ABC News is back at it, hauling out "experts" to explain why restricting travel from Ebola-ravaged countries would somehow make things worse — because if there's one thing the mainstream media learned from COVID, it's absolutely nothing.
You'd think after spending three years lecturing us about "following the science," these people might recall that their early opposition to travel restrictions in 2020 aged like milk in the sun. But no. Here we are again.
ABC News ran a piece featuring epidemiologist John Brownstein — Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children's Hospital and, conveniently, an ABC News medical contributor — warning that Ebola travel restrictions could have "unintended consequences." Brownstein told viewers, "We always worry that broad travel restrictions offer people a false sense of safety." Because apparently the real danger isn't the hemorrhagic fever with a sky-high fatality rate. It's us feeling too safe.
Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, a Dallas-based infectious disease physician, piled on with this gem: "A broad travel ban does not make sense based on what we know so far." She added that "if the goal is truly to reduce risk, policies need to be grounded in epidemiology and exposure risk, not nationality." There it is. The not-so-subtle implication that wanting to keep Ebola out of the country is somehow about nationality rather than, you know, not dying.
Remember, these are the same types of "experts" who in early 2020 called Trump's China travel ban "xenophobic" and "premature." Joe Biden himself called it "hysterical" and "fear-mongering." Then a million Americans died. But sure, let's run it back.
Meanwhile, the situation on the ground is a horror show that makes the case for travel restrictions all by itself. The outbreak is tearing through the Democratic Republic of Congo and has spread to Uganda and South Sudan. And it's not exactly being contained over there. The WHO just declared a national emergency. According to NBC News, last week local youths in Uganda burned the Rwampara Ebola treatment center to the ground. A local student named Alexis Burata described the scene, saying police "were unsuccessful" in calming the situation and "the young people ended up setting fire to the center." There have been 3 treatment center attacks in recent days alone.
Oh, and it gets better. In Monbgwalu, Congo, patients literally escaped from a hospital. Escaped. From an Ebola ward. Like a zombie movie, except the zombies are real and they're potentially carrying one of the deadliest viruses on Earth.
But ABC's "experts" want us to believe that a 21-day screening window for U.S. nationals returning from affected regions — the kind of targeted measure currently in place at airports like Dulles — is sufficient. No need for broader restrictions. Just screen a few folks at the airport and cross your fingers. What could go wrong?
The playbook is identical to 2020. Step one: deadly virus emerges overseas. Step two: common-sense people suggest maybe we shouldn't let it waltz through our airports unchecked. Step three: media rolls out credentialed "experts" to explain why border security is actually the real threat. Step four: anyone who disagrees gets labeled a xenophobe. We've seen this movie. We know how it ends.
The entire argument boils down to this: we should trust the same institutions and the same media outlets that botched COVID — the lockdowns, the school closures, the lab-leak cover-up, the mask flip-flops — to get Ebola right. That's not science. That's insanity.
As Twitchy noted, the ratio on ABC's coverage tells you everything. Normal Americans aren't buying it this time. We got burned once. We're not putting our hand back on the stove because John Brownstein from ABC News says the burner is mostly safe.
Here's the thing the "experts" never seem to grasp: the "unintended consequence" of a travel ban is that fewer sick people enter the country. That's it. That's the consequence. And we're fine with it.