Not long after it was reported that President Obama had created a new post called Ebola czar to oversee U.S. efforts to fight the virus, there’s now a report that an infected person may have been at the Pentagon this morning. My Fox DC reports that a hazmat team was called to respond there because a woman on a tour bus was vomiting and feeling ill.
She reportedly came into the U.S. from Africa, so officials called out a hazmat team from Arlington Co., Va. to deal with the problem.
Ebola scare at the Pentagon
A spokesperson for the U.S. Defense Dept. said that around 9:10 a.m., Pentagon police found a woman in the facility’s south parking lot who was ill and vomiting. She told them that she had just been to Africa recently, so officials halted all vehicle and pedestrian traffic around the parking lot. The patient had ridden a tour bus to the Pentagon for a tour of the Pentagon Memorial
An ambulance took the woman to Virginia Hospital Center, but she never even left the vehicle because she was immediately transferred to Fairfax Inova Hospital.
Officials with Arlington Public Health are investigating and coordinating the response to the incident. They have activated the county’s Emergeny Operations Center and a Joint Information Center.
Concerns about Ebola grow
It was reported earlier today that President Obama selected Ron Klain to fill the new post of Ebola czar. USA Today reports that all of those who entered the room of the first U.S. Ebola patient in Dallas have been ordered not to use public transportation.
The affected people have also been ordered not to go to grocery stores, theaters or restaurants. These orders will last for 21 days. The orders include over 70 healthcare workers who cared for Thomas Duncan, the first patient in the U.S. to test positive for the Ebola virus.
A worker who could have had contact with the patient’s lab specimens had already boarded a Caribbean cruise ship. She is reportedly not showing any symptoms of the deadly virus and has quarantined herself voluntarily.
