Dr Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has tried to explain why he
doesn’t support a travel ban:
Importantly, isolating countries won’t keep Ebola contained and away from American shores. Paradoxically, it will increase the risk that Ebola will spread in those countries and to other countries, and that we will have more patients who develop Ebola in the US. People will move between countries, even when governments restrict travel and trade. And that kind of travel becomes almost impossible to track.
Simply put: you can’t seal the country. If you blocked air travel, it would force desperate individuals to use alternative routes – over land and sea – to escape the epidemic. They’ll still end up in the US, except you won’t know where.