via NBC News.
Why would you knowingly transport an infected patient into one of the US' biggest cities to provide treatment that will most likely not succeed in saving their life?
The doctor and nurse (or aidworker, I'm not sure) were experienced in dealing with the Ebola virus and became infected. I can easily see a repeat but this time on US soil. Someone in the hospital flubbs containment procedures, takes it home, spreads it to his wife and kids....the kids take it to school and suddenly we're looking at "outbreak" in Atlanta.
I don't know all the facts but this seems like a really stupid idea. Bless the sick but two people are not worth the risk of starting a pandemic.
UPDATE: The President signed an amendment to an executive order just YESTERDAY that expands on his authority to quarantine Americans if they have respiratory problems .... check it out here, here and here. Interesting isn't it.
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta said Thursday it was preparing a special isolation unit to receive a patient with Ebola disease “within the next several days”.Read the story at the link but I have one simple and perhaps even simplistic question.
“We do not know at this time when the patient will arrive,” Emory said in a statement. The university also did not say whether the patient was one of two Americans battling Ebola infection in Liberia – charity workers Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly.
Why would you knowingly transport an infected patient into one of the US' biggest cities to provide treatment that will most likely not succeed in saving their life?
The doctor and nurse (or aidworker, I'm not sure) were experienced in dealing with the Ebola virus and became infected. I can easily see a repeat but this time on US soil. Someone in the hospital flubbs containment procedures, takes it home, spreads it to his wife and kids....the kids take it to school and suddenly we're looking at "outbreak" in Atlanta.
I don't know all the facts but this seems like a really stupid idea. Bless the sick but two people are not worth the risk of starting a pandemic.
UPDATE: The President signed an amendment to an executive order just YESTERDAY that expands on his authority to quarantine Americans if they have respiratory problems .... check it out here, here and here. Interesting isn't it.
Looks like the beginning of a bad zombie movie...
ReplyDeleteA real pandemic would make zombies look totally awesome. Unless it's fast, 6th sense zombies.
Deletei could deal with zombies. you can kill zombies...even fast ones. how do you kill a virus that has no cure? zombies are child's play compared to an incurable disease.
DeleteI personally don't like fast zombies, I prefer the slow zombie...
ReplyDeleteOn topic : why don't they make these kind of test on a secluded Island? We have a shitload in the world, just make a building there and test these kind of diseases there... That way, if shit happens is harder to get to the continent and start a epidemic/pandemic
Do a search on 'Plum Island'.
DeleteIt's been done, and all sorts of problems still exist. From migratory birds taking strains off-island after lab animal carcasses are improperly disposed of, to the workers themselves having low-levels of dangerous disease strains in their sinus passages from accumulated minute exposures. But they still commute or take leaves off-island where a sneeze could infect a susceptible individual.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of deadly strains stored in CDC facilities, and various Universities in US. Every once in a while, there is a containment breach, and some unlucky researcher either dies, or suffers irreversible health damage. They know the risks, and there are protocols against the spread. Ebola is actually quite easy to control, if the populace is well educated in personal hygiene and basic healthcare matters. Still doesnt mean that screw-ups won't happen - like the aforementioned medical staff that got infected.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why these researchers take the risk is because their work might lead to the cure, or at least improve the knowledge so spread of the disease can be better controlled. Because regardless, the outbreak can happen in US. Better to be prepared when it does, and hence the risk taking.
It may very well be that this Ebola strain is especially virulent too, which would explain why so many health workers are getting infected even given the precautions that worked in the past.
ReplyDeleteIf people get infected they most surely will die. Make sure the dipshits that brought them here die with them. Case closed.
ReplyDeleteOff topic,
ReplyDeleteMy brother showed me that a Russian soldier accidentally revealed that he is in Ukraine via Instagram geo tag, can you guys confirm this?
As a medical professional, I'm not to freaked out by this. Why are troops sometimes sent to an operation that isn't in your essential interests? To gain knowledge and experience. Same here. To really learn and understand how *American* facilities would handle such a thing, a little experience is valuable. It's the only way to test and improve your capabilities (just like combat).
