Obama: “You Cannot Get Ebola Sitting Next to Someone On a Bus”; CDC: “Yes You Can”

Obama: “You Cannot Get Ebola Sitting Next to Someone On a Bus”; CDC: “Yes You Can”

The panic continues to grow about the Ebola virus, and Obama continues to do nothing to reassure Americans. He made one pitiful attempt at doing so, by saying that you can’t get Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus, but that perhaps wasn’t the best choice of words.

obama ebola

“First, Ebola is not spread through the air like the flu,” Obama explained in the video released by the White House Thursday. “You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone one a bus. You cannot get it from another person until they start showing symptoms of the disease, like fever.”

Obama also explained that “the most common way you can get Ebola is by touching the body fluids of someone who is sick or has died from it, like their sweat, saliva or blood, or through a contaminated item like a needle.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, advises humanitarian aid workers from the United States who travel to countries currently experiencing Ebola outbreaks to “avoid public transportation” if they develop a fever or experience other Ebola-like symptoms while on their trip.

Listed among their online recommendations for travelers journeying to Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria or Sierra Leone, the CDC advises travelers who begin to exhibit possible Ebola symptoms and choose to visit a doctor to “Limit your contact with other people when you travel to the doctor; avoid public transportation.”

To be fair, the point that Obama was making is that Ebola is not an airborne virus, and just sitting in the vicinity of someone that has it does not mean that you will also get it. However, people who have Ebola tend to vomit violently without warning, so it’s probably best to heed the CDC’s warning and avoid public transportation next time you’re visiting somewhere like Liberia or Sierra Leone.

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