Topics in the News: Ebola
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Sep 14, 2020
Set aside pandemic response plans prepared by Bush and Obama
[In 2005,] Pres. George W. Bush's administration created a 381-page plan that would outline the proper responses to possible virus outbreaks. Sections of this plan were implemented by Pres. Obama in 2014 when an Ebola patient was discovered in the U.S.
The plan was passed on to Donald Trump's incoming administration. The office was shut down in 2018 by Pres. Donald Trump, who disbanded the pandemic response team.
On Jan. 28, 2020, Carter Mecher, Senior Medical Advisor for the Department of
Veterans Affairs, warned others [about coronavirus] that, "Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad." Mecher was one of the medical advisers who, in 2006, had conceived for George W. Bush a pandemic response strategy of "social distancing."
He started to push for immediate social distancing. Ignoring that and other scientists' requests or emphasis on testing, Trump and his administration decided the best strategy would be to keep infected people in China.
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Source: Business Insider, YouTube video "Totally Under Control"
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Mar 26, 2020
Declined pandemic playbook prepared under Obama
The Trump administration declined to use a nearly 70-page pandemic preparedness playbook created by the National Security Council's health unit during the Obama administration in favor of other preparation materials. The playbook, finalized in 2017
both by top political appointees and career national security officials in the wake of the 2014-15 Ebola crisis, sought to lay the groundwork for a coordinated response to avoid confusion and conflicting messages from federal officials.
A factor limiting the Trump administration's ability to implement the pandemic playbook was that the document never underwent interagency vetting, despite former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert expressing interest in making it a
permanent fixture when it came to pandemics. Bossert, who left the administration in 2018, told Politico that he "engaged actively with my outgoing counterpart and took seriously their transition materials and recommendations on pandemic preparedness."
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Source: Business Insider/Politico analysis of coronavirus policy
Joe Biden on Homeland Security
: Mar 15, 2020
We used National Guard for Ebola; use for new pandemic too
I would call out the military. Now. They have the capacity to provide this surge help that hospitals need and that is needed across the nation. I would make sure that they did exactly what they're prepared to do. They did it in the Ebola crisis.
They have the capacity to build 500-bed hospitals, and tents that are completely safe and secure, and provide the help to get it done to anybody, this overflow. So it is a national emergency. I would call out the military.
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Source: 11th Democratic primary debate (Biden-Sanders one-on-one)
Joe Biden on Health Care
: Feb 26, 2020
We invested in health agencies and kept Ebola out of the US
Q: We just heard from President Trump tonight, addressing the administration's response to the coronavirus. If you were president, what would you be doing?BIDEN: We've been through this once. We've been through this with the virus that occurred with
Ebola in Africa. I was deeply involved on that. We were able to keep the disease overseas. The few that came to the United States, we were able to put together the following:
We set up an office within the president's office to deal with infectious diseases, number one. Number two, we significantly increased the funding for NIH, National Institute of Health, as well as the CDC, to immediately begin to work on vaccines,
which worked. We moved. Thirdly, what we did was we made sure that we were able to be honest with the American people, so that we had complete unity between the scientists and the president.
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Source: CNN S. C. Town Hall for 2020 Presidential primary
Joe Biden on Health Care
: Feb 25, 2020
Work with China, in China, on coronavirus
Q: What would you do about coronavirus?BIDEN: What we did with Ebola--I was part of making sure that pandemic did not get to the United States, saved millions of lives. And what we did, we set up, I helped set up that office on pandemic diseases. We
increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget. And our president today--and he's wiped all that out. [With Ebola], we did it; we stopped it.
Q: So, more funding?
BIDEN: I would immediately restore the funding. [Trump] cut the funding
for CDC. He tried to cut the funding for NIH. He cut the funding for the entire effort. And here's the deal. I would be on the phone with China and making it clear, we are going to need to be in your country; you have to be open; you have to be clear;
we have to know what's going on; we have to be there with you, and insist on it and insist, insist, insist. I could get that done. No one up here has ever dealt internationally with any of these world leaders. I'm the only one that has.
