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Perry Calls For Ebola Travel Ban; McLennan County Says Stay Calm

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Today Texas Governor Rick Perry called for air travel to be banned from countries hit hard by the Ebola virus. In a press conference, Perry urged President Obama to make a travel ban between West African countries and the U.S., and also suggested that more needs to be done to limit travel within the U.S.

"It defies common sense from my perspective that someone who has been in close proximity or have treated these patients that they would go out and expose other people possibly to this, that they would travel out of state," Governor Perry said in a press conference in Austin.

In Waco today, McLennan County health officials responded to worries that Ebola might spread to the area. Yesterday, three schools in Belton ISD were shut down after news surfaced that a student had been on a plane with one of the Dallas nurses who had contracted the virus. Edward Verner is an infectious disease specialist. He says the Belton shutdown was unnecessary because the student had no symptoms of Ebola and therefore wasn’t contagious.

"And you’re going to have to react to that fear and how this facility decides to respond to it or that one, they get to decide," Verner said. "But those people who got off the plane had no chance of transmitting Ebola to anyone else the next day."

The McLennan County Public Health district says they’ve received an increase in calls requesting information about Ebola in the wake of the Belton ISD closure. They emphasize that only those showing symptoms of Ebola are contagious—the disease is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids. Officials stress that the flu should be more worrisome—the disease kills thousands of Americans every year.