6 of America's Most Panicky, Misinformed Overreactions to the Ebola Virus

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http://www.alternet.org/culture/6-americas-most-panicky-misinformed-overreactions-ebola-virus


1. Geography Taught Here?

Howard Yocum Elementary School, in Maple Shade, New Jersey, is across the river from Philadelphia. It’s 146 miles away from a hospital in Maryland, 782 miles from a hospital in Georgia, and 1,475 miles from a hospital in Texas, where Ebola patients are located. However, when parents and school officials heard that two students from the East African country of Rwanda were enrolled, they lost it—even though Rwanda, which has no Ebola cases, is 2,846 miles from the virus’ epicenter, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa.

2. Not An Isolated Incident

In Strong Elementary School in Maine, a different unfounded fear unfolded. One teacher was put on a mandatory 21-day leave after attending a conference in Dallas and staying at a hotel 9.5 miles from Texas Health Presbyterian, where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was treated before he died. Never mind that millions of people live and commute in the city. Ignorant parents and a compliant school board were quick to overreact, bending to the argument that they had not been told a teacher would be in Dallas.

3. What’s Missing in Mississippi

More public school paranoia occurred in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, after a rumor surfaced that its middle-school principal, Lee Wannik, was in Nigeria (which, incidentally, has been declared virus-free by international health officials). The rumor, which was wrong, nonetheless prompted dozens of parents to remove their children from school. Wannik was at his brother’s funeral in Zambia, an East-Central African country which is even further from Liberia than Rwanda is.

4. No Getting Sick In Public

Panic broke out and HazMat teams were dispatched to a Dallas Area Rapid Transit station on Saturday after a woman got off a train and vomited at the platform, leading police to close the station and summon emergency crews. Initially, the media incorrectly reported that she had been on an Ebola watch list, which was later retracted.