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Positive Ebola Test In Second Texas Health Worker
mdsolar tips news that a second healthcare worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has tested positive for the Ebola virus. Like the nurse who tested positive a few days ago, this worker was involved in providing care to Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who seems to have brought the virus into the country. The CDC is working to identify further exposures to the local community, though the Times says a second infection among the 70+ medical professionals who were around Duncan is not unexpected. The largest U.S. nurses union says a lack of proper protective gear and constantly changing protocols are to blame for exposures. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says infection rates in West Africa are such that within a few months, they can expect 10,000 new Ebola cases a week. They also say the death rate for the current outbreak has risen to 70 percent.
Will someone just tell me if it's time to panic or not?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Why?
This goes to show how much we rely on so-called experts in this area and they have no fucking clue what they're doing. The CDC, the NIH should have been all over that hospital. This is not a lab experiment, and until they can come up with the protocols to assure healthcare workers safety then they need to start quarantining all people who come in contact with a contagious patient or sending them to a standardized facility where the risks to the public can be minimized.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Do you work for the CDC or NIH? Or do you take your talking points from the vapid tripe spewed by the media?
The family of the guy who died is already playing the race card. They are complaining he received sub standard care because he was African.
I worked in an IT department in a hospital and even I had to go through biohazard and infection protection training. These workers came into contact with the patient's bodily fluids. That's sort of frowned upon for medical professionals. Forget ebola. Under normal circumstances, they could now have hepatitus, AIDS, or basically anything else. People this careless are a time bomb. Ebola was just the one that got them.
The problem is that in the real outbreak areas (parts of west Africa, especially Liberia) there simply isn't enough protective gear to go around, let alone facilities or trained personnel to use them. In many places they are doing triage, sending patients home who they know to have Ebola because there simply isn't room. Now, if two trained nurses wearing most of the necessary protective gear got sick treating a patient in a modern hospital setting, how do you think average people are going to do treating their sick family members? At that point, things spiral rapidly out of control, which is exactly what we've seen in those regions and is why the WHO says if they don't get more beds, supplies, and doctors in place soon we'll see more than a million infections before the end of January.
Hinterland. Nuff said :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
This is what has happened in the past.
The difference this time is that it has not limited itself to small isolated villages. It has hit multiple large cities. If this thing is going to burn out – rather than be stomped out – we have yet to see the real carnage.
Agreed, this is a horrible problem and the numbers are increasing in terms of infections and deaths in Africa. The biggest issue with other nations is complacency in believing that local and national health officials can handle it when it spreads outside of Africa. It's clearly being proven not the case in Texas and in Spain with healthcare workers getting infected. I'm not sure the WHO even has the resources to combat this.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Working as a nurse means making around 42k a year, and thats assuming you're an RN . Hospitals rely primarily on less educated LVN or licensed vocational nurses because theyre less expensive, with a handfull of RN's spread amongst the floors to handle more complex procedures or incidents and perform mentoring as necessary. a nurses hours are commonly quite random, and physicians are rarely consistent in their protocols with the RN or LVN especially when a major incident is being handled. Private hospitals can also be a pain in the ass as theyre run like a corporation and dont enjoy having to purchase advanced personal protective gear or endure visits from the CDC, a regulatory agency that might also stop to challenge their #1 or #2 status in some patient treatment service theyve plastered on every billboard in the state.
another problem with private hospitals is with enough patient deaths and worker infections, the marketing perception of the for-profit healthcare facility changes from competent and caring to killing field. Hospitals themselves may become increasingly unwilling to actually treat ebola patients, instead opting for end of life and infectious quarantine management.
Good people go to bed earlier.
...what gives us any reason to believe that these procedures will work with more than one patient or even significantly more?
If containment requires much more stringent procedures, facilities and protection than what was used in Dallas, it somehow seems even less reassuring because the more complex the protocol the harder it is to scale.
