CDC chief: From now on, we’ll make sure people we’re monitoring for exposure to Ebola don’t get on a plane

Allah:

Our president reassured west Africans last month that they needn’t fear riding the bus sinceyou can’t get Ebola from sitting next to someone who’s infected. Now the head of the CDC’s telling the country that he’ll see to it that people who might be infected stay the hell off of mass transportation for a few weeks. Hello?

https://twitter.com/NoahCRothman/status/522432578176188417

I’m seeing a lot of reactions like this on Twitter this afternoon, which is bad, bad news for the White House:

Americans exposed to Ebola shouldn't fly, but West Africans? Only a paranoid hysteric would subject THEM to such restrictions.

— John Hayward (@Doc_0) October 15, 2014

It was not irrational for Duncan to prize his life above those of foreign strangers, and it's not irrational for us to do so, either.

— Ursus, Director of Weather and Banana Programming (@AceofSpadesHQ) October 15, 2014

The administration’s counter, I assume, will be that there’s a difference between a targeted ban on flying aimed at people whom we know for a fact have been exposed to Ebola and a blanket ban on all west Africans because some of them might hypothetically have been exposed. (The whole point of screening passengers for fevers as they board flights in Africa is to impose a more targeted ban.) Think voters will be comforted by that, though? Support for banning air travel from Ebola countries is sky high; the more the disease spreads there, the more intense that support will become here. Although there are no direct flights from affected nations to the U.S., political pressure will mount on European hubs to restrict travel from Africa. I don’t understand the argument either that a travel ban would make the virus spread more quickly in Africa. Supposedly that’s because aid workers will have trouble getting in and out of Liberia et al., but as Megyn Kelly argued last night, you could have chartered flights. Failing that, you could make three weeks of quarantine a condition for those workers. They’re already willing to put their lives on the line by traveling to the eye of the Ebola storm to help people. Presumably they’d tolerate a few weeks of isolation together when they’re done, either on site or after they’ve returned, to eliminate the risk of infection back home.

Something else I don’t understand: How did 16 people from Doctors Without Borders get infected, nine of them fatally? Politico had a nice explainer last night about how diligent outfits like DWB and Samaritan’s Purse are in training their staffers to put on and remove their protective clothing. They drill on it; they use a buddy system. They’re well prepared. And yet — nine deaths.

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