October 29, 2014
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Ebola? No known cause. No known cure. Up until last week it couldn’t be spread by a sneeze. This week CDC’s website said that now it can. But the site was taken down the next day.
Anybody worried?
The president says we have to rely on the "Science.” So does the Good Nurse who is fresh back from Africa and doesn’t want to be quarantined.
The "Science” says only someone who had direct contact with bodily fluids of an infected patient can contract the disease. Would that be someone like the Good Nurse back from tending Ebola patients in Africa? I guess that would be an excellent time to quarantine.
Unless the person doesn’t want to, so then the "Science” says we don’t have to.
And the president says we won’t! He’s outraged at the very thought of quarantine, just like that Good Nurse. The nurse agrees. Her rights are being violated. And besides she says she knows she’s not sick.
Is she a carrier? The "Science” doesn’t speak to that.
Not yet.
And the president is outraged at the very thought of closing our borders to people travelling to the U.S. from countries riddled with the disease! He’s outraged at the very thought that the good people who volunteer to go to Africa to work with Ebola patients should be quarantined for 21 days when they come back!
But the "Science” says there are volunteers and there are volunteers. How come the soldiers coming back from Africa are going to be quarantined, Mr. President? Don’t we have an entirely volunteer military?
Well, sure, that’s right. The president says that’s okay that they volunteer, uh, they might be volunteers, but they have to take orders and have to be quarantined. That’s because the "Science” told the Defense Department that they might be contagious, that quarantine would be an excellent idea. For them. For the soldiers.
Yeah, sure, that makes sense. Soldiers don’t have rights to violate like the Good Nurse and volunteers who go to Africa. Soldiers do good works, give ‘til it hurts, but so what?
When push comes to shove, soldiers won’t use their pen and their phone to hire an ACLU lawyer like the Good Nurse whose rights were violated. The rights other "volunteer soldiers” fight to protect.
And honestly, could you actually put soldiers in the same category as the volunteer doctor who lied about what he did after he set foot on U.S. soil after treating Ebola patients in Africa?
Of course not. Those types of good people would be discouraged from going to Africa, to volunteer and what would we Americans do without people volunteering to go to Africa, a choice they made?
As for the Good Volunteer Doctor? Well, he cavorted and sang – all over New York City, oh, and Brooklyn, too. But he didn’t admit he did until the authorities checked his MetroCard and his credit card.
Oh, yeah and he also donned bowling shoes in a Brooklyn bowling alley. Think there were any bodily fluids on them? The "Science” never really said anything about that. It might cause people to panic.
Seems the "Science” says there’s fluids and then there’s fluids.
Worried?
Aw, don’t be silly. The "Science” said an Ebola-exposed-Dallas-nurse-of-the-guy-who-died could travel to Cleveland. By plane. A couple of planes, in fact. Sure, she had a fever, but not that high.
But then the "Science” said she shouldn’t have and don’t you either from now on, darn it!
The "Science” tells us that "It” doesn’t spread through the air, but then again, the Science found that "It” could live on surfaces for a number of hours. It didn’t before, but now it does.
And quarantine? The process where "there is a period of isolation in which people or animals are placed who have arrived from elsewhere and been exposed to infectious or contagious disease?” What good would that do? It’s the same as closing the borders! That would just keep people who were near people who died from Ebola in Africa from spreading it throughout America.
How silly.
And it didn’t seem like a good deal to the healthcare duo, the Good Nurse and the Good Doctor who returned from Ebola duty in Africa, so they went merrily on their way, happy as two pigs in mud. Riding bikes, granting interviews!
The doctor said he self-quarantined and self-monitored, but he didn’t. And he had the disease. He’s still in Bellevue.
Worried?
Aw, don’t be silly.
And, oh yeah, the Good Nurse with the good works? It came out her roommate in Africa had Ebola, but an official from the Maine Centers for Disease Control Prevention, said the "roommate didn’t know how she became infected with Ebola, and any potential risk to (the nurse) from that incident has passed " Hmmm.
Well, that adds. The "Science” can’t explain how Dallas nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson became infected. Maybe the "Good Nurse” should be consulted. She knows she’s not infected. Maybe she can explain the Science to the CDC how someone could become infected and they can put that up on their website.
Then take it down.
But still I wonder. There’s a message on the U.S. State Department website meant for college students travelling to places like Africa. It’s interesting.
It reads, "In the event of an outbreak, any country has the right to enact measures, such as quarantine of exposed people, isolation of sick people entering or exiting the country for sickness or disease exposure to protect its citizens and to prevent the spread of an outbreak to other countries.
"These measures may infringe on the individual rights of those who appear to be infected with or exposed to a disease of public health concern – including visiting U.S. citizens. The ability of the U.S. Department of State to intervene in such situations is limited.”
They’re speaking, of course, of other countries having the right to protect its citizens, not the United States.
That would be silly.
And besides, Americans are just panicking! A judge for the Good Nurse even said so when he ruled that she, too, could cavort and sing all over Maine. He sided with the "Science”, too.
Judge Charles LaVerdiere wrote, "The court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country with respect to Ebola. The court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational.”
But in the meanwhile, check this out.
The president was all agog, supporting the "Science” and the Right Not to Be Quarantined, giving the Ebola patient Nina Pham a huggy welcome and a smooch at the White House after she was "cured.” But did you notice when he visited Maine this week, he didn’t pay a call on the Good Nurse?
Hold the line, America.