Ebola in America

I was pleasantly surprised that the family was hosted by a local Catholic church at a retreat center while quarantined. I hope they can help her find more permanent accommodations.
 
Meadmaker said:
Should the nurse have flown? The CDC head says no, so that seems like a no.
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It seems like a no?

However, it appears that no one has gotten sick because of it, and the protocols in place said it was ok for her to fly. Should they revise the protocols? You say she was "exhibiting symptoms". Well, she had a body temperature of 99.5. Does that make her a risk for Ebola transmission? I don't know.
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And neither does the CDC. Which is why she shouldn't have flown.

Should she have been quarantined?
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Yes, as soon as she showed symptoms, she should have been quarantined. I'm amazed that you're even asking, that the answer isn't obvious to you.

Right now, I can only look at the consequences of the mistakes that they made, and use those consequences as a guide.
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I've already explained why that's not a good way to evaluate things.
 
Ziggurat said:
It seems like a no?



And neither does the CDC. Which is why she shouldn't have flown.



Yes, as soon as she showed symptoms, she should have been quarantined. I'm amazed that you're even asking, that the answer isn't obvious to you.



I've already explained why that's not a good way to evaluate things.
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You must be easily amazed, and highly knowledgeable.

Go into a doctor's office and tell them your body temperature is 99.5 degrees. See what they do. I doubt that they will tell you that you are exhibiting symptoms of Ebola, even though you are.

There is much about the case that I haven't bothered to learn. For example, is a patient with a 99.5 degree "fever" a contagion risk? I put "fever" in quotes because as a parent, doctors told me that until it reaches 100 degrees, it isn't a fever. When Ms. Vinson called CDC, did she get patched through to a group specifically dealing with Ebola, or did she get some sort of public information hotline? Whoever answered the phone, did that person provide her with information that was consistent with protocols that were in place, or did they not realize the actual situation and read from some sort of general purpose script? If existing protocols were followed, and followed correctly, were those protocols carefully developed and accurate, or were they thrown together lazily when people didn't really think there was a need to combat a real disease?

I don't know the answer to any of those questions, but about the amount of effort I'm going to put in to finding out the answer might consist of following a link that someone provides in this thread...assuming I have my homework done that night.

Meanwhile, though, I'm not going to fly off the handle calling people incompetent and talking about mistakes that are too big to ignore because they did something that...uhhh....doesn't seem right to me.

And yes, for the record, it does seem to me that a person who has a 99.5 degree temperature and who has been caring for an Ebola victim should get more attention than a phone call. I just don't know what level of attention that should be, and I don't know why it didn't happen. Does it make sense to immediately quarantine her hundreds of miles from home? If there's a risk of contagion, that doesn't seem too extreme, but I really don't know the answer.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Depicting the CDC as a very large bureaucracy that does have basic infectious disease control protocols already prepared and has quickly adapted them for a specific strain of infectious disease, doesn't really make the agency seem incompetent.
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I'm sure Thomas Eric Duncan will be pleased to know that if the CDC had instituted flight restrictions five months ago, he could have flown int a city that was expecting him and gone to a hospital that was prepared for him, and might have been properly treated for ebola several days earlier, thus saving his life, and likely also reducing the risk of passing ebola to the hospital staff assigned to his care.

That's what I mean by having basic protocols in place and adapting them quickly.
 
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Meadmaker said:
You must be easily amazed, and highly knowledgeable.

Go into a doctor's office and tell them your body temperature is 99.5 degrees. See what they do. I doubt that they will tell you that you are exhibiting symptoms of Ebola, even though you are.
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Quite so, because I haven't been in contact with ebola.

That nurse had.

The precautions one should take for a person known to have been in contact with ebola are not the same as the precautions for a person almost certain to have NOT come into contact with ebola. I am at a loss for why this elementary distinction confuses you.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I was pleasantly surprised that the family was hosted by a local Catholic church at a retreat center while quarantined. I hope they can help her find more permanent accommodations.
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Ebola-Pods -- A modular portable living quarter.
 
http://nypost.com/2014/10/23/nyc-may-have-its-first-ebola-case/

A 33-year-old Doctors Without Borders physician who treated Ebola patients in Guinea and returned to New York City 10 days ago was rushed in an ambulance with police escorts from his Harlem home to Bellevue Hospital on Thursday, sources said.

