Ebola not a significant threat, Los Angeles Councilman Paul Krekorian says

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Los Angeles City Council met on Tuesday and discussed the best practices when it comes to safeguarding the public against Ebola.

City Councilman Paul Koretz, who requested the Ebola presentation, called upon different departments within the city and outside health agencies to inform the public about the disease.

The meeting, which was held at 10 a.m. in downtown L.A., was in response to the recent Ebola news coming out of Dallas, where two nurses contracted the disease after having contact with patient Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States since the West African outbreak began in March.

With one U.S. Ebola death, two U.S. health care workers infected and dozens of other Americans being monitored, the extremely deadly virus has chewed up the headlines, but City Councilman Paul Krekorian is tired of all the Ebola coverage.

"It is not a crisis in the United States and people need to understand there is no Ebola crisis in the United States," Krekorian said.

The councilman's comments were met with applause from several council members. But a more tempered opinion on Ebola readiness in Los Angeles, provided by L.A. County Interim Health Officer Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, called to address the council about the status of Ebola preparations and procedures.

"We really are prepared. I do not anticipate an outbreak of Ebola to happen here in Los Angeles County," Gunzenhauser said. "The risk of spreading Ebola is still very low."

But despite those assurances, other health care workers are voicing concerns. Registered nurse Dorie Snow told council members that front-line nurses are not getting the Ebola training needed to keep them safe.

"We just haven't had that sort of training yet. It's not available to us yet and we need it," she said.

It's a concern echoed by the California Nurses Association which met with Gov. Jerry Brown in Sacramento Tuesday. Brown and union leaders reviewed ways to make California the national leader in enacting the highest Ebola standards to protect nurses, other health workers, patients and the public. The unions asked for more protective gear.

"One droplet, all it takes for these nurses to be exposed," Rose Ann Demoro of the California Nurses Association said. "One droplet and they could be put in extreme jeopardy."

But Krekorian says all the talk of Ebola borders on hysteria.

"There is no risk that anyone in Los Angeles will get Ebola, period, and I wish that we could just start saying that out loud," he said.

Krekorian pointed out that more people are expected to die from the flu this year in the U.S. than from Ebola anywhere in the world. Regardless, the L.A. County Health Department says it is planning an Ebola readiness drill for next month.