Based on your reading in this thread, count the number of misstatements of the Ebola threat in the following.
This Dallas County Health and Human Services director Zachary Thompson appears to be a real piece of work.
I heard him on the local Soul/R&B radio station this AM during the morning commute spouting the “..you have to engage in blood rituals or be barfed upon to get Ebola” bildge water.
I will try and keep you all up to date on the latest local CDC messaging.
You all will be hearing it soon.
By Nicole Stockdale nstockdale@dallasnews.com
11:20 am on September 30, 2014 | Permalink
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/so-ebola-may-be-in-north-texas-dont-panic.html/?
The results of a preliminary test to determine whether a patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas has the disease are due today. (Staff photo)
During a cross-country drive to Yellowstone some 15 years ago, my now-husband and I were entranced by an audiobook that made the time fly by: Richard Preston’s “The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story.” There started my fascination with viral hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola and Marburg.
But as epidemiologist Tara Smith wrote in August when some people started freaking out about two Ebola patients being flown back to the United States for treatment:
If all you know of Ebola is from The Hot Zone or Outbreak, well, that’s not really what Ebola looks like. I interviewed colleagues from Doctors without Borders a few years back on their experiences with an Ebola outbreak, and they noted:
As for the disease, it is not as bloody and dramatic as in the movies or books. The patients mostly look sick and weak. If there is blood, it is not a lot, usually in the vomit or diarrhea, occasionally from the gums or nose. The transmission is rather ordinary, just contact with infected body fluids. It does not occur because of mere proximity or via an airborne route (as in Outbreak if I recall correctly).
Smith’s article pointed out that Ebola is already in the U.S.; it’s being studied extensively by researchers here.
But that’s in a controlled research environment, you might so. So I’ll point out that there have been several recent cases of people in the U.S. who have contracted deadly hemorrhagic fevers: For example, a Lassa Fever case was reported most recently in April. A Marburg case was reported in 2008.
In fact, the woman who brought Marburg to the U.S. survived. She wrote an essay this summer on the parallels with the Ebola outbreak: “If the Ebola virus is exported to the United States, as the Marburg virus was by me, I don’t fear an outbreak here. Our health care system is prepared. I’m proof of that.”
As all the news headlines will tell you, Ebola is terrifying; we can’t make light of that. And the recent CDC forecast showing that, if unchecked, Ebola cases could top 1.4 million by January underscores why this outbreak is such a crisis.
But the risks here are not the same. As Smith, the epidemiologist, put it:
Ebola is a terrible disease. It kills many of the people that it infects. It can spread fairly rapidly when precautions are not carefully adhered to: when cultural practices such as ritual washing of bodies are continued despite warnings, or when needles are reused because of a lack of medical supplies, or when gloves and other protective gear are not available, or when patients are sharing beds because they are brought to hospitals lacking even such basics as enough beds or clean bedding for patients.
But that is not the case in Dallas County. The patient who may have Ebola (test results are due today) is in isolation. Health officials are already investigating everyone he or she has been in contact with. Hospitals are trained in how to respond to such diseases and have the necessary supplies.
“This is not Africa,” Dallas County Health and Human Services director Zachary Thompson told The Morning News. “We have a great public health infrastructure to deal with this type of disease.”
Sounds like this case is positive. The “Public Messaging” and “Narrative” is strong with this one.