Ebola in America

Wollclark, I'm going to repeat what others already have and urge you to seek help for anxiety. If you are really worried about ebola, you should do everything you can to improve your anxiety now:

1. If things were to go bad-- they won't, but if-- then you'd want to be calm, focused, and rational. You will be ineffective if you are crippled with anxiety.

2. If things were to go bad-- again, they won't-- then you'd want to be in very good health. Your body will have a much better chance of fighting ebola if you are in excellent health. A large, growing body of evidence is making it more than clear that anxiety is terrible for your health.

3. The negative health impacts of chronic anxiety are very real, often leading to premature death, and far, far more likely than your odds of contracting ebola. So if ebola worries you, your anxiety should worry you more.

If you really don't have the money to see a doctor, there are probably public services that may help. There may also be local non-profits or NGOs. And you may just try calling various local doctors to see if one is willing to treat you in exchange for services-- growing up in small, poor town, I've known multiple people who have done similar things.

And you can always evercise. It appears exercise has been repeatedly shown to improve anxiety. Some years back I suffered from health-related anxiety issues. So I started exercising a lot. Definitely improved. Not only does it apparently release happy chemicals in the brain, but it also makes me feel empowered over my own mortality-- I can't control or prevent my eventual death, but I can stack the deck in my favor.
 
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OMGturt1es said:
Wollclark, I'm going to repeat what others already have and urge you to seek help for anxiety. If you are really worried about ebola, you should do everything you can to improve your anxiety now:

1. If things were to go bad-- they won't, but if-- then you'd want to be calm, focused, and rational. You will be ineffective if you are crippled with anxiety.

2. If things were to go bad-- again, they won't-- then you'd want to be in very good health. Your body will have a much better chance of fighting ebola if you are in excellent health. A large, growing body of evidence is making it more than clear that anxiety is terrible for your health.

3. The negative health impacts of chronic anxiety are very real, often leading to premature death, and far, far more likely than your odds of contracting ebola. So if ebola worries you, your anxiety should worry you more.

If you really don't have the money to see a doctor, there are probably public services that may help. There may also be local non-profits or NGOs. And you may just try calling various local doctors to see if one is willing to treat you in exchange for services-- growing up in small, poor town, I've known multiple people who have done similar things.

And you can always evercise. It appears exercise has been repeatedly shown to improve anxiety. Some years back I suffered from health-related anxiety issues. So I started exercising a lot. Definitely improved. Not only does it apparently release happy chemicals in the brain, but it also makes me feel empowered over my own mortality-- I can't control or prevent my eventual death, but I can stack the deck in my favor.
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I might be seeing my doctor Monday about getting help, depends on my mood that morning. :(

Also, can someone knowledgeable tell me whether TB or ebola is more infectious?
 
For those suggesting stopping all flights to/from the effected countries, I suggest you look at the WHO guidelines and suggestions. That organisation opposes such a travel ban, for various reasons.
 
1. I find it quite understandable to lie about contacts with Ebola victims to get out of Liberia into a country with better health care standards. I don't blame him for doing it. What I don't quite understand is that he seemed to have neglected to mention this contact once he did reach a country with better health care standards and was in a hospital, but I suspend my verdict until I have all the facts.

2. Speaking of hospital procedures, did they dodge a bullet there (considering that there does not seem to be a outbreak, and the event stays with a patient Zero), or are the standards applied better than they appear?

3. I don't think a travel ban makes sense, at all. As I have tried to point out, so far the available data we have ONE patient slipping through, in dozens or even hundreds of international flights. Therefore, the probability of a patient slipping through is evidently much much less than one per plane, and simply not high enough to justify a general ban on air travel.

4. People here have questioned the screening procedures in Liberia. As I have pointed out by linking to the CDC page, there's simply not much more they can do within the time frame of a few hours a check-in takes besides looking for early symptoms (the only measurement being temperature, the rest being observation of the passenger), asking for history, and relying on the passenger to be truthful. Again, the probability of an infected person slipping through is simply not high enough to justify more drastic measures.
 
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has retracted it's statement regarding problems withit's records system.
 
Incubation period may be up to 21 days.

Duncan got here on the 20th, didn't seek care until the 25th, admitted 28th.

Only one in seven people who live in close quarters get the disease.

CDC is monitoring about 50 people, 10 are considered high risk.

And all I can find on Duncan's condition is that a family member says he is too weak to talk on the phone. I hope he is just tired of the drivel most people pass off as communication, and is spending his time hitting on the nurses.
 
elgarak said:
1. I find it quite understandable to lie about contacts with Ebola victims to get out of Liberia into a country with better health care standards. I don't blame him for doing it. What I don't quite understand is that he seemed to have neglected to mention this contact once he did reach a country with better health care standards and was in a hospital, but I suspend my verdict until I have all the facts.
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It's human nature to deny that the sick pregnant woman you carried into the house had ebola. It's human nature to believe you aren't going to get it. It makes sense that a person going to the doctor, who said he was from Liberia to the nurses and was then told he had a simple infection by the doctor to believe it isn't ebola after all.

