This marks the eighthEbolaoutbreak in Uganda since 2000.
The hemorrhagic virus is highly infectious and fatal, promptingpublic healthofficials to seek containment.
The pandemic has permanently shaped and transformed humanity.
A Doctors Without Borders health worker carries a child suspected of having Ebola on Oct. 5, 2014, in Paynesville, Liberia.John Moore/Getty Images
In thisexcerpt, I look at the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the intense lockdowns that came with it.
As always, what has happened serves as a prologue.
But that did not come with political stability.
She closed the borders and asked the Liberian army to monitor and occupy parts of the country.
President Sirleaf surmised, at the time, that the health of the nation would come at a cost.
There is something profound about how a ruler responds, as it holds a mirror up to society.
Nevertheless, the delicate balance between health and civil liberties shows how intractable health problems can be.
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But this work took a toll on Dr. Fallah and others.
People would die, and we would be helpless.
We just couldnt do anything.
I would have a contact tracer follow a family.
His account brings the horror close to home that, even with intervention, people could lose everything.
Throughout West Africa, Ebola isolation centers were established early during the outbreak in 2014.
Initially, this was meant to supplement the well-worn establishments that could not isolate every Ebola patient.
Still, the centers presence led to a deep divide between health authorities and the community.
One resident, Christiana Williams, then fifty-two, recalled hearing cries from Ebola patients at the makeshift clinic.
Other residents were frustrated about this novel disease because they did not understand the potential threat.
Instead of harboring trust, the policy cradled skepticism in West Point.
We had a unit for psychosocial support, media engagement, and laboratory work.
Our somewhat decentralized to Ebola response was initially a top-down approach.
Nevertheless, the quarantine of West Point did not bode well.
The community was agitated by the Ebola treatment center being placed near their homes.
Some protesters targeted the Ebola isolation station and others believed the Ebola virus was a fabrication.
During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, containment became a central theme of how Liberians referenced Ebola abroad.
Successful public health measures rely on cooperation.
Though for those who can move, remaining still can be unbearable.
Residents, objecting to the presidents measures, believed they were in an open-air prison.
Lockdown City
At a cursory look, videos of West Point during the lockdown were damning.
In one clip, my eyes fixated on the weather: the gray sky and heavy rain.
Except for armed police, the streets were mostly empty.
Some fruit stands were overturned.
In another film, a young man stood behind green bars with several people near him.
But at four oclock in the morning, they deployed police, army, and immigration.
They beat people, and thats not right.
Disillusionment arises when the state turns against its citizens.
For some, the lockdown was sprinkled with physical terror as questions arose about where to place Ebola victims.
Alternatively, providing free mental health services would have eliminated the isolation that some citizens felt.
Bordering the Atlantic Ocean, the West Point neighborhood is home to over seventy thousand people.
They were reminded, once again, how little control they had.
Loss of income poses a danger to a familys survival.
The effect was ubiquitous impacting food, dignity, and mobility.
In the days that followed, some inhabitants were cut off from food and other essential subsistence.
Davidette Wilson, a twenty-seven-year-old man, remarked, There is nowhere to go for our daily bread.
He pointed to his exasperation about the lack of sustenance.
Bread, a basic necessity for life, was scant.
Another chilling report revealed peoples severed connections with their networks who lived outside of West Point.
They cant suddenly lock us up without any warning.
How are our children going to eat?
Among the people living in this neighborhood was David Anan.
Then thirty-four, he asked gun-carrying Liberian soldiers, You fight Ebola with arms?
Liberians, like Anan, were profoundly disturbed by the deluge of arms.
Unable or unwilling to address their concerns in a humane way, the government decided to take action.
In the carnage, there were grim images, clearly indicating the explicit hostility of state repression.
These snapshots confront the viewer with a fiery if not existential crisis.
The armed men invaded the neighborhood, expecting coercion.
They intuited that punishment through ordnance and terror would calm the populace.
What they witnessed was tumult.
After ten days of violence, a teenager was killed, leading community members to mourn.
Grotesque as it was, the quarantine cast a shadow on how West Point residents were seen.
That governments response is an indication of how little working poor Africans are valued.
Lockdowns, such as the one at West Point, are not evidence-based.
They are an institutional means of controlling a group that has little dominion.
This wasnt unique to Liberia; the lockdown was ap- plied to other nations in the region.
MacDougall questioned the wayward politics and the double standard that exist in Liberia but on a global scale.
The 2014 outbreak in Liberia showed that quarantine was not enough.
Copyright 2025 by Edna Bonhomme.
