Ebola Patient Died Three Days Ago -- Why the Cover-up?

  It was announced today, Wednesday, October 8th, that Thomas Eric Duncan, America's first Ebola patient has passed away. I mourn this man's loss with deep sadness, but also with perplexity.  A charade is being played around this man's death and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I learned quite by accident that he passed away on Sunday, October 5th from a misaddressed message from one of the doctors.

While conservatives might think that Jesse Jackson's presence in Dallas was to rally Black folk around some theme of racial resentment about the Ebola patient's treatment, I now see it's purpose in different terms.  He was asked to come, in order to calm the waters, in order to make sure that the announcement of the man's death did not inflame the uncontrolled anger of those who felt that the hospital had mistreated Mr. Duncan and possibly turn Dallas, Texas into another Ferguson, Missouri.    
The story about the experimental treatment, about Mr. Duncan being put on dialysis, and there being a slight improvement in his vital signs, but it might not last, etc., etc. . .  this was a public relations fiction setting the public up, preparing us for today's tragic announcement.    I don't know who was in on this and actually I don't care.  The reason is that, being lied to by public figures doesn't even bother me the way it once did.  
This may be cynical on my part. But I have learned a valuable lesson from this Ebola scare.  We  humans cannot handle reality as well as we think we can.  In a country as wealthy as ours, having one man with Ebola in a nation of 365 million, lying in an isolation ward in a well-equipped hospital, and yet people went berserk.  The potential for mob violence, the racism and cruelty of people demanding that we incinerate the man's possibly infected family, and slam all our borders shut to stop a virus was ludicrous and painful.     

I'm sorry to say that I now understand the impulse of public figures to lie if need be to calm the fears of a panicked public.  So. . . if  space aliens are headed towards earth and we have no way to defend ourselves and only 12 hours to live, I don't mind a bit if they interrupt regular programming only to tell us that should we look up at the sky and think we're seeing invading space ships, don't panic.   They're just harmless weather balloons.  


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