Slashdot Mirror
After Dallas Ebola Diagnosis, CDC Raises Estimate of Patient's Possible Contacts
As reported by Bloomberg News, The Washington Post, and other outlets, the Liberian patient whose diagnosis of Ebola infection marks him as the first such case to have been first diagnosed within the United States may have had contact with more people than previously estimated, and 80 people in the Dallas area are now
believed to have come into contact with him. While Bloomberg reports that this larger group of potential contacts is "being monitored for symptoms," the Washington Post's slightly later story says that, in keeping with the best current knowledge about Ebola's spread,
"Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Zachary Thompson said that these [newly identified contacts] are not being watched or monitored and are not showing any symptoms of the illness. Only the immediate family members of the victim are being regularly monitored for Ebola symptoms; they've been ordered to stay at home and avoid contact with others."
Amazing how the government freaked out over H1N1 years ago and simply nothing happened. Yet, a real virus is on the move and "everything is a-ok" is the word from everyone.
Yes yes, you only get it if you come in contact with feces, vomit, etc, but that perception is there now that it is in the US.
H1N1 was also a "real virus", whatever that means. The media is equally blowing American risk of Ebola out of proportion like they did H1N1, which actually managed to infect a largish number of Americans.
There were 14,000 worldwide deaths from H1N1 2k9, 3,500 of which were in North America. This ebola breakout doesn't currently represent nearly that much risk to Americans, but it could be a lot worse if the epidemic continues to grow in western Africa.
Ok everyone! Time to freakout!
Please ignore the fact that the majority of Africa has this under control, and the hardest hit areas are those with virtually no sanitation. This could be us!!! Did we mention Plagues are a harbinger of the apocalypse? Worry about your souls as well!
Syria? ... nothing to see there, move along sheeple. Please remain distracted, it's for your own safety.
Maybe blown out of proportion but Ebola is far more lethal virus than H1N1. Also, deaths were mostly people who were ill already or had other issues. Ebola doesn't discriminate. On the other hand, the dumb nurse/doctor who was told that the patient was in Liberia and had Ebola like symptoms and still sent the dude back home needs to get fired. Today. Now. Maybe he/she/it thought that Liberia was a town in Missouri.
Total mortality=lethality*infection rate
There's no serious reason to believe that second variable has any hope of getting anywhere near thousands in the US.
We keep getting this scares, and still, no ban on flights. It seems they want to infect US and Europe in purpose.
Amazing how the government freaked out over H1N1 years ago and simply nothing happened. Yet, a real virus is on the move and "everything is a-ok" is the word from everyone.
H1N1 is a "real virus" which has variants that have killed millions of people. Influenza has killed and has the potential to kill FAR more people than ebola is ever likely to. Read up on influenza pandemics of the past.
The current ebola outbreak is a serious issue but it isn't what keeps epidemiologists awake at night.
Don't panic
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
... The 'cures' being worked are anti-retrovirals that inhibit the viral replication,.
Your spot on except its plain anti-virals; ebola is not a retrovirus
Maybe blown out of proportion but Ebola is far more lethal virus than H1N1.
Variants of H1N1 have killed tens of millions of people. You should probably spend 30 seconds researching the issue before spouting off nonsense publicly.
Also, deaths were mostly people who were ill already or had other issues.
Again, demonstrably not true in previous H1N1 pandemics.
Can you give us a cite?
If I understand correctly, while there have been about 150 doctors and nurses who have died from the disease, none of them were wearing protective suits. In fact, all of them were working in 2nd tier clinics. All of these clinics had poor to no infection controls in place. Nobody has died in a major hospital which had infection controls in place. This strain of Ebola is not airborne – yet.
1. Ebola is normally infectious Only through bodily fluids. This puts health workers more at risk. 2. It is also very sensitive to light, especially ultraviolet rays from direct sunlight, This relates back to #1 and is one reason it doesn't spread well once it gets in the atmosphere. This is stuff I learned from when I worked at the Centers for Disease control.
Ah but Ebola is easier to contain. You need clean water supply. And separate waste water processing. You need to physically isolate potential carriers and monitor them for two weeks.
Africa struggles with providing clean water, proper watste water processing and physical isolation. When you drinking water comes from the same river as the one you shit in. You have issues.
Over the next month you have to worry. If no more cases break out you are good.
So have food delivered. Sit down and binge watch you tube cat videos. It will be over soon enough.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Oh look, stereotypes. If there's one thing the ebola virus needs, it's more blame for its existance being laid on stereotypes. Definetly doesn't have enough of that in Africa. Nope.
This patient is a (presumably black) Texas resident who was born and partially raised in Africa. They have about as much chance of conforming to the stereotypes you describe as feces does of being pink and sparkly.
Informing the public isn't the same as creating panic.
People like you would have the whole world burning before deciding to tell people there is a fire.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How the fuck can the latter be stated with any kind of confidence in the same sentence as the former?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
House: Or, you're an idiot. (To patient) Are you a Slashdot user?
Patient: What?
House: Slashdot dot org. Do you read and post messages there?
Patient: Yes?
