By no means am I an a panic about 'catching' Ebola. Though there is perhaps an apparent case in Charlotte, which is not far away.
Do I think there's going to be some widespread epidemic? Not really. I'm simply saying that there are apparently a lot of people being watched and it's all being kept quiet. Why? Because look at the media disaster that the whole thing in Texas started. People were starting to panic then. People who lived near the guy (and the nurses), people who pulled their kids out of school, etc.
Now, anything about Ebola seems to have fallen completely out of mainstream news. I don't think that's accidental. Media is keeping a lid on any potential cases at this point. Is that helpful, or even the right thing to do? I'm not sure that it is.
Don't we have a right to know about people/groups who being actively watched because they have come from a location where this virus has been running rampant? I think so.
But, it's the like we've gone from one extreme to the other. First Ebola was all over the news. Anytime anyone sneezed on a flight or went to the hospital with a fever, it was 'breaking news'. Sure, that stirred the pot quite a bit. But, now, it's all clamped down and no one knows what is going on. I don't think that's much better.
All of this should be addressed differently. And our city/state/fed govt. should be treating us like grown adults. They want to stem the possibility of an Ebola panic, don't pretend it's gone away and not a risk. Show people that you are actually dealing with this, and that will set most people's minds at ease.
For that matter, yes I do think we should be watching those flights that originate from hotspot countries. Yes, they are all connecting flights, but, yes we do know where they are connecting through. The fact that symptoms seem to take a few days to show up, and the fact that we've already had one person who knew he was in contact with an Ebola patient but decided to come anyways, the possibility for more to keep bringing the virus in is very real.
Actually 2 patients who knew they were in close contact if we now at Dr. Spencer who lives in NY. He knew he had close contact and then went flitting around NY for a week even. If you can't trust a doctor to use common sense in this situation, who can you trust?
There are many grades of caution that do not include or even come close to panic. We've had it get in already, and it seems to be contained, but who knows with the 'radio silence' of health departments right now.
As for the possibility of contagion, I don't know what to think at this point, because as Presto point out, aerosolization could be considered akin to airborne. I know that I would consider it so. Meaning sure it's not hanging around the air in a room with an Ebola patient, but if that patient sneezes on you? Yeah you do have potential to have it transferred via open cut, mucous membranes, etc.
I believe I saw on multiple news sites that the CDC used to have something about aerosol transmission on the ebola page, but that it was removed.