12:34 P.M. EDT

MR. GIBBS:   Good afternoon, guys. I am so incredibly sick of all you people.   Thank you for taking some time out of your Sunday afternoon.  Can't I EVER TAKE A DAY OFF!  We wanted to bring together many of the people that have the primary governmental responsibility in dealing with the situation and to discuss the government’s capacity and capability to discuss the steps the government is taking to address this.  Of course you might notice that the Secretary of Health and Human Services is not here, because WE DON"T HAVE ONE!!!!

So with that I’ll turn it over to Mr. Brennan.

MR. BRENNAN (Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism):  Thank you, Robert. And thank you, everyone, for coming here today.

Obviously, President Obama is very concerned about the recent cases of swine flu that have been identified in the United States, as well as the outbreak in Mexico. The President actually cannot believe that he is not only facng the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression but now a possible PANDEMIC.   This is like a bad B novel!  The President’s thoughts are with those who have been affected by this illness. He is wishing more Republicans had accompanied him on his recent trip to Mexico.   He is monitoring the situation very closely and has supported a very active, progressive and coordinated response by his administration. Unfortunately, we do not have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who would be the logical person to coordinate this. 

The President wants Americans to be fully informed of the situation, which is why we have convened this press briefing today.  Actually, he knows all you a-holes from 24 hour news will be disseminating mis-information and wreaking havoc, so we are here today to brief you.  The vast majority of these cases have occurred in Mexico.  At least, this is what we are telling you.  Building on the close bilateral cooperation that President Obama advanced during his recent visit to Mexico, I am SO GLAD I did not go on that trip!  he has asked me to publicly convey his full support to President Calderón, the Mexican government and the Mexican people in their efforts to contain the outbreak. The possible  damage caused by the delay in their recognition of this virus has not even begun to be realized.

Both the U.S. and Mexican governments are taking steps to reduce the potential for further transmission.  Finally! Helloooo Mexico.  Our goal is simple: to communicate information quickly and clearly for our citizens, to rapidly address any new cases that emerge, and to have the capacity to effectively limit the spread. MUST NOT PANIC 

At this point a top priority is to ensure that communication is robust and that medical surveillance efforts are fully activated.  That is because this virus is robust and fully activated.  This will enable both the rapid identification and broad notification of any new cases that may occur in the U.S., as well as in Mexico. That is because Mexico's lack of communiciation has enabled  the rapid spreading of the virus across a broad segment of the population.

We believe that our increased surveillance efforts have resulted in the identification of new cases over the last 24 hours.  You really do not want to know how many more we will be telling you about.  Early identification is vitally important to the overall effort.  

DR. BESSER:  Deep breath.  Thank you, Mr. Brennan. First, I want to say that our hearts go out to the people in Mexico and the people in the United States who’ve been impacted by this outbreak.   People around the country and around the globe are concerned with this situation we’re seeing, and we’re concerned as well. We are not concerned, we are FREAKING OUT!  As we look for cases of swine flu, we are seeing more cases of swine flu.  Oh, are we ever seeing more cases.  We expect to see more cases of swine flu.   You do not even want to know.  We’re responding and we’re responding aggressively to try and learn about this outbreak and to implement measures to control this outbreak.

Let me provide for you an update in terms of where we are today and what kinds of public health actions are being taken here as well as abroad. Today we can confirm that there are 20 cases of swine flu in the United States.   We have five affected states: There are eight cases confirmed in New York City, there’s one case confirmed in Ohio, two in Kansas, two in Texas, and seven in California. We fully expect this to increase exponentially.

And again, as we continue to look for cases, I expect that we’re going to find them.  We’ve ramped up our surveillance around the country to try and understand better what is the scope, what is the magnitude of this outbreak. 

The good news --spin, spin,spin, spin  all of the individuals in this country who have been identified as cases have recovered.  Only one individual had to be hospitalized. But I expect as we continue to look for cases, we are going to see a broader spectrum of disease. What we know about this virus is it looks to be the same virus as is causing the situation in Mexico. This is one bad mother.  And given the reports out of Mexico, I would expect that over time we’re going to see more severe disease in this country. 

