Global health doctor explains why coronavirus scares him more than Ebola: 'We knew and we didn't prepare'

Dr. Craig Spencer, the director of Global Health Emergency Medicine at Columbia Medical Center explained in an interview with "The View" that the coronavirus is far worse than what he saw in Africa during the Ebola crisis. While helping sick patients in West Africa, he contracted Ebola.

Speaking to co-host Sara Haines, Dr. Spencer explained that they would leave for lunch and when they came back some patients they were working with would be dead.

"It was devastating. There wasn't a great response nationally. We were slow to respond, and because of that, unfortunately, people that I worked with or patients that I saw died," he continued. "My concern right now with COVID is we didn't take it seriously early enough. We were warned by China and we didn't react. We were warned by Italy and we didn't really prepare. In fact, we've known since West Africa that we need to be prepared. We need to build these pandemic response systems. We just haven't been funding it here in the United States the way that we should have. We're seeing the complications and the consequences of that right now."

He went on to say that people are still not taking it as seriously as they should and that we still are not testing enough.

He also said that it isn't accurate that the virus will disappear in the summer. Currently, cases are exploding in New Orleans and Florida where the weather is warm. He noted that warmer countries like Vietnam and Singapore also had an outbreak during their summer.

See the videos of his briefing below:

Part 1:

Part 2: