Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Ebola Panic Grips Dallas School

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Ebola is not easily transmitted, we are told, so don't worry about it spreading through the United States at a rapid speed if ever the disease arrives in the States.  With a disease as gruesome as Ebola, why would anyone take a chance?  Fine, you have to get another person's fluids on you, or in you, or something like that.  But the reality of Ebola is that your insides liquify, and you die a miserable death.  Therefore, panic is to be expected.

Newsflash: The first case of Ebola has arrived in the United States, and the person with the disease had contact with school children in Dallas.

The parental response is not surprising.  With the possibility of four schools in the area possibly coming in contact with the disease, it is no wonder that parents are pulling their kids from school, and keeping them home.

The infected individual contracted the disease in Liberia, and then flew to Texas.  Not feeling well, he went to a Dallas emergency room on Friday and they sent him home with antibiotics. When he was asked for his Social Security number, he replied he didn’t have one because he was visiting from Liberia.

Duncan arrived in the U.S. on September 20 to be with relatives in Dallas. He began to develop symptoms last Wednesday.

When asked why he was released from he hospital after his first visit, officials responded, “He was not exhibiting symptoms consistent with keeping him. If the person is not exhibiting the symptoms there would be no reason to keep them.  That’s a judgment call one of the carriers would have to make.

The man is now hospitalized.

The ambulance crew has been quarantined, and the ambulance taken out of service.

My first question is, "Why are we receiving people from the infected areas?  Should we not limit who comes here, or at least screen them, to protect the receiving population from disease?"

If the wide open Mexican Border gives us any clue, government officials aren't even going to consider taking such actions any time soon.

The name of the airlines the patient flew in on has not been released.

In the current outbreak in West Africa — the largest in history — Ebola is fatal about 50 percent of the time.  The superior health care system in the United States, if an outbreak was to occur in this country, would keep the fatality rate at a lower percentage.

The assurances that Ebola cannot be spread easily, and that our health care system would keep fatalities down, did not keep parents from pulling their children out of school in a panic.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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