Three Pennsylvanians were on a Monday flight with a nurse now known to be infected with Ebola, Gov. Tom Corbett said during a Friday news conference on the state’s response to the Ebola outbreak.
The three people were on a flight from Cleveland to the Dallas area with a Texas nurse who had a low fever at the time and was diagnosed with Ebola two days later. The plane carrying them reportedly made five more trips before it was grounded.
Corbett said state officials are making daily phone calls to the three commonwealth residents on the flight.
“Those residents are not currently in Pennsylvania. They are in Texas,” said the governor. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and DOH have spoken with the Pennsylvania residents who were in that flight.”
The three will not be prevented from returning to the commonwealth, Corbett added, nor will quarantine be considered unless they begin to show signs of infection.
“Should they decide to return to Pennsylvania, we are going to be looking to see what we can do to get them back here safely into Pennsylvania and so we can continue to monitor them very closely for their health and for the health of the community in general,” Corbett said.
The governor said there are no confirmed cases of Ebola in Pennsylvania. He answered questions alongside the state’s Physician General Dr. Carrie DeLone and Department of Health Secretary Michael Wolf. They stressed that Ebola cannot be spread by people who were merely exposed to the virus and have no symptoms. The virus is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids.
