Ebola

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I don't know how to feel about this.

After having read the page about the virus on the WHO's page, I feel a bit better knowing more about it. However, I'm still concerned about the "what if's" (as always for everything else in my life). Though I try to tackle those thoughts with multiple methods.

I'm just glad I'm not as crazy about conspiracy theories as I was 6 years ago.

The odds are dependent entirely on where you live and work. Whoever drove this guy to the hospital- family member, taxi driver, EMT*- are at risk. So are the people who came in contact with him in the ER, when he was arguably symptomatic. Doctors and nurses in the ER wear latex gloves and white coats. That's the extent of their protection and it isn't enough.

It's statistically likely that nobody in this thread is an EMT in Dallas or an ER nurse at this hospital. But it's also statistically likely that everybody in this thread is vaccinated against measles (per the vax-autism threads) and would get the rabies shots if ever bitten. (The flu one I agree with.) So the odds of dying of measles or rabies aren't really higher.

I don't think Ebola is the next Spanish flu, or even the annual flu which has a high body count of it's own. The CDC will put a clampdown on this by tracking down his contacts and testing them. Their biggest problem there will probably be sorting through his actual contacts from the people who come forward because they are scared they might be his contacts. I assume travel restrictions will also be tightened. The CDC doesn't want a panic but they do say that there could be other cases stemming from this guy and said as much in yesterday's press release. Their job now is confining the upcoming U.S. cases to his first order contacts.

This is not the start of the apocalypse but it is worrying for anybody who works in frontline urban healthcare.

*I just read on CNN that he came by ambulance. The CDC put the EMTs in isolation. They haven't shown any symptoms (yet) and I hope they don't. So clearly the CDC is better at putting a clampdown on risk than the Secret Service ( because of guy who got in the Whitehouse). But that they need to put those EMTs in isolation should show just how contagious this is. It isn't airborne so it won't leapfrog around the country. But it's not anything to take lightly either.

Affected countries are (or will be? they say) screening passengers for fever before they get on flights out of the country. But that only catches the symptomatic people.

I saw Gupta interviewing the head of the CDC, and he asked him whether a person sneezed on by someone with Ebola should be worried. The CDC guy smiled reassuringly and said he would have to know more about the specific Ebola patient to answer that.

That certainly doesn't reassure me.

Actually, they are higher. In the US, we lose about 4 or 5 people a year to rabies. (There may be more that are not diagnosed.) How many do we lose to ebola? Throughout the world, the numbers are more like 40,000 deaths a year from rabies.

You're right about measles, though. Apparently the number for the US has declined to about 1 death per year resulting from measles.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/ ... -case.html

Let's hope this is true.

The hospital in Dallas screwed up that likely put more people at risk.

The patient was turned away when he first went to the hospital. They just gave him some antibiotics and told him to go home. They didn't bother to ask him about recent travel.

It wasn't until two days later when he was brought back to the hospital in an ambulance that they bothered to ask about travel and found out that he had very recently arrived from Liberia!

From http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/01/texas-ebola-patient/16525649/:

And that's how things go downhill. Not because we don't have the resources to deal with this but because of carelessness and oversight. That is a slip-up so egregious it would be laughed at as implausible if it were in a movie. Any patient presenting in the ER with fever of unknown origin is supposed to be asked for travel history. That protocol was supposed to be in place independent of Ebola since it is relevant to so many infectious diseases that are location specific. Sloppy screw-ups like that....that's how things go wrong.

It put a very small handful of people at risk. They are being watched carefully and will be quarantined at the very first sign of infection.

As long as they learn from it and are more careful in the future, it won't likely be anything to worry about.

I'm not to worried at all. The people who came in close contact are being monitored including 5 children and the schools they attend are being cleaned. The 5 kids are not allowed to come to school for at least 21 days.

Newest count puts the number of contacts at 80.

I also read that Mr. Ebola was vomiting all over the sidewalk outside his apartment complex as he headed for the ambulance.
CDC says that's fine, nothing to worry about there.

To be fair to the CDC, I have not seen them saying that the vomit is fine and nothing to worry about. Their "don't worry" comments have been to airline passengers who were on the flight with him when he was not yet symptomatic. Their website does say that vomit is one of the body fluids that contains the virus.

Their public response seems to be "don't worry, we got this" rather than "don't worry, he didn't spread it". Behind the scenes, they are certainly a lot less calm than the public face they put on for press conferences. They are well aware that the sidewalk vomit presents another point of contact and they have to find out who, if anybody, cleaned it up and how (I am hoping they already have).

I have noticed the CDC is treading the precarious fine line between not freaking the public out by presenting a "we got this" public face and appearing so calm as to seem sloppy.

Here is their website: http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/ ... allas.html



That's all "we got this". I really hope they are as much on top of things as they claim to be. I think it is actually a good thing that the contact tally is up to 80. It means they are casting a wide net over his contacts rather than limiting themselves to people he may have bled or vomited on. The CDC is very calm on the surface because they don't want a panic. It has already affected the stock market. But behind the scenes, there is a whole lot of ramping up the response that they will just not talk about at press conferences because they only want to show what will give a "we got this" feel to the public rather than an apocalyptic feel.

One of the CNN reporters (don't recall which one) said he talked to the CDC about the vomit and the respone he got was that they were not worried about it. The reporter found it an odd response, too.

So much media hyperbole, Ebola is not easily transmitted. I'd only be afraid if you had close intimate contact with somebody that has the virus, a dead body that does, or ate an infected fruit bat or whatever. Casual contact is not a significant risk, there isn't any evidence of respiratory transmission by aerosol droplets happening. If it were that virulent than a lot more people would be dead. Everyone that has gotten the virus at this point has got it in west Africa. Some dude was on a plane arrived at Heathrow Airport in London that was bleeding and vomiting a couple weeks ago and nobody on the plane was exposed.

This is what i've been saying.

ONE person slipped through the cracks and now the entire system is running around like headless chickens trying to damage control something that is already way out of control. They can't track ONE person's ripple effect...now imagine if (I hope not!) members of his family start showing symptoms. Their 'contact' list is bound to be as wide as this man's.

If just three or more unrelated people show symptoms its already out of containment.

edit: well now its seems there's one in DC and another in Georgia.. not confirmed yet but... their contact lists will very likely be saturating the police and local agencies' resources just tracking them down. I just hope they're not really infected or worse, infected others. O.o

The fact that we let 3 people infected with Ebola into the country makes me feel embarrassed for the people who's job it was to keep the virus out. Other countries are temporarily halting entrance to people flying in from Africa.

How the mighty have fallen.
I only hope that his does not spread and become a huge problem for us.

Now a reporter has contracted it.Supposedly he took all the proper steps to prevent getting it.It was on NBC lasts night.