As a hub of international shipping and travel, it stands to reason that Miami might be at a higher risk to report a case of Ebola. It also stands to reason that since Miami's economy is dependent on tourism a reported case of Ebola could have serious consequences.
So it's not surprising that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and the county commission are taking extra precautions to prepare for the possibility of Ebola.
Come to think of it actually, it's not that surprising that they seem to have no idea what they're talking about either.
The Miami Herald reports that Gimenez appears to have gone a little gung-ho over the possibility of an Ebola outbreak. He's asked for a report on potential places to quarantine an Ebola patient even though the Centers for Disease Control already has a quarantine station at Miami International Airport. He also asked for an Ebola test of a suspected patient even though state and local health officials didn't think the patient required it.
"It's better that the world knows that there's not an Ebola patient in Miami," Gimenez said according to the paper. "Being that we are a tourist destination and any sort of outbreak could have economic consequences."
And then there's things like this:
Gimenez said health officials didn't think the Nigerian girl would have been exposed to the virus because she hails from a part of the West African country that hasn't been much affected by Ebola -- and because her "lifestyle" wasn't conducive to getting infected."You have to basically eat bush meat, bats," he said.
Sosa said she worried Ebola might become airborne and spread via central air-conditioning systems. Scientists have stressed that is not the case now with the virus.
... Um, OK.
Yes, eating bush meat or bats may have caused the initial Ebola outbreak, but human-to-human contact -- more specifically, direct contact with an infected person's body fluids -- is how it's believed to spread these days. That does not include human-to-AC-unit-to-human contact.
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