But once it is contracted, people are highly contagious and, in fact, may very well be so before showing any symptoms.
With that in mind, it seems more than outrageous that health officials in Hawaii would completely dismiss those concerns after a Japanese man and his wife who visited the state were diagnosed with the virus after returning to his home country.
According to The New York Times in a story filed from Honolulu, a reporter appears to have tracked down some of the contacts made by the unnamed infected Japanese couple during their visit, but health officials in the state, notably, don’t yet know — or haven’t said — what the source of the infection is.
The Times report begins with the story of Chantelle Pajarillo, a Hawaiian woman who was spending an extended weekend at the famous Waikiki Beach resort. While there, she saw a local news report stating that the infected man may have also stayed at the resort.
The report prompted Pajarillo to contact the hotel staff and immediately request some antiseptic wipes, which she says she used to immediately begin “wiping down everything.”
“I wiped down everything I knew they would touch: the sliding door, the refrigerator, countertops and the bathroom,” Pajarillo told the Times reporter on Saturday while walking back to the pool at the Grand Waikikian,with a stack of towels. “I’m a germaphobe myself and I have three little kids so I want to make sure I take every precaution.”
It should be noted that, as of the original report, neither Hawaii health officials or their counterparts in Japan had a clue where the man might have contracted the virus. The most likely option, they believe, is that he picked it up somewhere along the way while he traveled to the islands from his home...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...
