It is a scene that anyone who watches second rate horror movies or SyFy on cable knows well: the head of the CDC or some other federal health organization tells America about the outbreak of some virus or other disease and explains that there is nothing to fear. Then anywhere from five to fifteen minutes later in the show, we get scenes of the country after the plague has infected nearly everyone. It is the apocalypse. Sometimes it comes with zombies, but many times it does not.
Today, we had a real life version of the first scene. The head of the CDC held a news conference to announce that the first case of Ebola had been diagnosed in Texas. The patient was contagious for a minimum of four days before he was quarantined in a Texas hospital. We do not yet know just how many people were exposed to the virus before appropriate health measures were put in place. We just know that there could be a major problem. Oh, an because of privacy laws, we do not know who the patient is or where he was staying or, indeed, any of the details that might allow people who came in contact with him to seek help if necessary.
I understand that Ebola is not an easy disease to catch. Up until now, it has always spread by contact with bodily fluids of the diseased patient. Hopefully, that remains the case. Even so, we are at a point where the privacy rights of the patient are outweighed by the need to stop this virus before it spreads. The ought never be a situation in which the government cannot warn people who might have been exposed to the virus to take precautions or to get other help. Only a fool would think otherwise.
Let's pray that the patient in Texas recovers and that no one else has caught the disease from him.
Today, we had a real life version of the first scene. The head of the CDC held a news conference to announce that the first case of Ebola had been diagnosed in Texas. The patient was contagious for a minimum of four days before he was quarantined in a Texas hospital. We do not yet know just how many people were exposed to the virus before appropriate health measures were put in place. We just know that there could be a major problem. Oh, an because of privacy laws, we do not know who the patient is or where he was staying or, indeed, any of the details that might allow people who came in contact with him to seek help if necessary.
I understand that Ebola is not an easy disease to catch. Up until now, it has always spread by contact with bodily fluids of the diseased patient. Hopefully, that remains the case. Even so, we are at a point where the privacy rights of the patient are outweighed by the need to stop this virus before it spreads. The ought never be a situation in which the government cannot warn people who might have been exposed to the virus to take precautions or to get other help. Only a fool would think otherwise.
Let's pray that the patient in Texas recovers and that no one else has caught the disease from him.
No comments:
Post a Comment