The advisors to the President feel this Oval Office update was effective, hence the upload to the White House site.
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Key takeaways: The White House doesn’t support a travel ban (quarantine) from West Africa because it would drive people to be deceptive in their travel arrangements. In essence “they would lie”.
This position is undermined by the fact that patient Zero already lied to gain travel access to the U.S. subsequently creating the original Ebola exposure. This deception occurred while no travel ban is in place, so why would a travel ban increase the likelihood of deception?
Secondly, the President emphasizes that domestic travel bans on U.S. Ebola exposed citizens are now in place. So why would a travel ban on non-domestic (foreign) Ebola exposed citizens represent a divergent risk?
If the administration is banning U.S. citizens, who may have Ebola exposure, from travel, then why not ban West African citizens who have much greater Ebola exposure risk?
If you cannot catch Ebola while riding a bus, then why does the CDC have a mandatory commercial travel ban on Ebola exposed persons to include bus travel?
The administration’s positions are fraught with contradictions that bely common sense.
The President has now opened the possibility for him creating an “Ebola Czar” to coordinate his strategy.
Yet, no-one seems to be questioning why Congress passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which created a new assistant secretary for preparedness and response to oversee medical efforts and called for a National Health Security Strategy.
The Act established Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority as the focal point within HHS for medical efforts to protect the American civilian population against naturally occurring threats to public health. It specifically says this authority was established to give “an integrated, systematic approach to the development and purchase of the necessary vaccines, drugs, therapies, and diagnostic tools for public health medical emergencies.” The woman who heads that office is Dr. Nicole Lurie.
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