CBS Mark Knoller more or less tweeted the whole White House press briefing. Everything you wanted to know about swine flu:
WH says Obama has ordered ‘very active, aggressive and coordinated response” to swine flu outbreak.
Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan says Obama “very concerned” about the swine flu threat and is “monitoring very closely.”
latest CDC count on swine flu cases in US: 20 in five states. NY, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and California
what can you do? WH says practice personal hygience: washing hands. and if you feel sick – stay home – so as not to spread illness.
CDC acting director Dr Richard Besser says “frequent hand washing” an effective way to reduce transmission of swine flu.
Napolitano says HHS declaring “public health emergency” – but says it’s standard operating procedure in situation like this.
Napolitano stresses “you cannot get swine flu from eating pork” but govt stepping up screening and testing of livestock.
napolitano says “everything looks fine” with U.S. food supply.
Napolitano says government needs public help to contain outbreak: wash your hands and if sick – stay at home.
WH/Gibbs says “far too early” to weigh possible economic impact of swine flu threat.
WH/Gibbs says Obama’s health was “never in danger” despite is visit to Mexico ten days ago.
WH official: “no evidence whatsoever that we have seen” that swine flu outbreak the result of bio-terrorism.
Though HHS Secretary is not in place, WH/Gibbs says it’s not adversely impacting federal response to swine flu threat.
Questions on swine flu threat? WH recommends the CDC website @ cdc.gov
No travel advisory yet from State Dept but CDC has posted an outbreak notification on Mexico.
CDC says it has created “seed stock” for developing vaccine – but not yet decided one is needed.
more on “public health emergency.” that declaration enables govt to free up resources for “prevention and mitigation” of swine flu.
WH/Gibbs says incubation for swine flu is 24-48 hours. Obama left Mexico a week ago friday – and is fine.
On declaration of “public health emergency,” DHS/Napolitano says she would prefer to call it “declaration of emergency preparedness.”
That’s certainly an exhaustive twitter feed. Knoller isn’t the only active briefing-tweeter. WaPo’s Chris Cillizza often live-tweets the briefings, on @HyperFix, one of his two feeds. (@TheFix is the other).