Obama scraps Thursday travel to monitor Ebola

President Obama scrapped his scheduled trip to Rhode Island and New York on Thursday to continue monitoring the Ebola crisis, the White House announced late Wednesday.

“The President will remain at the White House to follow up on today’s Cabinet meeting on the government’s Ebola response,” the White House said in a statement.

More details about the president’s activities on Ebola will be released on Thursday morning.

{mosads}The announcement comes after Obama canceled a campaign trip to New Jersey and Connecticut Wednesday to meet with Cabinet members, after a second Texas hospital worker was diagnosed with Ebola.

He pledged the federal government would adopt a “much more aggressive” response.

The administration has so far declined to impose a travel ban on flights from the West African nations where the Ebola outbreak started and has proved most deadly.

There have also been calls for the president to appoint an Ebola “czar” — a single person to oversee the federal response to the virus. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said there was “a very clean line of responsibility” in terms of dealing with the disease at his briefing Wednesday.

A smattering of Republican lawmakers have also called for Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden to resign.

— This post was updated at 10:48 p.m.