3 schools in TX/OH closing today because of Flying Ebola nurse

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When Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola two weeks ago, authorities said not to worry — he had no symptoms during his flights from Liberia to Dallas. They said the disease could be spread only by someone who was showing signs such as fever and only through bodily fluids such as vomit. They told passengers who rode with Duncan they couldn’t catch it because it isn’t transmitted through the air. And, they said, if a passenger is sick or has a fever, they won’t fly. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is busy tracking 132 passengers who traveled this week on a Frontier Airlines flight with Amber Vinson, the second health-care worker who tested positive for Ebola after caring for Duncan, who died earlier this month. On Monday, the nurse went from Cleveland back to Dallas with a low-grade fever. And the next day, the plane took five more trips before Frontier Airlines was notified late Tuesday about Vinson.

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In Solon, Ohio, 20 miles southeast of Cleveland, two schools will shut down Thursday so health officials can disinfect the buildings. The school district stated in an e-mail that it made the call after learning a local middle-school staff member may have been on the same plane — but not the same flight — as Vinson. Some 1,200 miles away in Belton, Tex., about an hour north of Austin, a school district came to the same conclusion. The school district announced via Twitter that three of its schools would be closed Thursday. And two children who were on the same Frontier flight have been asked to stay home from school for 21 days and monitor their temperatures. The elementary-school student and middle-school student showed up to school Tuesday and Wednesday, but were not showing symptoms of the disease. “Because of this, there is no imminent risk to your child,” school officials said in letters sent home to parents. Belton Superintendent Susan Kincannon said during a news conference both students are considered low risk, but “we anticipate that some parents will choose to keep their children at home.”

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