Will Ebola become a big problem in the United States?

[newtogolf]

The fact they allowed a nurse to travel after she cared for Duncan and the first nurse tested positive for Ebola demonstrates their lack of understanding of the seriousness of this disease.  The 2nd nurse infected travelled the night before she broke out in a fever and they are now trying to find all the people she flew with.  People exposed need to be quarantined or else we're going to lose any ability to contain it.

[newtogolf]

As I said, I don't think what happened to Duncan is in any way indicative of how we will treat Ebola in this country. JMO.

Primarily the travel restrictions. I know that if a friend or family member happened to be in Liberia for whatever reason and they restricted them from travelling back to the US, I would be very concerned. I trust the experts that the screening can be effective. Perfect? probably not but, on those flights, anybody who is symptomatic will not be allowed on the planes. And BTW, there have been no flights directly from West Africa to the US for some time. We would have to restrict flights from all over Europe to cover all the people who are coming here from West Africa. My brother is in France right now and I am sure that there are still flights from West Africa to Paris. Should he not be allowed to come home this week?

That nurse who flew to Cleveland was stupid to get on a plane so soon after treating Duncan, as obviously there was no screening for that flight. But I will be shocked if anybody on either plane to or from contracts Ebola. It is not an airborne virus and it would have been very difficult for her to pass it on, especially at the stage she was. But she still should have known better. She was in a self monitoring stage.

We don't believe it's airborne but it does live on surfaces for up to 3 days.

[dsc123]

Yeah, its crazy that she would have gotten on a plane.

This can't be the only disease that is transmitted through bodily fluids, right?  Shouldn't our hospitals be ready to deal with something like this?

[CarlSpackler]

Yeah, its crazy that she would have gotten on a plane.

This can't be the only disease that is transmitted through bodily fluids, right?  Shouldn't our hospitals be ready to deal with something like this?

the nurses that I know are telling me the the CDC has no clue what they are doing.

[dsc123]

the nurses that I know are telling me the the CDC has no clue what they are doing.

My sister is in charge of infectious disease control at her hospital in San Diego.  I would probably be better off directing my questions to her than you golf nuts but I imagine she's got her hands full these days.

[CarlSpackler]

My sister is in charge of infectious disease control at her hospital in San Diego.  I would probably be better off directing my questions to her than you golf nuts but I imagine she's got her hands full these days.

I have no clue. I just know that our government could eff up a wet dream. It's like the Midas Touch... whatever they touch turns to crap, but costs more than it's weight in gold.

[phan52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by phan52

As I said, I don't think what happened to Duncan is in any way indicative of how we will treat Ebola in this country. JMO.

Primarily the travel restrictions. I know that if a friend or family member happened to be in Liberia for whatever reason and they restricted them from travelling back to the US, I would be very concerned. I trust the experts that the screening can be effective. Perfect? probably not but, on those flights, anybody who is symptomatic will not be allowed on the planes. And BTW, there have been no flights directly from West Africa to the US for some time. We would have to restrict flights from all over Europe to cover all the people who are coming here from West Africa. My brother is in France right now and I am sure that there are still flights from West Africa to Paris. Should he not be allowed to come home this week?

That nurse who flew to Cleveland was stupid to get on a plane so soon after treating Duncan, as obviously there was no screening for that flight. But I will be shocked if anybody on either plane to or from contracts Ebola. It is not an airborne virus and it would have been very difficult for her to pass it on, especially at the stage she was. But she still should have known better. She was in a self monitoring stage.

Originally Posted by newtogolf

We don't believe it's airborne but it does live on surfaces for up to 3 days.

Bottom line, she should never have got on a plane for a couple of weeks, even if she wasn't symptomatic, after treating Duncan. It is obviously better to be safe than sorry, but I will still be shocked if anybody on that plane contracted Ebola or if either one of these nurses passed it on to anybody else. considering the fact that they were self monitoring and caught it with just a mild fever. Duncan himself didn't pass it on to anybody until he had full blown symptoms with body fluids pouring out everywhere.

Again, we are not going to have an Ebola outbreak in this country.

[newtogolf]

Bottom line, she should never have got on a plane for a couple of weeks, even if she wasn't symptomatic, after treating Duncan. It is obviously better to be safe than sorry, but I will still be shocked if anybody on that plane contracted Ebola or if either one of these nurses passed it on to anybody else. considering the fact that they were self monitoring and caught it with just a mild fever. Duncan himself didn't pass it on to anybody until he had full blown symptoms with body fluids pouring out everywhere.

