Last night I read that the CDC is planning to transport at least one American Citizen with the ebola virus to Atlanta for treatment. Driving around today my car radio kept assaulting me with experts soothingly asserting that there is no reason for the American population to fear exposure to the virus. To a man they all went on to say that only healthcare workers were likely to be exposed.
If you're a healthcare worker raise your hand. Are you angry? Do you feel like you're being considered expendable? Less than fully human? Are you worried?
I don't favor deliberately bringing ANY known infected person across the ocean to this continent. OK, Ebola is not all that easy to contract. It's a lot harder to contract if it is thousands of miles away.
The virus is spread by contact with infected body fluids. So lets say a nurses aid in a hospital comes in contact with those body fluids (diarrhea, emesis, blood, whatever. Accidents happen even if you take precautions.) What is to stop her from spreading the virus to her husband or child? What is to stop a child infected in this way from spreading it within his classroom?
I have always been able to deal with the concept of ebola by reminding myself that it exists on another continent. Perhaps I'm being selfish, but I believe that anyone sickened in Africa should be treated in Africa. We don't need to help diseases spread around the globe any more than we already do.
NIMBY. In this case, NIMBY. I'm not a NIMBY kind of girl, but this terrifies me.
What do you think? What would you do if you were assigned a patient know to be infected with Ebola?
