Mayor Mike Rawlings points out a chart about incubation rates for patients in quarantine for Ebola during a press conference at the County Commissioners Court in Dallas October 20, 2014. (Nathan Hunsinger/The Dallas Morning News)
The health care workers who cared for Dallas’ Ebola patients could be cleared of contracting the virus in coming weeks, after undergoing 21 days of avoiding public places and self-monitoring for symptoms.
And when that happens, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said, it “is important for all of us, once again, to accept all of these people back into the mainstream of our world and our life.”
“It’s important for us to continue to lift up our health care workers with pride and with honor,” Rawlings said during a brief speech Wednesday at the beginning of a Dallas City Council meeting. “They are good people.”
The request echoes the call from Monday, when local officials celebrated that 51 people had completed the monitoring period. That group included the family members of Thomas Eric Duncan, the city’s first Ebola patient who died earlier this month.
More than 100 health care workers remain under monitoring and self-quarantine. That group includes those who cared for Duncan or for the two Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas nurses who became infected in the course of that care.
So while Rawlings again cheered on Monday that “we have gotten over a significant hurdle in this outbreak,” he cautioned that there’s still a ways to go. The “magic date” of when the remaining health care workers should be cleared remains Nov. 7.
The mayor – who, along with Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, has been prominent in the local Ebola response – also thanked corporate leaders, nonprofits, the media and citizens at large for helping one another “through these difficult times.”