Biggest Ebola Outbreak In History- ~10000 Cases

[TimothyC]

The doctor, who really should have known better, was apparently gallivanting around NYC with a fever for at least a day! WTF was he thinking?

No, he wasn't. I saw the head of NYC public health on the news this morning and she noted that he reported his fever to MSF when he got a recording of 100.3F, not the 103F that was reported earlier. He may not have been feeling 100% the day before his temperature spiked, but he was NOT running around while having a fever.

[Block]

The doctor, who really should have known better, was apparently gallivanting around NYC with a fever for at least a day! WTF was he thinking?

No, he wasn't. I saw the head of NYC public health on the news this morning and she noted that he reported his fever to MSF when he got a recording of 100.3F, not the 103F that was reported earlier. He may not have been feeling 100% the day before his temperature spiked, but he was NOT running around while having a fever.

100.3 is still a fever.

[Broomstick]

I stand corrected on the issue of the doctor and his fever.

[TimothyC]

100.3 is still a fever.

Swing and a Miss. He was taking his temperature twice a day, and on Wednesday, when he did not have a fever he was out and about. Then Thursday, he gets a fever, contacts MSF who contacts NYC Public Health. From there he gets transported to the hospital under control conditions. Doctor Spencer was not out and about with a known fever.

I stand corrected on the issue of the doctor and his fever.

It's cool. The early news reports had that he had the 103F fever when he was picked up which would have implied a fever earlier (you know as well as I that you don't often go from normal to 103 overnight).

[Broomstick]

Apparently Illinois will now require a mandatory 21 quarantine for anyone high-risk of Ebola, basically, anyone having direct contact with a known case. Some details of how that will be enforced are still being worked out. NYC also has adopted that rule thanks to Dr. Spencer. I think New Jersey has the same, and is now testing a doctor who worked with Ebola patients in Africa.

I anticipate this will have the greatest impact on returning medical personnel who worked in Africa, followed by medical types in the US who treat any cases here.

So far, the three passengers who have come through O'Hare with symptoms have all been false alarms for Ebola (if sick, it was with something else). Let's hope the alarms continue to be false.

[Pelranius]

Doesn't seem to be very much in the DC area, other than a false alarm last week.

[cosmicalstorm]

Australia is getting some tongue lashing when they are the only western country to enact travel bans. I notice many politicians and NGO's pretending that immigration is something that can't be controlled, only managed, almost like weather. Obama must be furious.

[Simon_Jester]

Uh... could you restate your position using more words? I gather your first and second sentences are connected in that that's why the people giving Australia the tongue-lashing are acting. But I don't quite understand how the third sentence fits in with the previous two.

[Patroklos]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-army-qu ... d=26486775

It would be nice if the Feds could come up with a common message on this quarrantine thing. One agency is beating up states for enacting mandatory quarantines for people who actually treated ebola patients, another is demanding strict quarrantines for its own people who never even saw an ebola patient.

[Block]

100.3 is still a fever.

Swing and a Miss. He was taking his temperature twice a day, and on Wednesday, when he did not have a fever he was out and about. Then Thursday, he gets a fever, contacts MSF who contacts NYC Public Health. From there he gets transported to the hospital under control conditions. Doctor Spencer was not out and about with a known fever.

All of what you wrote is irrelevant. 100.3 is still a fever for a person who has a normal body temp of 98.6, which is literally all I said. It's low grade, and I doubt very strongly he infected anyone, but it's still a fever.

[Chardok]

What of the Doctor's Without Borders nurse Kaci Hickox ?

My personal feelings on this matter are thus: The practical impact of her remaining under quarantine notwithstanding, there is a public perception portion to this case that bears consideration. To quote Tommy Lee Jones' character in Men In Black: "A person is smart. People are dumb panicky animals and you know it." As a healthcare professional, I feel she should understand this. there may be little medical basis for her quarantine, but when the public at large is so skittish over this problem, there needs to be strong outward-facing protocols to show that shit is "under control". It's not necessarily a public health concern so much as it could be a public safety concern. Take your 21 days off work and chill.

I know - "first they came" and all - but it doesn't really seem relevant here, since we're talking about a problem that is both temporary and very manageable (for now)

[Irbis]

...why are they keep repeating "Is X based on science"?

It sounds like they want the infallible word of the Pope, not advice of a scientist. Yes, yes, scientific consensus and all that, but only an oracle with crystal ball could provide 100% true answer as of now.

Also, the outrage about "MUH RIGHTS". Complaining about free vacation done so you could get best, early care in case you have a deadly disease (and so you hopefully don't infect anyone else) sounds really stupid, and it's not like she would be even first infected US nurse, far from it.

