“It was a mistake. They dropped the ball.”
That’s how one official described a Dallas emergency room’s decision to send home Thomas E. Duncan, a Liberian national infected with Ebola.
When Mr. Duncan arrived at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Friday, September 26, he told staff he’d recently travelled to Dallas from Liberia, one of the countries in the heart of the rampant Ebola epidemic. Back home in Liberia, the week before, he’d helped transport a woman dying of the disease to a hospital. When the hospital turned her away for lack of room, Mr. Duncan carried her home, where she died shortly after. Now, having travelled to Texas, he was showing signs of the disease.
Hospital staff sent him home with antibiotics. Over the next two days, Mr. Duncan came into contact with scores of people – as many as 80, officials now think, many of them children. When he finally became too sick to ignore, Mr. Duncan took an ambulance back to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he officially became the first person to sicken with Ebola on American soil.
As Texas health officials race to isolate and monitor all the people who came in contact with Mr. Duncan, their efforts are beginning to look a lot like the measures African officials have taken over the past several months, as they tried to outstrip the Ebola epidemic now raging across western Africa.
Ebola was first diagnosed in humans in 1976 along the banks of the Ebola River in Zaire. It’s thought to pass to humans from bats and wild animals. Once infected, people initially display symptoms that can be confused with malaria or even the flu: early Ebola symptoms include headache, sore throat, fever, muscle pain and weakness. Ebola rapidly progresses, however, leading to a host of deadly symptoms: difficulty breathing, bleeding from internal organs, vomiting, diarrhea, and damaged kidneys and liver. Ebola is highly contagious; it’s transmitted through direct personal contact with the bodily fluids of a person displaying Ebola symptoms. Although some experimental drugs are being developed and tested, there is no wide-spread, effective cure or vaccine for the disease.
There have been dozen of local outbreaks of Ebola over the years, but these usually occurred in small, remote villages, and were fairly easily contained. The current outbreak, which began in Guinea in March, 2014, is unprecedented: over three thousand have already died, and the US Center for Disease Control warns that 1.4 million people could be infected with Ebola by the end of the year, and that nearly half of those victims could die of the disease.
“This epidemic is without precedent,” says Bart Janssens, the director of Doctors Without Borders, one of the largest charities working to slow the epidemic: “It’s absolutely not under control, and the situation keeps worsening.”
US officials have assured the American public that Ebola will be different in the United States. “We’re stopping it in its tracks in this country,” stated the head of the Center for Disease Control. Officials have emphasized that the US, with its advanced health care system, differs vastly from the poor nations in West Africa that have been overwhelmed by the epidemic.
But with recent lapses in America, perhaps we should not feel so secure. The decision to send Thomas Duncan home was the first American response to the disease, and we failed that trial miserably. Now, a dozen people are under quarantine in Texas, waiting to see whether they show signs of Ebola.
Other vaunted institutions are coming into question, too. Julia Pierson, the director of the Secret Service recently resigned over lapses in her agency. One glaring stumble occurred in September 2014, when an armed trespasser jumped the fence of the White House, overcame one Secret Service officer and made it all the way into the East Room before being subdued. Are you prepared to put all your trust into these institutions?
Sukkah Protection
As the world struggles to contain the Ebola crisis, Jews around the world are preparing to step outside their own zones of feeling secure, too – literally.
As the seasons change and the air gets chilly and we start to retreat indoors, on Sukkot Jews do the opposite, eating, spending time, even sleeping outside in a sukkah, a temporary hut that provide scant protection. When we sit in a sukkah, we become hyper-aware of how vulnerable we are to our surroundings: the rain, the sun, extremes of heat or cold. For one week, we acutely feel that we are dependent on something outside of ourselves.
The thought of coming face to face with our vulnerability like this might seem frightening, something negative and stressful. But another name for Sukkot is Zman Simchateinu, the time of our joy.
Sukkot commemorates the huts our ancient Jewish ancestors lived in during the 40 years they travelled after leaving Egypt. Each day, they were fed with a miraculous food, manna, which helped them realize that they were ultimately dependent on God for their survival. Today, when we recreate these circumstances, moving outside to live in our very own sukkahs, we also realize anew that what we have comes not only from our own labor, that the Almighty is the ultimate source of our protection and everything that we have. We are not alone; we live under God’s ever-watchful, loving embrace.
As we confront the Ebola outbreak and our other challenges, we have to act responsibly and put in our efforts to solve our problems and ensure our own security. But we also have to acknowledge that we cannot do anything without God’s help. During Sukkot, when we feel closer to the Divine than at any time of the year, let’s remember that our sense of security living in a hostile world that we cannot fully control comes from the Almighty Who has got it all under control.
