The once-steady drumbeat of criticism surrounding the Obama administration’s handling of the deadly Ebola virus reached near-silence on Tuesday, with the release of the last remaining patient in the United States infected with the disease.
Dr. Craig Spencer, now Ebola-free, left a New York City hospital on Tuesday — a development that administration officials are framing as proof they possess the blueprint to contain the disease.
The uproar surrounding President Obama’s approach to combating Ebola has noticeably quieted in recent days, as no new cases of the virus have emerged following a pair of Dallas nurses beating the disease and Spencer being treated in New York City.
Obama, who originally deferred to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services, relented and appointed Democratic insider Ron Klain as his Ebola czar to manage the administration’s response.
Obama took even more heat when Govs. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., and Chris Christie, R-N.J., then implemented quarantines on those returning from West Africa, contradicting federal policy. The Pentagon also ordered soldiers to self-quarantine upon their return Ebola-stricken nations.
Team Obama is now cautiously optimistic that the worst stretch of the Ebola scare is behind them.
“Of the eight people in America who have been promptly identified and treated, all eight now, including Dr. Spencer, are healthy and home with their families,” Klain, who had previously avoided the media spotlight, told MSNBC on Tuesday. “That shows we know what to do with Ebola if we identify it and treat it quickly.”
And Spencer was the administration’s best messenger on Tuesday, imploring Americans to turn their focus to West Africa, where Ebola is still ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
“While my case has garnered international attention, it is important to remember that my infection represents but a fraction of the more than 13,000 reported cases to date in West Africa — the center of the outbreak, where families are being torn apart and communities destroyed,” he said.
Health experts are increasingly confident that just isolated Ebola cases would spring up in the United States, perhaps a few dozen patients at most, they insist.
Still, it would take only one new case of Ebola in the United States to remind Americans of the dangers of a disease that has stayed mostly out of the headlines of late.
“Nobody should be celebrating yet,” a senior House GOP aide told the Washington Examiner. “This is obviously good news, but we should be doing much more to ensure Americans are protected [from Ebola].”
Even Klain predicted additional Ebola cases in the United States.
But indicative of the shifting narrative, Klain, seen as a possible replacement for White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, fielded questions about his own future on Tuesday.
“Once I’m finished, I’m going back to private life,” he told MSNBC. “This is more than enough for me.”
