Most remarkable, within a month the controversy surrounding the threat of Ebola to Americans had mushroomed into a political emergency for the Obama presidency itself, only a few tense weeks before the November 4 elections. Calls escalated for the appointment of an Ebola czar and a travel ban on persons originating in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the root sources of the Ebola emergency. A special measure of criticism was reserved for the Obama administration's lead face in the U.S. response, Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the words of one observer, this week became full of "recriminations, political showboating... and panicked overreactions."
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