Hospital scare deserved more attention

And article in the Saturday, Nov. 29, edition of the Daily Herald was very alarming.

Someone recently returned from Africa showed up at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights with flu-like symptoms. There was a brief lockdown. "After extensive interviewing," the lockdown was canceled.

Village President Tom Hayes said the patient had been in eastern Africa, not western where the three countries of the primary outbreak have been centered. The article goes on to say the patient had been in Kenya, and notes it is a major center for air traffic from all over the African continent.

I am amazed at such a cavalier attitude toward a disease as dangerous as Ebola. There should have been a lockdown, and the patient quarantined until further investigations were completed.

Was it the holiday season that everyone more concerned about being locked up for three weeks at this time of the year that led to what, as it is written, appears to be a hasty decision by people who may or may not be experts in tropical diseases?

The country seems ill prepared for what is a very dangerous disease, still after all this time. More good governance? Too much time on political bickering and political theater, illegal immigration, Ferguson, etc.

We need more competence at all levels of government. We certainly are paying enough to expect it.

Mark Scales

Libertyville