Consider This from NPR - GOP Senator Raised Virus Alarms Weeks Ago — In Private

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, in a private luncheon, compared the coronavirus to the 1918 flu. NPR's Tim Mak obtained a secret recording — more of his reporting is here. Plus how nurses are coping in the Seattle region, and why schools are struggling to make informed decisions about keeping kids home from school. Check out Life Kit's episode '8 Tips To Make Working From Home Work For You' here. Find and support your local public radio station here. Email the show at [e-mail] episode was recorded and published as part of this podcast's former 'Coronavirus Daily' format.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

There are now over 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in America. That, of course, is the disease caused by the coronavirus. New York has 4,000 cases. Washington state has more than 1,000. Many states have more than 200, including California, Louisiana, Colorado, and Georgia. Thank you all for being here. And at the White House today, the president said work on economic relief is ongoing. We will be helping the airline industry. We will be helping the cruise ship industry.

We probably will be helping the hotel industry. As Congress negotiates an aid package that could be worth $1 trillion. And I have to say, I can't say it strongly enough. Or more. We will be helping small businesses. Coming up, how long millions of kids could be home from school and a report from the Seattle region with nurses on the front lines of the public health fight against the pandemic. This is Coronavirus Daily from NPR News. I am

Kelly McEvers. It's Thursday, March 19th. Three weeks ago, a powerful Republican senator was at a luncheon on Capitol Hill. It was a private meeting for a group called the Tar Heel Circle from North Carolina. People in this group represent businesses and organizations from the state, and they pay between $500 and $10,000 to be members. The senator who was eating with them was Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Some of the people there worked for companies whose employees and political action committees had donated handsomely to Burr's recent election campaign. And what Burr said in that room about the coronavirus was captured in a secret recording that was later obtained by NPR investigative reporter Tim Mack. Tim shared it on Up First this morning.

Here's the senator on the tape. There's one thing that I can tell you about this. It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history. If you didn't hear what he said, he said it is much more aggressive in its transmission. Anything that we have seen in recent history, it's probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic. This was 13 days before the State Department began to warn Americans against traveling to Europe. Every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they're making to Europe

is essential or whether it can be done on video conference. Why risk it? Nowhere in press statements or other public remarks did Burr provide warnings like this about how bad he worried the coronavirus crisis would become. Meanwhile, on the same day, President Trump characterized the coronavirus this way. It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle. It will disappear. And from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We'll see what happens.

Nobody really knows. That was February 27th. It would be 16 days until North Carolina closed schools because of the threat of the coronavirus. In a statement to NPR's Tim Mack, Senator Burr's office said that he has, quote, worked to educate the public about the tools and resources our government has to confront the spread of coronavirus. Burr's spokesperson also said that every American should take the coronavirus threat seriously. You can find a link to all of Tim's reporting on this story in our episode notes. So two days after that message from President Trump where he said the coronavirus would disappear, the first person in the United States died from coronavirus. That was February 29th, and it happened in the Seattle region.

Now Washington State, as I said, has more than a thousand cases and counting. Nurses, of course, are seeing all of this up close. Reporter Will Stone says many nurses feel unprepared as they scramble for supplies and for clarity in a quickly changing situation. For 39 years, intensive care nurse Mary Mills has prepared for all kinds of emerging infectious diseases. SARS, MERS, H1N1. Initially when we were intubating all the really sick AIDS patients, everybody was on the same page. We were all trying to figure it out. But this time with coronavirus, it feels different. What they decide I need in terms of my safety is being changed based on availability of product rather than science. Mills works at one of the five hospitals run by Swedish Medical Center in the Seattle area.

Like many health care workers, she's frustrated because the guidance on protective equipment keeps changing. And she's concerned that management is not taking safety seriously enough, especially after some nurses she works with got sick. One went out with a cough and a fever and all the classic five symptoms. On the eighth day, they finally agreed to have her tested for COVID-19. Mills says this only further erodes trust. Thousands of nurses at Swedish hospitals went on strike in January and still have no contract. Their biggest issue is understaffing, which the nurses say can affect patient safety. Now, with coronavirus, Mills worries there won't be enough nurses.

Well, a room and a ventilator don't mean anything if you don't have a nurse. Dr. Chris Dale, chief quality officer for Swedish, says the hospital system just launched pop-up clinics where staff and patients can get tested. Our number one priority remains caregiver safety. We can't effectively provide safe care for patients if our caregivers first aren't safe. Dale says they've also hired about 300 temporary nurses called travel nurses. But the reality is there are not enough masks and other equipment. At Swedish and other hospitals, nurses and doctors are being told to try to clean and reuse their N95 masks.

