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Cruise ship carrying Ebola healthcare worker docks in Texas, worker tests negative for deadly virus

"If I get Ebola, I’m going to buy a lottery ticket," laughs calm passenger.

By Matt Bradwell
CDC Director Tom Frieden. UPI/David Tulis
CDC Director Tom Frieden. UPI/David Tulis | License Photo

GALVESTON, Texas, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- The Carnival Cruise ship carrying a Texas healthcare worker employed at the hospital where Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan succumbed to Ebola has docked in Galveston, Texas, and the healthcare worker has tested negative for the dead virus.

When the health care worker boarded the ship last Sunday, she was not in a risk category that required restriction of movement based on CDC guidelines, Carnival said in an official statement.

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However, by mid-week she had been moved into the 'active monitoring category' based on changes in CDC protocol. She had been self-monitoring her temperature up until the point on Wednesday that CDC asked us to have our medical professionals monitor her. This individual was always considered very low risk and at no point in time during the course of the cruise did she exhibit any symptoms of illness. Today is day 21 of her incubation period and she and her companion were allowed by health authorities to travel home on their own.

Despite the potentially tense situation, passengers handled the scare with good humor, as it was clear from onset this was likely just a precautionary situation.

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"If I get Ebola, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket," passenger Billy Willis told the Los Angeles Times.

"We all knew. We had CNN in our rooms. We knew. [Carnival] did us right.They gave us $200 off our tickets, half off a cruise, free drinks at dinner."

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