threat like covid19, our health permits under extreme duress. The can address the disease that have the other resources on the ground. That are used to mitigate the disease. Without pointing out individual counties or 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 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. The tip they the resources on peopleund that get access to care when they needed. Access to testing. There contact tracers on the ground. And try to mitigate with isolation and quarantine when necessary. Without an active vaccine or antiviral, we are left with the triedandtrue Public Health measures, which basically comes down to effectively finding people and keeping them away from others. Finding people and keeping away from others. Host we seeing rises across the country, states have reopened, whats your take . Departmentsc health during something wicked pandemic actually have an authority to act the spread of disease. Authority includes taking measures the spreading of disease. Isolating when youre sick or quarantining when youre sick. Those are triedandtrue health measures. What are Health Partners are seeing we open our economies, will try to get back to a normal state of things, people are not inclined these best Public Health practices that we know work. Extremist groups or activists trying to politicize Public Health advice instead of just recognizing its pure health advice. Our public Health Departments are apolitical. They dont have political stance here. Host our guest is the chief executive officer of the National Association county and city officials. Respond those agencies to the covid19 pandemic and the rising cases across the u. S. . We welcome your calls. 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. Where healthime 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. Our Public Health officials are in this field to treat the entire communities, they know the community is their responsibility. They are under increasing pressure here to keep their community safe, especially given circumstances with not everyone to the good advice. You are right. They usually fly under the radar come would like to say Public Health is successful in doing its job. That means you have claims in andater, pool to swim exercises. They are out front in this particular pandemic. In the carriers of this, they are often the targets as well. Host even prior to the pandemic, the practice, those local Health 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 nih . Ials, the cdc,. Uest its a close connection that is really important because its often informed by what we , theabout the disease infection. With any disease there is a catch up. ,ou are gathering information the disease is evolving. Occurring between the federal government, the state and local Health Officials and in terms of the guidance they are giving the public. Guidancedo need that 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 persontoperson. Wearing masks is going to help us stop the spread of this having an lieu of hardcore vaccine. The absolute best practice we have right now, it would be easier to do it, to keep one another safe. , but the way we are set up as a country doesnt work that way. Ability. Ve the but as ive said, Public Health and they do have the ability to stop the spread in their community by wishing these masks ordered on the ground. This aou touched on moment ago in terms of staffing across the country. ,rom the connecticut mirror Public Health system faces more cuts amid virus. They say its been start for decades and lacked the resources to confront the worst Health Crisis in the century. Least 2. 6 sickened at million in the u. S. And killed more than 129,000 people across tens of millions of jobs. Governmentocal Health Workers on the ground are sometimes being paid so little that they qualify for public aid. Is a true crisis in our Public Health system. We need our governmental Public Health system to be well resourced so that we are ready for this type of threat. Years, we have0 seen continued cuts to our at thehealth investment federal level. Tricklele down down to the local level. When you look at that. The Economic Impact of this andemic related to payroll business taxes at the local level. Thosef which municipalities, though systems as well. This is really a terrible perfect storm of impact to the workforce. We are very concerned about it and our ability to keep communities safe. Host we go to provincetown, massachusetts and peter. Caller thanks for taking my call. 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. Upfront,to ask you would it have been better for President Trump to create a smaller Pandemic Response . I wouldve recommended the use it on that board along without she and burks and a couple of other people and that wouldve been much more effective from the start. 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. That goes from the highest tier , that federal government 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. Copart of theyou threat like this. Needed correct that we and we still need much more to help inform this response. Host on twitter saying south korea is a robust system. South korea 40 community spread. Terry is next in canton, north carolina. Caller good morning. Weeks, weve few noticed the death count has not raised that much. Looking in major cities like new york and chicago, just last weekend we had over 200 shootings, 14 children under the age of eight murdered by marxist terrorist group. But the democrats call peaceful protesters. Cspan, you are sitting here trying to deem that all of this is 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 brose 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 to come. There 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 time. Covid death rate plunges from peak in the u. S. , any response . Say that gund just 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. Up next,ndon is fremont, california. Hower i was just curious close do you think it is to fight the coronavirus in developing countries doing with heavy global poverty and 70 prevent pandemics in the future and dealing with it in the states . Guest thank you. Thats an important comment in question as well. In order to affect change in our we have to Pay Attention to the rest of the world. We arehts of the world normally traveling and people are bringing and spreading disease. All the time. The centers for Disease Control , we Pay Attention whats going on globally. Doingerstand what its 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 about Infectious Disease spread and understanding how that witht around Public Health a future threat like this. Host mere times is a look at health care workers. Front page of the new york times, the coronavirus assessment center, some sites ran out of tests on monday in the photo those workers in nashville, tennessee. How concerned are you about the availability of tests . How concerned are they across the country . 