The Panic Is Spreading Nicely Now...

After the unlucky Texas Ebola victim, Eric Duncan, lost his life to the virus, all heck broke loose:

>> More cases have been found outside Africa.  A nurse in Madrid was exposed to the virus, and her dog has been euthanized, JUST IN CASE.

>> I heard that a police officer trying to serve Eric Duncan with papers was infected.  All he had to do was touch the victim's doorknob and he was toast.  A slice of bloody toast. 

>> The police officer story proved not to be true.

>> Someone who deplaned at LAX, having flown in from Liberia, was rushed to an area hospital, quarantined and is now being roasted over a slow Bunsen burner by anxious medical professionals.  He does not show any symptoms of Ebola and has not tested positive for the virus.  At least they didn't euthanize him, the way they did the dog in Madrid.

>> A Pew survey found that 32 percent of Americans are "worried or very worried" that they or someone close to them will come down with the disease, according to the Washington Post.

>> There have already been over 5,000 Ebola false alarms in U.S. emergency rooms since September 30th -- the start of a new fiscal year for me, and the day Eric Duncan was diagnosed.  Most of these people never touched his doorknob.

>> Racist xenophobes are rallying around a new hashtag, #Obola.  Those people who want to blame every problem on President Obama are happy to think he is responsible for this greatest of all crises that does not exist.  They are painting a picture of infected people -- BLACK infected people -- pouring over the borders into our playgrounds and churches.  Shudder!

>> I feel this one is even more hair-tearing than the Swine Flu panics of 1976 and 2009 because of the racist element.  In 1976, when a gazillion frightened Americans were vaccinated against a deadly strain of flu that never showed up after a panicky multimillion-dollar public-health outlay -- well, it was just another average day for Jerry Ford, egg on his face, situation normal.  At least during that scare, African-Americans didn't have to worry that they were going to be bundled into isolation wards if they presented at a doctor's office with a fever.