I’m Bill Kingston with today’s commentary. In response to Ebola, maybe Canada went too far with not allowing visa applications from West African countries. But it should have taken a page out of the book of New Jersey and a handful of other states by having a mandatory 21 day quarantine.
Unfortunately, Maine wimped out and settled with nurse Kaci Hickox, who came back from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. Nobody is arguing the service she did overseas wasn’t needed and wasn’t commended. But 21 days in isolation should be expected and not argued.
This is another case of the government kowtowing to the minority. Heaven forbid we would actually inconvenience a handful of people coming from West Africa for the 35 million people in Canada and 316 million people in the U.S.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had warned against “unnecessarily” strict restrictions on healthcare workers. But in a place where almost 5,000 have died and five health care workers have contracted Ebola – four of which have died – we can’t be letting down our guard.
We don’t hear about a wild spread of rabies yet many countries quarantine animals for rabies for weeks and months – no excuses. Should we expect any less for a disease that seems to spread much more easily through bodily fluids?
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