Anyone
willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one,” Time
magazine editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs wrote in an editor’s note. “For
tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost
its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving,
the Ebola fighters are Time’s 2014 Person of the Year.”
For the issue, the magazine published five covers featuring different Ebola fighters.
Dr. Kent Brantly, one of the American health care workers who
contracted Ebola while fighting the outbreak in West Africa, was one of
them.
Brantly called the selection a “huge honor” in an ongoing battle.
“Ebola fighters are not people who did something courageous,” Brantly said on NBC’s “Today” show, where Time unveiled its Person of the Year. “They are still in the trenches fighting.”
“Ebola fighters are not people who did something courageous,” Brantly said on NBC’s “Today” show, where Time unveiled its Person of the Year. “They are still in the trenches fighting.”
“Ebola is a war, and a warning,” Gibbs continued. “The global health
system is nowhere close to strong enough to keep us safe from infectious
disease, and ‘us’ means everyone, not just those in faraway places
where this is one threat among many that claim lives every day. The rest
of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are
willing to stand and fight.”
“I have witnessed the devastation Ebola causes and have personally
experienced the stigma that fear of this disease brings,” Kaci Hickox,
the Maine nurse who stirred controversy after she was ordered
quarantined by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie upon her arrival in
Newark with a slight fever, wrote in the magazine. “Still, I hope that
compassion and knowledge will soon overcome the fear so that we can beat
Ebola.”
Finalists for the annual title — given to “the person or persons who
most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what
was important about the year” — included Ferguson protesters, Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Taylor Swift, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, Apple chief
Tim Cook, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Masoud Barzani, the acting
President of the Iraqi Kurdish Region.
Pope Francis was Time’s Person of the Year in 2013. In 2012, it was President Barack Obama.
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