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Downplaying the Ebola threat

The White House’s lack of a timely response to the increasing danger from Ebola is dangerously similar to Mr. Obama’s detached attitude towards other serious threats.

Since first taking office, the Obama Administration has consistently downplayed matters directly related to the safety of the American public from international sources, whether from military threats, terrorism, or illegal immigration.  As the Ebola contagion reaches unprecedented levels in West Africa, nations with direct service to Liberia, including Britain, France, Kenya, Cote D’Ivoire and Nigeria have restricted flights.  The U.S. has not.

The White House  has outlined three steps in response to the Ebola danger:

  1. “Caring for the patient, to provide the most effective care possible, and as safely as possible, to maximize the chances that the patient will recover.
  2. Identifying all people who may have had contactwith the patient while he could have been infectious.
  3. Monitoring those peopleif they develop fever — isolate and care for them, and eliminate any chances that they will infect other people.”

Clearly absent from those steps is a specific concentration on preventing the disease from entering American shores. The White House also continues to downplay the possibility of the disease mutating and becoming infectious through airborne means, though some researchers have expressed concern over this possibility. In a recent New York Times  article, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, Michael Osterholm, noted: “virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: … an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air.”
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While humanitarian assistance, including the sending of trained medical personnel is universally supported, the White House’s plan to send three thousand troops has raised a number of public safety issues, both for the soldiers themselves as well as for the general public upon their return to the U.S.  The concern became even more salient following reports of an NBC cameraman’s infection, demonstrating that the disease is not containable.

The case of Thomas Eric Duncan, a West African who has become the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola, clearly demonstrates the danger this malady imposes on the American homeland.

In a 2010 decision the Obama Administration decided  to scrap proposals  first set in place by the Bush Administration in 2005 in response to the potential spread of the Avian flu. It would have given the federal government wider authority to confront the spread of contagious diseases.

Health care workers have discussed fears about the adequacy of their facilities and procedures.  In a Washington Post interview, CDC spokeswoman Abbigail Tumpey admitted that “We as a health care system have to make sure not to let our guard down and be vigilant that patients with Ebola could show up at any U.S. health care facility…”

This lack of attention to what should be a significant priority of the Executive Branch has produced highly undesirable effects. It is similar to the unrealistic attitude Mr. Obama has displayed towards the military buildups by China and Russia,  and his hesitancy to confront Islamic extremism. After six years, the pattern is clear, and the implications distressing.