Saturday, November 01, 2014

Hickox And Ebola Panic

Good for you, Kaci Hickox - The Washington Post:

...People are understandably concerned about Ebola. Politicians are understandably responding to those concerns. But they also owe the public the duty to combat fear with facts and to tailor the public health response to the scientific evidence.

Which is, as you probably already know, this: Ebola is a deadly virus, but also an oddly cooperative one. You cannot catch Ebola until the infected person is symptomatic. Even then, becoming infected requires direct contact with bodily fluids. For proof, look at the fact that none of the relatives of the one person who has died of Ebola in the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan, caught the disease, despite living in close quarters with him...

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