Editorial: Flailing about on Ebola
There are some tasks that are the unique responsibility of government (yes, we said it). Public safety - and we'd include in that the broad protection of public health from deadly, external threats - is one of them. At the moment, sadly, Americans have little reason to believe their government is equipped to do that part of the job.
Start with the so-far unidentified fool employed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control who told a Dallas nurse who had spent 10 days caring for an Ebola patient - and who was running a low-grade fever - to go ahead and board a commercial flight.
The nurse, who has since been diagnosed with Ebola, had the common sense to run her travel plans by the CDC (though not the sense to realize that simply to ask the question, "Should I get on that plane?" was to answer it). But because her fever was apparently too low to be considered a "symptom" of the disease, the CDC said happy travels, and now hundreds more people have to be monitored for signs of illness.
The sense of confusion actually stems from the top. The CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, gave a boatload of mixed messages during a Wednesday briefing. And while there are bound to be confusing moments in a fast-moving situation like this one, Frieden's agency has struggled to project an air of confidence that it can handle what is so far a minor outbreak, raising the concern that, well, maybe it can't.
It was all enough to convince President Obama to cancel a political trip to convene a White House meeting on Ebola. He seems to have come to the belated realization that when the American people are confused and scared about their health or their safety, it is important to convey the sense that the government has things under control.
Of course it's even more important to actually have things under control. Americans are still waiting for proof of that.
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