A Tampa-bound flight was held for about three hours Friday night in Charlotte, N.C., after a passenger began throwing up in the lavatory during boarding.

The passenger had a fever of about 100 degrees and complained of nausea and chills. While those could be symptoms of Ebola, North Carolina Health Department officials determined she didn't have the deadly disease.

Even so, the woman was transported to a hospital "in an abundance of caution," according to Mecklenburg, N.C., County officials, and the 187 passengers were not allowed to leave the US Airways plane while it sat at the airport.

“Out of an abundance of caution, paramedics didn’t want the passengers to deplane,” airline spokesman Kent Powell told the Charlotte Observer.

Flight 1928 was originally scheduled to leave Charlotte at 5:50 p.m. It did not depart until just after 9 p.m., according to the Observer.

Ebola has been mostly limited to West Africa and is known to have infected only two people in the United States - two nurses who cared for Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas - yet fears about the disease are sweeping the United States.

Here are just a few examples:

Teacher placed on 3 weeks leave

At Strong Elementary School in Strong, Maine, a teacher was placed on a 21-day paid leave merely because she traveled to Dallas for a conference. The teacher, who has not been named in news accounts, attended a seminar held by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium in Dallas.

According to the Portland Press-Herald, the MSAD 58 school board placed the teacher on leave Thursday nigth after parents expressed frustration she would be traveling to Dallas. The school districted post a statement on its website saying it had "no information to suggest this staff member has been in contact with anyone who has been exposed to Ebola."

Classes canceled in Cleveland

One of the nurses, Amber Vinson, traveled on Frontier Airlines between Dallas and Cleveland. A Cleveland-area school canceled classes in two buildings after learning a staff member might have flown on the Frontier Airlines plane, though not the same flight, as Vinson.

3 campuses closed in Texas

Three school campuses in Belton, Texas, were closed because two students traveled on the same flight as her. The campuses and school buses were being disinfected. Austin Peay State University in Tennessee canceled a study abroad program to Senegal next year.

Flying concerns impact Wall Street

Airline investors worried that the scare over the virus could cause travelers to avoid flying. Shares of the biggest U.S. airlines tumbled between 5 and 8 percent before recovering in afternoon trading Wednesday.

Decorated photographer 'uninvited'

Syracuse University "uninvited" Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Michel du Cille, of The Washington Post, to the school's fall journalism workshop since du Cille returned from covering the Ebola crisis in Liberia. Du Cille said he returned 21 days ago and is symptom free. Lorraine Branham, dean of the university's school of public communications, said Syracuse consulted with university and county health officials and decided to be cautious.

Principal takes week away from school

In Hazelhurst, Mississippi, several parents pulled their middle school students from class after learning that the school’s principal recently had traveled to attend his brother's funeral in Zambia, which is in southern Africa and thousands of miles from the outbreak in West Africa. The principal then decided to take a week of vacation.

Facebook rumor proves false

In San Diego County on Thursday, staff on a college campus roped off a classroom building with about 50 people inside after a student told her instructor her sister was hospitalized with flu-like symptoms. The family had just returned on a flight from the Midwest, feeding rumors on social media that they had been on board the same plane that carried the Texas nurse who tested positive for Ebola.

None of that turned out to be true. After more than an hour, the school posted on its Facebook page: "NO EBOLA ON SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE CAMPUS." The student later acknowledged to officials that she had made up the story so she wouldn't be dropped for missing class, college spokeswoman Lillian Leopold said.

Hazmat team responds to Largo home

In Largo on Thursday, a hazmat team responded to a mobile home of a person who had flu-like symptoms. Officials determined that the individual, who officials first thought had returned from West Africa, did not travel overseas and was not at risk for Ebola, according to the Pinellas COunty Health Department.

Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluid, such as getting an infected person's blood or vomit into the eyes or through a cut in the skin, not through the air, experts say. And people infected with Ebola aren't contagious until they start showing symptoms, such as fever, body aches or stomach pain, research shows.

But those are also the symptoms of other ailments, including the flu, and flu season is just beginning.