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Source: 10th Democratic Primary debate on eve of S.C. primary
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Dec 26, 2019
2014: Criticized Ebola czar; 2019: put Pence in charge
President Trump announced that he'll be putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of leading the administration's response to the coronavirus. The previous point person on the administration's coronavirus response was Health and Human Services
Secretary Alex Azar. Back in the Ebola crisis of 2014, Trump did the opposite. He criticized former President Obama for appointing an Ebola czar "with zero experience in the medical area and zero experience in infectious disease control."
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Source: Axios e-zine on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Sep 22, 2015
Ebola virus in America is Obama's fault
Trump could bypass the gatekeepers in the press to reach people directly with his messages. Trump said he did own writing online, and given the wide range of tones in his comments, this seemed true. A devoted tweeter, his online statements address
everything from a doctor in New York with the Ebola virus--"Obama's fault"--to the notion that the Big Apple could actually benefit from global warming, if the phenomenon is real, because it suffers from uncomfortable cold snaps in the winter.
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Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.331
Jill Stein on Health Care
: Jul 6, 2015
Threats like Ebola are threats to public health worldwide
OnTheIssues: Are travel restrictions for Ebola an issue anymore?Stein: It could become an issue again with SARS--we live in an age of globalized health. Threats to public health are threats to public health everywhere. We need to pay attention to
incredible health injustice and enormous health disparities and address them--or they are going to come back to bite us. We need to ensure a basic level of public health and infrastructure around the world--we need to be doing that instead of bombing
abroad and exporting weapons--we should replace the export of goods with the export of health & education & green energy technology. We need to treat the world like we are part of a common human family--which we are.
OnTheIssues: And travel
restrictions like Chris Christie enforced for Ebola?
Stein: Travel restrict need to be established by health authorities as a technical issue by people who understand the disease. What Christie did was fear-mongering--entirely what we don't want to do
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Source: Phone interview on 2016 presidential race by OnTheIssues.org
Chris Christie on Health Care
: Oct 26, 2014
3-week quarantine for Ebola medical workers
Q: The NIH talks about the unintended consequence [of quarantining U.S. medical workers returning from Ebola areas]. Everyone agrees that the only way you're going to stop this crisis is to end Ebola in West Africa and the concern is that the medical
workers, the doctors, the nurses, that are willing to take their chances and go over there when they hear now that they're going to have to undergo mandatory 3-week quarantine when they come back may decide not to go in the first place. So, are you
concerned that you're going to disincentivize people from going over there to help stop the outbreak?CHRISTIE: No, I'm really not, because I believe that folks who want to take that step and are willing to volunteer also understand that it's in
their interest and the public health interest to have a 21-day period thereafter if they've been directed expose to people with the virus. Gov. Cuomo [D-NY] and I agree on this. I think this will become a national policy sooner rather than later.
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Source: Fox News Sunday 2014 interview of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Chris Christie on Health Care
: Oct 26, 2014
Mandatory quarantine for travelers from Ebola areas
Q: New York City's health commissioner says she was furious that she was not informed before your quarantine [on a US nurse returning from an Ebola area] was imposed. Do you no longer trust the CDC?CHRISTIE: Of course we do. The CDC protocols have
been a moving target. It was my conclusion we need to do this to protect the public health. Governor Cuomo [of NY] agreed. And now, Mayor Emanuel [of Chicago] agrees. I think the CDC eventually will come around to our point of view.
Q: The NIH says
it's not good science to quarantine people when they're not symptomatic because they can't spread the disease in those situations.
CHRISTIE: They're counting on a voluntary system with folks who may or may not comply. When you're dealing with something
as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary system. This is government's job. If anything else, the government job is to protect safety and health of our citizens. And so, we've taken this action and I absolutely have no second thoughts about it.
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Source: Fox News Sunday 2014 interview of 2016 presidential hopefuls
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