Online Photo
More than 400 people signed a petitioned asking officials at the elementary school in Blackwell, Oklahoma to place a teacher on a 21 day leave after returning from a trip to Rwanda; citing Ebola fears.
The teacher, who’s name has been withheld by school officials, is headed to the central and east African country, located thousands of miles away from the Ebola outbreaks, for a mission trip with her church.
When asked why they are concerned about the teacher visiting a country unaffected by Ebola, one of the Blackwell parents, Shawn Wilson, told KOCO he feels the trip is “foolish” and that the teacher could be on a plane seated next to someone who was in West Africa and became infected.
Despite officials at the Center for Disease Control and the local health department estimating the teacher’s chances of infection “nearly zero,” Blackwell parents aren’t budging. Some parents have even threatened to remove their children from the school if the standard 21-day quarantine is not completed.
After a meeting with Blackwell Elementary School Principal Melissa Moore, the teacher agreed to a voluntary quarantine and will be given paid administrative leave during that time.
While the situation in Blackwell has died down, it has shed light on the public reactions surrounding Ebola in the United States.
However, situations like these have some students wondering what it will mean for the Oklahoma Christian University students who are from Rwanda and may be traveling to and from their home country over the holiday breaks?
Dean of Students Neil Arter says the travel of students to and from Africa hasn’t been an area of major concern among administrators but there’s always the possibility of government interference looming if a student begins to present symptoms of Ebola.
“I don’t know if I want to say it’s been exactly a concern but we’ve been aware and have plans in place that we will use in the case of a pandemic,” Arter said. “But one of the things we know is possible is that the government may make us quarantine certain people so we know it’s a reality.”
Despite the Blackwell reactions regarding Africa, complaints regarding Ebola on campus have come out of concern for students traveling from Dallas.
“We have a lot more students from Dallas, Texas than we do from Rwanda and the few people that were upset have not been upset about the Rwandans, but actually about our Texas students,” Arter said. “Right now I don’t think we have any students from the main epicenter of those areas and honestly I don’t even know if there are that many who are even close. I think Rwanda is so far away that I’m afraid at times it’s a little offensive.”
Graduate student Anitha Ingabe said Blackwell Elementary School is just an example of the ignorance shown on the subject and agrees with Arter that instances like those can be offensive.
“It is to some level offensive to Africans because they are being associated with a disease that has been detected in Spain and also in the US,” Ingabe said. “If anything, that school should quarantine anyone that has plans to go to Dallas instead of Rwanda that has had no Ebola cases.”
Senior Andrea Dennis said travel shouldn’t be restricted or monitored for students going to locations with no Ebola cases.
“People should be careful but you shouldn’t tell people they can’t come in and out of cities because I know I would be very upset if I couldn’t go home and come back to school because I was visiting family in Texas,” Dennis said.
Ingabe said the best defense to instances of uninformed hysteria is to educate.
“Ebola is a dangerous disease but people fail to get informed about the actual facts,” Ingabe said. “There are currently Ebola cases in only three countries in Africa and other African countries are taking serious measures to make sure no one enters with Ebola.”
Arter said the 2006 avian flu equipped the campus with procedures and policies to use in the case Ebola makes its way to campus from any location.
“In 2006 there was the fear of a big avian bird flu pandemic and we had to prepare for that process so we have [procedures] in place,” Arter said. “The CDC helped us go through the process of writing our plan, we had workshops that we went to and we had some education about it. I would never say it’s a perfect plan because that’s setting us up for failure for sure, but I think we have a good plan in place.”
0
0
Be First to Comment