Spain and Ebola: Discuss

[s/v Beth]

Good news today! 2 countries in Africa apparently have controlled the outbreak enough to be considered disease free now. It can be controlled.

[SaltyMonkey]

Great! Does that mean I can take off these silly underpants because of this Ebola/Sperm 90 day thing?

[crazyoldboatguy]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Great! Does that mean I can take off these silly underpants because of this Ebola/Sperm 90 day thing?

I don't know, SM, they look kinda cute.

Pres Obama is appointing party political hack Ron Klain (who?) as the "Ebola Czar". We can all rest easy now. Just don't ask what medical school he graduated from - he has no medical education or experience. He was chief of staff for Veep Biden.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

I don't trust anything.

Trust is earned. Those involved so far as "experts" have not earned my trust.

WHO just made this statement in an internal document regarding their own handling and that of others:

"Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall"

That sums it up pretty well.

[robert sailor]

Who needs a Doctor in this position. You need a good organizer and planner who can squeeze some money out of those countries that are not contributing towards the problems. Given the proper resources the Doctors can look after the patients and get this thing under control.

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Good news today! 2 countries in Africa apparently have controlled the outbreak enough to be considered disease free now. It can be controlled.

Hey newt, on a side note is the explosive diarrhea symptom associated with later stages like from a Cdiff infection? A secondary illness from having a weakened immune system? Or is it something else?

Seems like to be able to survive means a lot more than just beating the virus itself. (sorry don't answer if you don't want, was just wondering, thought you might know...)

I'm also wondering what is the approximate ratio of health care workers to patients required for the kind of advanced health care needed to give people the best chance at survival? Sound like the rate of transmission is around 2.0

[hellosailor]

Ah, Newt? Which two countries are now ebola "disease free" in Africa? And who besides themselves has certified this?

On cleaning commercial aircraft, there are two very different types of cleaning. The aircraft is cleaned of gross garbage on the floor, obvious trash, etc. between flights. But the airlines all aim for a fast turnaround and that cleaning is cursory. After all, if you can cut turnaround from 45 minutes to 30 minutes, you can squeeze in an extra flight per day, and that puts the expensive asset to good use.

So they ALL don't really do any cleaning until after the last flight, which is when a real cleaning crew comes onboard, wiping and vacuuming and whatever. From what I'd read, the "ebola jet" also had a special cleaning crew, AND the seats or seat covers for several rows around the victim's seat were replaced as well. So no one else would have to worry about sitting in a "yukky" seat.

Local reports from Dallas, etc. are now mentioning school closings and other "just in case" measures. The public is starting to get upset.

[Delancey]

I think he is talking about Senegal and Nigeria, which both had outbreaks which were "controlled" and supposedly have been infection free for 21 days.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Local reports from Dallas, etc. are now mentioning school closings and other "just in case" measures. The public is starting to get upset.

Upset is an understatement. I spoke to someone who teaches in a large district there, not one of the closed ones. Well, four mothers of students were on the plane. The fear of the mother getting Ebola, then a child, then it carried to school and everyone exposed is quite strong. And the reassurances no longer carry any value there. They've heard it all before.

They heard unlikely anyone would get it, then one nurse, then another. Now another possible. There has been no containment. Instead of quarantine, people flying all around and on cruise ships in Belize and earlier the kids going to school.

I doubt most people in Dallas think right now that it's going to be ten's of thousands of people there. But for themselves and their families, they are very much afraid one of them will get it.

An update on the cruise ship with the passenger who possibly could have been exposed. Belize refused to let the passenger off to fly home. Now, Mexico has refused to let the cruise ship dock and passengers get off at all. So cruise ship headed home.

Amazing to me that travel was how it got to Texas and yet none of those possibly exposed have had any travel restrictions to prevent them from taking it elsewhere.

Just made an announcement that the UT student who was on the ebola flight poses no concern to the campus as she wasn't seated in the zone of concern. I ask you, would you feel safe with that statement? Would you want to test it by being close to her now?

This has been way too much like a game of Russian Roulette with them saying "not likely" but so far it wasn't likely for 78, yet 2 of them got it. How do you trust "no concern" coming from the agency that told the nurse it was ok to get on the plane?

How do you trust the hospital that sent the first patient home and then had the staff work without hazmat protection when he returned? Do you want to be the next person in the ambulance used? What happens to the taxi taken? If you had a doctor's appointment this week at that hospital, would you keep it? How would you feel if you were a passenger on the cruise ship, knowing how many diseases already get spread on cruise ships?

So far every step of the spread of Ebola in Texas was completely avoidable but nothing was done to do so.

[weavis]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Great! Does that mean I can take off these silly underpants because of this Ebola/Sperm 90 day thing?

No. Use the Elmer Fudd ones.

[robert sailor]

I guess our American friends are going to have to up their game plan a bit. Nigeria had 20 cases of Ebola and 8 died in a city of 21 million people. Many of us thought that once Ebola got into a city of that size it was going to be impossible to stop it. They had to track down over 900 people but they did and they isolated the ones that they needed to and so far they seemed to have snuffed it so give them the points they deserve, they didn't screw up and they got the job done.

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by dannc

The US government is not even trying to prevent the spread of Ebola to the US.

Care to guess why...
Hint...we just appointed a Ebola Czar is he is a political hack with zero medical experience...
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/...re-background/

[transmitterdan]

I work in Dallas. There are some facts that are lost in the hysteria. The index patient was symptomatic for some days before hospitalization and had close contact with his girlfriend, friends and several children. None of those direct contacts have gotten sick. The only sick people are two nurses among those healthcare workers who first treated the patient before he was tested for Ebola. There have been no cases in the general public from the index case. There is a lot of erroneous reporting and that causes some of the panic. People here are worried and they should be. But as of today the general public is symptom free and we pray it stays that way.

There are lessons that can be learned from the Dallas situation that may help when another case is confirmed. So far about all we hear are politicians on all sides using this event to clamor for whatever extreme policy they were clamoring for before this happened. Our confidence in elected officials and their appointees is about as low as it can get.

[crazyoldboatguy]

I guess one of the concerns is the high mortality rate and the fact that there is no vaccine.

Robert Sailor is right in many respects - Nigeria was able to gain control in a situation that was fraught with danger. A large metropolitan area with multiple incidents is quite different that the historical situations where some folks became ill in isolated areas - areas that could be more easily contained.

However, it requires a prompt and serious response with folks in charge accepting that the situation is serious. That is NOT what had been happening early on in this situation. I think now some folks in the gov't are getting the message.

Perhaps Biden's "handler" is a good choice for "Czar". However, recent gaffs may reveal Klain aint' up to that task.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

I guess our American friends are going to have to up their game plan a bit. Nigeria had 20 cases of Ebola and 8 died in a city of 21 million people. Many of us thought that once Ebola got into a city of that size it was going to be impossible to stop it. They had to track down over 900 people but they did and they isolated the ones that they needed to and so far they seemed to have snuffed it so give them the points they deserve, they didn't screw up and they got the job done.

I guess there are some benefits to living in a "police state" like Nigeria