Ebola fears are hitting Maine as a nurse returning from West Africa and headed to Fort Kent was put into a forced, 21-day quarantine in a tent behind a New Jersey hospital over the weekend.
By Monday, however, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had changed their minds about the quarantine, and Hickox — who never showed Ebola symptoms — was reportedly on the way to Maine, where her boyfriend is a nursing student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. She planned to “self-quarantine.”
Late last week, Ebola hysteria swept through New York City as residents learned that Dr. Craig Spencer had tested positive for the potentially deadly disease and been quarantined at a city hospital.
Investigators on Friday retraced the Doctors Without Borders physician’s steps, quarantining at least three people who had contact with Spencer in recent days. On one of those days, Spencer, who left Guinea on Oct. 14 after treating Ebola patients, went bowling, fueling concerns that Ebola could be transmitted via bowling ball.
The widespread Ebola fears among so many in the U.S. are understandable, but they are not justified. A total of four Ebola cases have been diagnosed in the United States. So far, only two people have contracted Ebola on American soil. The public and health officials need to allow reason, not fear, to govern their reaction to Ebola.
According to one of the nation’s top bioethicists, Arthur Caplan, forced quarantines such as Hickox’s aren’t scientifically warranted, likely aren’t legal and will discourage American health care professionals such as Hickox and Spencer, from going to West Africa, where their expertise and help are desperately needed to combat Ebola there.
At this point, U.S. officials’ reaction is one of managing fear, not the Ebola virus, he wrote for NBC News.
In Maine, the decision by administrators at Strong Elementary School to place a teacher on a 21-day administrative leave because parents were concerned about her recent travel to Dallas for a conference — which did not include travel to the hospital where Duncan was treated — is irrational.
To be sure, media hype is largely to blame for such overreaction. But educators in this instance have a responsibility to, well, educate, rather than give in to unreasonable fears.
Why are those fears unreasonable? Take the Spencer case. The physician had been closely monitoring his own health — taking his temperature twice daily — and alerted authorities on Thursday morning when he noticed a spike in his temperature.
His body temperature at the time, 100.3 degrees as it turned out, was low enough so it was unlikely Spencer could have spread the virus before checking into the hospital. As for spreading it through bowling? Another unlikely scenario.
“If someone left blood, vomit or feces on a bowling ball, and the next person to touch it did not even notice, and then put his fingers into his eyes, nose or mouth, it might be possible,” Donald McNeil wrote on The New York Times’ Well blog. “But, the Ebola virus does not not normally build up to high levels in saliva or mucus until very late in the disease.”
As for a travel ban from West Africa? It’s a step that’s popularly supported, and it’s a seemingly easy public policy response to stem the spread of a dangerous disease. But that particular response is illogical.
There are no direct flights from the West African nations affected by Ebola to the U.S. Spencer flew into New York City’s JFK airport via Brussels. Michael Leavitt, who served as Health and Human Services secretary during the George W. Bush administration, told the Associated Press that a travel ban is problematic. Would the U.S. continue to extend the ban to additional nations? After how many infections in those countries? What about U.S. citizens who want to travel home, where they can get better treatment for the virus that offers them a better chance of survival?
In short, the scale of Ebola fright is unreasonable because there is such a small likelihood the disease will become widespread through the presence of so few cases, because Ebola transmits through direct contact with an infected person’s blood or bodily fluids and because it transmits only in later stages of the infection. Plus, it’s highly treatable by a health care system equipped to deal with the virus.