Obama's weekly message: "We can't just cut ourselves off from West Africa"

“We can’t just cut ourselves off from West Africa,” Obama said, explaining it would make it harder to move health workers and supplies into the region, and would motivate people trying to get out the region to evade screening, making it harder to track cases. “Trying to seal off an entire region of the world – if that were even possible – could actually make the situation worse,” he said. Obama said it would take time to fight the disease, warning “before this is over, we may see more isolated cases here in America.” But he sought to put the disease in perspective, reminding Americans that only three cases have been diagnosed in the country, and that it is not easily contracted. “What we’re seeing now is not an ‘outbreak’ or an ‘epidemic’ of Ebola in America,” he said. “This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear.”