Thomas R. Frieden Quotes

Confronting a dangerous pandemic requires containing spread wherever it is reasonably possible. Sensible measures such as universal masking, testing and widespread and rapid contact tracing can help. The best way to protect the vulnerable is to try to protect everyone.

We can't predict when infectios diseases will break out, but their breakout is inevitable. That is why we must be prepared.

As demonstrated by the emergence of the Mexican swine flu in the U.S., infectious diseases have little respect for borders; helping developing countries detect and deal with their diseases is the surest way for us to protect ourselves from new and potentially devastating epidemics.

What works most effectively for quelling disease outbreaks like Ebola is not quarantining huge populations. What works is focusing on and isolating the sick and those in direct contact with them as they are at highest risk of infection. This strategy worked with SARS, and it worked during the H1N1 flu pandemic.

If you really want to isolate a disease, then you have to isolate the people who carry it.

Today we know the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola infection is through public health measures.

I believe we have to nip Ebola in the bud before it spreads through Africa and to other countries.

The Health Commissioner has given us good advice. It's smarter to keep the COVID patients separate. You don't want a person who goes into a hospital with one situation developing COVID because they happened to be exposed.

I've had to confront a lot of pandemics and infectious diseases around the globe.

If a vaccine works, then the vaccinators might conceivably set up what's known as ring vaccinations around Ebola hot spots. In this technique, medical workers simply vaccinate everybody in a ring, miles deep, around a focus of a virus.

All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans. Countries should remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia.

In today's world, new infections and diseases can spread across the country and even across the world in a matter of days, or even hours, making early detection critical.

We cannot think of the old days when we were dealing with SARS. It's a totally different ballgame now.

College campuses are a focus of prevention efforts for meningococcal disease because of the increased incidence of the disease during adolescence and young adulthood, as well as transmission from crowded living conditions and social behaviors common among college students.

Epidemiologists study patterns in order to combat infection. Stories about epidemics follow patterns, too. Stories aren't often deadly, but they can be virulent: spreading fast, weakening resistance, wreaking havoc.

With epidemics, people have been standing on the shore, waiting for the gusher to hit the ocean. But to prevent epidemics, you have to look at the various little sources that feed into the river.

Avian flu, which has already killed 50 people, is only a mutation away from being transmissible from person to person. We have no immunity, no vaccines, and no cure. It is imperative that we strengthen our domestic vaccine supply, expand legal protections, encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors, and advance research and development. These initiatives will help protect us from a deadly viral outbreak that experts warn could come to our shores any day.

Mr. Speaker, it is matter of common knowledge that an epidemic of alarming proportions is prevailing throughout the country. Out of an abundant precaution the Senate has ordered the galleries closed, which action, I understand, meets with the approval of the medical authorities, and so I ask unanimous consent that the Speaker be instructed to close the galleries of this House until further action shall be taken by the House.

Unfortunately, infectious diseases don’t pay much attention to budget cycles.

Yellow fever outbreaks are not uncommon. But, as with other infectious diseases, when they occur in urban areas, they can play out very differently - not least in terms of the speed and scale at which they can spread.

We have to keep up our guard. We won't get the risk of Ebola to zero in the U.S. until we stop it in West Africa. And Ebola is hard to fight. It requires intensity. It requires speed and flexibility.

Ebola so scary and so unfamiliar, it's really important to outline what the facts are and that we know how to control it. We control it by traditional public health measures. We do that, and Ebola goes away.

With infectious disease, without vaccines, there's no safety in numbers.

The CDC and the federal government have already admitted that they have failed to get ahead of the spread of Ebola in Texas, and we aren't going to let that happen in Florida.

I don't want to be in the clubhouse, if I have the coronavirus or something like that, coming into the clubhouse and spread to everybody, that's not good, right?