2. Speaking of hospital procedures, did they dodge a bullet there (considering that there does not seem to be a outbreak, and the event stays with a patient Zero), or are the standards applied better than they appear?
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The 21 day incubation period has not been passed. I don't expect a lot of cases, and maybe there will be none. We do all use protection against all body fluids, using gloves to touch people.

However, the one hole is the system that I see is the fact ebola can be transmitted via sweat. Nurses are not always inclined to use gloves to take blood pressures. And blood pressure cuffs are not disinfected between patients. I hope that won't be a rude awakening for that Dallas hospital.

3. I don't think a travel ban makes sense, at all. As I have tried to point out, so far the available data we have ONE patient slipping through, in dozens or even hundreds of international flights. Therefore, the probability of a patient slipping through is evidently much much less than one per plane, and simply not high enough to justify a general ban on air travel.
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It's racism, pure and simple, keep those people out.

4. People here have questioned the screening procedures in Liberia. As I have pointed out by linking to the CDC page, there's simply not much more they can do within the time frame of a few hours a check-in takes besides looking for early symptoms (the only measurement being temperature, the rest being observation of the passenger), asking for history, and relying on the passenger to be truthful. Again, the probability of an infected person slipping through is simply not high enough to justify more drastic measures.
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It might be a good idea for the CDC to review the tracking and follow up on passengers coming from high risk zones.
 
catsmate1 said:
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has retracted it's statement regarding problems withit's records system.
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I heard that this morning, they also claimed 'everyone' failed to communicate. Translation, the doctor didn't read the chart.:rolleyes:

It sucks to be blaming everyone when only one person was responsible to consider that travel history in making a diagnosis.
 
casebro said:
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And all I can find on Duncan's condition is that a family member says he is too weak to talk on the phone. I hope he is just tired of the drivel most people pass off as communication, and is spending his time hitting on the nurses.
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Reported this morning that the family tried to call him and were told he was on a ventilator so couldn't talk to them.

I bet that's a nightmare to take care of an ebola patient on a ventilator.
 
I did some checking on viral shedding. First, I'll keep looking but the study I did find had too small of sample sizes, a positive rules it in, but a negative won't rule it out.
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.full

The virus was recovered from skin and sweat glands but not in sweat. They only had 1 sweat sample. When I see that and claims it's not in sweat I think, that person doesn't understand the research he's looking at.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=19990905#post19990905

Even if it's never been recovered in sweat, how does this guy think it got on the skin? And what would keep it inside the sweat gland as endothelium begins to break down.

The same study found almost no environmental surfaces had recoverable virus.
 
About the Liberian exit questionnaire and the Dallas hospital questions...

Do they ask specifically about your exposure to people with Ebola, or do they simply ask if you've been exposed to sick people, or what?

The reason I'm curious is because it's really not appropriate for a layperson to diagnose a specific illness in people around them as opposed to the more reasonable expectation that they can identify when a person is "sick". We've been told that the early symptoms of Ebola mimic that of the flu. A layperson could be around a "sick" person but honestly think that they have the flu (or something else) when they actually have Ebola. If asked specifically about Ebola they may answer no and believe that they gave the correct and honest answer because that's what they think as a non-professional.
 
USA Today
On the form obtained by the Associated Press and confirmed by a Liberian government official, Duncan answered "no" to questions about whether he had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of someone who had died in an area affected by Ebola.
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And how much easier would it be to control the African epidemic if caregivers merely washed they hands? Geeze, they've been reusing needles for ***** sake!

Ebola is an entero virus, them what cause the most common 'food poisoning'. Wash you hands after using the bathroom!

Most common transmission is feces->hands->mouth.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
It's racism, pure and simple, keep those people out.
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Because all people from Africa are black? It's very hard to take anyone serious who throws out the race card so blithely.

catsmate1 said:
For those suggesting stopping all flights to/from the effected countries, I suggest you look at the WHO guidelines and suggestions. That organisation opposes such a travel ban, for various reasons.
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Thank you for a reasonable answer.
 
I can't believe I'm saying this, but reading about the screw-ups that led to this (whatever this is) I'm actually entering a bit of a high-anxiety state myself. I have terrible nerves, but not usually about stuff like this. It's normally limited to things in my personal life, or pointless things like whether my computer is working properly or whether all my collections of things are labelled correctly.

But now I'm freaking out. All of a sudden, out of nowhere. I was fine when I started this thread. Why is this happening? I'm exaggerating something here, I know this, because (most) everyone else here is relatively calm. It just seems like all the links served to sow more seeds of doubt than make me feel better. What am I misinterpreting?

Note: I have not ever been any degree of conspiracy theorist beyond general, non-specific "the government/corporations are EVIL" hippie crap in college.

WTF?
 
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