Harvard University is copying Senegal and many other African countries by instituting tough new exclusions to segregate its members from people who have recently been in Ebola-afflicted countries.
That university’s decision leaves the Harvard Law graduate in the White House — President Barack Obama — even more isolated in his opposition to curbs on the entry into America of people who have recently been in the diseased countries.
A travel ban is now backed by roughly two-thirds of Americans only two weeks before the midterm election.
“Harvard affiliates wishing to travel on University business to the countries most affected by Ebola must now obtain the approval of University Provost Alan M. Garber,” according to Harvard’s student newspaper, the Crimson.
“Only clinicians with the highest level of readiness — personal, mental, and professional — should even consider traveling,” say the university rules,” says the directive.
“If you believe your travel is ‘essential,’ you must obtain approval from your School and the Provost’s Office. Refer to the specific steps and contacts outlined at the end of the document,” said the guideline.
The university has also decided that employees and affiliated professionals who have recently been in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia must undergo a medical screening before they are allowed on the university’s grounds.
Some of the travelers may face a 21-day exclusion order, which is intended to reveal if they carry the lethal disease, The Crimson reported.
Harvard is a private university so it can exclude people from its property.
The federal government can also adopt the same rules, but it has only established token screen procedures at five airports.
Those token screenings include cursory body-temperature checks, which do not reveal if a person has been recently infected by the fast-traveling disease. The temperature checks do not even catch all people with the severe stage of the disease, according to medical practitioners in Africa.
Many GOP politicians, including Rep. John Boehner, and a growing number of Democratic politicians and candidates, have called on Obama to establish stronger border protections that could protect 300 million Americans from the disease.
On Sept. 20, a Liberian carrying the disease flew into the United States and walked through customs checks.
He died, but only after infecting two American nurses and sent the U.S. health-care system into a frantic effort to contain the disease.
Many African countries have established border checks to exclude or screen people who were recently in the countries affected by Ebola. Senegal recently imposed a border blockade to successfully contain one outbreak caused by a migrant crossing its border.
Middle Eastern countries have barred arrivals, and European countries have also ended airline flights.