House: No human contact. The US is safe once again. Cameron, stop picking cases based on the bozos at the CDC.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I keep hearing that the reason it's so bad in Africa is that they are incompetent in handling it. Surely we're more competent at such things.
Oh crap, now I'm worried!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
But "regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team," said Dr. Mark Lester, executive vice president of Texas Health Resources. ... The CDC has been vigorously emphasizing the need for a travel history."
Duncan was sent home with painkillers and antibiotics, only to return in worse condition on September 28. That's when he was isolated.
"It was a mistake. They dropped the ball," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the miscommunication at the hospital.
"You don't want to pile on them, but hopefully this will never happen again.
Gupta said this mishap doesn't make sense.
"A nurse did ask the question, and he did respond that he was in Liberia, and that wasn't transmitted to people who were in charge of his care," he said. "There's no excuse for this."
And one of Duncan's friends said he was the one who contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with concerns that the hospital wasn't moving quickly enough after Duncan's second hospital visit.
But the hospital said the patient's condition "did not warrant admission" last week.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/...
"Didn't warrant admission" AKA "He wasnt sick enough for anyone to care, and we were to stupid to realize just how dangerous the situation could be." Heads need to roll for this.
Heaven help me, I'm defending the US's healthcare system.
Health care systems have very little to do with influenza infection rates. I like that you don't tell me which third world country.
They did reject the AFA after all. Which would extend treatment to many people instead of turning them away for reasons of no insurance.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Name one scare? Why are you banning flights for something that is this hard to spread? Why don't you want people with expertise and resource to fly in and help them?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We keep getting this scares, and still, no ban on flights. It seems they want to infect US and Europe in purpose.
Oh please... Banning all flights? How's that going to help unless you totally ban travel to affected countries and how on earth are you going to enforce that?
As this virus currently works, it is unlikely to be a serious problem here. I remember when AIDS was all the rage back in the 80's. Everybody was up in arms and freaked out. How did that turn out? Well, some died, but nothing close to the dire predictions happened. Ebola has even a lower risk profile (in it's current form).
More people die in cars every day than have ever died from Ebola. TB kills tens of thousands each year, Ebola has killed no more than a few thousand in total. But we are all worried about Ebola... Go figure..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
IV treatment IV vitamin C with sodium ascorbate is a less known antiviral treatment, stonewalled out of conventional medicine for ca 75 years http://seanet.com/~alexs/ascor.... See also
Injectable C http://injectablevitaminc.com/...
Cathcart http://orthomolecular.org/libr...
and Klenner. http://www.doctoryourself.com/...
The more severe the virus, higher and more frequent doses used. As support for nasty viral illnesses overseas that have no vaccine, we also take zinc, 50,000 iu of vitamin D3 for 1-2 weeks, lysine and 200-400 mcg selenium. With Ebola, the real question will be when the last chance for a given level of IV vitamin C treatment (gram C/kg wt) 2-3-4 times per day will work, and when it will be too late - too little.
Talk about a retard. The flu is a virus and as such is not something that even responds to current forms of medical treatment. You might be able to stop the spread of it with vaccines and extreme isolation but that's about it.
The flu is transmissible BEFORE you manifest symptoms. You can be wandering around infecting friends and coworkers before you even know you are sick.
Ebola is not like that.
The flu also spreads much more easily from person to person.
Two entirely different situations.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The (1st) missionary doctor that contracted Ebola because he was treating people in Africa is from Texas. Although he's feeling much better now.
He's been giving blood so that serum can be made from it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I live in Mexico City.
The initial fear and reaction was not because it was a known-deadly virus, but because it had not yet been established how contagious it would be, which vectors would it be dangerous on. The city was really weird, almost dead, for the first week of the outbreak — People feared overall to get out of their houses, there was a shortage of mouth-covers (that were later found to be basically useless). It took several weeks to get back to normal.
Of course, with AH1N1 people started saying how it was blown out of proportion. I know some people who were conclusively diagnosed with the virus, and basically had to endure a bad flu but nothing else. I know second-hand of people who did die because of it, but they were all basically immuno-depressed or had preexisting respiratory diseases in some way.
Ebola's growth vectors and mortality rates are known and studied. And yes, I'd expect stricter measures and care. But there is no point in comparing a known disease (maybe insufficiently studied, but 40-year-old anyway) and a new one.
Can you give us a cite?
If I understand correctly, while there have been about 150 doctors and nurses who have died from the disease, none of them were wearing protective suits. In fact, all of them were working in 2nd tier clinics. All of these clinics had poor to no infection controls in place. Nobody has died in a major hospital which had infection controls in place. This strain of Ebola is not airborne – yet.
Actually I think some of those were wearing some protective gear... but Africa is a hot climate. I was reading an article recently from a doctor there who commented how hot it gets in that gear, and you struggle even after an hour or two not to be wanting to 'wipe your brow' because of all the sweating you're doing in the suit (eyes, nose, mouth are vulnerable spots for contamination). And that was someone in the full-on "bunny suit" (totally sealed) - you can imagine the people who we've seen pictures of with only a 'riot helmet' face protection with a N95 mask under it and a Tyvek gown. And of course every time you walk out of the containment area you have to be disinfected...
