Ebola fears in US spark overzealous measures against virus
Despite Barack Obama's warning against hysteria, some communities in America are taking overzealous measures against the virus
Just hours after US President Barack Obama urged against "hysteria or fear" over Ebola, there were reports of communities in America - including many frantic parents and officials - taking seemingly overzealous measures against the disease.
A teacher from Maine was placed on three weeks of paid leave because she had travelled to Texas for a conference, where she stayed in a hotel 16km from the hospital in which the first case of the virus was diagnosed in America.
A Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographer's invitation to speak at a journalism school was withdrawn because he had gone to Ebola hotspot Liberia, even though he had been back 21 days and was showing no symptoms.
In Hazlehurst, Mississippi, some parents pulled their children from a middle school because the principal had travelled to his brother's funeral in Zambia in southern Africa, far from the Ebola crisis in West Africa.
Friday saw a number of false alarms, including at the Pentagon, where an entrance was closed after a woman vomited in a car park. US authorities later found no evidence that she had contracted Ebola.
In each case, parents or officials involved said they were acting out of an abundance of caution.