Ebola in the Big Apple

Brave doctor brings Ebola back to America

A doctor who recently returned from Guinea has tested positive for Ebola -- the first case of the deadly virus in New York City and the fourth diagnosed in the United States.

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Spencer came back to the United States last week after treating Ebola patients in Guinea, where he worked for Doctors Without Borders.

He completed his work in Guinea on October 12 and left the country two days later via Brussels, Belgium.

He arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on October 17, but he exhibited no symptoms of the virus until Thursday morning, said Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York City's health commissioner.

Sure, not as bad as Guatemala City, but bad enough if it gets loose.

These returning moral heroes are putting our grandchildren at risk.

Of course, he saw a few of his most beloved after the symptoms started, his fiancee and two friends, though if anybody in the world should have suspected from the first sign of flu symptoms that it wasn't flu, but Ebola, and immediately isolated himself, it was him.

But he did not do that.

All three are now in quarantine and being monitored.

The key thing to remember: people fuck up.

This guy is a doctor and he still fucked up.

Imagine if the next one has no medical training and, unlike Doctor Spencer, is more inclined to selfishness and denial than to dedication to the good of others.

How long will he continue close interaction with people, possibly with the public, spreading the disease before he is seen in an Emergency Room?

How big a scare do we need for the authorities to take more seriously their roles as protectors of the American people and less seriously the preferred global role of indispensable nation?

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