I've never been worried about the disease so much as I have this kind mindset that seems to be promoted about how "hard" the disease is to spread "if you follow procedures". While true on paper, the reality seems to be different and I think a mindset trying to downplay risk, panic, etc has led to a dangerously lax attitude.
So he has exposed two people (so far that we know) to this disease and they have a 70% chance of dieing...but thats should be fine because he is/was African. Seriously, STFU people. Race isn't an issue here. He was an idiot that was with an infected lady who died from ebola as well as other people that were around here that died as well. Then he decides to hope a plane and come to the US. Brilliant!
So you're saying we should seal off Texas?
The CDC should have been all over the hospital jurisdiction or no jursdiction. People's lives are on the line.
It's quite evident that in the US there are people who can handle ebola. These people were not in Texas, and the stupid hospital admins did not realize that they needed the help. Regardless of that, it's been demonstrated that help has to be forced upon any hospital handling Ebola whether they like it or not.
--PM
They contracted ebola in the USA. Which means these ebola viruses is natural born US Ebola viruses, invested with more constitutional rights than an alien undocumented ebola virus. So these viruses must be given their due process. So it would take longer to process them.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Aboujt 1 /week. I think more people are killed by hammers than Ebola.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Are these russian drugs Psilocybin based, or are they Lysergic acid dyethylamide based? If it's the first, the trails will be shorter, and the strength of other hallucinatory experiences won't be as intense.
If the Onion is right, I think we're still like 46 white people away from a cure.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It used to be back during the days when terrestrial broadcast television was king, that the FCC mandated that stations produce a certain % of public service programming. That's the reason we ever had television news reporting in the first place. Or educational kids shows that weren't just half-hour commercials for the latest toys and sugary breakfast cereals.
Then we went to cable, which doesn't have the same regulation, removing the public service programming mandate. From that point everything was driven purely by the capitalistic profit motive.
So instead of filling the multiple 24 hour news channels with thoughtful, in-depth reporting, we've got CNN screaming OMGWTF every five minutes trying to grab attention.
See, the Invisible Hand makes everything better. Do not blaspheme the hand.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The failures of this hospital in dealing with a novel and gravely serious situation are in no way indicative of remarkably incompetent individuals or sub-standard hospital policies.
Even the most complete training cannot provide experience. Day to day work in a hospital is boring and routine, and when faced with the unknown people are going to fall back on that routine, not what they were trained to do briefly and long ago. Nurses who haven't dealt much with explosive diarrhea or projectile vomiting won't have practice being meticulous about preventing splatter on every part of their skin or porous clothing. Simply telling someone to be careful and then sending them off unsupervised and unaided isn't terribly effective.
Hospitals cannot afford to maintain a full wardrobe of gear to deal with even one Ebola patient throughout the course of treatment, nor are they set up to dispose of that gear at the rate it piles up after use. Adequate supplies will need to be provided on a reactive (not proactive) basis. Protocols, however, simply assume that the gear is there and ready to be used by people well versed in their use. It doesn't do any good to have well thought out procedures in place if it isn't possible or practical to implement them.
People who blame the nurses, or the hospital, or the patient are holding them up to an unreasonable standard. These people are not special. They're not clowns and they're not villains. They're just normal folk reacting the way normal folk will, and neither the CDC nor anyone else has some magic wand to wave to prevent this exact same scenario from playing out the next time. It's unfortunate, but it is manageable and we should focus on making sure the right lessons are learned from it.
Some interesting viewing, somewhat related: http://www.ted.com/talks/atul_... http://thedailyshow.cc.com/vid...
Avoid people projectile vomiting or with explosive diarrhea .
And Texas Presbyterian hospital.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
No but you should have banned all travels from Africa long ago.
The mathematics of the problem of Ebola propagation are clear. So are reasonable responses to limit propagation chances. But we let politics decide against science. Who are the science-deniers now?
http://pjmedia.com/richardfern...
