A number of Twitter users were making crude jokes about Ebola and bowling after a New York City doctor was diagnosed with the deadly virus on Thursday.
The doctor, Craig Spencer, contracted Ebola while working in Guinea, a West African country hard hit by the virus.
Spencer reportedly went to two bowling alleys before he started suffering from symptoms of the disease.
When news of that development broke, users starting saying he went “ebowling,” a portmanteau of Ebola and bowling.
Said one user, “Wouldn’t want to be the dude renting his shoes. #Ebowling'”
“Can’t believe that dude went ebowling while infected,” one person said.
“This being Brooklyn, some hipster will come down with Lassa Fever. Oh, you probably haven’t heard of it. #ebowla #ebowling,” said another.
Added another: “Wait so this guy got infected w Ebola and then went bowling... essentially he went Ebowling..this is my first Ebola joke.”
Some users expressed their displeasure with the constant stream of puns and jokes.
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AP update: New York doctor in Guinea has Ebola, 1st in city
NEW YORK (AP) — An emergency room doctor who recently returned to the city after treating Ebola patients in West Africa has tested positive for the virus, becoming the first case in the city and the fourth in the nation.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday urged residents not to be alarmed by the doctor’sEbola diagnosis. De Blasio said all city officials followed “clear and strong” protocols in their handling and treatment of Craig Spencer, a member of Doctors Without Borders.
“We want to state at the outset that New Yorkers have no reason to be alarmed,” de Blasio said. “New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk.”
Spencer, who had been working in Guinea, returned six days ago and reported Thursday morning coming down with a 103-degree fever and diarrhea. He was being treated in an isolation ward at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola center.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will do a further test to confirm the initial results, has dispatched an Ebola response team to New York, and the city’s disease detectives have been tracing Spencer’s contacts to identify anyone who may be at risk. The city’s health commissioner, Mary Bassett, said Spencer’s fiancee and two friends had been quarantined but showed no symptoms.
In the days before Spencer fell ill, he went on a 3-mile jog, went to the High Line park, rode the subway and, on Wednesday night, got a taxi to a Brooklyn bowling alley. Bassett said he felt fatigued Wednesday but not feverish until Thursday morning.
Health officials say the chances of the average New Yorker contracting Ebola, which is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, are slim. Someone can’t be infected just by being near someone who is sick with Ebola. Someone isn’t contagious unless he is sick.
