A disease that kills roughly half the people who contract it is nothing with which to trifle – or to use as a political football.

Yet President Barack Obama – who took an oath that his first priority would be protecting Americans – is dealing with Ebola as he might with a dispute in Congress over funding for a government agency. In effect, he has abdicated responsibility for safeguarding Americans, leaving that up to local and state leaders.

Officials in New York and New Jersey have decided any medical professional returning to their states after working with Ebola patients in West Africa should be quarantined, involuntarily if necessary, for 21 days. That is the incubation period for the Ebola virus.

State officials’ decision came after a doctor who had worked in Africa with Ebola patients returned home from New York, alerting no one of his situation. A few days after arriving, he came down with Ebola. Fortunately, it appears his contact with other people was limited.

Also contributing to the New York and New Jersey officials’ decision may have been the situation involving two Texas nurses. Both have recovered after bouts with Ebola, which they contracted while treating a?Liberian man who died of the disease in a Dallas hospital.

Obama has refused to take a logical step in keeping Ebola from spreading in this country – restricting entry into the United States of people coming here from West Africa, where the disease has killed more than 5,000 people. Now, he criticizes the quarantine program, claiming it is unscientific.

He has allies, including some in the media. One news organization, in a suggested headline for a story on the situation, proclaimed, “Ebola quarantine policies spread, despite science.”

Let us be clear: Quarantines are the science-based approach to containing the spread of a very dangerous infectious disease.

Army generals agree.

Hundreds of U.S. military personnel are in West Africa, helping to build facilities for treatment of Ebola patients. Army officials announced Monday any members of that branch returning from West Africa will be isolated for 21 days before being allowed to return home. A major general and his 11-person staff already are under quarantine in Italy.

Perhaps the politics and diplomacy of Ebola are not settled. It may be the national Ebola coordinator chosen by the president – a man with no medical or crisis management experience who served as a political aide to two vice presidents – can handle that.

The science is settled, however. Denying that, as Obama does, risks a full-blown Ebola epidemic in the United States.