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 make your testing kits are available widely. For anybody who feels like they need to be tested whether to sickure, whether they feel , thats prone, maybe they are an essential worker. Its our duty to ensure we have those testing kits and supplies readily available of our reallyties to help us catch just mitigating this disease spread while we dont have a vaccine or antiviral. Ronald in salem, missouri. Is about thell funding for the county Health Departments. Recall thei can county hospital and all kinds of the states aand meal he turned to the federal government. Live got to fund this stuff on the local level. And in made sure supplies are capped up. Around try torun beg, borrow and steal. We had probably the worlds greatest not too long ago. We had the worlds greatest Public Health system. Its a lack of funding doing it and counties are where we need to look. One is our country invest a lot of money in health care and treating people after they become ill. 3. 6 trillion. The people dont realize 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 what her state and local governments do and so this gentleman is absently correct. We need to reinvest in our Public Health infrastructure, we need to do it now to ensure we can come through this. 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 you will save far more dollars from people getting sick in the long term. Host the administration is termed the development of vaccine and the distribution of the vaccine when it becomes available. As your 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 that are looking to have this work inform fire state and local public Health Departments. Ones, or local Health Departments unite the public against many other diseases. They are that 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. And not have governmental Public Health informing the work. We are working hard to ensure that our governmental public and that strengthened investment and infrastructure can be in place to be ready for the next emergency. Host robert in waldorf, maryland. Caller good morning. Bureaucracy, this is the job of the cdc to have the head these off. This is what theyre supposed to do. They didnt do that here. Why do we call this the covid virus smart it came from china which im sure everyone would acknowledge. Weapon andiological 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 deserve a retaliatory response on china. If it killed one of 30,000 americans come one you tell the American People where this virus came from. Host going to let you go there. Do you have any response . They could come from around anywhere in the world and theyve originated from other places as well as her own country. We are aware of where it originated regardless of where it originated, its 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 in being prepared and responding. Theres a lot we can learn from this Pandemic Response. There have been mistakes made shouldly and i think we learn from those. Allow it to prepare us for the next time. Host we will hear from jenna in pennsylvania. I have a question about the crisis. I know President Trump wants to cut the budget further. With covid19 do you think its possible again . 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 extent weso to the ofd to maintain some level involvement with the rest of the world and understanding Infectious Diseases response. That we are not isolated from the rest of the world. Host the ceo of the National Association of county, city Health Officials talking about the spread of the coronavirus around the country. The line for eastern and central time zones. 2027488001 for mountain and pacific. If youre a Public Health official, that line is 2027488002. Many members how 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 Health Departments in u. S. Territories as well. 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. Highs with the biggest increases in west virginia, tennessee, montana paid the seven day average a record high and in arizona they write 89 of the states intensive care bed units were full monday morning. Statesently hardhit passed 100,000 cases. In the Nations Capital is john, go ahead. I dont want to attack this young lady or her organization. However the majority of the vaccine testing that is going on inldwide is taking place black and african and dark skinned country countries and nations. Some of these nations are used as guinea pigs for a vaccine that will iately be released 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. Worldwide62 nations 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 dark skinned nations. Some of these people are jetting to being used as guinea pigs, those are there your those are their words. Bill gates and some others are behind 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 testing that of use ofhat degree populations that are already vulnerable to disease and vulnerable to other conditions. Our black communities, africanamerican communities, other communities we know have underlying conditions to a greater extent than white populations, that is of usingnable in terms those to detect vaccines. Vaccination is whats going to help us get out of this pandemic. Development has to be progressive and moving as fast as possible in order to move out of this. Form shouldhape or we be using any vulnerable populations or ones that are impacted by disease to do this testing. Host the wall street journal is writing about vaccine testing. Coronavirus research competes to enroll subjects in the vaccine tests. They say the vaccine researchers are trying new in an unprecedented effort to court use tens of thousands volunteers in the late stages of development. The wall street journal writes quickly lining up all subjects for so many studies at the same time poses several challenges. Given the urgency, researchers are taking unusual steps such as recruiting at pharmacies, and askches were subjects around. Back to calls, we go to vicki in austin, texas. Caller thanks for taking my call. Ive called about this before. Its about availability of masks for the public. Early on i followed as best i could through other sources how the virus spread and what was the effectiveness of these homemade masks. Understand wearing a mask is primarily to protect others and not yourself. These days you cannot count on other people doing their share and im cooped up, i need to go places, to go to the doctor or dentist. Like tosperately would be able to have access to at mask or a mask its going to be effective in protecting me. I know when ive called and before and had