U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to the media about the fight against the Ebola virus... Read More
“It may make sense for us to have one person, in part just so that after this initial surge of activity we can have a more regular process,” Obama told reporters yesterday at the White House. “Just to make sure that we’re crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s going forward.”
After the administration acknowledged lapses in handling the first U.S. cases, Obama said he’s mobilizing the federal government to contain any spread of the
virus within the country’s borders. The key to stemming the outbreak is battling it in West Africa, he said.
Republican lawmakers are criticizing the response by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after a Liberian man visiting Dallas died of Ebola last week and two nurses who treated him became the first people infected in the U.S. Some lawmakers have called on Obama to appoint a czar.
Three schools in Belton, Texas, were closed yesterday and will remain closed today after Superintendent Susan Kincannon learned that two students, who attend North Belton Middle School and Sparta Elementary, were on a Frontier Airlines flight that carried Amber Vinson, one of the nurses.
Wider Search
In Akron, Ohio, officials closed a 470-student school until Oct. 20 after learning that a parent of one of the students had been in contact with Vinson when she visited the area, according to a letter to parents.Health officials yesterday widened the search for people possibly exposed to Vinson on the Frontier Airlines jet she took from Dallas to Ohio last week. Officials want to contact anyone who was on Cleveland-bound Frontier Flight 1142 from Dallas-Fort Worth on Oct. 10, the CDC. The agency previously said it was trying to locate 132 people on the Texas-bound return flight, Frontier 1143.
Another health worker from the Dallas hospital has voluntarily entered isolation on a cruise ship, the U.S. State Department said today. While the worker didn’t have direct contact with the deceased Ebola patient and is in good health, the person may have had contact with clinical specimens collected from the patient, the department said. The government is working with the cruise line to safely bring the hospital employee and a traveling partner back to the U.S. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Travel Ban
Following a meeting yesterday with top government officials coordinating the Ebola response, Obama said he continues to oppose banning entry to the U.S. by people from the affected countries. While saying he has no “philosophical objection necessarily to a travel ban,” the president cited specialists in disease control as recommending against it because it may lead to a worse outcome.At least three Democrats have joined Republicans in calling for a travel ban.
Obama said he talked with the governors of Texas and Ohio about the Ebola cases. Vinson, the second nurse who was infected, had an elevated body temperature by the time she boarded the return flight to Dallas.
Obama said “there may have been problems” with how the protective gear for health workers was worn or was removed that led to the infections.
Schedule Change
“We don’t know yet exactly what happened,” he said.The government will take steps to track and monitor anyone who was close to the second nurse, he said.
Obama canceled a planned speech in Rhode Island on the economy and a political fundraiser in New York to stay in Washington yesterday to meet with administration officials, confer with lawmakers and call other world leaders on Ebola.
The change in schedule signaled the administration’s “sense of urgency” in making sure the virus is contained, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.
Obama is focused on “getting answers to some very basic and direct questions about what happened in Dallas and what steps are being taken to correct those shortcomings that have cropped up,” Earnest told reporters yesterday in Washington.
Obama also authorized the Defense Department to mobilize military reserve troops who may have special skills to assist operations countering Ebola in West Africa. The Pentagon has said it’s prepared to send as many as 4,000 personnel there.
‘Unacceptable’ Response
Stamping out Ebola in West Africa, where more than 4,500 people have died, is crucial to keeping the disease from spreading in the U.S., Obama said. The president has spoken with leaders in North America, Europe and Asia, urging them to increase their efforts to combat Ebola.CDC Director Thomas Frieden was sharply questioned yesterday at a U.S. House hearing on Ebola.
“People’s lives are at stake and the response so far has been unacceptable,” Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said as the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing began. “People are scared. We need all hands on deck. We need a strategy.”
Representative Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican and head of the oversight panel, said trust in the administration is “waning as the American public loses confidence each day with demonstrated failures of the current strategy.”
Frieden told the lawmakers that the virus is not a “significant public-health threat to the United States.”
Checking Passengers
The CDC implemented enhanced screening at five of the largest U.S. airports. Obama said yesterday that a travel ban could prompt infected people to find other means into the country, such as indirect routes that would be harder to screen.The three nations with the most cases -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia -- are already checking exiting passengers at airports. Frieden said 74 people who showed a fever at airports in West Africa were prevented from boarding international flights. About 150 people -- or less than 0.1 percent of international passengers who arrive daily in the U.S. -- come from at-risk nations in Africa.
While Obama has been raising alarm about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa since at least July, the threat remained distant for the American public until last month, when the Liberian man who had just arrived in the U.S. was diagnosed.
Fear has spread wider than the disease in the U.S.
Outbreak Concern
Just over half of adults in the U.S. -- 52 percent -- said they are concerned there will be a major outbreak of Ebola in the country within the next 12 months, according to an Oct. 8-12 poll by the Harvard School of Public Health. In August, 39 percent reported the same level of concern, according to the poll, which has an error margin of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.Frieden said the agency shouldn’t have allowed the nurse to fly.
Both nurses have left Dallas and are being treated in specialized centers near Washington and in Atlanta.
Obama did not say when he might appoint an Ebola czar, a position he said might help ease the burden for officials who have other responsibilities, including national security.
“Up until this point, the individuals here have been running point, and doing an outstanding job,” Obama said yesterday, while sitting in the Oval Office with Frieden, Secretary Sylvia Burwell of the Department of Health and Human Services, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Lisa Monaco, his homeland security adviser. “It may be appropriate for me to appoint an additional person.”
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