The US CDC Ebola Guidelines in Plain English

The United States Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Ebola Guidelines in plain English:

·       Although we have been spending most of our ample time and buckets of money at the CDC worrying about traffic light safety, size of helpings at McDonald’s, obesity in lesbians, and sedentary lifestyles, we have found a few people in the basement back by the service entrance who keep an eye now and then on communicable disease and we have consulted with them.

·       Listen to us because we are trained professionals and we know what we’re talking about.

·       You cannot catch Ebola sitting next to someone on a bus, unless you’re in West Africa where the person next to you might actually have Ebola.

·       There is no reason to avoid public transportation in the US, because you cannot catch Ebola on a bus or a plane.

·       If someone on a bus or plane sneezes or coughs near you, we’d look at your situation.

·       If you have Ebola or have been exposed, do not travel on a bus or a plane.

·       The nurse who cared for the Liberian Ebola patient should not have traveled on an airplane before she got sick.

·       We do not recommend travel restrictions because it will not matter if more people with Ebola enter this country.

·       Stopping more people from coming to this country from Ebola hot zones won’t completely protect all Americans, so it is not worth doing.

·       Restricting travelers from Ebola hot zones from entering this country would prevent us from sending aid to those countries since all medical aid from the US to the Ebola countries must be balanced by Ebola-infected people entering the US.

·       Restricting travelers from Ebola hot zones from entering this country might hurt the economies of those countries, so we should not interfere with the free movement of people even if they have Ebola.

·       Restricting travelers from Ebola hot zones from entering this country would be racist since the Ebola outbreak is in Africa, so we should not interfere with the free movement of people even if they have Ebola.

·       Listen to us because we are trained professionals and we know what we’re talking about.

·       Our personal protection protocol for Ebola health care workers is 100% effective.

·       Ebola is a hard disease to catch, unless you’re a highly-trained nurse following our personal protection protocol.

·       The nurses who followed our protocol but who nevertheless contracted Ebola must have breached protocol.

·       We don’t know how the nurses breached protocol.

·       We really just know that our protocol is 100%.

·       Even though our protocol is really, really 100% effective, we’ll now look at improving it.

·       Ebola is a very hard disease to catch and trust us, we are trained professionals and we know what we’re talking about.  We have top men, top men, working on this.  After all, why would we fudge the truth?

R Balsamo