Wendy Shaw is the charge nurse for an emergency room in Seattle. So we now have to learn how to work with less and how to be a good steward of the resources that we have. Shaw says at her hospital, critical supplies are now locked up. And she's the gatekeeper. She has to question anyone who comes to get a mask. What are you using it for? What patient? What's the procedures? So I have become a jailer, in a sense, of these masks. She has type 1 diabetes, and so does her son. That makes them both high risk. I am cleaning like I have never cleaned before. I'm hyper aware of what I touch, who is brushed up against me. Some nurses are even crowdsourcing masks. Bobby Hobdus, another ICU nurse at Swedish, took to Facebook.

I never thought that we would necessarily be doing this. Her post took off, and she's now collected more than 100 masks. It honestly, it shocked me, and it just really touched me. The outpouring was a bright spot, but Hobdus wonders why nurses have to scrounge for supplies. Sally Watkins is executive director of the Washington State Nurses Association. They are not being protected at the level that they should be. But she's hopeful the region will get more supplies from the federal stockpile soon. Mary Mills, the longtime ICU nurse, says all these problems are distracting at a time when there are patients in Seattle who are dying from COVID-19, sometimes dying alone.

The tragedy of not having family there to support the super sick, and the only people there are the ICU nurses. And Mills wants to be present for them. For NPR News, I'm Will Stone in Seattle. Across the country, three quarters of all K-12 students in the United States have had school canceled because of the coronavirus. That's according to the news organization Education Week. And with so many kids at home, the question that a lot of parents and teachers have is, when will it be safe for schools to reopen? NPR education correspondent Corey Turner has been following all the developments at the state and federal level. And he talked to NPR host David Green about

the confusing guidance that's coming from the CDC about how schools should proceed. So what have you learned about what states are thinking about when they could get things back open again? Well, let's start with what we've heard over the last week from mayors and governors. Sure. I'm ordering a three-week suspension for at least the next two weeks. For three weeks. We will make a first attempt to restart our schools on Monday, April 20th. I am ordering all K-12 schools to close and cease in-person instruction for the duration of the 2019-2020 school year. Not a lot of agreement there. No, obviously it's been a huge range of closures from two to three weeks,

as we heard in Massachusetts, Kentucky, Michigan, a lot of other places. At least five weeks in New York City, we heard Mayor de Blasio in there. And then that last voice was Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, who announced that her schools were going to close for the rest of the school year. And I should mention, California Governor Gavin Newsom said he thought few, if any, California schools will be open before the summer break. So when it comes to how life should change, I mean, a lot of businesses, others have been taking their cues from the CDC.

What is the CDC telling school leaders about what to do here? Well, honestly, that's part of the problem, or at least part of the challenge. Early last week, it wasn't telling school leaders much at all. Worried parents were obviously pressuring school leaders to close. And then Friday, after many states had already announced closures, CDC fleshed out its guidance. And the guidance really surprised a lot of school officials. Losing schools early in the spread of disease for a short time, like two weeks, will be unlikely to stem the spread of disease. The guidance also says schools should wait to close, quote, later in the spread of

disease. And here's the kicker. It says other countries that did close schools, like Hong Kong, have not had more success in reducing the spread than those that did not close schools like Singapore. That's totally confusing. So is the CDC basically saying you can close if you want, but it's not really going to help here? Something like that. And honestly, it actually got more confusing on Monday when the White House released its own guidance, telling people to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people. So I spoke with Dan Domenech. He's head of the School Superintendents Association. And he told me his group was supposed to get some clarity with a promised briefing.

Domenech told me he had 2,500 people sign up for this CDC webinar. But right before it was supposed to happen, CDC canceled. So I reached out to CDC to ask what happened. And they said in a statement, to avoid any confusion, CDC decided to fully adapt to the new guidance from the White House before doing a briefing with school superintendents. We are working to see if we can do a call in the future. In CDC's defense, there is very little data out there on when is the right time to reopen schools. CDC does say that longer closures of eight to 20 weeks may have a greater impact.

Several epidemiologists I spoke with said closing schools early was the right move, and reopening in less than eight weeks is probably unrealistic. And now, obviously, we're hearing several city and state leaders say what seemed unthinkable, that schools may need to stay closed through the summer. NPR's education correspondent, Corey Turner, talking to host David Green. For so many of us right now, the kids are at home while we adults are trying to work from home. If you are among that second group, the adult group, the working from home group, our colleagues at NPR's Life Kit have a few suggestions to help you be more productive. First, just get dressed. Like first thing in the

morning, make it happen, get dressed. It will help you focus. And also use schedules and timers to help you segment the day. Timers to help you focus for periods of time, alarms for meetings, and reminders for breaks. Because it is okay to do a little laundry or connect with your family and friends too. For more on how to work from home, check out NPR's Life Kit. We have a link in the notes of this episode. And for more news on the coronavirus, you can stay up to date on your local public radio station or on NPR.org. I'm Kelly McEvers. Thanks for listening. We will be back with more tomorrow.