First Ebola Diagnosis in US

[kallend 1,623]

muff528

***

Quote

This is looking at least a little doubtful since there are seemingly conflicting statements concerning things like "no airborne transmission" yet the virus can be present in aerosol droplets from coughs or sneezes; "you can't catch it on a bus" yet "infected persons should stay off the bus"; a person can become infected with the introduction of as few as 1 - 10 virions ; survivability of the virus outside the body on various objects at various temps; etc.

If you read conflicting news reports on the same skydiving fatality you'd probably come to the conclusion that no-one knows how parachutes work, but it's not the case.

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The CFR for the current Zaire Ebola outbreak is more like 70% for victims with "confirmed outcomes". We can only hope we can get to the level of control we now have with the flu.

The second sentence of that Flu article begins with the words "It infected 500 million people". What in god's name do you mean by 'control'?

Ebola is incredibly easy to control compared to the flu. According to the fear mongers here everyone in the US from the local hospitals, PD, FD, CDC and border control has made a complete pigs ear of dealing with ebola... and nothing's happened. Everybody's fine.

That's my point. A century ago, when the Spanish Flu pandemic was out of "control" (no vaccines, education or prevention), it only produced a
Also, to answer billvon-- I "get" that the advertised contagious state is only when the patient is symptomatic. But a symptomatic person is not likely to be on a bus. However, an infected person who is not yet symptomatic still carries the virus at some stage of that infection. If he happens to sneeze for any reason, firing off a booger or two, there is a chance, however small, that said booger may have a virion or two riding along (that's all it takes) ...maybe more. If the booger enters the mouth of a fellow traveler and he somehow manages to not immediately puke it up he could be infected. Small chance but not zero. I'll take that chance riding on a bus with someone who has the flu. If he's got Ebola and I have a choice, I'm not getting on that bus.

Dammit, I just realized I missed the ISS flyover. Perfect night for it, too!

You need to quit listening to Rush Limbaugh and other fearmongers, and learn something about RISK.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[muff528 3]

kallend

....

You need to quit listening to Rush Limbaugh and other fearmongers, and learn something about RISK.

Don't have time to listen to the radio and I'm not fearful of Ebola. Just comparing numbers ...like you do with the gun thing.

But, If I know an Ebola carrier is on a particular bus at a particular time (higher risk), I'm not getting on that bus. That doesn't mean I'm scared of riding buses in general (lower risk) even if it means there might, somewhere in the country, occasionally be an Ebola carrier on a bus somewhere. But, that also does not mean that some poor sucker somewhere is not going to be the one to pay for it.

[kallend 1,623]

muff528

***....

You need to quit listening to Rush Limbaugh and other fearmongers, and learn something about RISK.

Don't have time to listen to the radio and I'm not fearful of Ebola.

That's some irony score there.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,400]

>Also, to answer billvon-- I "get" that the advertised contagious state is only when
>the patient is symptomatic. But a symptomatic person is not likely to be on a bus.
>However, an infected person who is not yet symptomatic still carries the virus at
>some stage of that infection. If he happens to sneeze for any reason, firing off a
>booger or two, there is a chance, however small, that said booger may have a >virion or two riding along (that's all it takes) ...maybe more.

Yes there is a small chance that that will happen. But since asymptomatic people are not infectious (and have never been observed to be infectious) the odds of that are very low. You are much, much more likely to be killed by catching the flu on a bus than to have such a chain of unlikely events occur.

>I'll take that chance riding on a bus with someone who has the flu. If he's got
>Ebola and I have a choice, I'm not getting on that bus.

That is irrational, akin to refusing to drive in vehicles with seat belts and air bags, since without seat belts or air bags you will be "thrown clear of the crash." You are perfectly free to do it, though.

[jakee 1,255]

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That's my point. A century ago, when the Spanish Flu pandemic was out of "control" (no vaccines, education or prevention), it only produced a <20% death rate. But the Ebola outbreak is supposedly "under control" and the CFR is 70%.

