A student at a junior college in San Diego prompted massive alarm after claiming she had flu-like systems and rode on the same plane with the Dallas nurse whose Ebola diagnosis was confirmed.
The student’s claim shut down one building at Southwestern College and prompted evacuations and student quarantines. Ultimately, however, it was determined to be a false alarm, NBS San Diego reports:
The student was not exhibiting any flu-like symptoms, school officials said. “Our campus nurse has thoroughly examined the student and there is no expectation of Ebola,” [campus spokeswoman Lillian] Leopold said. After the student was found to have no infectious disease, she recanted her story.
The student told officials she made up the story so she wouldn’t be dropped for missing class, Leopold told The Desert Sun, which added that “officials were still investigating who mentioned Ebola, and it was unclear if any disciplinary action would be taken.”
Although campus officials denied they quarantined any students, a teacher told NBC some of her students had been quarantined, and some students also told the San Diego Union-Tribune they were told they could not leave campus.
“We are detained,” Vinnie Avia-Walker, 25, told the U-T. “We are within a 20-feet area between the person who is sick and then an officer who is telling us not to leave.”
This type of story is probably going to get more and more common as people grapple with whether they think they might have Ebola, and others grapple with how to handle people who think they might have Ebola, and still others joke they have Ebola and prompt massive panic.
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