Kamala Harris compares Obama response to Ebola outbreak to Trump’s handling of coronavirus

Kamala Harris compared the coronavirus pandemic to the U.S. Ebola outbreak, labeling it a “pandemic” dealt with by the Obama administration.

During her first public appearance as the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee on Wednesday, the senator from California compared the novel coronavirus, which has infected over 5.1 million people and is linked to 165,000 deaths in the United States, to the Ebola outbreak in 2014. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only “eleven people were treated for Ebola in the United States during the 2014-2016 epidemic.”

“It didn’t have to be this way. Six years ago, in fact, we had a different health crisis. It was called Ebola. And we all remember that pandemic. But you know what happened then? Barack Obama and Joe Biden did their job. Only two people in the United States died. Two. That is what is called leadership,” Harris said.

“Epidemic” and “pandemic” are two distinct medical terms. The CDC says, “an outbreak is called an epidemic when there is a sudden increase in cases,” whereas a pandemic is a situation where a “disease spreads across several countries and affects a large number of people.” The coronavirus was labeled an epidemic after a spike of cases was reported from a localized region in China but was upgraded to a pandemic after spreading across the globe.

The Ebola virus never met the definition of a “pandemic” because it was primarily restricted to African areas, such as Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The Obama administration, which also referred to the outbreak as an epidemic, conducted entry screenings at major airports on passengers coming from the countries impacted by the disease.

“You must remember that the risk of Ebola for the everyday citizen in the United States is extraordinarily low,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, said at the time. “So Ebola is on the radar screen, but for us, is an extraordinarily remote threat.”

Some medical professionals criticized Harris’s comparison on social media.

The World Health Organization also categorizes the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak as an epidemic in Africa. The Ebola virus is significantly less transmissible and more lethal than the coronavirus, which is still being studied by public health officials and experts. The CDC says Ebola is “not transmitted through the air and does not spread through casual contact” but is contracted by body fluid transmission or “handling or eating certain infected mammals such as monkeys, fruit bats, forest antelope and porcupines.”

“People infected with Ebola aren’t contagious unless they have symptoms. If a person sick with Ebola coughs or sneezes, and saliva or mucus touches another person’s eyes, nose, mouth, or an open cut or wound, these fluids may spread Ebola,” reads a description from the CDC.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is “thought to spread mainly from person to person, mainly through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks,” according to the CDC. “These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs. Spread is more likely when people are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet).”