Speaking of “one plane ride away”

Literally: one small plane ride away — and in fact this man did board an aircraft.

From the UKTelegraph.com:

Ebola outbreak: Victim who sparked fears of global epidemic was on way home to US

Patrick Sawyer could have brought Ebola to US but died in Nigeria while en route to family in Minnesota

by Rosa Prince

An Ebola victim who was allowed to board an international flight was an American citizen on his way home to the United States, it has emerged.

Patrick Sawyer worked for the Liberian government and was visiting his sister there when he developed symptoms while on a plane to Nigeria. He was quarantined on arrival in Lagos and died on Friday.

His wife, Decontee, 34, who like Mr Sawyer is originally from Liberia, currently at the heart of the terrifying Ebola outbreak, said he had been due to travel on to America where he could have become Patient Zero in a US epidemic.

The 40-year-old father-of-three is believed to have contracted the disease from his sister, whom he was caring for without knowing she had Ebola.

Mr Sawyer took two flights to get to Nigeria from Liberia, where he had attended his sister’s funeral. The first took him from Monrovia to Lome in Togo, where he boarded a plane to Lagos. He collapsed at the airport on landing.

Should Ebola find its way to our shores, you can be assured this nation will come to a screeching halt, physically and economically.

One plane ride.  And we’ve already come this close.

I submit that now may not be quite the finest time in the world to board a commercial aircraft, considering this aspect and that of medically-unscreened illegal children having been flown around the United States on aircraft as well, all containing oxygen systems that do nothing but recycle trapped air.

Merely a suggestion.

BZ

 

Ebola only one aircraft ride away from contaminating the world

Ebola One Plane Ride AwayFrom USAToday.com:

Ebola only a plane ride away from USA

EBOLA VIRUS RAPIDLY SPREADING IN WEST AFRICA

Since it was detected in March, the number of cases attributed to Ebola in the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea stands at 1,201, including 672 deaths. Two U.S. doctors contracted the virus while trying to stop the spread of the infectious disease.

Ebola could easily arrive in the USA on board a plane, but wouldn’t spread far, experts say.

The growing Ebola outbreak in West Africa serves as a grim reminder that deadly viruses are only a plane ride away from the USA, health experts say.

The outbreak is the largest and deadliest on record, with more than 670 deaths and more than 1,200 infections in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fatality rates for Ebola have been as high as 90% in past outbreaks, according to the World Health Organization.

The virus — which has an incubation period of a few days to three weeks — could easily travel to the USA through infected travelers, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

EBOLA OUTBREAK: What you need to know

VIRUS’ SPREAD: Ebola may extend deadly reach beyond Africa

MORE: American doctor’s Ebola prognosis ‘grave’

“A case very well could fly out of Africa, only to be detected in some distant country,” says Osterholm, who served as an adviser to the George W. Bush administration on bioterrorism.

I have written about this here and here and here and here and here.

Now, Ebola may be “one plane trip (away) now.”

I wrote about that three months ago, way back on April 7th.

Highly populated cities are areas of huge first potential impact.

BZ

Ebola Virus