Students from Africa barred from South Jersey school amid Ebola anxiety despite living 2,600 miles from outbreak http://t.co/n5QHvzDyuB

— lawhawk (@lawhawk) October 20, 2014

Geography isn’t Americans’ strongest suit, and once again fear and hysteria trump facts.

Banning Africans from entering schools isn’t prudent, let alone necessary. These people have nothing to do with the outbreak; it’s like warning that someone from California must have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, because it happened on the same continent.

This is fear and hysteria fueled by more than a wee bit of racism/xenophobia. Plain and simple.

And asshats like Ted Cruz spread this noxious nonsense even though there’s no new cases among the dozens who were exposed by Duncan prior to entering the hospital. And the only other two cases were nurses who treated Duncan. As each day passes, the numbers of people who are cleared from voluntary or mandatory quarantines increases - because the disease isn’t that easy to get unless you’re coming into direct contact.

But Cruz and right wingers keep spinning this as some kind of huge crisis or failure for the Obama administration when it’s been anything but. There are three cases total from the Duncan infection.

And two of those cases were the result of the hospital’s failures - the failure to follow basic protocols.