CDC: ‘Unnecessary and Ineffective Travel Restrictions’ During SARS Outbreak Cost $40B

"We continuously evaluate ways to better protect Americans. Protecting Americans is our number one priority. Second, we make sure that whatever we do is something that works, that we evaluate, and that we can think of ways to continuously improve. Third, we recognize that whatever we do until the outbreak is over in West Africa, we can’t get the risk to zero in this country.

That’s why we continue to surge the CDC response in West Africa and the whole of government -- U.S. response in West Africa, and in fact the international response where we are seeing hundreds of health care workers, hundreds and millions of dollars and intensive effort deployed in the three countries most heavily infected.

And finally, as we say in health care, 'Above all, do no harm.' We have ensure that whatever we do doesn’t unintentionally increase the risk that we will be at risk. Just to remind us of what happened a decade ago in the SARS outbreak.

The SARS outbreak cost the world more than $40 billion, but it wasn’t to control the outbreak. Those were cost from unnecessary and ineffective travel restrictions and trade changes that’s could have been avoided.

What we want to do is ensure that we don't undermine our ability to stop the outbreak at its source and unintentionally increase our risk here."