Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Obama urges nation to resist Ebola panic
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama urged Americans on Saturday not to succumb to “hysteria” about Ebola, even as he warned that addressing the deadly virus would require citizens, government leaders and the media to all pitch in.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama also pushed back against calls for the U. S. to institute a travel ban. Lawmakers have called it a common- sense step to prevent more people with Ebola from entering the U.S., but Obama said such a ban would only hamper aid efforts and screening measures.
“We can’t just cut ourselves off from West Africa, where this disease is raging,” Obama said in his address. “Trying to seal off an entire region of the world — if that were even possible — could actually make the situation worse” by causing people to evade screening.
Growing U. S. concern about Ebola and the three cases diagnosed so far in Dallas prompted Obama on Friday to tap Ron Klain, a former top White House adviser, to be his point person on Ebola.
As part of the administration effort, Obama also plans to assign senior personnel to serve on the ground in Dallas, including an experienced Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinator and a White House liaison, to make sure all of the region’s needs are being met, according to a White House statement released Friday.
A Liberian man was diagnosed with Ebola shortly
after arriving in the U.S. Two nurses who helped treat him in Dallas were infected, causing fear of an outbreak in the country.
In his address, Obama said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deployed staff members to Dallas — where Thomas Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola and where two nurses who treated him worked — and to Cleveland, where one of the nurses traveled before becoming sick. He also highlighted new airport screening measures for people arriving from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, where the disease has struck hardest.
Obama, who last week authorized the Defense Department to mobilize military reserve troops to assist with prevention efforts in West Africa, said fighting Ebola at its source remained key.
“Before this is over, we may see more isolated cases here in America,” he said. “But we know how to wage this fight.”
As Obama sought to reassure anxious Americans, U.S. officials still were working to contain the fallout from the Ebola cases identified in the U.S. so far, rushing to cut off potential routes of infection for those who may have come into contact with individuals who contracted Ebola.
Obama said he was “absolutely confident” the U.S. could prevent a serious outbreak at home — if it continues to elevate facts over fear.
Republicans in Congress have been pressing Obama to prohibit entry to travelers from the region.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who inquired about possible prohibitions on travel at the beginning of the month, said Thursday that Congress should go back into session to vote a ban into law if Obama won’t implement it himself.
“Ebola policy seems to be driven from the White House,” Cruz said in an interview. “It seems to be dictated by politics rather than a common-sense approach to protecting the American public.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the possibil- ity of an outbreak in the U.S. means a temporary ban on passengers from those three nations is necessary. Others have said the U.S. should refuse visas to anyone from the three countries.
“A travel ban won’t solve the Ebola crisis, but it should be part of a broader strategy,” Rep. David McKinley, R-Va., said Friday in a statement. “Stopping the outbreak in West Africa is the only way to contain the virus” but “there are several common-sense steps we need to take to protect the American people.”
Some of the biggest companies doing business in West Africa also have opposed a travel ban.
“Without the support of the international community the situation for these economies, many of whom are only beginning to return to stability after decades of civil war, will be even more catastrophic,” the chief executive officers of ArcelorMittal, Newmont Mining Corp., Aureus Mining Inc. and eight other companies said in a statement last month.
A ban on U.S. travel would undercut efforts to fight the disease and hurt any potential for economic recovery in those nations, the companies said.
Those hardest-hit countries agree a travel ban would not be prudent.
“Isolating us will only contribute to the stigmatization of the country,” said Abdulai Bayraytay, a spokesman for the Sierra Leone government. “Prohibiting passengers will not help the situation but rather would even make the supply of much needed medical supplies very, very difficult as well.”
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, meanwhile, has pledged to U.S. lawmakers that airport officials are now ensuring that anyone who had contact with an Ebola patient can’t get on a flight out of her country, according to Riva Levinson of KRL International. The Washington-based firm represents Liberia and companies working there.
The nearby African nations of Cape Verde, Mauritius and Seychelles, though, already have banned travelers from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, where the disease is believed to have claimed more than 4,500 lives.
3 SAY U.S. TO SPEND MORE
In further U.S. efforts to stop the outbreak, two Democratic officials on Capitol Hill and one White House official said Saturday that Obama will ask Congress to designate more money specifically to fight Ebola. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that the president had “not made any decisions about whether additional resources are necessary.” His deputy, Eric Schultz, declined to comment but pointed to those remarks when asked about the size and scope of a spending package.
