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Texas Ebola Patient Dies
BarbaraHudson writes Thomas Duncan, the ebola patient being treated in Texas, has died. "It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in an emailed statement. If he had survived, he could have faced criminal charges in both the US and Liberia for saying on an airport screening questionnaire that he had had no contact with an Ebola patient. UPDATE: Reports of a possible second Ebola victim in Texas are coming in. From the article: "The patient was identified as Sgt. Michael Monning, a deputy who accompanied county health officials Zachary Thompson and Christopher Perkins into the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed in Dallas. The deputy was ordered to go inside the unit with officials to get a quarantine order signed. No one who went inside the unit that day wore protective gear."
Whether he lied or not, some accounts say that he believed the woman he aided had malaria, not Ebola. And the woman's family themselves may have lied to the people aiding them.
Ultimately, the biggest breakdown occured with the hospital, which was told twice that he had just traveled from Liberia on the first visit, and has since admitted this information was available to all providers. This has caused the tilt to the other extreme, with even the most innocuous cases of fever, adominal distress, and similar, with no travel or other history that would point to Ebola, being handled as such "out of an abundance of caution".
Keep in mind that viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are nothing new in the US. what happens in the United States with other fatal VHFs, that, like Ebola, are only spread via direct contact with bodily fluids and can be easily addressed in first world nations:
Hanta: http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/...
Marburg: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...
Lassa: http://www.cdc.gov/media/relea...
Hanta is especially on point, as the US typically has dozens of cases -- and dozens of deaths -- each year, all of which are rapidly contained. The cases of "imported" VHFs, like has occurred with Marburg and Lassa, result in identification, isolation, and either the recovery or death of that person -- and that's the end of it.
Also, Ebola is NOT airborne. Ebola researchers will AT MOST say things like:
Peters, whose CDC team studied cases from 27 households that emerged during a 1995 Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo, said that while most could be attributed to contact with infected late-stage patients or their bodily fluids, "some" infections may have occurred via "aerosol transmission."
"Those monkeys were dying in a pattern that was certainly suggestive of coughing and sneezing â" some sort of aerosol movement."
"May". "Suggestive". "Some sort".
Even if we change all of these statements to absolute certainty, it still does not translate to, "Ebola is airborne," in the meaning of "airborne" in the context of disease transmission.
Airborne transmission occurs when a droplet nuclei containing a virus (or bacteria) is small enough (10 μm) occurs when droplets of saliva or mucous (or even blood) containing the virus are projected during a sneeze or cough and and projected directly onto someone's eyes, mouth, or mucous membranes. This kind of transmission is usually within 3', and is NOT considered "airborne" transmission.
"Droplet" transmission can certainly occur with Ebola -- or any disease that spreads via bodily fluids and is present in saliva or mucous. VHFs are not airborne diseases, and a study of one strain where monkeys in adjacent cages sneezed on each other and passed the disease does not make it "airborne".
Being able to get something from having someone sneeze or cough droplets onto you and airborne transmission are very different things.
The quickest way to have a threat of possible airborne transmission of Ebola via mutation would be to not aid Africa in this fight, and let Africa fend for itself, creating an environment where the cases could skyrocket into the millions (due to Africa's infrastructure and inability to deal with the onslaught), thereby increasing the statistical likelihood of the feared airborne mutation -- which, if a foothold were to be gotten in the West as an airborne disease, would truly be a catastrophe worthy of fear and panic.
In reading much of the news coverage, online commentary, and this thread, this article struck me as very relevant:
http://www.nationaljournal
Did he turn into a zombie?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Wrong. Aid workers from the US could return if they go through quarantine. And throughout that process they would receive our best medical care. However, having unrestricted travel between countries when there is a plague on the loose is moronic.
Moronic... an opinion morons have.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
A deadly plague is a small price to pay to be able to say we're not racists.
You're off your meds again, Grandpa.
This year 50,000 people will die of the flu in USA.
Ebola so far took 1.
A little perspective?
Next time you're at a hospital being helped by an immigrant nurse or doctor, think about that.
Thus other countries establish quarantine procedures.
Are you literally slower on the uptake here then an ignorant medieval city state prince? Because even they were able to connect these dots.
The whole region needs to be quarantined.
The issue is not travel restrictions to the US, though that is of course relevant as well. The issue is rather controlling population into and out of the hot zone to prevent the further spread of the infection.
Yes provide assistence. Yes aid workers. Yes work on a vaccine.
However, in the meantime do not fuck around with this disease and just assume you can kiss it on the mouth, give it tongue, and then expect to not die horribly shortly there after.
This disease is a proven killer. Show it some respect. That is all I am saying here. We are dealing with something dangerous. Like dealing with fire arms, explosives, toxic chemicals, or psychopaths. There are protocols. Please follow a couple.
