Julie Gerberding
Julie Gerberding
Julie Louise Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H., is an American infectious disease expert and the former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventionand administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry...
certainly fast help lives people prepared protect save steps taking today
Frankly, we're not as prepared as we need to be. We're certainly doing more today than we were even two years ago so we're making fast progress. The steps we're taking now really will save lives and will really help us do more to protect people in the future.
prepared
Frankly, we're not as prepared as we need to be.
time water
This water is not going away any time soon.
attention concerns criteria develop flu illness medical meet optimistic parts people plenty seek sure
We are cautiously optimistic that at least in some parts of the country, influenza may have peaked. But there's still plenty of flu out there, and we're still encouraging people with flu-like illness who meet the criteria for concerns or complications to be sure and seek medical attention if they do develop the illness.
cases expect point predict time virus
We expect more cases - definitely. We really can't predict at this point of time where the virus will go next.
certainly dealing last learned year
We certainly learned last year that there are always some uncertainties in dealing with influenza.
activity difficult early flu impact local predict season seeing seven severe spectrum state ultimately
We're very early in the flu season this year. We're seeing very sporadic activity in seven states, and one state with local activity, but it's way at the very early stages. So it's difficult to predict how severe the season will be, when it will take off, and when it will peak, and what ultimately the spectrum of impact will be,
discordant flood volunteers
We don't want volunteers to flood in a discordant way.
chances human risk situation sure taking threat
While the risk of the situation is very low, we're not taking any chances and we're doing everything we can to make sure that there is no threat to human health.
disease infectious soon
We could see an outbreak today, or we may not ever see an outbreak of infectious disease in this context. It is too soon to say.
early emerge flu hoping late past peak phase seen though
Even though we're hoping that we're past the peak for this early phase of the season, in past years we have seen flu come back, ... And we've also seen new strains emerge late in the season. So it's still important to be vigilant.
engage gearing health pointed public ready stood system terrorism
We also have a public health system that's been gearing up for terrorism and other threats, and really stood pointed and ready to engage in this effort.
prepared steps
We've no idea if it will become transmissible from one person to another efficiently, but we've got to take the steps now to get prepared for that.
closer pandemic year
We've probably never been closer to a pandemic than the year 1917.