Ebola in America

[rwguinn]

Some do but most recognize that she's making things difficult for no good reason, and that the government had to have containment authority. Can you imagine what a hospital would be like if everyone could simply ignore protocols as they see fit and authority be damned?

She's encouraging people to make their own calls because she doesn't want to wait a few weeks. I'm sure her hospital is thrilled with her defiance.

I'm sorry, but being involuntary confined to quarters or hospital for no good reason other than to make stupid people feel better is imprisonment without due process. How about the stupid people just staying inside their homes till the danger is over-assuming they can even tell what is danger and what is not...

 

[Dan O.]

Some do but most recognize that she's making things difficult for no good reason, and that the government had to have containment authority. Can you imagine what a hospital would be like if everyone could simply ignore protocols as they see fit and authority be damned?

She's encouraging people to make their own calls because she doesn't want to wait a few weeks. I'm sure her hospital is thrilled with her defiance.

When is your hospital going to step up and do the right thing: Offer any professional nurse, doctor, technician that works with the hospital and volunteers to work 30 days in an Ebola hot spot or is directly caring for an Ebola patient at the hospital to be given 3 additional weeks of paid vacation at an Ebola free retreat.

 

[catsmate]

There's going to be a showdown because the government overseeing this isn't gonna let "I know better" health care workers decide for themselves that a little inconvenience is too much to bear.

She's complying fully with the actual medical guidelines. Not with those made up by politicians.
Frankly I don't doubt she does know better than the state government, you know the one who's ignoring the CDC policies.
But then there's an election soon...

If she were a nurse at my hospital there are a lot of people who'd refuse to work with her and I'm one. She's got to grow the hell up.

Really? You'd prefer a health professional ignore guidelines from other helth professionals in favour of tub thumbing politicians?

No. She is deciding for herself that the CDC guidelines are the only ones that she needs to follow, that she can ignore the decisions of her state government.

Sigh. The CDC guidelines are the actual result of thought and planning, as opposed to political posturing.

That is very, very much her own decision. The CDC never told anybody to defy state government quarantine orders.

Strawman.

And it's a very bad precedent to set that she's not merely challenging the quarantine order in court, she's actively defying it.

No it's not. Opposing pointless and unnecessary waste of resources and politically motivated grandstanding is a good idea.

I find it fascinating that you're so much in favour of this pointless "quarantine" given you usually seem to oppose government intervention. Would you be so in favour of intervention were the issue the confiscation of firearms due to the perceived danger from them?

That is very much a precedent that could cause deaths in the future. I wouldn't have much problem with her if she obeyed the quarantine while the legal process unfolded, waiting for a favorable ruling before breaking quarantine, but the fact that she's not doing that really is irresponsible. You justify it on the basis that she's following CDC recommendations, and she knows what she's doing, but do you think everyone who breaks a quarantine order is really going to care about these subtleties?

More strawmannery. There's no reason to assume that the CDC guidelines are insufficient. Unless of course you've got such information?

This nonsense seems to me down to LePage's re-election campaign problems rather than anything remotely related to actual medical concerns.

 

[epepke]

Just sayin'

 

[epepke]

This nurse is setting a horrible example. If every health care worker decides for themselves what rules should be followed, it's trouble. Every nurse I've spoken with in my hospital thinks she's being a narcissist.

Hey! Cluster B personality disorders are part of nurse culture. Just hope it doesn't turn into Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy.

 

[Meadmaker]

I'm sorry, but being involuntary confined to quarters or hospital for no good reason other than to make stupid people feel better is imprisonment without due process. How about the stupid people just staying inside their homes till the danger is over-assuming they can even tell what is danger and what is not...

This^^^^....sort of.

I think she is probably deliberately provoking a confrontation just to test this concept, and I think it's a good idea to do so.

The state has the "form" of due process on their side. They have a quarantine order (or something similar....lawyers might be able to tell the difference) on their side. However, the case will hinge on "substantive due process". Since the action taken, which is effectively house arrest, is so severe, the government will have to survive a "strict scrutiny" test. That's going to have three pillars.

1. The state has a compelling interest it is protecting.
2. The action taken is effective in protecting that interest.
3. No lesser action would protect the interest.

Number 1 is very easy. The interest is protecting public health. It's literally a matter of life or death. Done.

Then, number 2 and 3 come into play. It's not good enough for the government to think that it might be a good idea to deprive someone of liberty. They have to give evidence that it's a good idea. If the pro-quarantine side is correct, that too will be easy. Ebola has been studied extensively by scientists. Get an epidemiologist on the stand who has studied Ebola, and let him give credible evidence that Kaci Hickox represents a threat in her current condition, that quarantine will reduce that threat, and that nothing else will be as effective in lessening the risk, and the court order will stand. If you can't find anyone who will say that, Kaci Hickox will prevail, and be allowed to leave her house legally.

