Understanding Contagion

“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.”