Posted on 10/02/2014 2:06:48 AM PDT by markomalley
White House spokesman Josh Earnest rebuffed questions Oct. 1 about a possible federal ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and said the president will rely instead on government medical professionals to contain imported epidemics.
“These are the experts, they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said, adding “we can stop the spread of Ebola in its tracks.”
“What are the conditions under which the President would order or want to see travel restrictions?” asked one reporter.
“We are confident that the sophisticated medical infrastructure that exists here in the United States can prevent the wide spread of Ebola,” Earnest said.
“Doesn’t that imply that we’re willing to accept a certain number of people coming into this country who will be diagnosed and develop Ebola once they’re here?” the reporter asked.
“We live in a global world, and what we’re confident that we can do is to both protect the safety of the traveling public and … protect the broader American public by rigorously applying the kind of medical protocols that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Earnest replied.
The president picked a bad week for putting additional faith in government professionals.
Earnest spoke Oct. 1, shortly after he had announced the resignation of Julia Pierson, the veteran leader of the professional security agents in the United States Secret Service. Pierson’s resignation came after a series of high-profile security flubs had exposed the president to lethal attacks, and one day after Earnest said that Obama has full confidence in the secret service director.
Earnest’s statement also came only a few days after Obama has blamed mistakes by the professional intelligence officials for the U.S. failure to block the spread of the jihadis group in northern Iraq.
Earnest’s statement also came on the same day that officials announced a possible second case of Ebola in the country, following the unhindered arrival of a disease-carrier on Sept. 20th. The new victim may have contracted the disease after medical professionals sent the Ebola carrier home after a flawed medical check on Sept. 24.
The two Ebola cases may be politically damaging to Obama, partly because public confidence in Obama’s management has already fallen.
On Sept. 16, Obama minimized the danger of Ebola infections in the United States. “In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home,” he said Sept. 16.
On Sept. 30, federal officials announced that the carrier had flown from Liberia into the United States on Sept. 20, and had began to show obvious symptoms of the disease on the 24th. Disease-carriers can transmit the disease once they have symptoms. But a person can be infected with the disease, and not show any symptoms, for up to 21 days.
The Liberian is now being treated in a Dallas hospital, and federal officials are trying to contact and monitor everyone — including several children — who were in contact with him. Additional travelers to the United States are likely, partly because U.S. health-centers are much better than African hospitals.
Earnest tried to downplay the president’s Sept. 16 “unlikely event” comment.
“You might be slightly over-parsing what the President said, because when he delivered those remarks there had been at least a couple of health care professionals who had been trying to provide medical services to Ebola victims in Africa who had been returned to the United States for treatment,” Earnest said at the Oct. 1 press conference. “So obviously these individuals who had contracted Ebola in the performance of their medical work were on the shores of the United States of America,” he claimed.
The State Department has given visas to roughly 13,500 people from the Ebola-stricken countries of Sierra Leon, Guinea and Liberia, according to federal data.
The data doesn’t show how many of those people are already in the United States, but visitors from those countries should be excluded until they can show they’re free of Ebola, said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
“It would be reasonable to designate Ebola as a communicable disease of public health significance [because] that would enable the State Department to impose tighter restrictions on visitors” countries with Ebola outbreaks, she said.
Under current policies, only people with obvious symptoms — principally, a high temperature — are excluded by immigration officials.
I’m not sure he consciously plotted to let Ebola in, but I certainly think Obama may had had the feeling that it wasn’t “fair” that it was restricted to Africa and that the US had to risk it too out of a kind of bizarre solidarity. Refusing to restrict travel is just another demonstration of this.
I’m not a conspiracy thinker either, and I think some of the posts I’ve read on this topic are just plain ridiculous. But Obama does hate the US, particularly its citizens of European descent, and he feels that we have been unfairly spared the afflictions of Africa. That’s why he sent our military right into the midst of the hot zone, probably not hoping that they get the disease and spread it, but feeling that it would sort of be “fair” if they did.
His negligence, arrogance and hatred of this country is probably doing the job better than any plotting he might do (since he’s so incompetent when he actually tries to do something).
CDC director Tom Frieden now says “I have no doubt that we’ll stop this in its tracks in the U.S.” while not long ago he was saying “People living in the United States have almost no chance of getting Ebola.”
http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/player.asp?f=8633481
It certainly looks willful....and stupid.
Ceausescu moment anyone?
More evidence that the jug-eared jackass is a detestable bass turd.
Sounds like an encouragement to come. Our nanny government wants only to protect us from ourselves, not from outside dangers.
Bad nanny!
As usual *crickets*
We the people will need to be the leaders if we are to have any. Frightening isn’t it.
Biraq Insane 0bama wants you all to die.
He would have been willing to let most people live, even some Republicans, if the majority worshiped him, but now that he is falling in the polls, he will do anything he thinks he can get away with to kill off the people and the nation.
And those elected to Congress to represent us don’t care if he does.
Good point.
If the Ebola outbreaks were in white countries, O****up would be singing a different tune.
I continue to await that moment as I have since 2008. Just like ‘the ant who pulled the rubber tree plant’, I have high hopes.
This could become a pitchforks-to-Washington moment as the POtuS puts the lives of American citizens in jeopardy.
You've got a situation where if three diseases spread at the same time (flu, that respiratory disease probably from Central America), Obamacare's problems could make it weird. All of those new Medicaid enrollees will overwhelm the medical system, free care. All of those people who purchased plans with deductibles they can't afford just might be slow to get medical treatment. All those illegals hiding in the shadows aren't going to come forward, for fear of being sent to their homelands.
Perfect storm? I hope not.
Indeed, seems to me someone in the White House needs to slip Josh a copy of “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston.
If I had a tinfoil hat I would posit that Zero is saying: I will prove to you that you are not exceptional people by allowing all manner of 3rd world filth and disease in to gain footholds on your precious soil.
Just another vector to introduce weakness and strife.
If I had a tinfoil hat that is...
Yes. Yes we do. Now what the hell does that have to do with anything? Stop the flights you moron!
You mean Obama is OK importing third world disease carrying vectors. I’m shocked.
In ano the week they’ll be saying “what he meant was....”
W H Y
N O T
!!!!!
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