Hazmat Halloween

Trick or treaters are making light of the deadly Ebola crisis by wearing hazmat suits — but not everyone is laughing.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever

From Star Tribune:

No holiday screams pop culture controversy quite like Halloween.

So what’s the costume flap of the year? It might just be Ebola, as in Ebola zombies, bloody Ebola patients and faux protective gear.

Twitter and other social media were abuzz leading into the holiday with talk of hazmat suits and respirators. Too soon? How about just no, said Philadelphia physician’s assistant Maria McKenna.

One of her own, a Dallas nurse who at 26 is exactly her age, was diagnosed with the virus in the United States after she had helped care for a Liberian man who died at her hospital.

The idea of riffing on the crisis for Halloween “definitely rubs me the wrong way,” said McKenna, who works with post-surgical patients at a hospital.

“Normally I think that irony and humor is funny, but this thing with the costumes, is it really that funny? I mean, Ebola’s not even under control yet,” she said Monday by telephone.

More from Sandrarose.com:

  • Second Nurse Diagnosed With Ebola at Dallas Hospital
  • Ridiculously inappropriate Halloween costumes for children
  • British Hospitals On Alert Over Worst Ebola Outbreak in 7 Years
  • Second Nurse Diagnosed With Ebola at Dallas Hospital