Monitoring Period Almost Over for 48 People in Dallas; TSA Officer Self- Monitoring for Ebola; Cleaning Crew for Ebola Patient's Apartment
SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York. We're following two major stories at this hour. One, developments in the case of the missing UVA student, Hannah Graham. Possible remains found in the investigation in that case. We also continue to follow the national response to the Ebola outbreak. The plan now, to combat the far-reaching effects of Ebola, and that is to leave no stone unturned. CNN has just learned that the TSA officer who patted down Ebola patient, Amber Vinson, in Cleveland on October 13th is now self monitoring as a precautionary measure. Meanwhile, Frontier Airlines is scrambling to contact as many as 800 passengers who may have flown on the same plane that Vinson flew on. And, a cruise ship is steaming back to Galveston, Texas, with a lab supervisor who may have come into contact with Ebola via a specimen from Thomas Eric Duncan. Amber Vinson and Nina Pham, still recovering at specially equipped hospitals. The monitoring period for the 48 people in Dallas who had contact with Liberian Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan is almost over. That's 21 days. That will be up tomorrow. He died last week, you'll remember. And now the question remains, are there any other people who need to be under observation? CNN's Alina Machado joining us live from Dallas. Alina, let me start with Duncan's girlfriend and her family. Will they be allowed to go back to their apartment now? Have they reached the end of that 21-day monitoring period?</s>ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, Dallas county judge Clay Jenkins tells us the family will not be returning to the apartment, because their lease was already up. Instead, several community leaders have stepped up and they have found her a new place to live. So once that monitoring period ends for her, she will be going to a different place.</s>SCIUTTO: Now, tomorrow could be a promising milestone, because you are at the end of the 21-day period where, which is the incubation period for this virus, and if they don't show it in that period, that means they're not going to get sick. There were 48 people who came into contact with Duncan. So, this means tomorrow, Alina, they will no longer be monitored, assuming they get past that 21-day benchmark?</s>MACHADO: That's our understanding. Dallas County judge, the judge who I mentioned, Clay Jenkins told us the incubation period for these 48 people will end tomorrow night and Monday, so midnight Monday. And once that's over, they're supposed to be out of the red zone, so to speak.</s>SCIUTTO: Each of those markers, it would mean at least in the case of the first patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, that he did not cause anymore infections, I suppose. But you have these other patients already been infected from him, Nina Pham, Amber Vinson, and then they have 21-day periods, right? So those people came into contact with them and they still need to be monitored for some time.</s>MACHADO: Right, right. There are already dozens of health care workers who are being monitored, because they came into contact with those two nurses. And as you mentioned, there is a 21-day incubation period, so they will be monitored for 21 days after their last known exposure.</s>SCIUTTO: Right. And I suppose the point you'll get to, hopefully, is you pass all those 21-day periods with all the cases and then you're declared Ebola-free, which has happened, incredibly, perhaps, before the U.S. for countries like Nigeria and Senegal. And I imagine, Alina, that's what everybody is aiming for, you have no cases and everybody is past the 21-day period.</s>MACHADO: Absolutely. That's what everybody is hoping for here in Dallas.</s>SCIUTTO: OK. Thanks very much, Alina Machado. She's in Dallas. I want to turn now to Dr. Alexander Garza, health affairs for the Department of Homeland Security. He's also associate professor of epidemiology at St. Louis University. We have just learned that a TSA officer who patted down Ebola patient Amber Vinson. She's a nurse who contracted it from Thomas Duncan, has now decided to self monitor as a precautionary measure. To your knowledge, no signs of the disease, right? This is a precaution.</s>DR. ALEXANDER GARZA, ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY: Right, right. This is -- this is just what you said it is. It's a precaution. So patting down Amber Vinson in the airport when she was not having any real signs of infection, although she had that elevated temperature. But again, you have to be in contact with bodily fluids to really be at risk of contracting the disease.</s>SCIUTTO: Now, Dr. Garza, we have had some discussion on this program earlier with health experts about -- you need reaction, right? You need to be on top of this, but there is the possibility of overreaction. And I was recounting the story at the Pentagon yesterday, someone got sick outside the back bathroom and they brought in people with hazmat suits to clean it up. And you just wonder, at what point you're allocating or we as a country are allocating resources that could be better allocated elsewhere, where there really is a threat. How do you get that balance right?</s>GARZA: Right. And so it has to be a prudent response, right? Otherwise, there's no upper limit. And so it's easy to understand, though, in the early days of an exposure to something that's new and novel and really sort of unknown, that you would the pendulum swing in such a far direction. But I think as more people get used to dealing with this issue, they become -- if they ever become more comfortable in dealing with this issue, that you can start ratcheting it back, and really start thinking about this from a risk-based perspective. What is my risk, and then how can I respond appropriately to that risk?</s>SCIUTTO: Well, one question that I imagine our viewers have is this. You have Amber Vinson. She's getting on the plane. She is patted down by a TSA officer. He, as a precaution, self-quarantines. He then presumably patted down other passengers afterwards. Now, we know medically that you're not contagious until you develop the disease and have symptoms. But does anyone think of then taking that next step just to make sure that everybody feels comfortable? I mean, how far do you carry each of these precautionary steps?</s>GARZA: Right. Exactly. And I think that was the -- you know, what I was trying to get across. What's the upper limit now? So, presumably, the contact was very minimal. I mean, I've been patted at the airport before as well. And you know, it's usually your outer garments, they're wearing gloves, they change their gloves. But again, you have to be exposed to bodily fluids in order to contract the virus. And so, the risk of exposure to anyone else who is patted down by this TSA officer is virtually nil.</s>SCIUTTO: You're aware that the president just yesterday appointed an Ebola czar. He didn't use the term "czar" but we're used to this now. There have been drug czars and czars or other things.</s>GARZA: Right.</s>SCIUTTO: But knowing that there are so many agencies involved in the response, yours being one of them, DHS, that you have the CDC, you have NIH, you have individual hospitals, police forces, et cetera. In your view, is it smart to have a national figure in the White House that's coordinating everything?</s>GARZA: Well, yes and no. So, yes, because really, the White House, I think, is the only place where you can have that position, and for exactly those reasons that you mentioned. It's spanning multiple different federal agencies. But not just the federal agencies, also those state and local providers, as well as those private providers, those health care providers, nurses, doctors, infectious disease specialists, public health officials. And so, it's a very broad umbrella. And there's really no one position in a federal agency that can oversee that entire operation. So, it really does need to be coordinated a very high level. And the national security staff, the White House, is -- is the best place to put that.</s>SCIUTTO: Dr. Alexander Garza, former assistant secretary for health affairs at the Department of Homeland Security -- thanks for joining us.</s>GARZA: Thank you.</s>SCIUTTO: Well, they are the dealing with Ebola on the front lines. The cleaning crews responsible for cleaning the Ebola patients residences and the hospitals. Coming up, how they're dealing with the new demand. And more on the other major story we're following, the grim discovery in Charlottesville, Virginia. Why this may closing the book on the search for the missing UVA student, Hannah Graham.