NEW YORK, NY—At the height of the Ebola epidemic in 2014, medical offices in America constantly asked patients if they’d recently traveled to Africa, declining to see those who had. Similarly, with the novel coronavirus running rampant throughout America, hospitals here have wisely started screening all potential patients with the following question: “Have you been to America recently?”
“Seriously, have you seen what’s going on in America?” asked U.S. General Hospital CEO Noah Merkens. “It’s a disaster area. We simply can’t afford to let anyone who’s been to America come here and expose everyone to this lethal microbe.”
When asked what hospital staff says to people who answer affirmatively to the screening question, Dr. Merkens replied, “We politely tell them we’re unable to care for them, that they should go home, and for the love of G-d, stay the f**k away from America!”
“Honestly, I’m way more scared now of people who have foolishly gone to America than I ever was of people who traveled to Africa in 2014,” continued Dr. Merkens. “Who would go to such a godforsaken place as America? The whole country is teeming with coronaviruses.”
While Dr. Merkens’ hospital sends these particular patients home after rejecting them, American Medical Center in Washington, DC has a slightly different approach. When a local named Murray Kant made the mistake of admitting recent travel to America, it initiated a frantic series of events that included the prompt evacuations of the hospital and every building within a 50-mile radius, a state-of-emergency declaration by the government, and the arrival of an intimidating squad of HazMat suits to whisk away Mr. Kant and his family to a quarantine center.
Meanwhile, in New York City, hospitals are rejecting people who respond affirmatively to an even more specific question: “Have you been to New York recently?”
But according to Manhattan Medical Center CEO Amanda Davidson, they’re neither sending these patients home nor to a quarantine center. “Nope, we just send ‘em across the river to New Jersey!”
In unrelated news, the number of Covid-19 cases in NJ has been exploding.
At press time, hospital officials across the country praised these new screening policies for having miraculously alleviated overcrowding concerns. “Now we have thousands of ventilators and PPEs but no patients,” said Dr. Merkens while shrugging his shoulders. “Oh well.”