What I am seeing is people play hackysack with granades and occasionally blow their fucking legs off... And that would really be just fine only that analogy ultimately includes my legs and the legs of my friends and family. The disease has not spread much beyond west africa at this point. We have isolated incidents beyond that but very few incidents of the disease actively spreading outside of west africa. That is good.
We cannot help the west africans if the disease spreads in the US or infects south america. If that happens our resources will focus internally. We will abandon the west africans entirely.
If you care about them you will first ensure that our own safety is secured. If our safety is threatened we will turtle and anyone that says otherwise will not be able to sustain their position politically.
You do not have a choice here. This is another lead/follow/get out of the way situation. You can either take the issue seriously. Follow the direction of those that wish to take it seriously. Or stand aside. One of these three things is happening.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
No mod points, or I would have modded GP up.
An Ebola outbreak in the US is undesirable by pretty much everybody here, except maybe for people with stock in the companies producing cures and vaccines.
Travel bans seem entirely reasonable to me. If aid workers want to go over and help, then by all means we should have some sort of quarantine procedure in place so we can get them home. But we don't need Joe Schmoe going over there, getting infected, and bringing it back with him. It's an unnecessary risk, just as it is unnecessary to take a leisure trip to Liberia in the middle of an epidemic.
I am a little surprised that noone is fear mongering about someone intentionally spreading Ebola. It seems like the perfect thing to let loose in a country you are at odds with, whether you are another country or a terrorist organization.
On average, 12.5% of the US population will get the flu in a year. That amounts to 39,500,000 individuals getting the flu. 50,000 people means the mortality rate of flu is 0.126% of cases. We have had 1 death due to ebola with 1 case of infection that was not intentionally tranfered to the US for treatment. That's a 100% mortality rate with current non-intentional US cases. Ebola's average mortality rate is 50% though it varies between 25-90% depending on the outbreak studied.
I think a little perspective is certainly justified.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Um, yes. That's because it's not been able to spread here until this man was allowed to fly across the Atlantic carrying it.
Just to play devil's advocate here for a moment:
This guy knew he had been in the hot zone and may have been exposed, and was trying to get back to the US. So his options were
Now, if he had not actually contracted ebola, he was likely to live in either case, (a) just would have been more inconvenient. But if (as was the case) he really did have ebola, then he would have seen (a) as suicide, and (b) as a small but measurable chance to live, given the quality of health care facilities in the US.
So, he had quite an incentive to lie about his exposure, didn't he? I'm clearly not condoning it, but... that's quite a catch, that catch-22.
We cannot help the west africans if the disease spreads in the US or infects south america.
Certainly not true. This means we would spend more resources on a cure.
In the US, more poeple have died of gunshot wounds in the last month than have died from Ebola since it was discovered. Let's not talk about rational, effective responses from conservatives.
Yes, and far more people die every in the US from being beaten to death by killers using fists and blunt instruments than have died by killers using rifles of any kind, let alone the small number that involved scary looking rifles with black plastic parts on them. So what? Someone deciding to kill someone else - with a knife, a pipe, a gun, or their bare hands - isn't nearly as common as stupid kids killing themselves and others in cars, but mostly: it's an active decision. There's no comparing that to an outbreak of an ugly infectious disease, especially one with a high mortality rate that can kill you weeks after pick it up from someone's spit on a doorknob.
You want rational responses to both topics? OK, don't let violent criminals out of jail. Don't tolerate the existence of violent gangs like MS13 in our cities, and stop making it so politically incorrect to lock up crazy people who are plainly dangerous. And of couse, find ways to reduce one of the largest sources of death-by-gun stats, which is suicide - like, make Oregon's option more widely available. And in the meantime, work globally to stop travel out of West Africa until their outbreak problem is under control.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The problem with Ebola is that at best it's a geometric expansion, worst, exponential, and has a minimum 50% fatality rate. Right now it's still relatively contained, and we should ensure it stays that way.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The TSA actually has a chance to be useful and humane at the same time, and instead we come up with crap to argue about. Behold the uselessness of Washington D.C. and nearly every "solution" it comes up with.
Step 1: Track all travel paths. This already happens. Did somebody's travel originate in a high-risk place for ebola?
Step 2: Take them from the airport to quarantine if they manage to make it to the states. Hopefully that won't happen because...
Step 1.5: They will have been denied boarding without medical clearance or quarantined at a layover.
Some will argue that the region should be locked down. It should. Others will argue that free enough travel is necessary to provide aide and let people escape before they're infected. It should. These are not mutually contradictory options. Nobody goes into those regions except medical personnel and nobody comes out without being cleared. This isn't rocket science, and it shouldn't take an event of black plague proportions to make obvious decisions.