ETA: Of course, by the time the decision is made, a good deal more than 21 days will have passed, but it will apply to future cases.

 

[shuize]

I really like how, after seeing the horror of Ebola up close in Africa, medical professionals Dr. Spencer and Nurse Hickox, prefer not to play it safe and wait things out at home. Because, if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that Ebola should be taken lightly.

 

[rwguinn]

What is amazing to me is how easy it appears to give up somebody else's rights.

Most of the people arguing against her stand are the same people who clutch the Constitution to their bosom and declare Liberals to be Satan and the Democratic Party the anti-christ.

 

[wollclark]

http://freethinker.co.uk/2014/10/30/ebola-here-come-the-homeopaths/

The good news is that a small international team of experienced and heroic homeopaths have arrived in West Africa, and are currently on the ground working hard to examine patients, work out the ‘genus epidemicus’, and initiate clinical trials.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

No. She is deciding for herself that the CDC guidelines are the only ones that she needs to follow, that she can ignore the decisions of her state government. That is very, very much her own decision. The CDC never told anybody to defy state government quarantine orders.

Look at the Doctor too who lied about self-quarantining in NYC. It was only discovered where he travelled because the police obtained his credit card and subway pass info by subpoena.

This defiance of legal authority and lying ought to sober people up about what kind of risks we are facing here. This is not a large population of people coming back from Ebola treatment centers, so just these two cases we know about is way too high a proportion for me to trust sending thousands over there.

When you are in the third world you are treated like a rock star just being an ordinary middle class American. But a Doctor - that's a Demigod. So sure, when returning home as a Demigod and you are actually expected to follow laws and tell the truth to authorities like the rest of us mortals... this really impinges on your Demigod status.

It's proof of Narcissism, not Altruism.

The CDC publishes the state authority to quarantine here:

http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantineisolation.html

They make it clear that violating quarantine is a criminal offense. So to say that she is following CDC protocols is ludicrous. There isn't a protocol calling for committing crime.

Furthermore, in 11% of the Ebola cases studied from Africa, no fever was present:

http://news.yahoo.com/why-survive-ebola-sierra-leone-study-offers-clues-070129976.html

That's the most common symptom. Some that are thought of as signature features (like vomiting) are only in about 1/3 of the cases.

 

[rwguinn]

Look at the Doctor too who lied about self-quarantining in NYC. It was only discovered where he travelled because the police obtained his credit card and subway pass info by subpoena.

This defiance of legal authority and lying ought to sober people up about what kind of risks we are facing here. This is not a large population of people coming back from Ebola treatment centers, so just these two cases we know about is way too high a proportion for me to trust sending thousands over there.

When you are in the third world you are treated like a rock star just being an ordinary middle class American. But a Doctor - that's a Demigod. So sure, when returning home as a Demigod and you are actually expected to follow laws and tell the truth to authorities like the rest of us mortals... this really impinges on your Demigod status.

It's proof of Narcissism, not Altruism.

The CDC publishes the state authority to quarantine here:

http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantineisolation.html

They make it clear that violating quarantine is a criminal offense. So to say that she is following CDC protocols is ludicrous. There isn't a protocol calling for committing crime.

Furthermore, in 11% of the Ebola cases studied from Africa, no fever was present:

http://news.yahoo.com/why-survive-ebola-sierra-leone-study-offers-clues-070129976.html

That's the most common symptom. Some that are thought of as signature features (like vomiting) are only in about 1/3 of the cases.

So where are all the MEDICAL experts lining up to state that quarantine isnecessary? So far all we have is a bunch of Tea-partiers, Lawyers, Politicians, and scared ******** ignoramuses...

 

[I Am The Scum]

Why don't we just quarantine people who might have the flu, while we're at it?

 

[Unabogie]

Look at the Doctor too who lied about self-quarantining in NYC. It was only discovered where he travelled because the police obtained his credit card and subway pass info by subpoena.

This defiance of legal authority and lying ought to sober people up about what kind of risks we are facing here. This is not a large population of people coming back from Ebola treatment centers, so just these two cases we know about is way too high a proportion for me to trust sending thousands over there.

When you are in the third world you are treated like a rock star just being an ordinary middle class American. But a Doctor - that's a Demigod. So sure, when returning home as a Demigod and you are actually expected to follow laws and tell the truth to authorities like the rest of us mortals... this really impinges on your Demigod status.

It's proof of Narcissism, not Altruism.

