Ebola in the Big Apple

 

Well, New York City has its first acknowledged Ebola case, and this evening, Mayor Bill the Sandinista de Blasio, Governor Andy Cuomo, and other health officials held a press conference at Bellevue Hospital, the designated isolation ward for Ebola patients.

I listened to it on the radio while driving home from school this evening.  Understand that the press conference was not my primary motivation for listening to that particular FM station; my reason for listening is that the station gives traffic reports every 10 minutes (I do not yet have a GPS in the car).

By the time I drove the car into my driveway, I was so sick from hearing that bullshit from the obviously politically-motivated press conference (never mind the Ebola virus) that I turned off the ignition and didn't bother to finish listening to that pap.  I fixed my dinner, read my e-mail, wrote up this posting, and will retire to bed as soon as it is posted.

Being married to a physician for 20+ years, I know better than to play doctor, so I will not now proffer any opinions regarding the medical aspects of this latest development.  I do, however, have common sense and logic, and am no less qualified than the next guy or gal to analyze the logical issues from the press conference.

Specifically, the speakers at that conference, medically-trained and otherwise, took great pains to emphasize that Ebola only spreads through exposure to body fluids and is not an airborne transmission thing; and you can't catch Ebola just by being in the same subway care as the Ebola patient.

Why, then, did they also note that the patient (himself a medical doctor who had recently returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa) was transported by specially-trained paramedics who have the appropriate equipment and protective clothing?

If the purpose of that press conference was to reassure me, it failed miserably.