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President Barack Obama cautioned against policies that could discourage health care workers from fighting Ebola abroad, noting that the American public should be careful about making policy decisions “that aren’t based on science and best practices.”
“We don’t just react based on our fears. We react on facts” and “judgment,” the president said in a press conference Wednesday.
President Barack Obama
He praised the efforts of health care workers in West Africa who are working to contain the disease, as well as the United States Agency for International Development’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), with whom he will meet on Thursday. Mr. Obama will discuss with the team new monitoring guidance tailored to the individual needs of response workers; the guidelines were released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In his speech, Obama also tried to downplay the possibility of a large-scale outbreak on American soil, noting that Dallas nurses Amber Vinson and Nina Pham, the only two people known to have contracted Ebola in the United States, are now free of the virus. Both had provided care for Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of the disease Oct. 8. Of the additional seven people who were treated for Ebola in the United States, all have survived, he noted.
Although health care workers returning from West Africa will continue to be monitored, President Obama said the United States’ domestic policies should reflect the idea that the best way to protect Americans from Ebola is to stop the outbreak abroad.
“The truth is that we are going to have to stay vigilant here at home until we stop the epidemic at its source,” the president said.
Though some progress has been made in stopping the outbreak in West Africa – Nigeria and Senegal have recently declared themselves to be “Ebola free” – more work will have to be done overseas by Americans to ensure the virus will be eradicated.
“This disease can be contained, it will be defeated. Progress is possible,” but we have to keep working together, President Obama said.