Posted on 08/10/2014 12:46:23 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
But that is the issue, is it not? Having this physician wandering around NYC incubating and possibly shedding Ebola is very troubling but at least the guy knew what was causing (or very likely causing) his fever and could alert EMTs, the hospital staff, etc. In the busboy scenario there is no warning, very much like Duncan wandering in off the street, and many more people are exposed than in the physician scenario.
So this year, more than ever, get your flu shot so that you don't end up in the doctor's office or the local doc-in-a-box facility, or emergency department with all the other sick patients, some of whom may have ebola.
Thanks to the idiots in the state and federal governments, I have to show up in my doctor's office no less than once every 60 days--no exceptions. The last time I went in, I wanted to douse myself with Clorox afterward. I've always been a "germophobe" (kids' word) but Ebola makes my skin crawl right off my body.
There have been many who have pooh-poohed the potential for Ebola to spread widely here in the U.S. because of our superior health care system. What they fail to understand is that precisely because we're used to being able to go the doctor for usually minor ailments such as the flu, we may actually bring the system to its knees, and facilitate the spread of Ebola.
How many times since March have those same people been proven wrong? "It won't get to an urban area, it kills too fast." "It won't spread in an urban environment, better conditions than in the hinterlands." "Oh no, it can't be spread in the US via nosocomial routes, we have this covered." You'd think these fools would realize that making unsupported assumptions, and worse claiming those assumptions are facts, will come back to bite in the very near future. If they don't have experimental data to back up the statement, the only thing I want to hear from these people is, "we aren't really sure but we're preparing for X."
As an aside, I'm hearing from several sources that the soldiers being deployed to Liberia are not at all happy about it. Many say they'd rather be deployed to Iraq than Liberia. I just ran across this seriously underreported phenomenon at the The Washington Post. When the commander has to "defend its Ebola precautions as stricter than CDC’s, [and try] to reassure troops" there is a very serious problem.
From the story:
The comments came a few days after Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released a video with an obvious goal: Speaking directly to his troops to reassure them that those who deploy in support of the U.S. effort to stop the spread of the Ebola virus will be OK.
“While our mission in west Africa will not include direct patient care, the safety and health of the men and women of our joint force and their families remains of the greatest importance to me and the Joint Chiefs,” Dempsey said. “We’re making sure that the men and women who deploy are provided with the right training and the proper protective equipment. We have ensured that the highest medical and safety protocols are in place before, during and after deployment.”
That such a video was made and distributed tells me the brass is hearing the same things I've heard.
It is certainly one of the big issues, but there are others, too. This presentation wasn't so much about the epidemic as a whole, but rather, what are the policies, procedures, and preparations being done in our hospital, specifically. Of course, prepping for that specific scenario is a huge part of that, and they really don't have any answers.
If they don't have experimental data to back up the statement, the only thing I want to hear from these people is, "we aren't really sure but we're preparing for X."
Very well said. All the media should use that as their mantra, rather than simply regurgitating the words they hear from CDC without giving them any thought. But of course, we are talking about the MSM. So all hope for serious thought going into their questions and reporting is misplaced.
Speaking directly to his troops to reassure them that those who deploy in support of the U.S. effort to stop the spread of the Ebola virus will be OK.
I've never been in the military, so it's easy for me to say, but I wonder when some of these commanders are going to come to the conclusion that it's time to disobey an order or two. All behind the scenes, of course.
And I sure hope the peer pressure is huge for those soldiers not to fraternize AT ALL with any residents of the countries where they're deployed.
This NYC incident might give us some useful information about Ebola spread and it might not. It would be helpful if the CDC would deploy some rapid first responder teams for residence cleanup which would measure Ebola loads in those before they are decontaminated. All local authorities should do prior to then is seal the residences off.
The public really needs data from which the fomite threat can be estimated.
Officials Tracing New York Ebola Patient’s Movements, While Reassuring a Wary CityYou'd think these fools would've learned something from the CDC's epic failures over the past two months.“New Yorkers who have not been exposed to an infected person’s bodily fluids are simply not at risk,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Friday afternoon. (define "exposure" and "bodily fluids," please.)
“We have the finest public health system, not only anywhere in the country but anywhere in the world,” he said. “We are fully ready to handle Ebola.”
So true, Thud. If this isn’t being done currently, why not?
Tracking One Man’s Contacts in a City of 8 MillionNew York City’s first confirmed case of Ebola has raised complicated logistical issues of how to trace the possible contacts of an infected patient in a city of more than 8 million people with a sprawling mass transit system and a large population of workers who commute every day from surrounding suburbs and states.
By the time the patient, Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency doctor who had recently returned from Guinea, arrived at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan by ambulance on Thursday, he was seriously ill, officials said. (Doesn't jibe with "only 100.3 temp" currently reported.)
Dr. Spencer complicated the tracing process when he told health officials that just the night before, he had gone bowling in Brooklyn, making the long trip there from his home in Upper Manhattan by subway and then returning in a car hired via the taxi service Uber.
City health officials were suddenly faced with the challenge of finding the right balance between trying to find everyone who might have been exposed and responding to a disease that is transmitted only through direct exposure to bodily fluids.
(big snip)
Dr. Spencer has been isolated in a seventh-floor ward at Bellevue, the city’s main public hospital, that was specially designed to treat highly infectious tuberculosis patients. The unit is locked and guarded, with rooms where health care workers can be decontaminated and cameras can monitor patients remotely.
