Maria Haymandou’s latest blog post
With the first case of Ebola hitting the US, people have been terrified of coming into contact with the disease. As part of a response to the Ebola outbreak, the government plans on taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five US airports: Newark, Washington, Chicago, Atlanta and New York’s JFK.
According to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, these five airports were chosen because they marked the destinations of 94 percent of the people who traveled to the US from those West African countries hit hardest by Ebola. Interestingly enough, however, the one confirmed Ebola case in the US came from neither one of these airports, but under these new procedures, it’s estimated that 150 people will be checked every day.
Yesterday, the first confirmed Ebola death in the US, a Liberian man who had arrived in through Dallas, died from the virus. Beforehand, Homeland Security agents at airports and other ports of entry had been observing travelers for potential signs of an Ebola infection. However, it’s not clear how effective such methods will be, as people carrying the virus don’t always show symptoms upon leaving the airport; indeed, the man who died yesterday didn’t show any symptoms until four days after arriving. So far, Ebola has killed over 3,400 people in West Africa and infected at least twice that number, hitting healthcare workers particularly hard.
Considering how New York is a major world city, through which people constantly travel, it seems inevitable that there will be Ebola cases here. Whether or not New York will be hit by Ebola isn’t in question. The bigger question is how they’ll handle it when it does.
Maria Haymandou 