The states of Illinois, New Jersey, and New York have all issued mandatory Ebola quarantine for certain travelers, and the White House doesn’t like this one bit. According to the New York Times these states are being pressured to loosen their quarantine restrictions:
The White House, having long warned that those that disagree with it are on the “wrong side of history,” is now warning that those states that disagree with it on how to handle the Ebola crisis are on the wrong side of “science.” Absurd as this reasoning is, there’s a case to be made that the White House is correct to say that these states are overreacting. And yet, the public feels very differently:
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For their part, the media have been rather patronizing in their insistence that the public should not be worried about Ebola. That could be contributing to the disconnect between the supposedly more scientific risk assessment and the clamor for quarantines.
But there’s also another factor worth considering. Big government has been playing politics with science for a long time, and as a result, the public is not inclined to give them the benefit of doubt when it comes to public health threats. The citizens of New York have been told in the last few years that trans fats, large sodas, and water vapor from e-cigarettes are all public health problems in need of laws to protect the public, despite the fact these risks range from negligible to nonexistent. Then in recent weeks, a guy carrying a contagious plague that liquifies people’s eyeballs rides the subway all over the city, but they’re told they don’t need to worry? At this point, they have good reason not to trust authorities to tell them what’s in their interest, so they are obviously erring on the side of caution. Perhaps Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, and Pat Quinn are looking at poll numbers that tell them they have little choice but to respond more aggressively.
As for the White House, their inconsistent messaging on Ebola doesn’t speak to their credibility here. Chris Christie defended his Ebola quarantine by pointing out that the CDC protocols to date had changed so much that they simply weren’t trustworthy:
Christie’s right. The White House hasn’t been able to get out a consistent message on exactly how contagious Ebola is and what needs to be done to prevent the spread of the disease. It’s hard to argue that quarantine isn’t justified by “science,” when the relevant federal agencies have been constantly revising the science.
Of course, it doesn’t help that the White House appointed a partisan political operative, Ron Klain, to be their Ebola czar. Lots of people pointed out that Klain’s lack of any medical or scientific expertise would be a problem, and indeed, being able to clearly explain the risks of Ebola to an anxious public might be shaping up to be the federal government’s primary challenge to countering the disease. Klain, however, seems better suited to be the person that protects the White House from any political fallout if the Ebola problem worsens. That may be a comforting thought in the West Wing, but the public probably doesn’t find that too reassuring.
Obama’s White House has also done its part eroding the public trust by politicizing other scientific issues before Ebola came along. The EPA is instituting onerous backdoor carbon emission regulations by fiat, despite the fact that Congress has routinely rejected them. A major reason these carbon regulations haven’t passed democratically is that the consequences of global warming have been relentlessly overstated. (Does Al Gore know there’s still plenty of ice in the Arctic Sea?)
The White House has also politicized other safety issues in a way that undermines public confidence. Last year, the CDC was ordered to study the “epidemic” of gun violence, which is actually down 49 percent in the last 20 years. And Obama pushed for new gun regulations by arguing, “If we can save even one life by reducing gun violence, then we have an obligation to try. It’s time for Congress to act.”
Under almost any circumstance, “if it saves one life” is a dubious rationale for public policy in a country of 300 million people. (Why not lower speed limits and ban swimming pools? It’ll save lives.) But if this is the rationale for banning gun magazines that hold 12 instead of 10 bullets, it seems even more applicable to justifying quarantines to stop a deadly disease that could potentially infect the population at geometric rates.
Based on everything we know about Ebola, the White House may be right that mandatory quarantines aren’t yet necessary. But after years of paternalistic liberal politicians issuing dire warnings about insignificant public health threats, authorities are losing the public trust. There may come a point in the future—perhaps even the near future—where public health authorities need real cooperation to prevent serious harm. The lesson of the current Ebola crisis may be that we can no longer afford to fritter away the public’s trust by overhyping threats for nakedly political reasons.
