Friday, October 31, 2014

More Quarantine Baloney

In lifting the quarantine on a nurse in Maine, the judge made the following statement:

“The court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science, and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country with respect to Ebola,” the judge said. “The Court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational. However, whether that fear is rational or not, it is present and it is real. She should guide herself accordingly.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/us/ebola-maine-nurse-kaci-hickox.html


Is this judge a doctor, a scientist, a psychiatrist? I don't think so. Then how could he possibly be "fully aware" of all the things he claims?


Fear may or may not be rational, but it is something that over the history of the human species has served to keep us alive.


The judge's other statement (the nurse “currently does not show symptoms of Ebola and is therefore not infectious”) is a non sequitur which seems to rely on dogma instead of fact. She would not be infectious only if she is not carrying the virus. Not showing symptoms really does not prove anything since the modes of transmission of this virus are not fully understood.


Oh well, this is the sort of legal decision that has continued to plague our country in recent times. Hopefully no one will die because of it.


By the way, Canada has stopped issuing visas for persons in the Ebola epidemic area:


http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/canada-won-t-issue-visas-to-residents-of-countries-with-widespread-ebola-1.2081402#ixzz3Hkpl2wub


Was that decision also based upon "misconceptions, misinformation, bad science, and/or bad information"? Or does Canada know something of which our judge was not "fully aware"?


Update: Here is another set of facts of which the judge may not have been "fully aware":

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/10/31/maine-says-nurse-hickoxs-roommate-had-ebola/

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