Biden Talks - Gibbs Explains What VP Meant
As I post this, Gibbs is doing a press conference letting us know what Biden meant to say! CP
Updated at 1:37 am Friday:Updated at 3:28 Thursday: Mass Transit Upside with Fearmongering - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/30/airline-subway-officials-say-travel-remains-safe-despite-bidens-statement/
Biden: Avoid Planes, Trains, Automobiles
The vice president says if a family member asked him about traveling, he'd advise staying away from public transportation to avoid swine flu.
President Obama may be warning Americans not to panic over the flu outbreak that is spreading across the world, but Vice President Biden didn't tamp down the hyperbole Thursday, saying he would tell his family not to get on a plane right now or go in any confined space.
Speaking on NBC's "Today," Biden, a longtime Amtrak rider who has commuted for decades daily from Delaware to Washington, D.C., said he wouldn't advise family necessarily against going to Mexico, the source of the H1N1 outbreak, but he wouldn't tell them to get into any small area like a subway car, automobile, classroom or airplane.
"I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places right now," Biden said. "It's not that its going to Mexico, it's that you are in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes, it goes everywhere through the aircraft. That's me."
He added that his advice is offered as a means to slow down the spread of the flu, which has now resulted in infections in 11 states and 100 schools being shut down around the nation.
"I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway. From my perspective, it relates to is mitigation. If you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes that's one thing. If you're in a closed aircraft, a closed container, closed car, a closed classroom, it's a different thing," Biden said.
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