Understanding Contagion

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Washington, News, Politics, President, Wickenden, Wnyc, Barack, Obama, Lizza

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2014

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“The Administration should be faulted for giving mixed signals” about Ebola, the New Yorker staff writer Jerome Groopman says on this week’s Political Scene podcast. Groopman joins host Dorothy Wickenden to discuss how panic and misinformation have clouded the response to the virus in the U.S. so far, and what we should and should not worry about when it comes to this and other contagions. They examine the confusion over state versus federal quarantine policies, the evolution of the C.D.C’s guidelines, and the lessons that we can learn from the current outbreak. They also explore how epidemics have historically led to stigmas against vulnerable minority groups, and why Obama has a responsibility to emphasize the humanistic imperative to combat Ebola. Groopman says, “The President should state quite clearly that Americans are a compassionate and caring people, and that we take care of our own and, when we have the opportunity, we take care of others.”

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1:10.7	This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about
1:15.2	politics. It's Thursday, October 30th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker.
1:21.4	Only two people so far have contracted Ebola on American soil. The two Dallas nurses who treated a patient who contracted
1:30.5	it in West Africa. Today, both of them are disease-free. That was President Obama at the White
1:36.5	House this Tuesday, trying to quell the Ebola panic that surfaced with quarantine measures being
1:41.7	implemented in a number of states. America in the end is not
1:44.8	defined by fear. That's not who we are. Dr. Jerome Grutman is here to talk with me about Ebola
1:51.9	and about contagion in general what we should and shouldn't worry about. So, Jerry, welcome.
1:58.9	Pleasure to be here. This Ebola outbreak is the largest in history.
2:03.0	The World Health Organization warns that we could start seeing thousands of new cases any time.
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