Paul LePage is probably Exhibit A why politicians should get out of the way and let health professionals do what they do best. Not only that he doesn't ever know what he's talking about, guys like him only make matters worse, alarming the public needlessly.

With any luck, Mainers will come to their senses and reject him on Tuesday.

Matt Byrne of the Portland Press Herald corrects this latest bit of bullshit misinformation from LePage.

Governor’s statement: “Do you know that 13 percent show no symptoms. Thirteen percent of people who have Ebola and died of Ebola show no symptoms, until a few hours before they died.”

Facts: LePage was most likely referring to a figure in a study of Ebola cases in West Africa that was done by the World Health Organization and recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers found that nearly 13 percent of suspected and confirmed Ebola patients did not show a fever when they were evaluated by medical personnel.

Fever is the single most common early indicator of the illness. Fever was present in 88 percent of fatal cases and 84 percent of nonfatal cases, the study found. The assertion that 13 percent of people who died of Ebola showed no symptoms at all “until a few hours before they died” is false. Ebola does not sneak up on its victims like a heart attack, but builds over time until the patient is overcome with the virus. Once inside the body, the virus travels through the bloodstream until it attaches to a cell. The virus replicates itself to the point that it disrupts cell function and kills the cell. The process repeats in countless cells, with the virus attacking many types of tissue at once. After fever, the next most common symptoms are fatigue and vomiting. Patients who die of the disease often suffer uncontrollable diarrhea, and in the final stages, massive organ failure.