First case of Ebola in the US

[Path_Finder]

Apparently, 2 schools, one middle and one elementary school are going to close-down in the Cleveland area because 2 teachers rode on the same plane as the 2nd nurse. Perhaps this is more of the kind of cautious actions we need.

Northeast Ohio area teacher was on board the same plane that carried Amber Vinson, the Dallas nurse who travelled through Cleveland and was hours later diagnosed with Ebola virus. Two Solon schools announced that they will be closed on Thursday as a precaution after learning that a Solon Middle School staff member traveled home from Dallas on Frontier Airlines on Tuesday on a different flight, and an elementary teacher from Cleveland who confirmed contact with an Ebola infected person will be staying home from work until cleared by health officials to return to work.

Solon sent the following email to parents:

“Solon Middle School and Parkside Elementary School will be closed tomorrow, Thursday, October 16, as a precaution. We learned today that an SMS staff member traveled home from Dallas on Frontier Airlines Tuesday on a different flight, but perhaps the same aircraft, as the Texas nurse with Ebola.

This circumstance came to light late in the day and we have been working since then to get as much information as possible from public health authorities. Although we believe what the science community and public health officials are telling us about the low risk of possible transmission of the virus through indirect contact, we are nonetheless taking the unusual step of closing the dual school building for Thursday so that we can have the schools cleaned and disinfected.

clevelandleader.com/node/23221

 

[savedbygrace71]

I think the schools are making the right choice. Finally someone in authority is saying, it’s worth stopping the every day business as usual to actually protect the health and well being of our citizens/children. I’m disgusted by the reporter who went out and got take out food. Her response was basically, I’m a doctor and I know better, sorry that it bothered you. Back in the days of measles and polio and flu outbreaks, the health authorities came and put a sign on your door and you were not allowed to leave. I don’t care if it is boring or inconvenient. Quarantine means, stay the heck away from other people. Period.

 

[DeniseNY]

Apparently, 2 schools, one middle and one elementary school are going to close-down in the Cleveland area because 2 teachers rode on the same plane as the 2nd nurse. Perhaps this is more of the kind of cautious actions we need.

clevelandleader.com/node/23221

I think this is appropriate. Right now, the CDC is such a mess it just can’t be trusted. Better safe than sorry, particulalry with children.

 

[savedbygrace71]

There is a shocking interview on Today this morning with a whistleblower nurse regarding how the Dallas hospital managed (or didn’t) the first few weeks with an Ebola patient. Very unsettling. No one knew what to do, cross contamination every step of the way. Nurses in harms way. Patients exposed in the waiting room etc.

today.com/health/dallas-nurse-we-never-talked-about-ebola-thomas-eric-duncan-2D80220579

 

[Book_Worm]

Again

From last evening’s 10pm public TV news

sorry I do not have a link reference to provide

It is not just the head of the CDC. EVERY infectious disease specialist says that the best way to prevent a world-wide pandemic is to bring it under control in Africa. The only way this can happen is to bring in aid workers from other countries to treat the ill and also build facilities to treat them. Four of every five Ebola patients in West Africa can get a bed in a hospital, which means they are treated at home, under unsterile conditions, which is one of the main reasons the disease is spreading so devastatingly. Prevent people from leaving and the volunteers stop coming in.

Additionally, people who are desperate to leave will find a way to do so illegally, making it harder to track contacts and exacerbating the spread.

I think I’ll take the word of infectious disease specialists who say that preventing movement in and out of these countries will cause the disease to spread more rather the opinions of ignorant politicians whose career depends on pandering to those voters who want to believe that the opposition party is the reincarnation of the devil.

 

[Path_Finder]

**It is not just the head of the CDC. EVERY infectious disease specialist says that the best way to prevent a world-wide pandemic is to bring it under control in Africa. The only way this can happen is to bring in aid workers from other countries to treat the ill and also build facilities to treat them. Four of every five Ebola patients in West Africa can get a bed in a hospital, which means they are treated at home, under unsterile conditions, which is one of the main reasons the disease is spreading so devastatingly. Prevent people from leaving and the volunteers stop coming in. **

Additionally, people who are desperate to leave will find a way to do so illegally, making it harder to track contacts and exacerbating the spread.

I think I’ll take the word of infectious disease specialists who say that preventing movement in and out of these countries will cause the disease to spread more rather the opinions of ignorant politicians whose career depends on pandering to those voters who want to believe that the opposition party is the reincarnation of the devil.

You may well be right, however I note the emboldened above is about treating it in Africa. It’s just an observation, we may be doing what is best for West Africa but that does not necessarily mean what is the best for the United States.

 

[Path_Finder]

Lots of stories out, sad. I saw one story from Africa where the body of a person who died of the ebola virus was left out on the street for a few days, maybe 3 and not picked up. A bit of a harrowing thought. I will post later if I see the story again.

A plane has been isolated in Madrid over ebola fears: news.sky.com/story/1354341/plane-isolated-in-madrid-over-ebola-fears

 

[7_Sorrows]

I just read on the Drudge report up to 100 people a day are applying forvisas to travel from these ebola stricken countries.

