Fortress America?

Canadians working in the U.S. are  looking for Canadian airlines' direct flights to return home for visits, rather than taking an American carrier.   Canadians don't trust American authorities "to get it right"  in their war against Ebola.  Travelers are paying $50. extra to fly Air Canada from California direct to Vancouver.  Remember the American jet that flew the Ebola stricken nurse from Texas to Cleveland was not taken out of service and decontaminated.  Instead, it flew more domestic flights before being quarantined.

Why take a chance?  The authorities said 'protocols'  would offer adequate protection.  Now two nurses have Ebola - and they supposedly followed the protocols.  Canadians are losing confidence in the system.

Then there is the health-care worker quarantined on a Carnival cruise ship in the Caribbean.   She may have had contact with clinical specimens from Thomas Duncan, the Liberian who died in a Dallas hospital.  She has been found to be Ebola free, but look at the effect.  Both Mexico and Belize refused to let the ship dock.

Passengers on board the ship were horrified and frightened when first confronted with the news,  even though Carnival's official response was "The ship's passenger isn't considered a risk to other passengers or crew".  What?  How do you know?   If I were a passenger on that ship, I'd be afraid to touch the door handles, hand-rails etc.

The point is people are afraid and are asking questions that can't be answered.  We only know 3 things for sure:  this is the largest Ebola epidemic in history. it can mutate and there is no magic vaccine yet.  Period.  Everything else we hear from the experts and the politicians is sheer speculation.

My immediate instinct is to put a travel ban on West Africa and anyone with a West African passport or visa traveling from other parts of the world.  Will it work?  Who knows?  Most of the experts disagree with me but 80% of the American people support a ban.  It just seems like a common-sense thing to do.  And I predict President Obama will order a travel ban sooner than later.