WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama aims to tamp down Ebola hysteria in his weekly address, offering assurance that the virus hasn’t and won’t reach epidemic proportions in this country.
“What we're seeing now is not an outbreak or an epidemic of Ebola in America,” he said in the address, which airs early Saturday. “We're a nation of more than 300 million people. To date, we've seen three cases of Ebola diagnosed here. … This is a serious disease, but we can't give in to hysteria or fear.”
All three cases occurred in Dallas, starting with Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Oct. 8, less than three weeks after arriving from Liberia. Obama called the two nurses who caught Ebola during his treatment “courageous.”
The World Health Organization has counted 9,216 Ebola cases and 4,555 deaths. Nearly all have been in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The president reiterated that Ebola, unlike the flu — which kills thousands of Americans each year — is hard to catch, with transmission possible only through close contact with a sick person’s bodily fluids.
“Even one infection is too many,” he said. “At the same time, we have to keep this in perspective.”
The president again rejected growing demands for a ban on travelers from West Africa.
“Our medical experts tell us that the best way to stop this disease is to stop it at its source — before it spreads even wider and becomes even more difficult to contain,” he said. “Trying to seal off an entire region of the world ... could actually make the situation worse.”
Follow Todd J. Gillman on Twitter at @toddgillman.
