First a reminder of the past:
“I think the last thing we need to be concerned about is \’oh, will ebola come to America\’. So let\’s just take that off the table for now and get real” (Laurie Garrett, on the Melissa Harris-Perry show, July 6th)
Next, the same Laurie Garrett from an October 2 interview published in the Fresno Bee:
TheUnited States\’ special vulnerability is the enormous holes in ourpublic health and medical care systems.
America\’sspecial risk, not shared by our Canadian neighbors to the north orEuropean friends, is the 13.8% of Americans – about 43.3 millionindividuals – who still lack health insurance, and millions morewhose policies entail copayments that are exorbitant for workingpeople.
Theseare the Americans who routinely tough out the flu, fever, aches andpains because seeking medical care is prohibitively expensive. Ifthey become sick enough to feel desperate, the uninsured andunderinsured of America go to public hospital emergency rooms forcare, where waiting times in often-crowded settings can stretch onfor hours. This reality is compounded by a weakened public healthinfrastructure: 52 health agencies, including 48 states, threeterritories and Washington, D.C. have reported budget cuts since2008.
Thewindow for stopping hospital spread of diseases like Ebola is goingto close as soon as the flu season begins, when feverish patients arecommonplace. Influenza has yet to slam America for the 2014-2015season, and that is fortunate. Once ERs and doctors\’ offices getswamped with influenza sufferers – feverish, achy, exhausted -spotting Ebola cases will be complex and perhaps impossible in theabsence of a rapid diagnostic test.
America\’sspecial vulnerability to Ebola is its limitations on access to healthcare. In times of contagion, societal risk rises with every uninsuredor underinsured individual who struggles to work or go to school witha fever, and avoids bankrupting visits to health providers.
Yes, this is the same Laurie Garrett who sarcastically blew off any possibility of ebola coming here, but is now telling us why we were so vulnerable to it all along, and lecturing us on what we have to do to prevent a massive outbreak.
This means:
-Either she didn\’t know any of this in July, and just learned about it over the past three months (a little hard to fathom, given that she is touted as an expert on ebola and won a Pulitzer Prize for writing about it in 1995),
-or, Ms. Garrett\’s expertise notwithstanding, she is embarrassedly trying to deflect attention from her ridiculous blow-off of the ebola threat at that time by flakking for ObamaCare.
Whichever of the two it turns out to be, something is in very short supply. Her credibility.
Look I do not doubt that Laurie Garrett knows a great deal about ebola and the USA public\’s vulnerability to this horrific virus. But her arrogance – and, quite possibly, her partisanship – seems to be overwhelming it.
It has been said that chefs cover their mistakes with mayonnaise and doctors cover theirs with dirt. Ms. Garrett seems to be covering hers with a combination of arrogance, and a lack of any personal responsibility for admitting that she misinformed viewers on a nationally aired TV show.