Again, we are not going to have an Ebola outbreak in this country.

We agree she shouldn't have been on a plane, but she was.  She did this after knowing that a co-worker of hers had become infected.  Obviously even people in the medical profession can't be trusted to make decisions that could impact 100's or 1000's of innocent people.   You're pretty confident about how and who is contagious, so I wonder if you'd have volunteered to sit next to her on that flight back to Dallas even though she didn't have a fever.

No one wants an Ebola outbreak, but simply stating we won't isn't going to do anything to prevent it from happening.

[newtogolf]

Yup, I'm sure that is the protocol they are following.

Seriously, these people are working with CDC staff as well. And BTW, if you think that is a downgrade from the TSA, I can only assume that you don't travel internationally.

I travel internationally at least 6 times a year, CBP is at best equal if not a downgrade to TSA.  I walk through customs each time and the CBP agent looks at my passport asks me if I'm travelling for business or personal and if I have any plants of fruits in my bags.  I answer no, he/she then waves me through.

You really shouldn't "assume", since you barely get any of your facts straight when you think you know something.

[MS256]

I happened to see a clip from a nurse that was working in that hospital this morning and she had major questions about what their procedures were and why.

She said she basically threw a fit when the "protective clothing" they were using had a 3 inch gap in the neck area where skin was exposed.

She also said there were only a couple of training sessions on procedures and those didn't require mandatory attendance.

Maybe related, maybe not, but a couple of days ago I heard the director of the CDC answer a question about "exposed areas" in protective gear by saying "Less is sometimes better because there is more risk of contamination taking off protective gear." (That comment raised my eyebrows a bit but I thought he's the expert and I'm not).

[newtogolf]

I happened to see a clip from a nurse that was working in that hospital this morning and she had major questions about what their procedures were and why.

She said she basically threw a fit when the "protective clothing" they were using had a 3 inch gap in the neck area where skin was exposed.

She also said there were only a couple of training sessions on procedures and those didn't require mandatory attendance.

Maybe related, maybe not, but a couple of days ago I heard the director of the CDC answer a question about "exposed areas" in protective gear by saying "Less is sometimes better because there is more risk of contamination taking off protective gear." (That comment raised my eyebrows a bit but I thought he's the expert and I'm not).

I saw this and read about it as well, there is a lot of concern that even with the HAZMAT gear on, health workers aren't aware of the proper procedure to remove it and could be infecting themselves that way as well.  CDC is already admitting they blew it with the handling of Duncan and the nurses so I expect that more people from the hospital are going to test positive.

[phan52]

Originally Posted by phan52

Yup, I'm sure that is the protocol they are following.

Seriously, these people are working with CDC staff as well. And BTW, if you think that is a downgrade from the TSA, I can only assume that you don't travel internationally.

Originally Posted by newtogolf

I travel internationally at least 6 times a year, CBP is at best equal if not a downgrade to TSA.  I walk through customs each time and the CBP agent looks at my passport asks me if I'm travelling for business or personal and if I have any plants of fruits in my bags.  I answer no, he/she then waves me through.

You really shouldn't "assume", since you barely get any of your facts straight when you think you know something.

I have never been just "waved through". And you also have to inform them of where you are travelling to and from. If you just got off a plane from Monrovia in Paris and are boarding a plane to Newark, they are not going to just wave you through. Your travel history travels with you and you are going to be treated far differently at every stop. Plus now, in the US, there are CDC staff training and informing the customs and border people.

Somebody needs to get their facts straight here, but it ain't me.

[David in FL]

It was the biggest I knew of when I wrote it.  I don't think it's at all trivial either.  Imagine it's your daughter in place of my in-laws.

No difference.  A very small handful of exceptions that can be handled individually and prudently, as opposed to a wide open floodgate that cannot possibly be monitored with any degree of effectiveness.

You're right, not the same thing.  Silly me.  One is disallowing all travelers to the United States from a certain dangerous area out of fear that one many of those travelers could potentially harm or kill several  an unknown number of Americans and potentially disrupt our entire economy and the other is .... wait, what is the other one?    a particularly weak strawman....

Fixed it for you......

Now, I'm no virologist (and neither are any of you, which goes to my next point) but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that containing or eradicating a disease is probably a teensy bit easier if it has spread to less places, wouldn't you agree?

Yep.  Which is why we should do everything in our power to keep it contained where it is now......outside of the U.S.

