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Ebola doc rode the subway, but you should still probably worry more about bedbugs

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Confirming the fears of your grandparent or aunt who yelled “Don’t move to New York City!”, a Doctors Without Borders doctor who was treating Ebola patients in Guinea came down with the disease after he’d done things like go to the Highline, take the subway and roll a few games at The Gutter. The thing we’re most upset about here is that the Ebola patient, Craig Spencer, is somehow both a life-saving hero working with Doctors Without Borders and a cool enough guy to know that The Gutter is the most fun bowling alley in Williamsburg. He’s like the best parts of you mixed with the parts your mother wished you were. As for Ebola on the subway? We’re not freaking out that much. We’d still worry more about getting bedbugs on the subway rather than Ebola.

Obviously, a little worrying is natural, because maybe they’re not telling us that Spencer had a gross runny nose and kept wiping it with his hand before grabbing on to a subway pole and then for some reason someone else did that right after because obviously you want to put your hand in a strangers big ‘ol pile of mucus. So that probably didn’t happen, and as WNYC points out, people would probably remember such a sickly looking guy or a guy who threw up blood on the A train. So! Worry a little bit, as is your wont, crack some jokes because what else can we do and also worry about bedbugs a lot.

Worry about bedbugs on the subway, because there have been more confirmed cases of those recently than there has been Ebola. Don’t think about Ebola’s admittedly awful effects on your body. Instead, think about almost invisible bloodsuckers hitching a ride with you while you take the subway home from work, and establishing a base of operations in your mattress, before getting into your bed frame, your walls, even your favorite books and your laptop. Think about having to bag up everything you own and do laundry for weeks because you have to make sure everything isn’t infested still, and also think about your friends treating you like a leper because they can’t be sure if even by giving you a ride in their car that you won’t pass irritating blood-sucking parasites on to them. The odds are MUCH higher right now that you pick those up on the subway than Ebola, so think some good thoughts for Craig Spencer, hero and cool doctor, and then go about your life being terrified of New York’s eternal threat: blood-sucking bedbugs.

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