Craig Spencer was suffering from Ebola-like symptoms — a 103-degree fever and nausea, sources said.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...ients-rushed-bellevue-fever-article-1.1984941

But city health department officials were looking into reports that Spencer was at a bowling alley on Wednesday in Williamsburg and took an Uber taxi to get there, sources said.
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theprestige said:
I'm sure Thomas Eric Duncan will be pleased to know that if the CDC had instituted flight restrictions five months ago, he could have flown int a city that was expecting him and gone to a hospital that was prepared for him, and might have been properly treated for ebola several days earlier, thus saving his life, and likely also reducing the risk of passing ebola to the hospital staff assigned to his care.

That's what I mean by having basic protocols in place and adapting them quickly.
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I don't see how the current restrictions would have changed his final destination. Yes, he would have flown through an airport with more rigorous screening. But, if he continued to lie he would have continued on until he landed in Dallas, where his fiance was waiting for him. He would not have stayed in any of those hubs while he was exhibiting no symptoms unless he told someone about his exposure. Since he wasn't clear about that with the doctor in Dallas I don't see him being clear about that during screening at immigration.

He still ends up in Dallas. He still goes to local hospital when he isn't feeling well. Local doctor makes a mistake in accessing patient info. He gets sent home.

The CDC isn't the problem here, it is our reliance on humans in treating disease. Not an easy problem to solve. Especially when this particular type of human tends not to embrace their own failings, but that is another topic.
 
Ziggurat said:
Quite so, because I haven't been in contact with ebola.

That nurse had.

The precautions one should take for a person known to have been in contact with ebola are not the same as the precautions for a person almost certain to have NOT come into contact with ebola. I am at a loss for why this elementary distinction confuses you.
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This elementary distinction "confuses" me because I do not know enough about Ebola to know what would make sense in the situation. I also do not know enough about who cleared her to fly, or what protocols were followed in clearing her.

You have said she was "exhibiting symptoms". Well, specifically, she had a body temperature of 99.5 degrees. Technically, that's a symptom. So why is it that the person who cleared her to fly did so?

Lots of possibilities exist. One is that it was a mistake. Protocols would have said no flying, but the person she spoke to provided the wrong information. Another is that the person followed proper procedure, but the procedures themselves were inadequate to protect the public from infection, and we just got lucky that no one was infected*. Another is that proper procedure was followed, and it was determined that she represented little or no risk to the public. Another is that she did represent a risk to the public, but no more so on an airplane than anywhere else.

I don't know which of those, or some other reason, was the reason she was cleared to fly. Do you?

And, regardless of the reason, I'm not prepared to say that this decision is evidence of some sort of systemic failure that includes the White House. I'm quite confident that whatever the CDC and/or its employees thought was the right thing to do, Barack Obama wasn't the source of the information.

*Hopefully. I don't think 21 days have passed yet.
 
Meadmaker said:
This elementary distinction "confuses" me because I do not know enough about Ebola to know what would make sense in the situation.
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It really doesn't take a lot of knowledge to understand that ebola should be treated with far more caution than most diseases. You've basically just been appealing to your own ignorance, but that's not a position that anyone else has anyone else has any reason to

You have said she was "exhibiting symptoms". Well, specifically, she had a body temperature of 99.5 degrees. Technically, that's a symptom.
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Also, in reality, that's a symptom.

So why is it that the person who cleared her to fly did so?
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I don't know. Perhaps they were an idiot. Perhaps they were afraid of making any decision other than whatever the written rules said. Frankly, I don't particularly care why that mistake was made. The fact remains, it was a mistake. And you've gone to considerable lengths to deny that it was a mistake until even that wasn't possible.
 
It seems to me that we should have deluxe health resorts to give health care workers a place to relax for 3 weeks after they have been treating ebola patients. Plumb Island in New York would be an excellent site since it is already owned by the Feds and houses a premiere medical facility.
 
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