President Obama Not Enforcing Travel Ban On West Africa Despite Ebola

President Obama Rejects Proposal To Ban West Africa Travel Over Ebola

Much of the country is slightly panicked over the recent threat of an Ebola virus epidemic hitting the U.S., but President Obama says everyone should keep their cool.

via Fox News

President Obama on Saturday repeated his argument against a travel ban on West Africa where Ebola is an epidemic and urged Americans not to give into hysteria about the deadly virus, saying the U.S. is not dealing with a similar outbreak.

“We have to be guided by the science,” the president said in his weekly radio and online address. “We’re a nation of more than 300 million people. To date, we’ve seen three cases.”

The address is another attempt by the president and his administration to assure the public that officials have procedures in place and are taking further steps to avoid an Ebola outbreak like the one in West Africa that so far this year has killed more than 4,500 people.

On Friday, the president appointed former top White House adviser Ron Klain to lead the U.S. response to the virus, amid the growing concern that Ebola is spreading beyond the three confirmed cases in Dallas.

On Saturday, the president also called on Americans across the country to help stop the hysteria.

“Meeting a public health challenge like this isn’t just a job for government,” he said. “All of us — citizens, leaders, the media — have a responsibility and a role to play. This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need.”

As Obama sought to reassure anxious Americans, U.S. officials were still working to contain the fallout from the Ebola cases identified so far in the United States, rushing to cut off potential routes of infection for those who may have come into contact with individuals who contracted the virus.

Some health experts insist now is not the time to start a travel ban, especially given the disease is still extremely contained in the U.S. and that the only people who have caught it here are two Dallas health care workers who cared for an Ebola patient who later died.

Hmmmm. Are you worried about a potential Ebola “outbreak” in the U.S.? Or do you agree with the President that now is not the time to be overly concerned?

WENN