Missouri Sen. Rob Schaaf fears ISIS could start infecting themselves with Ebola, traveling to the U.S. to start an outbreak

Missouri Sen. Rob Schaaf knows what he would do if he became a member of Islamic State.

“Everyone knows that our southern border is completely porous. People are coming across our southern border all the time and really our federal government isn’t doing a whole lot to stop that. If I was a terrorist from the Islamic State, I’d go in and expose myself to Ebola and come across the border and infect as many people as I could. It would totally, totally disrupt our health system.”

That statement comes by way of KMIZ, a Columbia TV station that reported on an odd meeting of Missouri lawmakers who worry that the state isn’t prepared enough to handle an Ebola outbreak in the Show-Me State. It’s good to wonder if the state has the resources to handle a potential health issue, but Schaaf, a St. Joseph Republican, used the opportunity to summon fears about the deadly disease, immigration and terrorism, all in one sitting.

To be sure, Ebola and ISIS are pressing matters. But some perspective helps.

While Ebola remains a public-health crisis in West Africa, only three cases have popped up in the United States, none of them in Missouri. Transmission of Ebola occurs through direct contact with bodily fluids, meaning that Schaaf’s idea about how ISIS could trigger an outbreak in the United States is wildly inefficient, if not wholly implausible.

ISIS is no doubt a menace in the Middle East. But while cable television plays up their brutality and implies that the group represents an imminent threat to the United States, federal officials are on record saying that there’s no credible information that shows the terrorist group poses any danger within U.S. borders.