The sick passenger on the Madrid plane had been in Nigeria.

 

[Path_Finder]

**Africa stems Ebola via border closings, luck **(story red-lettered at web-page).

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Health officials battling the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa have managed to limit its spread on the continent to five countries - and two of them appear to have snuffed out the disease.

The developments constitute a modest success in an otherwise bleak situation.

Officials credit tighter border controls, good patient-tracking and other medical practices, and just plain luck with keeping Ebola confined mostly to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since the outbreak was first identified nearly seven months ago.

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_EBOLA_AFRICA_CONTAINMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-10-16-14-24-38

Countries that have beat it back, Nigeria and Senegal, Ivory Coast, no cases.

 

[jen_fla]

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_EBOLA_AFRICA_CONTAINMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-10-16-14-24-38

Countries that have beat it back, Nigeria and Senegal, Ivory Coast, no cases.

Senegal has closed its borders. Cameroon has done the same.

*Cameroon has closed all its borders with Nigeria in a bid to halt the spread of the Ebola virus, state radio said on Tuesday.

… “The government has taken the decision to protect its population because it is much better to prevent than cure the Ebola virus,” Minister of Communications and government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary told Reuters.

foxnews.com/health/2014/08/19/cameroon-has-closed-borders-with-nigeria-in-bid-to-halt-ebola/
Many African countries including Kenya are showing common sense and have closed their borders or restricted travel.

cnn.com/2014/08/22/health/ebola-outbreak/

 

[jen_fla]

Air ambulance company reveals unprotected ‘clipboard man’ is one of their supervisors - and claims that NOT wearing hazmat clothes actually makes transporting Ebola patients SAFER

Man casually dressed in shirt and pants seen on TV walking with Ebola patient Amber Vinson on Wednesday night
He carried a clipboard and walked alongside Ms Vinson and healthcare workers who were ALL dressed in hazmat suits
He has been identified as a supervisor for Phoenix Air, the company that flew Miss Vinson to Atlanta
Miss Vinson walked onto the plane in Dallas and the man without protection also boarded the plane, flying with her to Atlanta, Georgia
Social media has dubbed him the ‘clipboard man’ - expressing shock that he came so close to an infected patient and unprotected

Read more: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2795722/say-air-ambulance-company-reveals-unprotected-clipboard-man-one-supervisors-claims-actually-makes-transporting-ebola-patients-safer.html#ixzz3GL7GUige

If this kind of behavior continues, I really don’t think we are going to be able to stop the spread. This isn’t some poor ignorant soul who is trying to make a buck with his power washer, but a supervisor interacting with those who should know better. Here comes another reassuring response from the CDC:

*A Centers for Disease Control spokesman told KTVT that he didn’t think anything was wrong with the interaction since the man 'kept a safe distance.'
*

Sure, except that he boarded the plane.

Any professional journalists out there? Please ask him if he was under the impression that Ebola is spread just like HIV and that his “risk was low”. Someone please ask if he felt safe performing his duties, because Obama reassured him that he couldn’t catch it from sitting next to someone on a bus? This disinformation has to stop.

 

[7_Sorrows]

If this kind of behavior continues, I really don’t think we are going to be able to stop the spread. This isn’t some poor ignorant soul who is trying to make a buck with his power washer, but a supervisor interacting with those who should know better. Here comes another reassuring response from the CDC:

A Centers for Disease Control spokesman told KTVT that he didn’t think anything was wrong with the interaction since the man 'kept a safe distance.'

Sure, except that he boarded the plane.

Any professional journalists out there? Please ask him if he was under the impression that Ebola is spread just like HIV and that his “risk was low”. Someone please ask if he felt safe performing his duties, because Obama reassured him that he couldn’t catch it from sitting next to someone on a bus? This disinformation has to stop.

Way too much disinformation!

 

[epan]

The World Health Organization, and Doctors Without Borders have been treating Ebola patients for more than 20 years. I know that the protocols which we use in Doctors Without Borders are considerably more robust than the Centers for Disease Control and NIH recommended protocols.

There are plenty of US doctors who have participated using these protocols, and both of the more experienced organizations would be happy to assist the CDC, NIH and any other interested parties in understanding how to control the spread of Ebola.

 

[Exiled_Child]

The World Health Organization, and Doctors Without Borders have been treating Ebola patients for more than 20 years. I know that the protocols which we use in Doctors Without Borders are considerably more robust than the Centers for Disease Control and NIH recommended protocols.

There are plenty of US doctors who have participated using these protocols, and both of the more experienced organizations would be happy to assist the CDC, NIH and any other interested parties in understanding how to control the spread of Ebola.

That’s very interesting, epan. Are you by chance an aid worker?

 

[savedbygrace71]

The World Health Organization, and Doctors Without Borders have been treating Ebola patients for more than 20 years. I know that the protocols which we use in Doctors Without Borders are considerably more robust than the Centers for Disease Control and NIH recommended protocols.

There are plenty of US doctors who have participated using these protocols, and both of the more experienced organizations would be happy to assist the CDC, NIH and any other interested parties in understanding how to control the spread of Ebola.

