Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took Fox News host Chris Wallace to school on the Ebola virus.
Is our government doing everything it can to ensure that the Ebola virus goes no further than Thomas Eric Duncan? He’s the Liberian man who made it to Dallas last week and was diagnosed with the disease, a revelation that is freaking out a lot of Americans.
Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace brought in Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to address those concerns with some questions – some very legitimate, but many of which veered toward the wildly hypothetical.
Wallace especially wanted to know why flights out of affected countries like Liberia had not been banned. Since British Airlines has suspended all fights going to and out of the infected areas of West Africa, Wallace pressed, shouldn’t U.S. airlines follow suit?
“No, in my opinion absolutely not, Chris,” replied Dr. Fauci. ” Because when you start closing off countries like that, there’s a real danger of making things worse. You isolate them. You can cause unrest in the country. It’s conceivable that governments could fall if you isolate them completely.”
“Experience is that when you close off a country, you create such stress and fear, you amplify the problem,” Dr. Fauci added.
Wallace then questioned why only two people out of 10,000 had received additional screening when they landed in U.S. airports. “There were 10,000 people who have left Liberia and have been screened since July 26. … Only two have been subjected to additional screening.”
Dr. Fauci explained that this was because nobody symptomatic would have been allowed to fly in the first place. “That’s the thing that people need to understand,” said Dr. Fauci. “If you have symptoms or fever, you will not be allowed on the plane.”
It was at this point that Wallace’s questioning turned from seemingly plausible to laughably ridiculous. Dr. Fauci all but rolled his eyes at Wallace’s suggestion that the Ebola virus could sneak across the border, either through undocumented immigrants or as part of a bioterrorist plot.
“I wouldn’t be worried about Ebola coming across our southern borders when we have an Ebola issue right now in South Africa,” Dr. Fauci said. “That’s a hypothetical that’s very far-fetched. As far as terrorism — nature right now is the worth bioterrorist. I’m worried more about natural evolution in west Africa than I am about a terrorist.”
“If I were a bioterrorist, [ebola] would not be my choice,” Dr. Fauci added, saying that that because the virus requires close contact to spread, “[i]t would be inefficient.”
Dr. Fauci concluded that he understood the fears over the virus, but that the strength of the U.S.’s health infrastructure made it close to impossible to replicate what’s happening in west African in the U.S. “We have to get our actions and our policies based on scientific testing,” Fauci said. “It could be will see another case, but we won’t have an outbreak.”
Watch the clip below, via Fox News: