Nurse with Ebola Excoriated for Taking Flight, While Infected Doctor Riding Subways all over NY City Being Called "Humanitarian"


Nurse Amber Vinson Excoriated for Ebola
I was pleased and relieved to hear that nurse Amber Vinson has now been declared free of the Ebola virus. But that was not before the woman was attacked so viciously for returning to Dallas on a commercial flight and even going to a bridal salon in Ohio, that her family had to hire an expensive lawyer to protect her from being litigated to death.

And now we hear that a doctor returning from Guinea, rather than bothering to quarantine himself for 21 days rode several New York subways, went bowling with friends as well as jogging and now has tested positive for Ebola.   News headlines are even calling Dr. Craig Spencer a "dedicated humanitarian." He may be deserving of that label, but this doctor's poor judgment has set back the Ebola cause far more than whatever good he might have done in Guinea.

Was he truthful when screened at the airport in Guinea  (apparently not) after filling out the questionnaire claiming that he had not had contact with any Ebola-infected person for the past 21 days?  Did his pencil check off the wrong box once again upon filling out a screening form when he entered the United States?

I can say for certain that already reluctant American hospitals will find even more reasons not to release their doctors to travel to West Africa in order to treat Ebola victims when the possibility has become real of their bringing the disease back to their hospitals. Or at the very least the hospitals will lose revenue with potential patients staying away
Dr. Craig Spencer called "humanitarian"
in fear that they might have. 

One thing is becoming distressingly clear from events of the past several weeks.  Many, possibly most humans when exposed to Ebola, however well trained medically,  are mentally-emotionally-physically-morally incapable of exercising the minimum caution required to protect the public from this virulent disease.  What is asked of them is to self-quarantine for twenty-one days, while taking their temperatures.  But even this minimal step is going to need to be monitored by public health authorities.  

I hope Dr. Spencer makes a speedy recovery.  But, I do not know how American efforts to get hospitals to release doctors willing to work in Ebola regions of Africa can be repaired because of his humanitarian's lack of common sense. 
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