Ebola: Paranoia has Infected the United States

A week after the death of a man suffering from the Ebola virus in Texas, paranoia has settled in the United States, where two schools in the northeast and south have yielded to panic, placing an instructor, who supposedly came into contact with infected people, on forced leave.

It’s an instructor from an elementary school in Maine who, according to the Portland Press Herald, was placed on forced leave for three weeks. In reality, the instructor went to a conference in Dallas, headquarters of the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where a Liberian patient died on Oct. 8 and where two nurses who treated her were contaminated themselves. This decision of forced leave was taken Thursday by the administrative board of the school, following concerns from students’ parents.

According to authorities in Maine, “At this time, we have no information to suggest that this staff member has been in contact with anyone who has been exposed to Ebola. (…) However, the district and the staff member understand the parents’ concerns. Therefore, after several discussions with the staff member, out of an abundance of caution, this staff member has been placed on a paid leave of absence for up to 21 days,” Ebola’s incubation period for its hemorrhagic fever.

Additionally, a photojournalist from the Washington Post was prevented from attending a conference that he had been invited to at Syracuse University in New York. The reason: Michel de Cille was, this past September, in Liberia to cover the Ebola crisis and would be back in the United States for more than 21 days.

Despite President Barack Obama’s call to Americans this Saturday not to give into hysteria or fear in the face of the Ebola epidemic, panic has spread through the United States.