Banning flights for the general populace does not necessarily include banning flights for relief workers. You knew that though.
They do refuse service if in their determination you are not in an emergency.
Because it is TX. No insurance, no treatment. And they saw fit to reject the Affordable Care Act which would have expanded coverage. Smart move there....
Even before the ACA, if you showed up at the emergency room, they treated you with regard to your ability to pay. The ACA didn't change that one bit. Anybody gets treatment, insurance or not, even in Texas.
What TX rejected was taking the money from the Fed for implementation of parts of the ACA. So the only real difference is where you go to sign up for the ACA. Instead of going to a Texas website, you go to HealthCare.gov if you live in Texas.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Someone with H1N1 on the plane is contagious to everyone there.
Someone with Ebola not showing symptoms is a danger to no one.
Yes or No
Would you fly to Liberia today, and shake hands with everyone not showing symptoms?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
these [newly identified contacts] are not being watched or monitored and are not showing any symptoms of the illness
How does that work? If you are not watching or monitoring them how do you know they aren't showing any symptoms?
You're forgetting that anyone who gets it now is an idiot.
Really? So a health worker that comes into contact with an Ebola patient that is undiagnosed and gets ill is an idiot?
'But "regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team," '
My experience from working in ICU and ER years ago:
Can't know, but when I hear phrases like "full team", that's what I am reminded of. Very very unfortunate. Beyond all of the additional exposure, the guy didn't get the care he likely needed to have a chance at survival.
From what I heard on the news (presumably this is correct), the nurse on station had determined the person had ebola like symptoms and noted it on his chart? well, s/he noted it on something. That fact was ignored and he was discharged.
Also, the person bears some responsibility. He goes to Liberia, works with a known Ebola patient (another thing I read and presumably true), comes back and fails to tell his doctors this. He claims they didn't ask, which does not relieve him of the responsibility to tell them. Then he has the temerity to go home and come in contact with other family members and friends.
I could see that being a possibility. If thats the situation people still need to be fired. Particularly the Intern.
H1N1 is a "real virus".
And even though the case mortality rate of H1N1 is FAR lower than Ebola - the reason H1N1 is so scary is because it is FAR more contagious than Ebola.
e.g. it is MUCH easier to keep an Ebola outbreak contained if your healthcare system is even remotely decent than it is to keep flu contained. It's pretty much a given that each year, 1-2 different strains of flu WILL spread globally, and even with vaccinations, that spread is inevitable because it's so damn contagious. Also, I BELIEVE that it is possible for someone to be contagious but not symptomatic with flu.
With Ebola - I am fairly certain that you are not contagious unless symptomatic (which is where the comments about "zero risk of infection" on his flights comes from), and even when symptomatic, transmission requires direct contact with bodily fluids.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
This isn't a disease to play around with. Hardcore mandatory quarantine all that have been possibly exposed. Not in their homes, but in a facility. Treat it as more communicable than it is, because it could change. If I was on a plane with that guy, I should expect to be held in quarantine. Asymptomatic or not, people still do contaminating behaviors all the time: coughs, sneezes, spit when they talk, wipe or pick their nose, poorly wash their hands (if at all), nervous sweat at take off or landings, etc etc.
And... For goodness sake, stop people from travelling to and from Africa, would you please? Isolate that dang continent until this is over, as much as possible. The average Joe should not be able to get there, at all. And any medical personnel going there, mandatory quarantine before they can return. Anyone breaking these rules that causes the disease to spread should be tried for murder.
Quit screwing around with ebola, or this is going to be the plague that took care of overpopulation... in a big way.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Actually, I'd look to fire somebody higher-up. Communication issues like these are cultural and systemic -- organizational problems. I feel it is always a bit too easy to punish the front line folks without holding responsible higher-ups to any account.
1) The fact that other H1N1 strains have killed millions of people has little bearing on how lethal the particular, modern-day H1N1 strain they were referring to happens to be
H1N1 family viruses are constantly mutating and there is more than one. The notion that I should be more worried about ebola than H1N1 is frankly absurd because the odds of me contracting ebola is almost nil.
you realize that the particular H1N1 strain they're talking about in this thread (the 2009 strain) wasn't actually that lethal in comparison to Ebola.
Perhaps I'm not being clear. I don't really care much about a disease with 50%-80% mortality rates when the chance of infection is almost zero. I care a lot of about a disease with 1% mortality rates when the chance of infection is quite substantial.
2) You're clearly confused about what "lethal" means.
I'm not confused at all. I'm merely point out that people are panicking over the scary but very very unlikely disease when they really should worry about the less scary but far more likely one. If you happen to be in West Africa then by all means exercise appropriate caution. Otherwise it's absurd to get very worked up about it.
Pointing out that the Spanish Flu was indiscriminate in whom it killed in no way takes away from his claim that the 2009 H1N1 strain's deaths were primarily those who "were already ill or had other issues."
He cherry picked a bit of data to support his conclusion. The situation is more complicated than "50%+ mortality rates = OMG".
Of those 80 people, how many do you think work at the lochal grocery store, or a fast food restaurant? How many would be permitted to take time off for minor cold symptoms? How many could afford to do so?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's