There are some things that it’s important people understand:  Flu viruses are extremely unpredictable and variable; flu viruses can mutate extremely rapidly and become much more dangerous very quickly, literally within a matter of weeks;   outbreaks of infectious disease are extremely unpredictable and variable. And so over time what we say about this and what we learn will change.  We really do not know what we are doing.  Expect changes in terms of the number of cases. by the minute We’re going to try and give you consistent information and have it on our web site once a day, so that we don’t get into the situation where you’re hearing different numbers of cases throughout the day -- we’re going to report that daily. This will very soon spiral out of control and we will not be able to keep up with it.

We expect that we’re going to be changing our recommendations over time based on what we learn.  We are working hard with teams of psychologists to determine the best way to tell people how serious this is without causing mass panic And that’s an important thing.  You’ll start to see different activities taking place in different parts of the country, depending on the local outbreak picture -- and that’s good.  We just hope these are not vigilante type activities  You want people to respond based on what the situation is in their community, based on what situations are in particular countries.

Because of this speed in which things are progressing, MUTATING  you will at find -- at times find inconsistent information, and we’re going to work really hard to make sure that that doesn’t stay up for long. But as we’re updating recommendations and they’re going out through various sources, you may find some inconsistency and we will work to minimize that.  Again, we really do not know what the fuck we are doing.

This is moving fast, but I want you to understand that we view this more as a marathon.  Yes, a marathon being run at a 4 minute mile pace.   We do think that this will continue to spread, but we are taking aggressive actions to minimize the impact on people’s health.  the number of people who die.

We issued two days ago an outbreak notice on our web site regarding travel to Mexico.  Only a complete idiot would travel to Mexico, but we are not closing borders yet because we are afraid that will create mass panic.  It indicated that if you are traveling to Mexico, that you look at that to see what precautions could you take as an individual to reduce the likelihood that you became ill. We’re going to continue to evaluate the situation in Mexico, and if need be we will increase the warnings based on what the situation warrants.  We will be closing the borders as soon as we have security measures in place.

ABRIDGED

And I think almost done, almost done  that the last thing I want to mention is that whenever we see a novel strain of influenza, we begin our work in the event that a vaccine needs to be manufactured. So we’ve created that seed stock, we’ve identified that virus, and discussions are underway so that should we decide to work on manufacturing a vaccine, we can work towards that goal very quickly. We are actually working around the clock to manufacture this right now but are not telling you because it takes months to produce at a mass level, and most of you will never get the vaccine.

ABRIDGED

SECRETARY NAPOLITANO:  

ABRIDGED

The first thing I want to announce today is that the Department of Health and Human Services will declare today a public health emergency in the United States. Notice I did not say, The Secretary of the Dept. because WE DON'T HAVE ONE.  That sounds more severe than really it is.  spin,spin,spin,spin.  This is standard operating procedure and allows us to free up federal, state, and local agencies and their resources for prevention and mitigation; it allows us to use medication and diagnostic tests that we might not otherwise be able to use, particularly on very young children; and it releases funds for the acquisition of additional antivirals. We are doing this because this is really, really, really, SEVERE.

So you’ll see those declarations coming out today. And when I say “standard operating procedure,” that’s exactly what I mean.  We issued similar declarations for the recent floods in Minnesota and North Dakota and for the inauguration. yeah, like a flood is equal to a PANDEMIC

Second, I want to give you some information about where we are with respect to antiviral drugs. These are the kinds of things you would take should you get sick with this strain of flu.  We have 50 million treatment courses of antiviral drugs -- Tamiflu and Relenza -- in the strategic national stockpile.  350 million Americans.  In 1918 approximately 25% of the population was infected, so we really would need 87 million doses to adequately treat our population if the rate of infection is comparable to 1918.  We are releasing 25 percent of those courses, making them available to all of the states, but particularly prioritizing the states where we already have confirmed incidents of the flu. In addition, the Department of Defense has procured and strategically prepositioned 7 million treatment courses of Tamiflu. The bottom line is there really are not enough antivirals for everyone if this becomes a pandemic.

And again, the government can’t solve this alone. We need everybody in the United States to take some responsibility here. If you are sick, stay home.  IF YOU ARE SICK, STAY HOME!!! Wash your hands, WASH YOUR FRIGGIN HANDS! take all of those reasonable measures; that will help us mitigate, contain how many people actually get sick in our country.  May God protect and keep us all safe and healthy.

Thank you.