ReplyDeleteAs for the transport and containment, air medical transport professionals can do this. Personnel can be trained in proper isolation and containment procedures. Decontaminating the aircraft will be a bear afterwards, but doable. I do air medical transport with infectious patients. This is a step up from the usual; but not unimaginable. Some crews and facilities are trained regularly on transporting, treating, and decontaminating for biological and radiological disasters. (My wife just did such a training yesterday with clinic, hospital, and EMS staff.) So it can be done. Just has to be the right way and right people.
The risks can be lowered by following procedures, but there is still a risk. The consequences of an Ebola outbreak from a slip-up in procedures, or an underestimation of the strain's abilities, is a very big deal.
DeleteYup, CDC Atlanta recently had an accident with Anthrax that infected 84 (+/-) workers, was barely contained.
ReplyDeleteI have the utmost confidence in the ability of these people to fuck this up so bad it cannot be un-fucked.
1) The sick person is undoubtedly one of the two Americans. They're likely going to die anyways, but at least it will be with family nearby, despite the fact that they'll be treated in Level IV containment, and the remains incinerated afterwards, and they'll receive far better care here than they'd ever get in any of the countries there currently totally overwhelmed by the current state of affairs.
ReplyDelete2) One of the two has been given an experimental vaccine, on the basis it wouldn't kill them any faster. The other one was transfused with blood from an Ebola survivor, whose blood presumably has Ebola antibodies that could lead to a vaccine. Both cases deserve further study.
3) The "precautions" being followed in their work in West Africa were primitive to none. That's why they became infected. Otherwise all the hospital workers there would have been infected by now.
4) The containment precautions that will be followed here don't exist anywhere in Africa, nor have they ever, forever.
Thus the "risk" you speak of in this case in negligible, and functionally none at all.
The research benefits are huge.
The far greater risk, despite the happy gas being pumped out by the MSM, are the 500 persons infected with Ebola, which has a 2-21 day latency/incubation stage, who may have already happily bounced out of West Africa, the 5,000 people they'll infect before we know they've gotten loose, and the 50,000 people the second group will infect before we know about the first 500.
This is the actual threat, and we won't know how bad things are now until three weeks from now.
That's how pandemics start.
Think Black Death, except instead of spreading in months, international air travel makes it hours.
All flights out of West Africa in or contiguous to the current outbreak should be embargoed, and everyone coming from there placed into 21-day quarantine, and that should have happened already. It hasn't.
That's a scandal, waiting to become a tragedy, and then a catastrophe.
Bringing one or two people back and putting them in deep isolation shouldn't even make the radar. Don't feed the panic over that, while ignoring the actual crisis everybody's apparently warding off by using lucky rabbit's feet.
I am scared about this situation. Actually very scared. The only glimmer of hope I see is that the number of cases as a percentage of the overall population of the region and given the conditions of the countries involved then hopefully it won't get too far. What worries me is what could come out of these cesspits.
ReplyDeletei'm a heck of a lot more worried about the people who have it and Aren't being closed up in a research center
ReplyDeleteit might be due to the experimental drugs they are giving htem, only was enough for one dose there, the doc had his colleague take it. its easier to control conditions and strict quarantine at Emory. Also can do labs and control environment to see impact of treatment and side effects.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livescience.com/47156-what-is-experimental-ebola-serum.html
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/07/31/humanitarian-group-arranging-to-bring-american-ebola-patients-to-us-for/
Joe
What is the US CDC supposed to do, abandon US citizens to die in Africa?
ReplyDeleteif it means protecting the nation from even the slightest possibility of an epidemic then the answer is yes. sorry, but i'm willing to do triage when it comes to individual lives and the greater good. these two people dying is a tragedy. allowing 50 million Americans to become infected because of this decision is a choice.
Deletewhy take the chance?
