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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
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.
Some have wondered why President Obama is sending 3,000 American troops to Africa, when it would make more sense to send 3,000 medical workers instead.
Troops are being sent because unprotected aid workers are being butchered to death. Also, troops are really good at logistics, like setting up field hospitals - something desperately needed in the rush to try to contain the spread of the disease.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Wrong. Different strain, VERY bad source, did not happen through ventilation system. It happened to monkeys in adjacent cages without direct contact, through "some sort" of aerosolized transmission in very close quarters. I.e., droplets.
Fearmongers or people who think "the government" is "lying to stem panic" always trot out this story. It does NOT mean "Ebola is airborne".
It took Africa, with some of the worst healthcare, sanitation, and infrastructure in the world, 10 MONTHS to get to the ~7400 cases there are now. If it were airborne, it would be much, much worse. Ebola is not airborne; stop spreading your bullshit.
Thank you.
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
Who said anything about forcing other countries to do anything? And as to burning bridges, do you really want to get into the whole "democrat vs republican" thing in this thread?
I mean is that all you political tools are able to do at this point? Are you brains so hardwired into this pathetic US vs THEM mentality that EVERYTHING turns into a proxy fight in your pathetic struggle against your very similar rival?
This has nothing to do with the ongoing joke which is the Obama presidency or the ongoing joke which is the republican party. It has everything to do with there being a "plague".
What is being asked here is nothing extreme. Just basic quarantine procedures. You know, the things we learned to do with diseases when we stopped being ignorant savages that didn't understand microbes.
If this breaks out the aid the west Africans are currently getting will be GONE. It will all shift to internal defense faster then you can snap your fingers. Gone. So if you want to help these people as I do... first make sure we don't have cause to refocus those resources.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Wait, the best part of this sad and frightening story of Ebola in Texas is that the second Ebola patient was one of the sheriff's deputies who was the first to enter the house of the first patient. When offered protective gear, he declined, and entered the man's apartment without gloves, or even a facemask. Being Texas, he probably had his gun drawn, figuring that if he saw any Ebola he'd just shoot that sumbitch.
The over/under on when Texas goes full Walking Dead is now Thanksgiving. If there's one place that's not going to do will in an Ebola outbreak, it's a state where no goddamn government scientist is gonna tell me I gotta wear a facemask. Plus, post-Darwin biology is not really their strong suit, so it's doubtful they even believe there's such a thing as a "virus". I'm betting the churches and gun shops are gonna be doing big business in the coming weeks. Well, they're already doing big business, but you know what I mean.
I understand that (and I'm not joking) that in the past days Alex Jones has been talking about home remedies for Ebola that the government doesn't want you to know about.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Did you read TFA? This deputy walked into the apartment after the patient had left, in order to get a decontamination warrant signed. Without protective gear. And he caught it. Apparently it's significantly more contagious than HIV. When's the last time you heard that an HIV victim's apartment or ambulance had to be completely decontaminated by people in level 4 bio-hazard gear?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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.