No you idiot.
Seal off Africa.
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.
Not "seems", but "confirmed". Let's not sugar coat this.
I've just got to think that doing whatever to get folks ramped up would be easier with a nationalized health care system, if for no other reason than that checking for training compliance would be easier without needing to traverse the unholy, interlocking mess of hospitals, care homes, independent practitioners, practice groups, independent contractors, and associated hangers on that currently provide the "first responders" to this emergency.
Free marketeers couldn't have shot themselves in the foot better if they tried. The only problem is that they shot all of you in the foot at the same time. And none of this "the market isn't completely free" crap argument either - we theoretically have a more "free" market than just about any other country in the world. How is this "freedom" helping during this emergency? Because, as of now, all I see is that disseminating training, tracking providers and patients, and doing anything useful clinically has been made about a bazillion times more complicated by this vaunted "freedom".
That is all.
Yes, that's much easier. Good call!
You do realize, for standard passenger travel, there is a system in place that keeps track of not only where someone starts, but where they travel to. A system that can be and is used to deny entry to persons you don't want in your country.
Or are you under the impression I'm talking about a naval blockade of a continent?
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.
They were. The guy lied on his paperwork. Had he survived he would have been facing criminal charges in two countries for that.
IV treatment IV vitamin C with sodium ascorbate is a powerful, 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/...
or read Tom Levy's book, Curing the Incurable:Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins
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.
I've already been in a 3rd world situation where people look like over made actors in a sci fi movie with lots and lots of big pustules...and IV vitamin C worked well from the first infusion crusting over in ~8 hours vs 8 more days, over it in several days, so don't yak at me about iffy imagination stuff. However, I believe ignorance and cupidity are mankind's norm.
"Seal off Africa" isn't exactly a detailed explanation. That could mean anything, hence you get sarcasm in response. Either way I think you are over-simplifying the problem.
Considering I replied to a post that snarked we should "seal off Texas", I didn't think I needed to write a thesis paper.
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.
Oh fer crying out loud. What do you want, Obama personally doing body cavity searches at the border? If he did that people like you (or others) would be screaming about an "irresponsible Administration" destroying businesses or trampling on your rights or whatever.
You CAN'T quarantine this. Those people are coming through Amsterdam or Frankfurt or Paris or London. Are you going to close all the borders?
No but perhaps opening with an insult and a 3 word response that could mean anything, you shouldn't assume anyone would understand what you mean or care to try and work at it. Dick.
Go be butthurt somewhere else.
You, with several others above, throw out a jab at a favorite whipping boy of the left, and act like only well thought out responses, with fully documented citations, are allowed.
Have a nice day.
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.
He should not have been able to get here in the first place.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I was not aware that I "threw out a jab at a favorite whipping boy of the left". Wow, you read a lot into my post that I didn't say. And I am the one being butthurt? Please. I am sorry your clear penchant for assumptions is so strong. It must be exhausting to be so sensitive. The OP used a spaceship analogy about sealing off bad sections and the discussion is about events in Texas, so I was trying to see if that is really what they were calling for because I think that is ridiculous. No political implications involved nor insults meant toward Texas, but feel free to keep reaching and accusing others of being the butthurt ones.
How would you implement a system to prevent it? Preferably without completely blocking all traffic from Liberia to the rest of the world, because there's a fair number of foreigners there who will want to come home someday, and (at the time of this particular incident) no cases outside of Africa have been seen yet.
They have passports correct? Well you should be able to easily see they have recently come from West Africa. If they don't have a passport WTH are you doing letting them in?
Anyone who has been in a country with Ebola outbreak (the passport agent reviews the passport) should have their thumbs dyed (airbrush stamp) the way they do in third world countries for voting. If such a person came in to the ER after landing, the doctor immediately knows to wet their pants and put on the rubber gloves. The dye takes about a week to wear off.
