Posted on 10/09/2014 1:25:38 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A growing number of Democrats are pressuring President Obama to ban flights to Ebola-ravaged countries despite repeated warnings from global health leaders that closing borders could accelerate the crisis.
A group of 27 lawmakers, including three Democrats, signed a letter Wednesday urging Obama to ignore health officials and immediately halt flights from the West African countries worst-affected by Ebola.
The lawmakers accused Obama of attempting to “pass the buck” onto organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), which have advised against travel bans. Obama has said he would not ban travel unless the WHO reversed its position.
“[The WHO] has no duty to protect the lives and well-being of Americans, as you do. Furthermore, it has utterly failed to stem the epidemic through its own action. The responsibility for this decision is yours, not theirs,” they wrote.
The three Democrats — Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa) – are among the growing handful in their party who have publicly criticized the Obama administration’s response to Ebola.
Sinema faces a tough reelection challenge from Wendy Rogers, a retired Air Force pilot.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla) also called for travel bans earlier this week, joining dozens of Republicans who have urged for similar action.
Fifty-eight percent of people support travel bans as a way of stopping the spread of the virus, according to a survey of nearly 1,000 people released Thursday.
Ebola has killed more than 3,300 people over the last year, but concerns were not widespread in the U.S. until August, when several infected Americans were brought home for treatment.
Those fears escalated in late September, when a Liberian man was diagnosed with the disease after flying to Dallas. The patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, died Wednesday.
In their letter, the lawmakers also told Obama to consider quarantining passengers who may have been exposed to ensure they are not infected.
Ebola symptoms can take up to 21 days to appear — a dormancy period that allowed Duncan to enter the U.S. undetected. Ebola patients are not contagious until symptoms arise.
Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), who signed the letter, said quarantines could be a necessary step to protect the public.
"My constituents and I do not want to begin the venture of quarantining those living in our country. Unfortunately, by allowing travel to and from countries that have been infected with this deadly virus, we could be heading in that direction," Ross said in a statement Thursday.
"This is the only way to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the United States and its citizens is preserved," Ross said.
The White House has already taken steps to address some of the lawmakers’ demands.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday that five of the nation’s busiest airports will soon begin more active screening for passengers arriving from West Africa. About 95 percent of all travelers from those areas — fewer than 200 people per day — will pass through those airports.
As part of the new precautions, trained workers will measure each person’s body temperature and ask questions about possible exposure to the deadly virus.
While the State Department has issued warnings against nonessential travel to affected countries, federal health authorities say the U.S. will not ban travel.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have repeatedly warned that travel bans could hinder the international response to the crisis.
CDC Director Tom Frieden said global travel restrictions would make it harder for health authorities to contain the epidemic in West Africa, increasing the risk that the disease could spread.
The airline trade group, Airlines for America, has also maintained that commercial airplanes pose no Ebola threat.
“We think that air travel is totally safe and people should keep getting on airplanes, if you look at the facts of how the disease is communicated,” the organization's president Nicholas Calio said in a speech Thursday.
Like our President Obola who lies every times he opens his mouth. Like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, etc. That it is a fact that some people lie should be known by our government leaders. That we should be expected to simply trust the words of someone wanting to come to our country who may have been exposed to a deadly disease when we can't even trust Obola and his cohorts is outrageous.
We need to ban all flights till we know where this bug is in the US.
There are suspected cases in many major hubs. Even if we do stop flights from Africa, the bug is here in the wild.
Racist!!
At least according to the so-called tech site the Verge.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/8/6941749/ebola-panic-is-getting-pretty-racist
Closing the door to hospital rooms with infected people inside must also be a bad thing according to these globalist brain-trusts.
Incompetence relying on incompetence
I am sure the number is higher than 58% support the travel ban, as reported by "Survey Monkey".
I watched World War Z last night.
The UN health guy said, “The airlines were the perfect
delivery system”.
Anybody know if the White House has Netflix?
Clown Prince nobama prefers to let the aliens invaders come unabated...the better to kill you with.
Bammy is just a man of the world, he’ll not listen to Americans.
“The Rise of the Planet of the Apes” in 2011 ended very similarly, to cite just another fairly recent movie example.
I posted this at another FR site: Another very disturbing development. Since the big drug companies and the medical establishment don’t have a cure, and it will take months to develop the experimental drugs and vaccines, then common sense says they should immediately try something simple, cheap and readily available. That would be high dosage Vitamin C. Ebola wipes out Vitamin C stores in the patient’s body immediately and they then die from symptoms like rampant scurvy. Dr Frederick Klenner many years ago tried high doses of IV and oral Vitamin C with considerable success on virus diseases and toxic poisoning by snakes and spiders. To learn more Google his name and also “Vitamin C treatment for Ebola.” Pass this on to everyone you know or has some authority to try this out. Even if it doesn’t work, there is virtually no danger of overdose with Vitamin C.
I sent more detailed info to my son who is in Special Forces and he plans to go right out and buy several bottles in case it comes here or he gets suddenly deployed.
Alabama now (plane passenger)
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/10/passenger_with_symptoms_of_ebo.html
Flights should be canceled along with visas and passports from those countries should be denied entry. I completely agree that we need to have access to those countries to try to help burn this disease out - we have charters and military transports that can carry anything and anyone needed over there — but they should not have access to us.
Wondering, WHO told him to ban flights to Israel when Hamas got a rocket close to the airport??
LOL
"Sir, are you have any unusual physical malady's?"
Passenger
" No, not at all"
But are the kids alright?
Maybe Tommy had ebola?
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