That is a reasonable approach, Sol. One has to ask how great IS the risk? I expect that the choice made can survive a risk-benefit analysis, as I suggested above.
DeleteAQ must be sleeping. Ebola. One of THE MOST DANGEROUS infectious diseases with very, very high mortality rates.
DeleteWho cares about "dirty" nuke? Send some of your AQ to get infected and move them to the US. Nuclear fission materials can be detected from afar. Ebola virus? You'll need to be up-close-and-personal. Let that infected person cough/sneeze in a closed and well ventilated space (like inside an air frame) ... I'll let everyone else's imagination run wild.
Mark, with Ebola it might not work. But with another virus, It would...
DeleteTime to buy a few more rounds of ammo and make sure you have 3 months at least of food supply in case an outbreak does start.
ReplyDeleteman you're saying that for a joke but on this one i just don't know. it makes no sense on any level. humanitarian? naw. scientific? you can draw blood and work it out. so why are they so bound and determined to do this!
DeleteNot joking about the 3 months of food. You might need it if this gets out. That whole 13 to 25 day incubation period scares the hell out of me. Remember I have to go to work no matter if it does get out. The only positive we do have in our over eager feds is they spy on everyone enough it should make it easy to find a carrier.
DeleteExactly. this is one of those situations where a "bug in" might be appropriate if other situations make it a liability.
DeleteHave you preps completed. Once those are done, work on your caches. Extra fuel, medical supplies, and respiratory/pathogen protection wouldn't be out of the question either.
and bullets. You can count on the nonprepared to suddenly get the wise idea to start "looking" for provisions (which is why opsec is also critical).
??? off topic, but homeland security related. Are any of the "kids" from South America being kept in any of the FEMA locations everyone was up in arms over?
ReplyDeleteBecause there are better containment and research facilities at Emory than there are anywhere in Africa, fer pete's sake!
ReplyDeleteYour local hospital in BFAppalachia is better equipped than everything in the entire 10 countries combined around where Sierra Leone is, let alone a full-scale first world research hospital right up the road from the CDC.
You keep wanting to pretend they're bringing a patient or two over to dump them on the buffet table at TGIFridays or sit them on the middle level at Yankee Stadium to cough blood on people passing by underneath during a double header, rather than to put them in total Hot Zone vacuum-sealed isolation.
One or two people in such isolation here are not a problem.
It's the one guy who split early, flew to Madrid or Paris or London, than transferred to hop a Delta or United to Atlanta or Philly or Chicago or Miami, and wasn't symptomatic when he got off the plane - that's the guy you should be crapping your pants worrying about.
We're doing no screening or quarantine, which is playing Russian roulette with the entire country.
And the minute somebody is found liquefied in their bed in some America low-rent motel, the movie Contagion won't be just a movie.
Canned goods and ammo won't be a joke, and you better plan on not leaving the house for quite some time, if that happens. Most people here have no wild idea what a full quarantine amidst a pandemic is going to do to their world.
Ebola cannot be controlled. It works its way through bio-hazard suits. The point is, you cannot provide effective controls once the virus escapes from the "containment" lab. This is nuts.
ReplyDeleteI am a biologist, PhD in microbiology and genetics, and I have done extensive lab testing with Ebola in Afica. One thing we know WITHOUT DOUBT is that Ebola does escape containment. Therefore, you MUST PRESUME that containment in the USA will eventually fail. Somebody will get sloppy, Ebola itself will violate the containment bio-hazard suits, and eventually it will find its way to a non-controlled environment. Once that happens, Ebola will spread in ANY COUNTRY the way it is currently spreading in Africa. One thing that people always under estimate is how readily we share body fluids. For example, when you eercise at the gym, someone has left spitlle and sweat on the machine or weights that you are using. We know through experiments that the volume of fluid needed to execute a successful transmission of Ebola is in the pico-gram range. Why politicians, and even Fauci at the CDC are down playing this risk is beyond me, and frankly quite scary.
ReplyDelete