Rick Scott Wants CDC to Contact Passengers Who Flew on Plane 24 Hours After Ebola Patient

After reports emerged that Amber Joy Vinson, the second health care worker who came down with Ebola in recent days, flew across the country on a Frontier Airlines flight on Monday, Gov. Rick Scott called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to contact passengers who were on that airplane that day.

The CDC announced that they are contacting those passengers on the airplane with nurse Amber Joy Vinson, and I am asking them to expand their contacts today to include all passengers traveling on that plane for the full 24 hours after Ambers flight, Scott said in a statement released on Thursday morning. Within 24 hours of Ambers flight with a low-grade fever, we know the plane made five additional stops including one into and one out of our Fort Lauderdale Airport.

The CDC has already admitted that they have been slow to respond to developing cases of Ebola, and we do not want to take any risk of Ebola coming to Florida, Scott continued. Their immediate action to contact all these passengers today is essential to explaining any potential health risks to themselves and their family. I want all Florida passengers to have as much information as possible directly from the CDC to ease any of their fears and understand any way they could have made contact with the disease.

We continue to hope we will never have a case of Ebola in Florida, but unfortunately, we have seen from the CDCs own admission that they have failed to get ahead of this diseases spread in America to date and we will do everything we can in Florida to get the CDCs full engagement to protect our Florida health care workers, our citizens and our visitors, Scott added. Yesterday, we also requested the CDC conduct health care worker training with all Florida hospitals by conference call. Friday morning, I will meet again with our Florida Department of Health leaders and notify the public of what, if any, action the CDC has taken on our Ebola preparedness requests following that meeting.