February 2nd, 2015

The Ebola virus outbreak this past year, with over 21,000 cases, has claimed well over 8,000 lives, but has been primarily contained in three West African countries: Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. The outbreak started in December of 2013 and peaked this past summer with thousands of cases. Now it looks like the Ebola scare is nearly over... and the United States government was little to no help!
The US government seemingly did not know what to do or how much it should do. President Obama finally sent 3,000 troops to West Africa to build 17 treatment centers in September at a cost of $750 million! The Washington Post reported that the worst of the outbreak was over before the first treatment center was even built! Most of the US-built treatment centers are empty or nearly empty, and were sparingly used if at all! One Liberian official told the Post that they needed the centers prior to the time they were built, and that the centers were built too late.
According to the Post, many of the centers are suspending operations or closing down completely. What a waste! If the government responded sooner, it would have been a big help. But why dump money (our money!) into a project that does next to nothing?! That's $750 million of taxpayers' money... wasted!

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