the epidemiologist on i got chastised for caring too much for myself and not about others. , care about protecting others as sony people not Wearing Masks and the cloth master not effective at preventing the virus,of the aerosolized i am just desperate. I havent gotten my 1200 covid money. I would just assume get 1n95 mask. Is there any way the public can get masks as a Public Health system can they help with this . Go to the dentist or doctor or Grocery Store or something. Host thank you. Thats an interesting observation and comment. Ppe production and supply chains open up, we are beginning to see more and more of these available. We can see those available at the Grocery Store, i was glad to see those. Any mask is still better than no mask. Please understand that. Strengthen the mask by multilayering or filtering adding a filter bread as far as the availability of n95, the general public, certainly take , justomments to heart advised that any mask is better than no mask at all and it will help protect others around you. Bill from albany, new york. Caller thank you. Id like to ask ms. Freeman regarding a question, i dont know if she would know regarding prescriptions and pharmaceuticals. My question is, or the city and Health Officials working with the government on this . Its my understanding to be true generic to 95 of the ingredients for drugs are made in china. It looks like the American Pharmaceuticals are about 10 years away from us producing our own medications. Is there talk amongst your organizations about having this . Im already seeing on my local level, manufacturer of one of my prescriptions went out of business and they had to find another manufacturer to get a similar drug. This . Going on regarding it is affected by the virus. Because of china all of a sudden decides not to send these ingredients, we are going to be in big trouble with normal medications, not even the antivirus. I was wondering if there was a plan in place for this. Guest i have not heard of anything, but i am i have my eyes on this myself because i have a medication myself that has been unavailable for 45 days that is controlling a chronic disease. Several are the underlying conditions that increase your this isgetting covid, important to me as well. I dont have any further explanation of whats being done, but i take your comment and i personally will look into whats happening here. Host you were quoted in a recent Washington Post article, the headline of which said amid threats and political pushback, Public Health officials are leaving their post. How widespread is this and what was your comment in that article . What was your organization saying about this . Guest we are very alarmed because we are seeing increasingly a number of Public Health officials, members of ,heir staff being scapegoated fired or resigning suddenly, some taking early retirement. Much of this has to do with them just doing their job and trying serveure the public they are safe from disease. Politicization of mask distancing,social their jobs are made much more difficult. Carl from north carolina. Youre on the air, go ahead. Ok. Kim is in deltona, florida. Ken is intel tona, florida. Caller i had a question for your guest. I would like her to explain the. Dc rules how they can take and count the coronavirus. I want to give you a court a prime example. There was a big deal made here casesriday about the 9585 that were taken positive cases here in florida. Over 78,345. When you take that number, that amounts to 8. 173 people that came up tested positive for the coronavirus. There is never a mention, are they asymptomatic or do they have the antibodies. They never break any of this out. Told, theive been cdc just counts everything as being a coronavirus. I think its a very dishonest interservice to the American People when you dont break it out. They also do not say how many people tested negative for it. That re a. 17 people 8. 17 people at tested positive 91. 8at, you have over percent that tested negative for it. Host we will get a response. Cdc uses data produced from state and local reporting. It does not produce its own data. All of the data comes from other sources. With this pandemic, there are increasing numbers of entities that are testing outside of the Public Health system. Weve had expanded Publicprivate Partnership that includes private drive up situations as well as pharmacies. Ofwhen you expand that level accessibility to the public, you also risk a little bit of control of the data being reported. To the gentlemans point i will say their standardized data and information we collect that is supposed to be collected for cases and for testing. That beingcases is done for a variety of reasons. That helps to muddy the waters a little bit with the data thats being aggregated in collected and reported. Its a large puzzle of 3000 Health Departments, 50 states, territories, and all the other commercial Testing Facilities that make up this data. With time i think it will be refined and get better and we will be able to refine that better. It is a challenge. Host lori heads the National Association of city and announcer house appropriation. Ommittee debates and votes watch live today starting at 5 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listen live with the free cspan radio app. Announcer on thursday, secretary of defense, mark esper, and general mark milley testify before the House Armed Services committee on the authorities and roles of the Defense Department related to civilian lawenforcement. Watch live coverage beginning at 1 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, ondemand at cspan. Org, or listen live wherever you are on the free cspan radio app. Americas future is in our hands. Theladies and gentlemen, best is yet to come. Announcer President Trump is hosting a rally in portsmouth, new hampshire. Watch coverage saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, ondemand at cspan. Org, or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Announcer former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, discussed the future of diplomacy and answered questions from students at indiana universitys Hamilton Lugar School of global and international studies. This is truly a great country in which we live. We have so many opportunities to make a difference for our families, our communities, the states we serve, and for the world in which we live. Only in the United States would it be possible for a first generation immigrant like me to appear before you as an ambassador nominee. Ambassadorial nominee. My parents bought me to this country in search of a safe harbor, a harbor that provides freedom and opportunity, dignity, and respect. The United States offered our family a second chance. What you need to know, when what americans need to know, is while most ofan