The CDC publishes the state authority to quarantine here:

http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantineisolation.html

They make it clear that violating quarantine is a criminal offense. So to say that she is following CDC protocols is ludicrous. There isn't a protocol calling for committing crime.

Furthermore, in 11% of the Ebola cases studied from Africa, no fever was present:

http://news.yahoo.com/why-survive-ebola-sierra-leone-study-offers-clues-070129976.html

That's the most common symptom. Some that are thought of as signature features (like vomiting) are only in about 1/3 of the cases.

The CDC says that asymptomatic people must self-monitor by taking their own temperature twice a day, staying within 4 hours of suitable hospital, and staying in contact with the CDC. The doctors and nurses are doing this, which means they're following the CDC guidelines. The only people calling for the quarantine of asymptomatic people are the bedwetters and opportunists who are either too dumb to read what the CDC is actually saying or see this as a way to score points for the upcoming elections. Just tonight I was watching Fox "News" and their chyron was something to the effect of:

THE "SCIENCE" OF WHITE HOUSE EBOLA POLICY

What a nifty trick. Don't say you mistrust those pointy headed nerds who read books and stuff, just put the word "science" in "scare quotes" so everyone knows that the "scientists" are dummies or liars.

Which is why I call it Fox "News".

 

[Unabogie]

What is amazing to me is how easy it appears to give up somebody else's rights.

Most of the people arguing against her stand are the same people who clutch the Constitution to their bosom and declare Liberals to be Satan and the Democratic Party the anti-christ.

Exactly right. The irony is that there's been an ongoing CT that the government was setting up FEMA camps to send people away against their will, based on some nebulous "threat". Well, Christie just set up the camp and sent someone away there, and the same people who feared the FEMA camps are cheering it on.

 

[wollclark]

http://www.psandman.com/col/Ebola-3.htm

...Maybe they are having trouble keeping the picture of a developing-world Ebola pandemic in focus. It is so close to unimaginable, so almost unimaginably horrible.

Those are the four reasons we have thought of that could explain the lack of headlines about this calamitous prospect. The people out there talking about Ebola:

don’t think it’s likely enough to be worth talking about;
don’t think there’s anything to be done about it anyway;
don’t think the public can take it; or
can’t bear to keep the horrific prospect in focus.

We have some sympathy for the fourth possible explanation. In fact, that’s our second failure of imagination: We too are having a hard time focusing our minds on the pandemic scenario.

 

[shuize]

It's proof of Narcissism, not Altruism.

Nothing says "altruism" like refusing to self-quarantine post Ebola exposure and then, in Dr. Spencer's case, lying about it.

I also like how U.S. soldiers returning from west Africa are being quarantined for three weeks even though everyone knows that asking doctors and nurses who have had direct contact with Ebola patients to stay at home for a little while is totally unreasonable.

 

[shuize]

When you are in the third world you are treated like a rock star just being an ordinary middle class American. But a Doctor - that's a Demigod. So sure, when returning home as a Demigod and you are actually expected to follow laws and tell the truth to authorities like the rest of us mortals... this really impinges on your Demigod status.

It's proof of Narcissism, not Altruism.

Not that all of Asia is third world, but it's a similar story here. Foreign guy without much life experience shows up in Asia and is suddenly elevated to "sensei" based entirely on his native speaker status. Foreign "sensei" get lots of respect -- the "rock star" treatment -- and many let it go to their heads. They fall into the trap of thinking that students listening to them in class means that everyone else will want to hear their opinion about everything. And that always being "correct" on any English language topic means they are naturally correct about all things.

I can easily imagine a foreign Ebola doctor or nurse convinced of his own rock stardom ... I mean "altruism" ... falling into a similar sort of trap.

 

[Dan O.]

Nothing says "altruism" like refusing to self-quarantine post Ebola exposure and then, in Dr. Spencer's case, lying about it.

I also like how U.S. soldiers returning from west Africa are being quarantined for three weeks even though everyone knows that asking doctors and nurses who have had direct contact with Ebola patients to stay at home for a little while is totally unreasonable.

You are willing to put restrictions on other people. But are you willing to put up what it takes to entice those people to voluntarily self quarantine? How about paying for something like 3 weeks paid vacation at a 5 star tropical resourt for all returning health care workers?

 

[PhantomWolf]

If we don't stop Ebola over there, it will mutate and come get us over here.

Ummm, no. You realise that Ebola has been known about since 1976, but has been around a lot longer than that. Since then there have been multiple outbreaks, though previously it has tended to burn itself out quickly because the victims didn't travel far and so didn't spread it. However, if it was going to mutate into a version that is transmittable any other way, it would have done so years and decades ago.

 

[marplots]

There's a gaggle of press following her around as she dodges quarantine. Now there's a vector worth fearing.