[Broomstick]

About Kaci Hickox:

Understand that the woman has a legitimate grievance. New Jersey put her in a UNHEATED TENT in the PARKING LOT of a hospital in nothing more than a PAPER HOSPITAL GOWN (in an UNheated tent!), with NO bathing facilities and a "porta-potty" little better than a bucket and told here she would be spending 21 days in those circumstances. Here you can see the rather Spartan setting:


Yeah, I would be pissed, too.

Why the FUCK couldn't they have housed her in a NORMAL hospital isolation room? Seriously? Or, if New Jersey didn't feel they had an adequate facility she should have been transferred to somewhere where at the least she would be indoors.

This is fucking stupid on the part of New Jersey. What the fuck, were they intending to house an actually sick person like that?

This was NOT a "21 day vacation and the best care" unless you consider camping nearly naked in a parking lot with no running water and bucket to piss and shit in a "vacation". Note the complete lack of books, newspapers, laptop, or any form of mental stimulation or entertainment whatsoever.

She was put into solitary confinement without a trial.

She might have consented to 21 days home confinement if she hadn't been treated worse than a criminal from the moment she touched down in the US. Now she's butt-hurt and afraid she's going to get treated like this for the better part of a month. It was a fucked-up, ham-fisted approach to quarantine and it's trying to backfire.

[Zaune]

Christ on a crutch.

[Irbis]

Understand that the woman has a legitimate grievance. New Jersey put her in a UNHEATED TENT in the PARKING LOT of a hospital in nothing more than a PAPER HOSPITAL GOWN (in an UNheated tent!), with NO bathing facilities and a "porta-potty" little better than a bucket and told here she would be spending 21 days in those circumstances.

See, yes, this is complete bullshit. It sounds like it was idea of third world nation, so yeah, it might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you read "quarantine in USA". Especially after you read how the previous infected Americans were treated. And especially after, oh, the video over my post has her skyping from home and she is apparently fighting THAT quarantine, not the first one.

That still doesn't change the fact that a nurse might not be the most qualified person to decide what kind of quarantine she needs or be most objective when it comes to reporting anything alarming found during self monitoring if she forces that.

Also, Jesus, every time I hear about New Jersey news it is always some kind of massive fuck-up. What's wrong with that state?

This was NOT a "21 day vacation and the best care"

Gee, if only that was mentioned as main grievance in article instead of circlejerking "is this really based on science???" and "my rights to walk away from quarantine are being spit at" but then again, it's US media so why I am surprised

[Broomstick]

Ms. Hickox is also a very rational person used to speaking to other rational people. She doesn't understand PR or dealing with "people", that is, the panicky herd, as opposed to "persons", the ones you can use logic on.

[PainRack]

I think an argument could have been made for mandatory home quarantine......... if it had been announced beforehand and not as a panic response to her showing a fever at the airport scanner, a scare which subsequently was shown to be flawless.

As a former operator of said scanner, those devices require a lot of handling if you don't want an overtly high false positive/negative reading.

[Chardok]

I see the argument for allowing home Quarantine Vs. a parking lot. That's certainly an issue. But 21 days of home quarantine amounts to a staycation. I stand by my assertion that as a nurse, she should understand, and even if she didn't I'm sure it's been explained to her (hell, if *I* could come up with it, I'm sure WAY smarter folks than I have thought to mention it to her) that public knee-jerkery could compromise her safety and the safety of others. Stay Home. We'll bring beer.

[Elheru Aran]

I just had to unfriend someone on FB who straight-up said he hoped Kaci Hickox would turn out to have Ebola after all. Apparently also she's a CDC employee, which seems to be BS-- she did work for them for some time but left to do her volunteer work with MSF.

[Chardok]

...They straight up said they hoped she *had* Ebola?

[Elheru Aran]

...They straight up said they hoped she *had* Ebola?

This guy is one for claiming sarcasm. Quote, "wouldn't it be hilarious if she wakes up tomorrow and she's leaking blood from her eyes".

[madd0ct0r]

Total cases just under 250,000.

10 thousand people have died.

http://au.reddit.com/r/ebola/comments/3 ... _leone_37/

[Iroscato]

Jesus. Though the number of dead seems to be going down proportionally compared to the number of infected. But still, 10,000 dead...yikes.

[Captain Seafort]

Total cases just under 250,000.

It's bad, but it's not that bad - you've got one too many zeros.

[madd0ct0r]

Fuck. Yup. Cases more like 25k. Sorry