To the Editor:
The hysteria sweeping the country about Ebola is completely unwarranted. It’s just bald, unknowing fear. Ebola is almost as difficult to contract as AIDS, and for the same reason.
Certainly a frightening disease, Ebola infects so many people in Africa due to lack of sewage treatment, access to clean water, and adequate healthcare. Too, it’s a custom in many parts of Africa to touch a deceased person at his or her funeral, insuring a high rate of contamination by the virus.
The outbreak in West Africa wasn’t spontaneous. It’s the same strain of Ebola found in the Congo and it’s highly likely it was carried to Liberia by the illegal transport of chimpanzees of bonobos captured in the Congo and being smuggled out of Africa from ports in Liberia.
It’s extremely unlikely any serious outbreak of Ebola will occur in the United States, as the disease would be much easier to contain here and a much higher percentage of patients would survive.
So I ask you, how many people have died from Ebola in the U.S.? Only one: a man who was turned away from a hospital in Dallas (and may have survived if he hadn’t been), and who spent several more days with relatives before returning to the hospital with advanced Ebola symptoms. None of those relatives have come down with the virus.
Due to inadequate precautions (since remedied) two nurses contracted Ebola while taking care of the man in Dallas. Both recovered. This man had to fly to the U.S. from West Africa, and he infected no one anywhere on that trip. One of the nurses who contracted Ebola traveled on a plane and infected no one. Kaci Hickox flew to the U.S. and infected no one.
Hickox did nothing wrong after relocating to Fort Kent. She rightfully rebelled against being locked in her house, an act validated by a Maine judge. After the court ruling, Hickox adhered to CDC guidelines, including not visiting crowded areas nor traveling until the 21-day incubation period for the Ebola virus had elapsed.
While Hickox has indicated most people in Fort Kent have been supportive, her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, a nursing student at UMaine, Fort Kent, has received threats of classroom boycotts and physical violence from his fellow students should he return to campus. University officials have been unwilling to publicly counter the threats, so Hickox and Wilbur are moving to Freeport, as they realize they face an uphill conflict against which they can’t easily prevail. That is truly ridiculous.
Ebola may be scary, but that kind of hysteria (from nursing students yet) is even more frightening.
If you hate Hickox so much for her actions (and there are many who wish her good riddance), I suggest you spend a month in an Ebola clinic in West Africa carrying bedpans. Maybe that will give you some idea of Hickox’s courage. Upon return you probably won’t have to negotiate the same gauntlet Hickox waded through, and you would have her to thank for that.
The best possible scenario for America is to contain the Ebola outbreak in Africa as soon as possible. That will take more volunteers like Hickox. How many nurses are going to volunteer after the way she’s been treated?
