Some sanity has surfaced in the ongoing saga of the American response to the current Ebola crises in Africa. A judge in Maine, District Court Chief Judge Charles LaVerdiere, ruled that the mandatory confinement of Registered Nurse Kaci Hickox ordered by the Governor of Maine, Paul LePage, could not be enforced. Kaci Hickox had first been confined to a tent outside a hospital in New Jersey for three days after returning from Sierra Leone,where she had been helping treat patients with Ebola. Four Northern states have reacted to returning health-care workers by treating them as if they are criminals by declaring irrational quarantines on all returning people who have been involved in treating patients. No Southern states have so reacted. I am of the opinion that the fact that so many Southern voters are of African heritage, and other Southerners are used to being around people of African heritage is the reason that Southern states have been more logical in response to this situation. Ebola must be stopped and contained in Africa, not here. Africa has a poor health-care infrastructure and needs the help of more scientifically advanced nations. Africans are humans deserving help in this case.
In the almost 40 years since Ebola first appeared, about 15,000 people have been infected with the disease. About 7,000 have died. Ebola can only be transmitted by direct contact with people showing symptoms of the disease or the corpses of deceased patients, or from diseased animals (some primates). One strain of the virus which does not infect people may infect pigs.
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