Roy Exum
A school teacher in Maine was placed on a 21-day paid leave-of-absence earlier this month by the school board after parents at the Strong Elementary School feared she may have been exposed to the Ebola virus while attending an educational seminar in Dallas. You will recall Dallas is where Thomas Duncan became the first patient in the United States to be diagnosed with the disease but – please! – the city limits haven’t got anything to do with catching the virus.
Understand, the teacher was miles away from the patient and Duncan most certainly didn’t attend the education seminar in the Texas city of 1.25 million people.
You also need to know 5 million people travel in and out of Dallas each month, but it is a classic example of the paranoia that is reigning supreme in the United States right now.
Oh, I’ll agree that medical teams that have been in direct contact with those suffering from the deadly disease in Africa should be quarantined for some period of time until we have a better grip on treating Ebola and containing it, but there has to be a common-sense czar out there somewhere.
Two children in New Jersey were ordered to stay away from school for 21 days because they had just moved to the United States from Rwanda. Parents became upset, of course, and the school responded, but there have been no cases of Ebola in Rwanda. As a matter of fact, Rwanda is 2,600 miles from where the closest case has been found, which is about how far Seattle is from Philadelphia, according to myfoxphilly, which reported the stupidity.
In a hysterical story on the Mother Jones website, writer Iane Oh called out Syracuse University for cancelling an appearance by Pulitzer-winning photographer Michel du Cille because the Washington Post cameraman had been in Africa taking pictures of the crisis. The incubation period for Ebola is 21 days, which is how long du Cille had been back home, and he was exhibiting no symptoms then or now.
“What a missed opportunity to teach future media professionals how to seek out accurate, hard facts, backed up with full details about the Ebola crisis,” he wrote of his disappointment. “I guess it is easier to pull the hysteria and xenophobia cards.”
In Cleveland, Ohio, a prankster at the Horseshoe Casino told the dealer he was “gambling to avoid his Ebola-stricken wife.” Well, that was all it took before the authorities could confirm that neither the woman nor her husband had Ebola. But a judge set the bond for “inducing panic” at $10,000 just the same.
Officials at Navarro College in Texas turned down applications for two potential students from Ebola-free Nigeria after that African nation has done such a superb job combating the disease there are less than 20 cases that have been reported. When contacted, a school spokesperson said the admissions department was focusing on students from China and Indonesia instead.
A sick passenger on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Chicago was ordered to stay in the airplane’s lavatory for the duration of the flight after becoming nauseated. A University of Texas professor couldn’t believe it. “The flight attendants, I think, overreacted completely. It was crazy,” she told reporters.
Players on the Northhampton High soccer team taunted a West African on an opposing team by yelling “Ebola” repeatedly in Nazareth, Pa., and the next day the Northhampton head coach and an assistant coach resigned.
In Los Angeles a masked man jumped on a bus and said he had Ebola. The guy ran away but the bus is quarantined and the driver is on paid leave. At the same time in Las Vegas, a new prisoner at the jail told guards he was just back from Africa and having symptoms. They rushed the jail bird to the hospital, where haz-mat was rushed into service and isolated him before learning the man has never been out of the United States.
According to CNN, “Fear-bola has become so bad that nearly two-thirds of those queried in a Washington Post/ABC News poll said they’re concerned about an epidemic in the U.S. … so bad that the Centers for Disease Control, in the first week of October, fielded 800 calls from concerned Americans.”
The real truth: According to Newsweek’s website, seven things you are more likely to die from than Ebola are, “being stung by a bee, food poisoning, being injured by a horse, partying too hard, accidentally shooting yourself, being killed by Batman (the rollercoaster in Georgia) and malaria.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are assuring us that “Ebola is not spread through casual contact; therefore, the risk of an outbreak in the U.S. is very low.”
And one more thing – Ebola cannot be spread through the air but fear can. Let’s all take a deep breath, like Governor Christie is urging, and remain diligent, not stupid.
royexum@aol.com