Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) suggested Wednesday that imposing travel restrictions on West African countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak may not be very effective at this point.
“I think a travel ban at the earliest beginnings of this disease would have been the best. I don’t know if we’re beyond that now,” Bachmann told The Hill.
{mosads}Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital announced Wednesday that a second healthcare worker who had been treating the Liberian man who died from Ebola last week had contracted the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said that the second worker had traveled on a commercial flight from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday.
Bachmann argued that the Obama administration’s previous assurances that it would be unlikely for anyone with Ebola to enter the U.S. had soured the public’s trust in the president.
“The president just unfortunately isn’t credible anymore. And a lot of people aren’t buying the president’s credibility. He isn’t seen as trustworthy,” Bachmann said.
“Too many times the president’s made statements that haven’t come true,” Bachmann added, citing President Obama’s pledges that people could keep their insurance plans and favored doctors under his administration’s healthcare reform law.
Bachmann called on the administration to “calm things down” and outline a concrete way to contain the virus.
“When it comes to something and serious and life-threatening as Ebola, we can’t get it wrong,” Bachmann said. “Government needs to wake up, pay attention and handle this like adults in a serious manner.”
Many members of both parties have called on the administration to implement a travel ban on the three West African countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. But the administration has repeatedly argued that such a ban would hinder timely travel for healthcare workers and ultimately backfire.