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Obama Stubbornly Refuses Ebola Travel Ban
The calls are growing louder for the Obama administration to ban travel from countries dealing with Ebola virus outbreaks. But, throwing caution to the wind, the White House refuses to even entertain this common-sense first step to protect the United States from experiencing an outbreak of its own.
“There are protocols in place where those individuals who are leaving West Africa and traveling to the West are screened,” White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said yesterday. “We’ve also provided guidance to pilots, flight attendants and others who… are sort of responsible for staffing our transportation infrastructure, we’ve given them guidance for monitoring the health and well-being of travelers, to ensure that if they notice individuals who are exhibiting symptoms that seem to be consistent with Ebola, that the proper authorities are notified.”
No slight intended, but I’m nervous that our first line of defense from a global pandemic is an overworked stewardess who couldn’t get my Bloody Mary order right. Worse still, the administration is treating Ebola not like a disease, but as a civil rights issue. Today, State Department Spokesman/Hashtag aficionada Jen Psaki denounced travel bans as ideologically problematic.
“It actually would be counterproductive, in our view, to put that type of limitation on people,” Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on the idea of a flight ban. “It remains essential that the world community engage in order to help the effected countries address and contain this ongoing health crisis.”
While some have said a travel ban should be imposed because of uncertainties about the spread of the disease in the United States, Psaki said a ban would prevent doctors from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from traveling to the United States to receive training on how to deal with the virus. She said some doctors would soon be arriving in the U.S. for that purpose.
That’s right: We’re flying in medical personnel from Ebola hot zones, many of whom may have recently treated patients suffering from the contagious disease. Has Ms. Psaki heard of teleconferences? Why would doctors need to fly here when they could use Skype?
As I write this, various political functionaries are giving an Ebola presser at the White House. Live on CNN, they insist there is nothing, nothing at all, for anyone to worry their pretty little heads about. The four bureaucrats and one general’s halting list of bullet points, vague promises and dutiful praise of Obama’s competence instills approximately zero confidence.
Few Americans are in panic mode about this medical emergency, but many are increasingly concerned about our government’s chirpy “we got this” assurances. After nearly six years of Obama, we’re used to being lied to, spun, and mocked for disagreeing with the spin.
This deep public unease will make it tough for Obama to avoid the inevitable. He’d be far better off banning travel immediately.
Published in General
This has to be one of the most stupid comments ever. The “screening” consists of
A. Asking them about possible exposure ( they may not be aware of exposure AND people will lie ).
B. Checking their temperature ( ibuprofen and the fact you run a fever AFTER you get sick).
So you can be an asymptomatic carrier of the virus for up to 21 days and NO SCREENING PROCEDURE IS GOING TO DETECT THAT. So 3 weeks later, when they find the individual delirious in his hotel room vomiting and sweating, and EMS brings them in to the ER it might not be so easy to connect the fact this person was recently in Liberia or Ghana. At least not before a lot of people are exposed to the risk of infection…..
The only rational reaction to this is to stop travel from affected areas unless people are willing to go into strict quarantine before entering the US. That of course is un PC and probably racist of me…
Why bother?
Just go to a major airport, and use your sweaty hands to shake hands with people getting on planes going to various destinations in the US. Mission Accomplished.
I’ve got to say I’m a little stunned at the casual attitude being taken towards this disease by many.
While not as contagious as many other diseases the mortality associated with it is very high.
I happened to be doing an Infectious Disease rotation in medical school in 1982, right when the first cases of HIV were appearing. At the time we had NO idea what was going on. I remember a patient who was a middle aged white male, with what would later be classified as classic AIDS whose only unusual history was frequent trips to Haiti to buy furniture for his store. We did every test we could think of all negative for every known disease we could think of. Including multiple sets of blood cultures, which during the collection of one time I proceeded to STICK MYSELF with a needle, something we now know has about a 1% chance of transmitting HIV. My Infectious Disease professor returned from the first national conference on “GRID” as it was known at the time and told us “there’s something new and unusual out there”. He also told us students and Residents ” for the time being I wouldn’t get the Hepatitis C vaccine until we know more “( at the time it was made from pooled serum from Hep C positive patients, mainly gay men and IV drug users. The new vaccine is made from recombinant DNA and poses no threat). I’d rather not be on the cutting edge of yet another epidemic this late in my career.
We let HIV kill a lot more people then it needed to once we had an idea of what we were dealing with by not taking early simple steps like shutting down the bath houses and screening the blood supply. Lets not make the same mistake here, the key to limiting the spread of Ebola at this point is limiting travel to and from the Hot Zone. Ideally we should limit travel from the area as much as possible. Instead of sending trainers or worse flying healthcare workers in from West Africa we should use telemedicine as much as possible. Anyone entering the US from the area should ideally be placed in quarantine for 3 weeks. Its not time to panic, it is time to take some pretty basic prevention actions.