Why are you fixated on CFR as the measure of control? According to that measure the flu pandemic which spread across the entire globe and killed 5% of the world's population was under better control than the current ebola epidemic which is contained in 3 or 4 west african countries and has killed maybe 15,000 people. You're not making sense.

Quote

But it has pretty much been demonstrated that a person has a better chance of living through the flu than living through an Ebola infection.

Sure. But you are still far, far more likely to die of the flu than ebola.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[muff528 3]

kallend

******....

You need to quit listening to Rush Limbaugh and other fearmongers, and learn something about RISK.

Don't have time to listen to the radio and I'm not fearful of Ebola.

That's some irony score there.

Pretty sure I don't get what you mean there. Certainly no useful information. Any opinion I've written here in this thread is based on "facts" supported by sources I've provided (right or wrong, I got no problem with hearing or deferring to convincing, opposing, supported "facts"), and were responses to specific comments. None of those sources were from Limbaugh or any other "fearmonger" and none of my comments or opinions were intended to , uh, "monger" fear. I'm just stating my opinion that it takes a special kind of arrogance to risk exposing a major, high population density region to a lethal, poorly-understood, level 4 pathogen for which there is no known or readily available vaccine or cure (maybe a very low level risk but carrying high level consequences if there is miscalculation.)

Doctors and caregivers who come from the affected regions should be the first to recognize how unwise it is to take such a cavalier attitude when returning to these population centers. "I got no fever so I think I'll just take the A-train down to the bowling alley and do up the town afterwards." These attitudes do not monger confidence in the "authorities" and they give the impression that the issue is not being taken seriously ....maybe even being politicized.

[muff528 3]

billvon

>Also, to answer billvon-- I "get" that the advertised contagious state is only when
>the patient is symptomatic. But a symptomatic person is not likely to be on a bus.
>However, an infected person who is not yet symptomatic still carries the virus at
>some stage of that infection. If he happens to sneeze for any reason, firing off a
>booger or two, there is a chance, however small, that said booger may have a >virion or two riding along (that's all it takes) ...maybe more.

Yes there is a small chance that that will happen. But since asymptomatic people are not infectious (and have never been observed to be infectious) the odds of that are very low. You are much, much more likely to be killed by catching the flu on a bus than to have such a chain of unlikely events occur.

>I'll take that chance riding on a bus with someone who has the flu. If he's got
>Ebola and I have a choice, I'm not getting on that bus.

That is irrational, akin to refusing to drive in vehicles with seat belts and air bags, since without seat belts or air bags you will be "thrown clear of the crash." You are perfectly free to do it, though.

Yeah, the booger-to-yawning-mouth scenario is a long shot, so I'll go with breathing in a few aerosol sneeze droplets carrying a couple hundred ebolites each from a non-symptomatic carrier. Common sense says that if only 1-10 virions are required to cause an infection, then there is some point between exposure and symptomatic where there are sufficient virions (as few as 1) to infect another person contained in sneeze droplets or hacked-up phlegm particles during a cough. So, I'm not buying the mantra that Ebola can be transmitted ONLY after symptoms appear. Common sense tells me that enough virus is present in a host's body to infect another person before the host gets sick. You can take my seat on that bus.

I'd be good with being wrong about that if it can convincingly be shown that that can't happen and why. Not just some parrot saying "take my word for it". Just because it has not been observed to happen does not necessarily mean it can't. There just hasn't been enough real world experience with studying behavior of this virus outside of the hot spots.

[kallend 1,623]

OHSAS (Occupational Health & Safety Advisory Services) defines risk as the combination of the probability of a hazard resulting in an adverse event, times the severity of the event

By any calculus, the risk of getting ebola by anyone in the USA not directly involved in caring for a symptomatic ebola patient is negligible. The risk of dying of influenza is far higher. If you keep a gun in your home the risk of getting shot dead by your spouse or family member is far higher. The risk of being shot dead by a loony in a shopping mall is far higher.

Before getting your panties in a wad worrying over things with negligible risk, maybe you should worry about things with far higher risk and do something about them.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[muff528 3]

jakee

Quote

That's my point. A century ago, when the Spanish Flu pandemic was out of "control" (no vaccines, education or prevention), it only produced a <20% death rate. But the Ebola outbreak is supposedly "under control" and the CFR is 70%.

