A second American health care worker was flown from Africa into the U.S. today for treatment of the deadly Ebola virus, a move Iowa Congressman Steve King says may prove to be a terrible mistake. “I don’t have to think about it very long to figure it’s a bad idea,” King says. “I’d just seen a story that someone with ebola died in Heathrow Airport in London. Boy, that’s got to be a calamity.”
King, a Republican from western Iowa, says he’d prefer to see medical aid provided on site in Liberia instead of treating victims in Atlanta. He notes, both of the infected Americans contracted Ebola while trying to treat -other- Ebola patients. “They would be taking the appropriate precautions and they would be the experts on the disease so why did they get it if they knew they were working in it and they were taking all the appropriate precautions?” King asks. “That tells me that we might think we can take appropriate precautions in the United States but that doesn’t give me confidence.”
King says his heart goes out to those who went to Africa to help victims, but he says they knew the risks. “Let’s be as humanitarian as we can be but I would have not brought them into the United States,” King says. He suggests flying over an entire health care ward, if necessary, but “do that in Africa, keep them there.” Nearly 890 people have died of ebola in three west African nations in recent months, making it the largest outbreak since the discovery of the virus.
(Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)