Exactly! I work in a major metropolitan teaching hospital that has been designated as one of the Ebola hospitals in my state. My daughter, who still lives with us, is a nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the same hospital, which has been designated as the Ebola unit for pediatric patients in our state. So Ebola preparedness is on my mind (and peripherally part of my job).
I just watched a video of a "town hall" meeting our hospital had yesterday, and they seem pretty well prepared for most things. I was generally favorably impressed, except for the scenario you mention. This point was brought up, and their answer was basically... we don't have any way of preventing that.
And they also pointed out that with the flu season approaching, emergency rooms will be filled with flu patients and there's really no way to determine at that early stage which is flu and which is Ebola. They expect patients to come to the emergency department with flu symptoms "just in case" it's Ebola. So this definitely has the potential to quickly overwhelm the medical infrastructure, as well as the pre-hospital system (i.e., EMS) with both true and potential cases.
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.
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. If an ED has no more room to put new patients because they're "r/o Ebola", then when a true Ebola patient arrives other patients and their families are put at risk when they otherwise would not be.
So far the presenters have been singletons. Have first point of contact triage protocols been established in the event of multiple walk-ins during flu season? ER waiting room is stacked up with 6 or more flu symptoms and ala the busboy example there are two Waldos. How does one find the Waldo? Absent the miracle 10 minute tester recently announced.
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.