If you're going to be flying soon and plan on making an Ebola joke, don't. Yesterday at an airport in the Dominican Republic, a man who joked about having Ebola and recently visiting West Africa was taken off a flight from Philadelphia by men in blue hazmat suits. Before the men boarded the plane, a flight attendant warned passengers things would "look worse than they really are."
"Once we landed in Punta Cana we were told by the flight attendants that there was a situation and that a passenger may have been in Africa and had Ebola. She was certain it was a hoax but they did not take any chances and had a full hazmat crew board the plane and take the passenger off. It was later confirmed that the passenger was never in Africa and after 2hrs we were finally able to get off the plane," the caption on a a video posted by Patrick Narvaez and Jukin Media states.
So, the guy who joked about having Ebola was ripped off a plane by guys wearing hazmat suits, yet the CDC would argue the people who were on the plane sitting next to him would have been totally fine if he in fact did have Ebola. Makes sense.
Meanwhile, CDC Director Tom Friedman is out with an op-ed today tripling down on his position that travel restrictions from Ebola stricken countries should not be implemented.