Why are you fixated on CFR as the measure of control? According to that measure the flu pandemic which spread across the entire globe and killed 5% of the world's population was under better control than the current ebola epidemic which is contained in 3 or 4 west african countries and has killed maybe 15,000 people. You're not making sense.

Quote

But it has pretty much been demonstrated that a person has a better chance of living through the flu than living through an Ebola infection.

Sure. But you are still far, far more likely to die of the flu than ebola.

Was "contained in 3 - 4 West African countries". We seem to be trying our best to change that. If you were actually reading my post you'll see that I'm not using CFR as a "measure of control". I'm using it to point out the risk of death if a person gets an infection ...not the risk of getting infected. I only used the Spanish Flu pandemic to compare the risk of death if infected 100 years ago with today and to compare those with the risk of death if infected with Ebola and to illustrate the insanity of intentionally failing to decrease the chances of an Ebola outbreak here. Period. Yes, a person here is now more likely to die from the flu than Ebola ...right now. But that is my whole point. We understand the flu. We have proven vaccines, treatments, etc. and we know how to mitigate risk with it. That's why the CFR for influenza is now in the <<1% range.

Mishandling and incompetence in dealing with an Ebola outbreak will change that risk over time. Right now our protocols seem to disregard the possibility that an infected, non-symptomatic person can arrive in this country undetected, mingle with a large population and then become symptomatic and contagious, infecting others before he is taken off the streets. The doctor who is right now being treated in NY and who presumedly "understands" Ebola and and its risks did just that. He waited until after he became symptomatic before deciding to get help, even days after he began getting fatigued (which, BTW, is also a symptom). Did he have no clue that he was infected? Was he in denial? Since he's a medical professional, I'm sure he didn't simply disregard any risk to folks he might have exposed to infection. After all, he was following accepted protocol and the virus has been studied for 40 years and its transmission is "understood". No need to impose a quarantine on a doctor who followed protocol, who was directly working with multiple symptomatic Ebola patients, and who just arrived from the "hot zone". Now the people of NYC will have to wait up to 21 days hoping no one he has encountered turns up infected ...maybe someone who thinks they just have the flu with its minimal risk. Right now we seem to be depending more on luck than competent management.

And now we've decided to import more Ebola patients into the country.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/28/state-department-plans-to-bring-foreign-ebola-pati/

I can't for the life of me understand why an Ebola patient would want to entrust his life to what has been portrayed as one of the worst health care systems in the Western World. You'd think that he would much rather be taken to Canada or the UK ...maybe even Cuba.

[jakee 1,255]

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Was "contained in 3 - 4 West African countries".

Is contained.

Quote

If you were actually reading my post you'll see that I'm not using CFR as a "measure of control".

Yes, you clearly were. You said we have more control over the flu because it doesn't kill as big a percentage of people who are infected by it.

Quote

Yes, a person here is now more likely to die from the flu than Ebola

Great. Then you'll agree that, in the first world, we have more control over ebola than flu.

Quote

Mishandling and incompetence in dealing with an Ebola outbreak will change that risk over time.

Again, loads of people are already saying that the Duncan case was chronically mishandled. How badly did that turn out, again?

Quote

I can't for the life of me understand why an Ebola patient would want to entrust his life to what has been portrayed as one of the worst health care systems in the Western World.

They're probably just assuming it's the best. I doubt they've looked into the details.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Andy9o8 0]

kallend

OHSAS (Occupational Health & Safety Advisory Services) defines risk as the combination of the probability of a hazard resulting in an adverse event, times the severity of the event

By any calculus, the risk of getting ebola by anyone in the USA not directly involved in caring for a symptomatic ebola patient is negligible.

That's general risk. But then there's circumstance-specific risk. Dr. Spencer was directly caring for Ebola patients. The risk to those in close contact with him after he returned to the US might have been greater than negligible, depending on fluctuating variables. He might or might not have been contagious yet when he rode the NYC subway and went to the bowling alley; we really don't know. If he was contagious, and, say, sneezed on a surface (like a hand-hold on the train) that someone then touched, that's not necessarily insignificant.