Feeling Ebola Anxiety, From Bellevue to Brooklyn(snip)
At Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, where Craig A. Spencer, the doctor who contracted the Ebola virus, was being treated on the seventh floor, anxiety spread along the corridors. The news that a highly trained doctor had failed to protect himself against the disease had some employees so worried that a few nurses sought to opt out of working on that floor, said Georgiana Ochilly, 59, a veteran nurse there.
“We’re wondering how Ebola is being spread. Is it airborne? There is a lot of concern about it,” said Ms. Ochilly, of St. Albans, Queens, who was finishing a 12-hour shift around 8:30 a.m.
Ms. Ochilly, who works mostly with newborn babies, said she was also concerned that the staff in general was not ready to confront Ebola. She said that she had not been offered any training on dealing with the disease until Thursday morning.
“I don’t think they are prepared yet for the situation,” she said of the hospital, contradicting the pronouncements of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that the city’s hospitals stand ready to handle Ebola patients.
(snip)
the 100.3 temperature it what Spencer self-reported.. I have not heard what his actual temperature was upon arrival at the hospital.. (If I had to guess I would say that is the 103 originally mentioned)
SHOCK VIDEO>>> NYC Police Seen Tossing Ebola Gloves, Masks into Trash Can on Street!
Dallas hospital appears to be yet another victim of Obama’s bumbling Ebola policy
Ebola: Protect Yourself (Since The Government Won’t)
THANKS, CUOMO, NOW WE HAVE EBOLA
Plane from DC Airport (Dulles) grounded in Columbia due to ‘sick passenger’
(Vanity) Immediately upon release from hospital, Nina Pham hustled to Whitehouse for photo op (pic)
the verdict was about changing the time on a chart of when the patient said they ate which was important to amount of anesthesia-bottom line the doctor lied to protect malpractice..so nothing would surprise me in real life.
I wonder several things:
The CDC can't just walk in and take over from local authorities. The federal government can't do that either. It's called the US Constitution.
The most the CDC can do now is offer assistance if asked, and pre-deploy the assistance once all the necessary approvals are given. Generally they offer bags and bags of money too, which is quite effective in getting local authorities to ask the feds and/or CDC for assistance.
It is complicated at the very least. Right now Ebola is not enough of an emergency in the US to get people to spot the bloody obvious, let alone change their behavior.
Thanks, freespirit. I wonder if the lower temp was taken in the AM, the higher on admittance. Someone running 100.3 isn’t “seriously ill” in ordinary circumstances but the presence of a fever definitely means he was shedding or capable of shedding virus at that point, if not earlier.
I have serious problems with the “fever” argument. My normal core temperature is 96.7°. When I get to 99° I’m feeling bad, and by 101° I’m miserable. Yet by the CDC’s definition I’m not really ill until I’m absolutely, positively, miserably sick. Every individual differs with regards to normal temps and the course of illness. Trying to make a blanket statement about a viral disease based upon a specific temperature is a fool’s errand IMO.
No kidding.
And that's the crux of the problem--no one has any answers. That's why I think a visa lockdown and tight controls on anyone with a travel history in Guinnea, SL and/or Liberia, as well as those who have treated Ebola patients, is the only logical way to prevent community transmission anywhere in the world, not just in the US.
All the media should use that as their mantra, rather than simply regurgitating the words they hear from CDC without giving them any thought. But of course, we are talking about the MSM. So all hope for serious thought going into their questions and reporting is misplaced.
Very true. I don't know about any other university but where I attended, the two majors with the highest population of idiots were journalism and education. I'm not certain why that was/is but I saw it firsthand. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of reporters have no idea what differentiates a virus from a bacteria from a fungus. Perhaps expecting them to ask intelligent questions about Ebola is expecting far too much.
I've never been in the military, so it's easy for me to say, but I wonder when some of these commanders are going to come to the conclusion that it's time to disobey an order or two. All behind the scenes, of course.
I've not been in the military but every male in my family on both sides, including my grandfathers, father (2 tours in Viet Nam as a Medevac crew chief) brother (18 years as a helicopter pilot) and my eldest son (6 years as a Navy Corpsman) have. There is always some grumbling in the ranks about this or that, but I cannot recall anything like this. Even my dad says the degree of unrest among the enlisted is unlike anything he saw in Viet Nam. The offense against the military perpetrated by the civilian command structure will have to be quite extreme to push them to that sort of action. It's something I hope and pray I never see in my lifetime.
And I sure hope the peer pressure is huge for those soldiers not to fraternize AT ALL with any residents of the countries where they're deployed.
Oh I'm sure they will be pressured by the high brass to fraternize extensively with locals and to Hades with the consequences. I saw a news story a few days ago in which the CO of the 101st mentioned that the troops will be working "side by side" with the Liberian army. That isn't going to end well for the E3s who happen to have incubating Liberians at their "sides."
The complete lack of seriousness, in fact the nonchalance, being displayed by the feds and the upper brass in the face of a Level 4 pathogen is creating mistrust among those who are being forced to work in Liberia. There's always been healthy skepticism among the enlisted toward the upper brass (the officer ranks are heavily populated with politically-oriented people whose first concern is their next promotion and who fail to even consider the staff sergeant's POV) but this is the first I've ever heard of enlisted men believing they are being thrown out to do "battle" against a purely medical/biological threat for nothing more than short-term politics. Even in Somalia, a veneer of humanitarianism was readily found. "Battling" Ebola in a third-world cesspool is an entirely different matter.
How does that old oriental curse go? "May you live in interesting times"?
5. When it happens, will it be reported?
That cat is out of the bag. Communications being what they are (Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.) the authorities can no longer squash anything they don't want to be public. Sooner or later it will come out.
6. If it's reported, how will they explain it?
Dunno. Perhaps they'll blame the virus for failing to follow protocol. ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.