Chill Out About Ebola Already

Today, Monday November 3rd, The Austin American Statesman published the article by Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star Titled "Sanchez: Ebola Should not Spawn more useless 'security theater.'" In this column, Sanchez comments on the miss matched overreactions that different states are having to the return of doctors without borders to the United States. Specifically in the case of nurse Kaci Hickox who is suing the state of New Jersey for quarantining her in a warehoused plastic tent after her return from Sierra Leone, showing no signs of ebola, and against her will. Sanchez takes the position that there should be some regulation as to what people returning from countries where Ebola is a major issue, however we do not need to take extreme measures such as quarantine or isolation. Sanchez takes her evidence from Judge Charles C. LaVerdiere who presided over Hickox's trial and science. Ebola is only contagious in people that are showing symptoms, and therefore, contact with asymptomatic individuals will not spread the disease, ruling out the need for isolation and most definitely quarantine. Judge LaVerdiere attributes the overreaction of officials to "the 'misconceptions, misinformation, bad science and bad information' surrounding Ebola." Sanchez also blames the upcoming elections for governors' overreactions saying they "[want] to look tough" and are "afraid of being pilloried as being weak with elections days away." Sanchez hopes that the Hickox controversy will create more intelligent decisions from state officials, leading to more standardized rules from state to state not the treatment of people retuning from countries where Ebola is a issue.This audience is intended to both inform and persuade common people and lawmakers that Ebola in America is something we are largely overreacting to and putting in place unnecessary protection measures that only infringe on the rights of people coming back from infected countries.

I agree with Sanchez's stance. Ebola is a very dangerous virus if it is in a country with a less equipped medical infrastructure. However in America the likelihood of Ebola becoming a pandemic is highly unlikely, mainly because in sanitary conditions where people practice regular hygiene and are educated very quickly about this disease, it is very hard to contract the virus from someone else. To contract Ebola, one must get the bodily fluids of a contagious individual to touch one of their mucus membranes (basically go in your mouth or eyes). Ebola patients are not contagious until they show the very obvious symptoms of Ebola, so I think it is reasonable to have people that show signs of Ebola isolated. Also lets be honest, if you had been to a place where Ebola was common, and started showing the symptoms of Ebola, I don't know about you but I would be getting to the hospital as fast as I could to keep myself alive. All of the science shows that isolation and 21-day quarantines are unnecessary and can actually deter people from going to help in countries struck with the disease. Like Sanchez, I too hope that the Hickox case brings more sanity to the issue and that after elections are over American policy on Ebola will mellow out.