LORAIN - Nationwide fear over the Ebola virus reached Lorain on Friday when a downtown charter school was evacuated because of a possible connection to an airplane that carried an Ebola patient from Cleveland this week.
On Friday, a teacher at Horizon Science Academy in Lorain was notified by Frontier Airlines that she had traveled on the same plane Wednesday that Ebola patient Amber Vinson had traveled on Monday, according to a news release from the school.
The notification caused the school to evacuate its students a few hours before the end of the school day Friday.
Vinson, 29, is in an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta this week after visiting Akron last weekend. Ebola is not an airborne-transmitted disease, but is contracted when one person comes in contact with an infected person's bodily fluids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said Frontier Airlines cleaned the plane. Officials said passengers, including the Lorain teacher, who flew on the cleaned plane were not at risk.
Horizon Science Academy officials decided to evacuate the school anyway 'to further protect students, teachers and staff,' according to a news release.
The teacher, who hasn't shown any symptoms of Ebola, was urged to go to the hospital. Parents came to pick up their children from school.
For some parents, the decision to end school early was a good one.
'It's just a couple of hours early. It's better to be safe than sorry,' Timothy Vovak said as he came to pick up his first-grade son from the school.
He added that he would like more information on how Ebola is transmitted and what he can do to prevent himself and his family from getting it.
Micah Charlton, the stepfather of a student at the academy, said the ordeal is frightening.
'It's scary. I'm scared to go anywhere,' Charlton said.
For others, closing the school seemed rash.
Kathy Boylan, health commissioner for Elyria and Lorain, attributed the decision to the panic people across the nation are feeling because of Ebola.
Entities 0 Name: LORAIN Count: 5 1 Name: Horizon Science Academy Count: 2 2 Name: Frontier Airlines Count: 2 3 Name: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Count: 1 4 Name: Amber Vinson Count: 1 5 Name: CDC Count: 1 6 Name: Elyria Count: 1 7 Name: Emory University Hospital Count: 1 8 Name: Charlton Count: 1 9 Name: Vinson Count: 1 10 Name: Micah Charlton Count: 1 11 Name: Kathy Boylan Count: 1 12 Name: Timothy Vovak Count: 1 13 Name: Cleveland Count: 1 14 Name: Akron Count: 1 15 Name: Atlanta Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/11xjmSh Title: This Is How Schools Are Responding To The Threat of Ebola Description: Posted: Schools around the country are taking steps against Ebola, screening students, passing out information and, with the air travel of an infected nurse between Texas and Ohio, closing schools in those two states. In Northern Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools, officials said they are asking every student with a fever about recent travel to Ebola-affected countries, like those in West Africa.
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