A Pečauer’s Reviews > The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus > Status Update

Apparently all it takes is one idiot at the CDC to say “I ain’t afraid of no Ebola!” to put the country at risk from a hot patient in a community hospital where he could’ve just as easily gone in a biocontainment treatment center.

“Unlike Dalgard and Volt, he did not seem afraid. He was a devout Christian, comfortable with telling people that he had been saved. If the Lord saw fit to take him home with a monkey disease, he was ready.”

Why I’m afraid of monkeys: “An angry monkey is like a flying pit bull terrier with five prehensile limbs … A monkey directs its attacks toward the face and head. It will grab you by the head, using all four limbs, and then it will wrap its tail around your neck to get a good grip, and it will make slashing attacks all over your face with its teeth, aiming especially for the eyes.”

“Surely some smart Army lawyers could figure out why the act of carrying Ebola-ridden dead monkeys across state lines in the trunk of a private automobile was so completely legal that there had never even been any question about it.”

A+ writing.

[Jahrling] offered the flask to Tom. Tom sniffed it. There was no smell. Jahrling took back the flask and whiffed it again. … But the flask was milky, and the cells were blown away.

I keep coming back to this because… ?? Is this a thing microbiologists do? Take whiffs of mystery pathogens? I remember getting yelled at in middle school just for sniffing the test tube of the classic strawberry DNA experiment.