Transcript: Dr. Richard Besser on "Face the Nation," July 19, 2020
The following is a transcript of an interview with former Acting CDC Director Dr. Richard Besser that aired Sunday, July 19, 2020, on "Face the Nation."
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION. This morning, the number of deaths in the U.S. due to COVID-19 has officially reached yet another tragic benchmark, 140,000. Dr. Richard Besser is the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the former acting director for the CDC. He joins us from Princeton, New Jersey. Good morning.
FORMER CDC DIRECTOR DOCTOR RICHARD BESSER: Morning, MARGARET. Good to be here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Doctor, I'm glad you're here. I want to first ask you, because I know you worked in Atlanta, you knew Congressman John Lewis, who, as you know, passed away on Friday. In reading up on him, it stood out to me that he had spent a good deal of time on health disparities in the minority community and worked on that issue and I wonder if that's something you collaborated with him on?
DR. BESSER: Well, you know, we didn't work directly, but I- I lived in his district and his district included the CDC and in his entire career focused on civil rights, focused on trying to undo structural racism, it has a direct impact on health. He was active until the very end of his life. And in- in preparing to come here to speak with you, I found a quote that he- he- he has from- from May in a- a congressional committee. He said, "In the wake of this deadly virus, we should admit we've fallen short. Health inequality is once again costing lives on a scale that no one can ignore. In order to save lives and right this wrong, we must listen, learn and take action." And most importantly, he called on Congress to put ego and ideology aside and- and that's one of the biggest challenges we're seeing right now with this pandemic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, to that point, according to CDC data, Hispanics, Latinos are hospitalized nationwide for COVID-19 at four times the rate of whites. The black community, we know, is disproportionately impacted. You're a pediatrician by training. Do you expect these patterns that we have seen to be replicated among children when we look at the possibility of them returning to classrooms, at least partially. in the fall?
DR. BESSER: Well, if we're not intentional about making sure that doesn't happen, it will happen. The dea- the death rate for blacks, Latinos, Native Americans far surpasses their proportion of the population. And if you look at how we fund schools in America, most of it's done off property taxes. So wealthy communities are going to be able to make the- the adjustments to their schools that are necessary for them to be safe places for children, for teachers and staff. That's very expensive. It takes looking at your airflow. It looks- making sure that you have enough classrooms so that you don't need as many children in each class and they can socially distance. It means hiring staff who can decontaminate classrooms and disinfect them every night and- and staff to- to screen staff and children every morning. And in low income communities, schools have been under invested in for- for- for generations without additional resources. We will see children of color, black and brown children, disproportionately affected as schools start to reopen.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, you warned in an Op-Ed this week, that got a lot of attention, along with three other former CDC directors, that health data is being politicized in a way that you said is really unprecedented. You said, "The terrible effect of undermining the CDC plays out in our population." You called it willful disregard for public health guidelines, leading to a sharp rise in infections and deaths. Are people within the- the CDC telling you that they feel their health data is being undermined and politicized?
DR. BESSER: Well, what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing are the same thing, and that's that CDC is not out front in their typical traditional leadership role, driving the response to this. And we're seeing political considerations continually over- over- overtaking those of public health. We have the world's leading public health agency and they provide direction not just across the- the federal government, but to state and local public health. And without them leading this response, without it being driven by- by science, we're going to have what's happening right now, which is an out of control pandemic continue for months and months and months to come.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But respectfully, though, you know, the CDC has admitted having made some mistakes, not just- so, you know, there is a question here about their competence as an agency due to these early admitted problems with testing kits--
DR. BESSER: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Slow to warn the public about the idea that there's asymptomatic transmission and aerosol transmission of this. The mask guidance was very, very late. What's going on? Are- are they--
DR. BESSER: Well, yeah--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --falling short or are you saying they're being muzzled?
DR. BESSER: Well, I- I think there's a little of both going on here. You know, I ran emergency preparedness and response at CDC for four- for four years and led the agency during the start of the swine flu pandemic in 2009 and every response to a new public health emergency, you'll try things and some of them won't work. But when you're in a daily conversation with the public, you develop trust. You explain what you know, what you don't know and what studies you're doing to try and- and learn. And so when you try something and it doesn't work, you have the opportunity to explain what you've learned and what you want to do going forward. The mask issue is- is a great example. Early on, the CDC was not recommending masks in public. They were recommending masks for health care providers. But increasing studies and data showed that because so many people can spread this before they have any symptoms, there was value in the general public wearing masks. But without CDC meeting every day with the media, hearing what the public and the press were concerned about, there was no way to bring the public along on that journey. So it looked like a flip flop and it didn't lead to people making those changes. I found the questions that I got from the press every day led us to do a much better job at CDC.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, obviously, we're talking to our own book here, but we would love to have the CDC director on the program. And we thank you for your time today. We'll be right back.