For a city weary of Ebola, a welcome 'D

DALLAS -

This Ebola-rattled metropolis observed a milestone in its battle with the disease Sunday, which marked the end of a 21-day observation period for some people who were in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan before his became the first case diagnosed in the United States.

'We can breathe a sigh of relief,'' said Mark Wingfield, associate pastor at the church attended by Duncan's girlfriend, Louise Troh. Unlike most of those exposed to Duncan, Troh, 54, was under a mandatory isolation order.

'We give thanks for the passing of the quarantine period,'' WIngfield told the congregation at Wilshire Baptist Church's worship service. But earlier, he said, 'We won't celebrate, out of respect for the two patients.''

He referred to two nurses who became infected with Ebola while treating Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. They're being treated at special hospital units in Atlanta and outside Washington.

It can take up to 21 days for Ebola symptoms - fever, sore throat and muscle pain, followed by severe vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding - to develop. The period that expired Sunday applied to about 50 people, including those Duncan lived with at an apartment complex on the northeast side of the city.

Scores of hospital workers and others in the area will still be monitored, either because they were exposed to Duncan after he was admitted to the hospital Sept. 28 - three days after he was first treated and released -- or because they were exposed to the two infected nurses. Duncan died Oct. 8.

The hospital workers have been told to stay around home and away from public places, or stay at Texas Health Presbyterian until their 21 days are up. They're monitored regularly for symptoms.

'This Sunday is a milestone,'' said Dr. Joseph McCormick, a University of Texas School of Public Health virologist who first studied Ebola in 1976 with the federal Centers for Disease Control and prevention. He said the expiration of the period 'really supports the fact that this disease is not easily transmitted,'' especially since four of the quarantined -- Troh, her son, Duncan's nephew and another youth -- lived with him in the same apartment.

Clay Jenkins, Dallas County's top elected official, called it 'a critical weekend.'' John Wiley Price, a county commissioner who has criticized Duncan's initial release from Presbyterian, called Sunday 'D-Day.''

Relief was tempered with worry about possible new cases.

Dallas City Council member Jennifer Staubach Gates stands near the apartment that was quarantined after Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola.(Photo: Michael Mulvey for USA TODAY)

'We've taken so many turns with this,'' said Jennifer Staubach Gates, a city council member (and daughter of former Dallas Cowboys' star Roger Staubach) whose district includes the complex where Duncan was staying.

She alluded to the fact that the nurses became infected despite wearing protective clothing, and that one of them was cleared to fly between Cleveland and Dallas, putting her in possible contact with more than 100 travelers. They also are being monitored.

Many remain vigilant. The Roman Catholic diocese of Fort Worth urged worshipers not to hold hands during the Lord's Prayer. Priests were told to place the communion bread in worshipers' hands rather than on their tongues, and there was no sharing of communion wine -- restrictions also common during flu season.

The county-imposed quarantine of Duncan's girlfriend and her family expired at midnight. Wingfield said that on Monday the family would move out of the secret location where they've stayed all month to a new undisclosed location.

'Louise is trying to figure out how she's going to get her life back together,'' he said. 'It's as if her house burned down and someone died in the fire. She wonders how people will receive her family. Will they welcome them? Will they be afraid of them?''

He said the family would not return to their old apartment. This came as news to Kevin Nuran, the landlord. He said Troh was welcome back -- but not the news media, which descended last month when word leaked out of Duncan's diagnosis.

As he described how some journalists sneaked into residents' homes, followed him in his vehicle to Home Depot and questioned children walking to school, Nuran reflected a growing attitude here: Hysteria over Ebola can be as bad as the disease itself.

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