Not a bad idea. I like it. Doesn't address GP's assertion that "he shouldn't have been able to get here", but it seems more feasible than anything that I can think of that would address that.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jv...
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Just because a there is no 100% solution is no excuse for not making the effort. I'd rather prevent 80% of potentially infected people be blocked than 0%. Restrictions on commercial flights is a common sense solution until the outbreak in those countries is dealt with.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Blocking direct commercial traffic would go a long way towards preventing cases from flying in. Forcing people to tak connecting flights from some other country would not only lengthen their trip and therefore increase the chance they start showing symptoms, but they would also go through multiple screenings.
There is no good reason to allow direct flights from infected countries.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Thank you Overzeetop! I was looking for a reason to go into all-out-panic mode, grab my family, some shotgun shells, and head to the hills!
My family thinks I'm crazy, but if you're right, we'll all be dead before the 4th of July! DOOMED!!!!! REPENT SINNERS!!!!! ::Goes off to take medication::
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
which is why they probably did it. Can't have a spendy machine like that just lying around not making money.
What sick and twisted reasoning are people using to claims that restricting travel in the face of epidemic won't work? Sure, it won't help 100% of the time, but it will , the author's own admission, reduce risks for the U.S. by 50% for a while. That is better than nothing.
I suspect it has some kind of political correctness thing involved or some geopolitical maneuvering.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
we all know that if he did anything like that you would be complaining about how the scary black democrat was acting like a dictator.
killing healthy people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
We need a good plague. Let's get on with it.
The hospital admins are most likely to blame, not the poor nurses who were thrust into a life-threatening situation with inadequate resources and support: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nu...
How would you implement a system to prevent it? Preferably without completely blocking all traffic from Liberia to the rest of the world, because there's a fair number of foreigners there who will want to come home someday, and (at the time of this particular incident) no cases outside of Africa have been seen yet.
Block all traffic from Liberia to the rest of the world. Allow exceptions only after a 21-day quarantine.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to maintain a quarantine you have to maintain a quarantine.
Once the first flight attendant or pilot flying out of W. Africa contracts Ebola, air travel there will stop.
People are lining up to get ANY job. The 1% isn't leaving as many crumbs for the poor and middle class as they used to!
--PM
But by next year Ebola,if not brought under control, will be one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide.
--PM
You either have all of the necessary protective gear, and use it every time , or you might as well be naked, licking every surface. Ebola is not something to joke around with; take it seriously or it will very likely kill you.
If you suspect you have Ebola, you don't call a cab to take you to the emergency room, where you sit in the waiting room exposing hundreds of people for hours. Call your local health department, or the CDC, and lock yourself inside your already contaminated to hell house/apartment/condo/cardboard box/whatever. You stay the f*** away from other people.
You can't quarrantine international flights. But you can quarrantine Dallas. Or the hospital. Or the hospital workers who've provided care to Duncan specifically. Or hell, just ground all flights, which they're going to have to do if this gets any more out of control.
This person should not have been allowed to fly. We already have a no-fly list. It's not managed well because of its secrecy and difficulty of getting off, but if there ever was a time it was appropriate to use a list to prohibit people from traveling, that would be now.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Um, if the guy leaves Liberia for somewhere else by other form of transportation, who's going to dye the thumb? Also, if the dye wears off after a week, that's not real useful, since the asymptomatic period can be considerably longer than that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Hey it's a start -- at least it gives the medical professionals some clue before they go up and start kissing on the patient
is that your pathetic little rant was probably the best you could do.
It is part of the Obamcare package..[M. Savage] So did it really cost $500,000 to treat Patient 0?
I carry 2 passports. I use one to enter the US and one to enter the EU. How will you stop me?
Why Not?
Extraordinary means require justification. So far we've killed 3 people. I think 3 people died in motor vehicle accidents while I typed this. You should never again be allowed to drive. It's too dangerous.
it wont work, so lets do it anyway!
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.