Oh, America, you’re so charming. Never mind the almost 4500 people who have died of Ebola in West Africa. No one gives a damn about them, but don’t bring it here, no way.
Ebola hemorrhagic fever has recently found a home in the land of the free. One man died and two nurses contracted the disease. These are the only three confirmed cases in the U.S., so why is everyone freaking out?
In the early stages, Ebola has normal “sick” symptoms: fever, headache, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhea and not-so-normal hemorrhaging. It can take about 10 days for symptoms to even show after exposure.
Ebola is extremely infectious. A small, single exposure to the disease can trigger a fatal infection, but it is not easy to contract. You have to touch some type of bodily fluid of someone infected with ebola. Unless you have done that, you’re going to be okay.*
The Centers for Disease Control is a bit of a mess right now, with zero help from the American people. There are multiple articles being written daily about how CDC Director Tom Frieden should step down, what the CDC needs to do, what they’re doing wrong, etc. I’m not the CDC, and I’m not a doctor, but when there are so many health-related things going wrong in this country, why would the CDC have a full-fledged plan on how to handle a disease that, since its discovery in 1976, has never previously made any type of appearance in the U.S.?
Maybe I’m just as freaked out and confused as the rest of the country, but I need everyone to just calm down for a minute. Wash your hands, stay in school and:
P.S. Michelle Obama made a Vine video dancing with a turnip in an attempt to pun Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What,” and it pissed a lot of people off, so that’s fun.
*There have been some reports that Ebola can ‘become airborne.’ I’m throwing that in the ‘BS’ bucket, but stay tuned
