Fort Campbell Troops On Ebola Mission Won’t Get Full Protective Gear

Troops from the 101st Airborne Division leading the military response to Ebola in West Africa will only need gloves and masks to protect themselves from the deadly virus, so said Gen. David Rodriguez at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday.

“They don’t need the whole suit – as such – because they’re not going to be in contact with any of the people,” the commander of U.S. troops in Africa said.

Soldiers from the 101^st Airborne will primarily be building hospitals, ultimately leading what could be a contingent of 4,000 American service members. They’ll be housed either in tent cities at military airfields or in Liberian Ministry of Defense facilities, Rodriguez said.

Soldiers’ health will be monitored through surveys and taking their temperature on their way in and out of camps. If a service member does get sick, Rodriguez said they will be flown home immediately for treatment.

Next week, the 101^st Airborne will hold a traditional pre-deployment ceremony, known as a “color casing”, before departing for Liberia, though a handful of soldiers are already on the ground.

Obama Plans to Let Ebola-infected Foreigners Into U.S. for Treatment

Washington, DC – Judicial Watch has learned that the Obama administration is actively formulating plans to admit Ebola-infected non-U.S. citizens into the United States for treatment.  Specifically, the goal of the administration is to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis.

“The source is concerned that the proposal is illegal; endangers the public health and welfare; and should require the approval of Congress,” Judicial Watch stated on their website.

It is unclear who would bear the high costs of transporting and treating non-citizen Ebola patients.  The plans include special waivers of laws and regulations that ban the admission of non-citizens with a communicable disease as dangerous as Ebola.

One source tells us that the Obama administration is keeping this plan secret from Congress. The source is concerned that the proposal is illegal; endangers the public health and welfare; and should require the approval of Congress.

Under questioning from Congress on how two Dallas nurses contracted Ebola, Tom Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, ‘While we do not yet know exactly how these transmissions occurred ….’ Right there, at last, Frieden said what he should have been saying all along, that he and everybody else only knew what they thought they knew about Ebola.

It was Ivy Baker Priest, former treasurer of the United States, who once said, “I’m often wrong, but never in doubt.” It is worth remembering the line now as you think of the conga line of famous doctors, led by Tom Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who kept assuring us they knew everything there was to know about transmission of the Ebola virus.

CDC Director Tom Frieden kept assuring the public that his agency knew everything there was to know about the transmission of Ebola. He turned out to be wrong.

There was Frieden, who sadly starts to look like another government hack, going out night after night on television and offering tutorials on Ebola, even after the late Thomas Duncan had been diagnosed with it at Texas Health Presbyterian.

“We know how to stop Ebola,” Frieden said, with certainty on which cathedrals could be built.

Then two nurses at Texas Health, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, were diagnosed with Ebola; two of more than 70 people at that hospital who came into contact with Duncan before he died. Before long, Frieden was talking about a “breach in protocol,” even though any fool can see that the protocol should have been sending a SWAT team from the CDC to Dallas to monitor Duncan’s treatment.

Finally Frieden, who acted all along as if saying “I don’t know” was an act of treason, had to say this to a House panel on Thursday afternoon, talking about two trained nurses who supposedly followed all of the proper protocols and are sick with Ebola anyway:

“While we do not yet know exactly how these transmissions occurred . . . .”

Really, you could have stopped listening right there. Because at last Frieden, almost as a last resort, had said what he should have been saying all along, that he and everybody else only knew what they thought they knew about Ebola.