With the Ebola scare landing in Washington, Congress is moving to demand an “all-hands-on-deck” reaction by the Obama administration and may even call for airline quarantine legislation — an idea the president dumped several years ago.
And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called for a ban on flights from Ebola-stricken countries.
The first move came Friday when the House Energy and Commerce Committee moved to have the nation’s top doctors testify about what they are doing to kill Ebola.
Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee, said he called Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institutes of Health, to testify Thursday.
“The Ebola outbreak is a global public health issue that demands an all-hands-on-deck response. We cannot afford to look back and say we could have done more,” said full committee Chairman Fred Upton. “The United States has a first-class healthcare system and we will do everything necessary to treat the sick, contain the threat and protect the public health.”
“Our goal is to ensure every step necessary is being taken to contain and prevent the spread of this disease and protect public health,” said Murphy.
Meanwhile, House sources said that some Republicans are also eager to restore a protocol Obama killed that would quarantine airline passengers believed to have infectious viruses such as Ebola.
“Our government is paid to protect us and they need to follow the science of this,” said a House GOP adviser. “Science demands that sick people who can pass along a deadly disease should be subject to quarantine. The government should not wait for the first dozen or two dozen Americans to get Ebola and die to take steps to protect all 320 million of us,” added the source.
The quarantine effort already has some momentum, and some have gone even further. On Friday, Jindal called for a ban on flights from nations with Ebola.
“We should stop accepting flights from countries that are Ebola-stricken,” Jindal said. “Even countries in Africa have cut back on or stopped accepting flights from countries with Ebola outbreaks.
“President Obama said it was ‘unlikely’ that Ebola would reach the U.S. Well, it has, and we need to protect our people. But the Obama administration keeps saying they won’t shut down flights. They instead say we should listen to ‘the experts.’ In fact, they said it would be counterproductive to stop these flights. That statement defies logic. How exactly would stopping the entry of people potentially carrying the Ebola virus be counterproductive? This seems to be an obvious step to protect public health in the United States.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