The White House official who confirmed the plan said it has yet to be determined whether funds would be sought on an “emergency” basis, meaning they would not count against the federal deficit, or carved out of a special war-funding account for Overseas Contingency Operations.
The U.S. is sending hundreds of soldiers to set up clinics and train health care workers and it also has sent officials from the CDC to help in training.
In an international effort that was praised Friday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Cuba announced it also is sending about 460 doctors and nurses to West Africa to help fight Ebola.
Also, an article by former leader Fidel Castro, published Saturday, said Cuba stands ready to cooperate with the United States in the battle against Ebola.
“With pleasure we will cooperate with U.S. personnel in that task,” the 88-year-old ex-leader wrote in the Communist Party daily Granma. He said it would not be to seek peace between two countries long at odds, but “for the peace of the world.”
He said such medical cooperation is “the greatest example of solidarity that a human being can offer.”
Castro did not say what form cooperation might take.
In other global news, the Canadian government said it will start shipping its experimental Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organization on Monday for possible use in the West African countries hardest hit by the outbreak.
The government said in a news release Saturday that the Public Health Agency of Canada is supplying the vaccine to the U.N. agency in Geneva.
The news release said Canada will send 800 vials of its experimental vaccine in three shipments. The WHO will consult with its partners, including health authorities from the affected countries, to de- termine how best to distribute and use the vaccine, taking into consideration concerns about using an experimental vaccine on people.
116 WATCHED IN OHIO
In Ohio, meanwhile, 116 people are being monitored for Ebola symptoms after the visit from Amber Vinson, one of the Dallas nurses who treated the first patient to die of the virus in the United States and later tested positive herself, health officials said Saturday.
None of those being monitored is sick, officials said.
Dr. Chris Braden, who is leading a CDC team in Ohio, said time is on the side of health officials as they wait for Ebola’s 21-day incubation period to pass. He said he was impressed with northeast Ohio’s level of preparedness but the threat that someone else infected with Ebola might show up in Ohio remains real.
“As long as this disease is burning hot in Africa, those sparks can fly,” he said.
Twenty-nine of those being monitored came into contact with Vinson or visited the same Akron dress shop where her bridesmaids tried on dresses Oct. 11. Vinson did not try on any dresses during the shopping trip, Summit County Health Commissioner Gene Nixon said.
On Friday, officials had said 16 people were being monitored. But the number rose as more people who visited the dress shop stepped forward and as passengers on flights with Vinson between Dallas and Cleveland were contacted. An additional 87 Ohioans were on those flights and are among the total being monitored.
Ebola is spread through bodily fluids. The disease is not contagious until the infected person shows symptoms. Braden has said Vinson exhibited some symptoms while in Ohio. She flew to Cleveland from Dallas on Oct. 10 and flew back Oct. 13. She was diagnosed as having Ebola the next day.
Ohio epidemiologist Dr. Mary DiOrio said airline passengers are being classified for monitoring according to where they sat on the plane. Some individuals are being more actively watched, she said.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich said the state has put in place stricter protocols than what the CDC recommends. He said Cuyahoga County has protocols in place for how to transport individuals who show Ebola-like symptoms while Summit County is “watching and learning.”
Kasich said 91 percent of Ohio hospitals have run drills or have trained on handling possible cases.
He also called on the federal government to establish travel bans from African countries where the epidemic has raged.
It’s difficult enough controlling the movement within the U.S. of people who may have been exposed to the virus without the risk of others from infected areas flying into the country, he said.
“At the end of the day, it’s a decision for the president,” Kasich said at a news conference Saturday in Akron. “If he called me and asked me, I’d would say I think a ban at this point makes sense.”
And in North Carolina, about 40 friends and family members of Duncan, the first person to die from Ebola in the U.S., attended a memorial ceremony for the Ebola victim, remembering him as a big-hearted and compassionate man whose virtues may have led to his infection with Ebola in his native Liberia.
Family and friends gathered at a small Southern Baptist church with a primarily Liberian congregation near where Duncan’s mother and other family members live.
Duncan’s neighbors in Liberia believe he was infected by helping a pregnant woman who later died from Ebola. Duncan denied helping his Ebola-sickened neighbor, but it would be consistent with the caring nature he always showed, said his nephew Josephus Weeks.