Thank you for being a voice of reason. I’d love to hear more about the differences that Doctors without Borders employs. and thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing what the rest of us aren’t able or willing to do.

 

[Path_Finder]

A Spanish priest who worked in Africa has been taken to hospital in Madrid with symptoms of Ebola, a hospital source said on Thursday.

…

He was in the same religious order as two other Spanish priests who were repatriated from West Africa in recent weeks with the disease, and who later died in Madrid, the newspaper said.

thestar.com.my/News/World/2014/10/17/Spanish-priest-hospitalized-in-Madrid-with-Ebola-symptoms–source/

 

[Path_Finder]

World Health Organization:

** For WHO to declare an Ebola outbreak over, a country must pass through 42 days**, with active surveillance demonstrably in place, supported by good diagnostic capacity, and with no new cases detected. Active surveillance is essential to detect chains of transmission that might otherwise remain hidden.
Incubation period

The period of 42 days, with active case-finding in place, is twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola virus disease and is considered by WHO as sufficient to generate confidence in a declaration that an Ebola outbreak has ended.

Recent studies conducted in West Africa have demonstrated that 95% of confirmed cases have an incubation period in the range of 1 to 21 days; 98% have an incubation period that falls within the 1 to 42 day interval. WHO is therefore confident that detection of no new cases, with active surveillance in place, throughout this 42-day period means that an Ebola outbreak is indeed over.

who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/14-october-2014/en/

This seems to raise the Quarantine period.

 

[Path_Finder]

Right on!

Our response does seem silly. Americans being this way?? At the least, it’s a bit of a gamble.

Per Pat Buchanan:

**Ebola: Political correctness could kill a lot of us.
**

Growing up in Washington in the 1930s and ’40s, our home was, several times, put under quarantine. A poster would be tacked on the door indicating the presence within of a contagious disease – measles, mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever.

None of us believed we were victims of some sort of invidious discrimination against large Catholic families. It was a given that public health authorities were trying to contain the spread of a disease threatening the health of children.

Out came the Monopoly board.

Polio, or infantile paralysis, was the most fearsome of those diseases. The first two national Boy Scout jamborees, which were to be held in Washington in 1935 and 1936, were canceled by presidential proclamation because of an outbreak of polio in the city.

Franklin Roosevelt, who had apparently contracted polio in 1921, never to walk again, appreciated the danger. In the 1930s, ’40s and early ’50s, there were outbreaks of polio in D.C. Swimming pools were shut down.- Pat Buchanan

Read more at wnd.com/2014/10/ebola-political-correctness-could-kill-a-lot-of-us/#w3poJCr4c51VRtWB.99

Now we have a government that considers it discriminatory to put troops on our frontiers to halt the invading millions from across the Mexican border, and the mark of a cruel and cold people to send back lawbreakers who have broken into our country.

 

[jen_fla]

The World Health Organization, and Doctors Without Borders have been treating Ebola patients for more than 20 years. I know that the protocols which we use in Doctors Without Borders are considerably more robust than the Centers for Disease Control and NIH recommended protocols.

There are plenty of US doctors who have participated using these protocols, and both of the more experienced organizations would be happy to assist the CDC, NIH and any other interested parties in understanding how to control the spread of Ebola.

God bless those workers. I too have more faith in how they are handling Ebola, however, even so, about 400 workers have become infected since June. These facts make stories like “clipboard man” and the nurse flying with a fever all the more upsetting. There simply is no excuse for the risks being taken.

Ebola Has Killed More Than 200 Doctors, Nurses, And Other Healthcare Workers Since June

Doctors Without Borders this week said that 16 of its staff had contracted Ebola in the current outbreak, and nine had died from the disease. Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, the doctor who heroically led Sierra Leone’s fight against Ebola, got sick and died in July; his colleagues opted not to give him the experimental ZMapp cocktail, which appears to have helped treat several Ebola patients.

We’ve been tracking the Ebola outbreak at the Advisory Board Daily Briefing, and my colleagues Juliette Mullin and Rich Van Haste have monitored how the current Ebola outbreak has hit health care workers especially hard.

Around the globe, about 400 health care staff have contracted Ebola, and more than 230 have died.

forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2014/10/15/ebola-has-already-killed-more-than-200-doctors-nurses-and-other-healthcare-workers/

Also, unrelated, but there are so many Ebola threads occurring at once and some are just repeating what has been posted in this thread. Maybe we can just keep this one going… just a suggestion.

 

[Path_Finder]

God bless those workers. I too have more faith in how they are handling Ebola, however, even so, about 400 workers have become infected since June. These facts make stories like “clipboard man” and the nurse flying with a fever all the more upsetting. There simply is no excuse for the risks being taken.

Also, unrelated, but there are so many Ebola threads occurring at once and some are just repeating what has been posted in this thread. Maybe we can just keep this one going… just a suggestion.

I mostly agree, then more of the other stories would be seen and everything could be in a thread titled something like “Ebola” or however the thread was done that was done on Ukraine. But let it be up to whomever administers and moderates these threads.

It’s a tough call because something really major could happen that might deserve its own thread but if one looks at the news there are seemingly dozens of stories that are coming out. Every little thing about Ebola.