Ebola Scare at Pentagon was False Alarm

Arlington County health officials said they are “confident” a woman who became ill in the Pentagon parking lot Friday morning “does not have Ebola,” according to a statement issued Oct. 17. Officials closed the south parking lot and second corridor entrance to the Pentagon Friday “out of an abundance of caution” after a woman who said she had recently visited West Africa threw up in the parking lot, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Tom Crosson said. Pentagon police officers found the woman in the parking lot at 9:10 a.m., he said. The Arlington County Fire Department immediately responded and the woman was taken to the Fairfax Inova Hospital around 10 a.m., where she was kept in isolation, according to the statement. Arlington County activated its Emergency Operations Center and a Joint Information Center to manage the incident, according to another statement. A shuttle bus, which the woman briefly boarded, carrying 22 people on their way to the Marine Corps Commandant’s change of command ceremony, was quarantined for hours, reported the Washington Post. County health officials told the Post he did not think the woman had ever been out of the country and county health officials agreed they no longer believed she had visited west Africa.