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.
“Liberians can thank Ebola (and Senator Jack Reed) for extended stay in the US” (9-29-14)
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Liberian immigrants living in the United States without a visa won’t be sent back to the epicenter of Ebola crisis in West Africa for at least another two years, the Obama administration said Friday”
(just posted this on another thread as well)
Kept looking for the SemiNews SemiSatire tag, or the Onion.
Instead, we have stark, staring madness.
If United Airlines does nothing bankruptcy looms, short the stock!
Report: “Disaster Teams Were Notified Months Ago They Would Be Activated in October”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3210167/posts
Maybe he listens to this guy:
Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D., PhD in JAMA, 1 October 2014. p. 1297: "...there are obligations of global justice to combat Ebola and strengthen health systems and infrastructure in affected countries in the longer term. Advocates of so-called cosmopolitanism - a key position in the philosophical debate about global justice - argue that national borders have no significance and that all people, regardless of where they live, are entitled to the same education, health care services, and other social resources..."
Well, he let sick people come across the border recently.
Hey Obola, why don’t you just invite people to meet them at the airport and give them a nice juicy soul kiss while we are at it?
Welcome to America, thanks for killing us...
Gamble with your own life Mr.President, not the lives of others. It’s not a game anymore.
-—they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease-—
The key word is “understanding”
That implies a theoretical hypothesis for prevention. The rubber is actually hitting the road as we post and a determination as to the validity of the hypothesis is going to be tested.
Meanwhile a second disease among children is apparently much worse and spreading geographically. There is no success in stopping that disease which is reaching epidenic proportions.
Yet, the patient informed the medical staff he had recently been to West Africa and they sent him home with antibiotics, anyway.
My biggest fear about this is this administration has already declared "no way, no how" and they have been wrong on EVERYTHING since taking office.
And infected people like this guy will come here to receive great care. What about the hospital, its medical staff, the logistics/facilities people and materials, and the care itself?
Should enough people become infected, triage will be called for, meaning that people will be classified on the basis of just how severe their symptoms are—and with 0bamacare, how connected or how much they have given to the Democrat party will determine whether they get care worth $6000 or $60,000, or more.
The only madness I see is the madness of the voters who twice elected to the Presidency a man who has hated America, and everything it stands for, since his early childhood.
The hens got together and elected the fox to run the chicken coop. How is that going to end?
It’s not FAIR that only Africa has Ebola,after all we all know that this disease was a plot to kill all Africans,so Obama is going to get even
If my aim were to cause as much damage as possible to the US, I’d probably encourage weaponized humans carrying a deadly disease to keep pouring in, too.
Why, yes, let’s rely upon the bureaucracy...what could go wrong?
I can only hope lost flights land in the D.C. area first, just before one of the many ‘recesses’. THEN see how they all react.
Just last week, the breaking news was about a jihadist beheading a woman on American soil, a horrific event pointing to this administrations dereliction of duty.....gone, not even front page anymore. Ebola, like hurricane Sandy will rescue him.
Good find.
Unless other countries restrict travel, it might help a little, but not much.
In situations like this the U.S. traditionally sets the example and other nations quickly follow, but we have no leadership anymore.
Political Correctness, more destructive than any disease, precedes every woe of our nation, indeed every woe of the world, in this the U.S. leads by example.
All part of Obama’s ongoing attempt to destroy America.
And he’s doing very well at it, too.
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