What's wrong with constantly changing protocols in the face of learning new things?  Sure, they screwed up by not being proactive and ready for this, but are they just supposed to stick to their unprepared guns and go down with the ship, or are they supposed to recognize mistakes and make changes to try and correct things?  The arrogance of the ignorant general public in the face of this kind of thing staggers me.  I've made plently of mistakes at my job, but that doesn't automatically make me incompetent, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean that joe public immediately knows more about engineering than I do.  The same is true about the CDC.  They are the experts and they know a shitload more about any of this than we do, which doesn't mean that they'll never screw up, but it does mean that they are still in the best position to fix a screw-up.  Not me.  Not you.  Not newtogolf or phan.

Nothing wrong with changing protocols when you are clearly wrong in the first place.  I'd call that prudent.

It also demonstrates just how inept some of these "experts" are though, and that we shouldn't simply accept their word as gospel when it's been proven to be routinely incorrect.  And while I'm in no position to "fix" their screw up, I'm certainly intelligent enough to recognize it and realize that they're likely to screw up again and think that it's prudent for others to scrutinize their actions in an attempt to minimize those screw-ups.

If you're going to be smug, you should also be right.  The right to travel, and personal liberty, are also a constitutionally protected.  I'll see your  and raise you .

But I see what you did there.  You've back peddled quite a bit and now only  argue in favor of restricting the travel of non-citizens infected with Ebola.  Because nobody can disagree with that, right?  Only that's not really how you started, since you're now saying non-citizens that don't have ebola should be allowed in (aka screening) and, apparently, that us citizens with ebola should be allowed back in.  Can I raise you twice in a row?

Context is important.  I was responding to GD's specific question about his in-laws.  Such cases are easily handled individually, and prudently.  Keep raising, let me know when you're all in.....

[Slice of Life]

I must say gents, I am shocked an appalled that a topic like this somehow resulted in an argument on the interwebs.

[newtogolf]

I have never been just "waved through". And you also have to inform them of where you are travelling to and from. If you just got off a plane from Monrovia in Paris and are boarding a plane to Newark, they are not going to just wave you through. Your travel history travels with you and you are going to be treated far differently at every stop. Plus now, in the US, there are CDC staff training and informing the customs and border people.

Somebody needs to get their facts straight here, but it ain't me.

They don't ask where you travelled, they look at your passport stamps.  They would really suck at their jobs if they just took a travelers word for it.  You seem defensive, are you a retired CBP agent?

[Golfingdad]

Fixed it for you......

Maybe you could explain this then, because I still don't see it.

And I noticed you skipped my main question for a second time.  Hmmm

No difference.

I really a hard time believing this.  Sorry.

They don't ask where you travelled, they look at your passport stamps.  They would really suck at their jobs if they just took a travelers word for it.  You seem defensive, are you a retired CBP agent?

Not sure why everybody's arguments against @phan52 all seem to end up attacking him. What gives??

I've not been on as many national flights as you, ntg, but the times I have been I can say for certain that I've never been "waved through" either. They have always looked at my passport to see where I've been, asked me where I've been as well, then asked me other questions about what I've done or what's in my suitcase.

Hell, even walking back across the border from Tijuana involved a series of questions from a Border Agent.

[phan52]

Nothing wrong with changing protocols when you are clearly wrong in the first place.  I'd call that prudent.

It also demonstrates just how inept some of these "experts" are though, and that we shouldn't simply accept their word as gospel when it's been proven to be routinely incorrect.  And while I'm in no position to "fix" their screw up, I'm certainly intelligent enough to recognize it and realize that they're likely to screw up again and think that it's prudent for others to scrutinize their actions in an attempt to minimize those screw-ups.

They are not inept and they are not "routinely incorrect". They know the protocol in treating Ebola patients. Unfortunately, very few locations in this country are properly prepared in how to do it and training is obviously necessary. It is called adapting. I trust that they will get a handle on this in the US because they have been dealing with it for decades in Africa. It is new to nursing staffs everywhere in this country but there is a protocol that works. It is pretty obvious that the protocol that works was nonexistent in that hospital in Dallas, but we will adapt and figure it out.

[dsc123]

My copy of the constitution must be defective.  It doesn't say anything about a "right to travel".......  Could you please send me a corrected version?

Its probably not defective, you just have to know how to read it, which isn't always easy or straight forward.  Check out Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, also known as the privileges and immunities clause.  The Supreme Court has interpreted this to embody a constitutional right into and out of any state in the union.  The Supreme Court has also held that the right to travel internationally is protected by the Fifth Amendment's due process clause, as a liberty that cannot be taken without due process.