If people could cut the crap and use their heads instead of seizing on opportunities to argue for their ego's sake in just one instance for our entire lives, then this needs to be it. And if people have complaints about being told rudely that they're thinking like morons then maybe they should stop thinking like morons. Politeness exists so that undeserving insult or correction doesn't happen, not so that people can't be told when they have body odor (so-to-speak).
If I'm being a moron, please let me know so I can correct that. When it comes to mass life or death, it's more important to actually BE correct than to enjoy warm fuzzies and self-congratulation for looking correct. This isn't a damn game of "Let's see who looks smart on the Internet." This is a matter of, "Let's see if we can stop being morons long enough to stay alive."
When trying to "close the borders" a 90% solution is not much better than a 10% solution.
Actually, it dramatically is. Eliminating 90% of a risk is better than eliminating 0% of a risk. Approximately 8000 carriers (though about half that number are dead) in a large population covering several west African states. If you eliminate 90% of those traveling to and from west Africa (only about 1/3 of which travel to the United States) back down to 0.1 persons infected. I'll take a 10% risk that ONE person with Ebola manages to get through. With no meaningful procedures in place we already have 10x that rate -- or precisely what a quarantine or travel ban is set to eliminate.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
All the internet Einsteins said, as with the government's statement, Ebola simply couldn't reach America. Then, that even when it reached America, we had the means to keep it spreading to anyone, because the only way to get it is to basically give a victim a blowjob and swallow at the end, because it's very difficult to contract and those filthy heathens that aren't in America only spread the disease, because they liked to drink and bathe in the bathwater of dead Ebola victims and that every precaution anyone might suggest in this country was just the result of ignorant fear-mongering. Are you telling me all of these junior-college keyboard-geniuses are *gasp* possibly wrong?
US doctrine on the intentional use of biological weapons of mass distruction is to respond with the only WMDs in our arsenal - that is Thermonuclear Devices. Anyone deploying such a biological would presumably kill a similarly large number of Russian, Chinese, Indian and Western European citizens, and all those governments have roughly similar doctrines, (except for the story I can't confirm that a Soviet era ambassador once claimed to his Chinese counterpart that official doctrine of the USSR was to make any language group or religion that released such a bio-weapon literally extinct, down to bayonetting individual 1 year olds). The US cold war era Project Pluto was only seriously considered as a response to some projected Bio-weapons and not just nukes, Israel was rumored to have developed cobalt jackets for a few of its warheads in response to rumors of Iranian bio-labs (although that rumor may just be something started by a Tom Clancy novel). Presumably anyone funding ISIL (or whatever they are calling themselves this week), does not want to risk every nuclear armed state in the entire world going literally ballistic.
One point in all this that few get. The researchers and theoreticians discussing a weaponized version of Ebola or Smallpox were postulating an airborne hardened virus with such lethality that they could stop saying Megadeaths and start using the Giga- prefix. Current research shows pretty clearly that such a weapon is very unlikely. Ebola isn't the type of virus that's close enough to airborne to make the jump, and getting a smallpox variant that overcomes the existing vaccinated population's resistances seems equally a very hard problem. I doubt such an attack as you're suggesting would kill more than, say 300 million, world wide, tops. Maybe the various nuclear armed nations wouldn't go to a nuclear response, or even conventional full scale war (yeah, right!) It's not like the US got all stirred up about the "mere" 2,996 casualties of 9/11, right? The only real risk of ISIL (or whatever) doing anything this totally insane is if they somehow believe the great powers would all limit themselves to careful, deliberate, reasoned responses in the face of an indescriminately inflicted act of total barbarity that killed the elderly and young disproportionately and destroyed the world's economies and afflicted every nation of that world regardless of whether they were on ISIL's enemies list or not. My own bet is the UN resolution would pass unanimously among all members not implicated, and start with "Purge the sub-human scum with cleansing nuclear fire, unto their last generation", and go to STRONG language from there. The NATO powers would jump the gun before the resolution was finalized, only to find out that Israel had already launched against everybody else in the Middle East, India had already moved against Pakistan, and the Russians had already gone to war against every adjacent "stan" they suspected of harboring ISIL sympathizers. (And the Republican party would blame all of this on Obama).
Who is John Cabal?
Imprisoning people in with those wastes without cleaning it up or moving them is a poor refection on everyone involved in attempting to contain it and just asking for an outbreak. Those Africans we like to look down on were far more professional about it before they got overwhelmed. Meanwhile - one case in Texas, one of the richest states of the USA, and there's a long string of fuckups such that it's amazing luck that we don't have dozens of other cases yet.