(10) Mary, October 17, 2014 6:15 PM
Faith
While these are freightening times, G-d will, as He has always done, see us through this crisis. Have faith, believe in Hashem, he is the author of life , of mercy and of providence.
(9) Veronica, October 13, 2014 1:03 AM
Informative and well written
I live in the Caribbean and we have a saying that if the USA sneezes we catch a cold down here. Ebola is very frightening to me but I have resolved to strengthen my spirituality and knowledge of what God desires for my life. I am deeply inspired by the last couple of lines in this beautifully written piece. "Let' remember that our sense of security living in a hostile world that we cannot control comes from the Almighty who has got it ALL under control". Well said. Thank you.
(8) Anonymous, October 9, 2014 1:22 PM
Excellent!
This is excellent and so important to keep in mind nowadays. May G-d grant healing and solace to Mr. Duncan, his family, and all involved in this and to everyone who needs healing in general.
(7) Anonymous, October 6, 2014 4:40 PM
Hard to Believe
Whomever sent him home should be sent to back to Liberia, with him and whomever let him enter the country. It's not easy to know that people who life and death decisions can be so ignorant and non-caring. They should be rewarded by accompanying this walking plague back to Liberia.
(6) Anonymous, October 6, 2014 11:14 AM
Is Duncan in USA legally?
Thanks for the scientific update on how this disease may, or may not spread between persons. Did Duncan actually possess the necessary documents to enter the USA legally?
Hadawiga, October 6, 2014 1:08 PM
Quaranteen, anyone?
The man was travelling legally!! That's the crazy part. They allow you to travel if you sign a paper saying you weren't exposed. Our country needs to protect us NOW. No one should be allowed in from those affected countries unless they go straight into quaranteen. Incompetency rules here, I guess.
(5) Tammy Coe, October 6, 2014 9:12 AM
We are our brothers keepers.
We need to stop trying to make every place we go function as a assembly line and realize that all people matter. People should learn from this and become proficient in their careers especially in the health care field. This is an embarrassment and shameful.
(4) Tova Saul, October 6, 2014 6:41 AM
appreciated this article
Very informative (all you need to know about Ebola in compact form) and very nice connection to Sukkot.
Just my own curiosity----Surely Mr. Duncan didn't have direct personal contact with the bodily fluids of 80 people.
judy, October 6, 2014 1:00 PM
ebola
Didn't HIV begin in Africa too? They said it was from monkeys and this sounds similar. Could all these freaky diseases be an act of man trying to downsize population? Start it in the poorest countries? Bill Gates made a statement not too long ago that by 2050 there wouldn't be any poor people in the world. So how is it someone with that kind of money should say this unless something was planned to make it happen. In fact he has made comments about downsizing population. I also think of Haiti situation and how many poor people lost their lives. Money talks and evil works can abide from it. Pray for our great God Almighty to watch over us and protect us from the wicked ones.
Anonymous, October 6, 2014 3:45 PM
ebola
Now that is the TRUTH, Judy. It is no coincidence, and I pray that the LORD will open our eyes and EXPOSE this and all the targeted evil to come in HIS world.
(3) Zsolt, October 6, 2014 12:30 AM
Non else besides Him
Thank you for this beautiful article, precisely showcasing the paradox from our sages when they say, "...when we start the day we always have to feel 'if I am not for myself, who is', but when everything is done, at the end of the day we have to feel and acknowledge that "there is None else besides Him'...".
Indeed we have to always act on two levels, performing functions, act in this world to our best abilities to solve our corporeal problems as much we are capable of...but with the knowledge that ultimately there is only one truly acting force in reality, and we have to make sure that we maintain our connection to that force.
And as all our traditions, Holidays, writing are solely about a "group", "minyan", "community", "Nation", always in "plural", the most important condition in keeping the connection with Him is our unity, mutual guarantee.
Just as we learn from our writings, "...I dwell among my Nation..."
(2) Anonymous, October 5, 2014 7:16 PM
Scientifically inaccurate
As tempting as it is to use sensationalist media as a metaphor for a religious message, it should be noted that the ebola virus is not contagious thru all body fluids; it would need to be blood, excretion, or vomit, and even then, touch alone without an opening to the body would not spread it. Sweat and saliva do not transmit, making it far less contagious in the US than in less hygienic countries. The media (inc the CDC) like to create a hysteria, among others reasons, to make authorities look like heroes when the epidemic is "contained" (ie: never happens). Aish is too mature a venue to pander to this trend; I'm sure it was an oversight.
(1) Anonymous, October 5, 2014 6:50 PM
Chicken coming home to roost
We are watching to see if the US would use the drugs they refused to give to Nigeria. Survival rate in Nigeria was over 70% and Nigeria is presently Ebola free even without US help. Clearly the US is losing it, completely. I hope the US survives it, and to do that they need to retrieve their moral compass.