1.) you have not addressed any of my points including the fact that thousands of liters of Hatian blood were being shipped to the USA for years and thousands of Europeans had been being exposed to HIV for close to 50 years before emigrating en masse from spillover zones.
Ronald Reagan definitely messed up the response to the epidemic, the government should have started a campaign to educate the public about safe practices to help lower the amount of people who would unknowingly expose themselves to the Virus. He (and many conservatives) don’t and didn’t like people talking about STDs or anything related to them so they ignored it (every once in a while you can probably still hear conservatives whining about S- Ed in government run institutions including schools today).
We are discussing if a Travel ban and forced testing should have been attempted.
Attempting a travel ban or forced testing of everyone who could have been exposed would not have been possible. Like I pointed out above even just rounding up anyone who had used an intravenous drug in the previous 10 years as well as anyone who may have been exposed to the body fluids of someone who used one is not realistic. This is not even mentioning anyone who was exposed any other way (contact with blood from Hemo Carribean or someone who received some, a European who had either lived or had contact with someone who lived in the Congo, anyone who had traveled to Haiti/had contact with a Haitian etc.)
Regarding Ebola,
Trying to put in place a Travel ban instead of getting the Virus under control in West Africa IS giving it a bigger population to mutate in. It is inevitable that people would “slip through” the travel ban carrying the strains that had more time to mutate. Thinking that a Travel Ban would not effect the economy is ridiculous. To even give the appearance of possibly being slightly effective it would have to cover much more then the 3 “main” countries affected.