So true, Thud. If this isn’t being done currently, why not?
Tracking One Mans Contacts in a City of 8 MillionNew York Citys 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 citys 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.
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.