More than 70 staffers provided heroic care to Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan before his death Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Faced with such a formidable task, most of us would want to sprint as far away as possible. But Presbyterian workers put their lives on the line to try to save a man from a deadly and still baffling disease. Much was asked of this health care team. Now Dallas and its residents need to ask for one thing more: rigorously follow the voluntary agreement to avoid public places and transportation for as long as doctors deem necessary.
In the last week, we’ve seen what happens in the absence of a quarantine:
Before nurse Nina Pham was diagnosed with Ebola, co-worker Amber Vinson traveled to Ohio on a commercial jet. After flying home — with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approval — Vinson became the second confirmed case of Ebola contracted in the U.S. Days later, we learned a staffer who may have handled one of Duncan’s lab specimens was self-quarantining on a Caribbean cruise ship.
As the tentacles of possible exposure have spread to hundreds of people in multiple states, many reasonable people called for a forced quarantine. But Dallas County commissioners stopped short of an isolation order Thursday, maintaining that the health care workers can be trusted to quarantine themselves. Here’s how Mayor Mike Rawlings described the strategy: “They can walk their dog. But they can’t go to church. They can’t go to schools. They can’t go to shopping centers.”
A carefully adhered-to quarantine — voluntary or forced — is absolutely necessary to stop the local Ebola outbreak. It’s imperative that the 70-plus Presbyterian staff members under observation take this order seriously.
This is their opportunity to be heroes once again — heroes of common sense who recognize the seriousness of the situation and respond with an abundance of caution.
They can help assure the rest of the nation that Dallas will finally get this right.
