In an editorial broadly attacking public health institutions, the editors of the Wall Street Journal declaim:
An Ebola outbreak on the Eastern seaboard or some other densely populated region could well cost billions of dollars to contain and perhaps throw the economy into recession, akin to the 2009 SARS pandemic in China. The possibility is very remote, and Washington is marginally more accountable than Beijing. Then again, the CDC said domestic cases were improbable too.
They’re underestimating, probably by a factor of ten. As I pointed out yesterday spending billions to fight Ebola is already “baked in” to present policy. If that’s enough to push us into recession, recession here we come!
So the last slowdown was due to the unexpected arrival of cold weather in winter and the next one is due to ebola. Can the one after that be due to a plague of frogs?
‘Cause I really want to see editorials calling for leadership from Obama to create an anti-frog coalition to free us of the scourge of amphibian terrorism. No doubt the Washington Post will call for bombing Iraq again, but when don’t they?