Gov. Rick Scott is calling for the Centers for Disease Control to expand its efforts, following news of a Texas healthcare worker diagnosed with Ebola who traveled with a low-grade fever on Frontier Airlines October 13.
“The CDC announced that they are contacting those passengers on the airplane with nurse Amber Joy Vinson,” Scott said in a statement today. “I am asking them to expand their contacts today to include all passengers traveling on that plane for the full 24 hours after Amber’s flight.”
Within 24 hours of Vinson’s flight, the Frontier Airlines plane made five additional stops – including one through Fort Lauderdale Airport.
Scott’s statement also criticized the CDC, which admits that the agency has been slow to respond to developing cases of Ebola.
“We continue to hope we will never have a case of Ebola in Florida,” he said. “Unfortunately, we have seen from the CDC’s own admission that they have failed to get ahead of this disease’s spread in America to date.”
The governor vowed to “do everything we can” in Florida to get the CDC to protect Florida healthcare workers, citizens and visitors.
Scott will meet again with Florida Department of Health leaders Friday morning, and then notify the public of what actions the CDC has taken on the state’s Ebola preparedness requests.