I hope he's ok. As of today he's in "serious but stable condition". BTW, when he first was questioned by local authorities, he deliberately lied to them, falsely claiming that hed self-quarantined, and not telling them about his local travels out in public. The cops only discovered the truth through their own investigation. So that's why I'm not so quick to demonize the public, or state governors, when they react, or even over-react, to that kind of poor judgment from clinicians who should know better. (I give Nurse Hickox poor marks, too, for over-reacting to authorities' clumsy handling of her with her own immature, and ongoing, tantrum behavior.)

Sure, government needs to behave maturely and reasonably. But so do health professionals who treat Ebola patients, either in hospitals or by serving tours of duty in Africa. And when they fail to do so, they're just compounding the public policy problem.

[billvon 2,400]

>so I'll go with breathing in a few aerosol sneeze droplets carrying a couple
>hundred ebolites each from a non-symptomatic carrier.

Then you most likely will not get it. Ebola has not been shown to be spreadable by "sneeze droplets." Even if it seems like you should. (And non-symptomatic carriers are not contagious anyway; they are not shedding virus.)

>Common sense tells me that enough virus is present in a host's body to infect
>another person before the host gets sick. You can take my seat on that bus.

That's fine. You can take whatever form of transportation you like. But again, you are more likely to be killed by some guy with the flu on a bus than a guy with Ebola on a bus.

>I'd be good with being wrong about that if it can convincingly be shown that
>that can't happen and why.


==================================
Study Confirms That Ebola Is Not Transmitted Through The Air

August 7, 2014 | by Lisa Winter
IFLScience

There is no evidence to support that primates can transmit Ebola through aerosol droplets, like through a sneeze.

When the news broke that the two Americans who had contracted Ebola virus disease (EVD) were going to be transported from Liberia to Atlanta, misguided fear spread like wildfire that the US would get swept up by the epidemic just as West Africa had. However, a new study supports what epidemiologists have long suspected: Ebola is not an airborne virus and is transmitted via contact with bodily fluids. The research was led by Gary Kobinger of the University of Manitoba and the results were published in Scientific Reports.

Most of the confusion regarding this manner is due to a paper Kobinger published in 2012 about the transition of Ebolavirus from pigs to macaques. The swine and primates were kept near one another, but not in direct contact. The pigs were infected with a strain of Ebola that has never been documented to cause disease in humans, but can be fatal to monkeys. (There are five species in the Ebolavirus genus, and three of them cause EVD. The strain causing the current epidemic is the most fatal, but there is no evidence that swine in West Africa are infected with that strain.) After being in proximity to the infected pigs, all of the macaques contracted the virus. As the two species would not have been able to touch one another, it was suggested that the virus could actually be transmitted through air due to the aerosol generated by the pigs.

Kobinger’s current research demonstrated that infected macaques were unable to transmit the virus to uninfected macaques without direct contact. The study used the species responsible for the current epidemic of 1,700+ human infections. The two groups of primates were near enough where aerosols could have spread the virus through the air, but they were not able to touch. While the infected macaques died in under a week, the other two never contracted the virus.

So does this mean that only certain strains of Ebolavirus can be transmitted through the air? Or is it perhaps that pigs have a specialized ability to make Ebola airborne? Was the virus transmitted via an unknown source of cross-contamination? Those questions could very well be settled with further research, but until then, one thing is for certain: There is absolutely no evidence that primates can transmit Ebola to one another through the air. The only evidence of primate-to-primate transmission is from direct bodily contact.

The reason EVD has spread throughout West Africa is due to a lack of healthcare infrastructure. Additionally, many are distrusting of medical practices and favor their traditional techniques, which often include contact with the patient without any protective barriers. Those offering care in Atlanta understand the precautions needed in this matter and there is no sane or logical reason to believe it will spread throughout developed countries.
=====================================

[muff528 3]

Good deal!

This agrees with that conclusion.

But this does not completely agree. "...the only two routes of exposure that have been experimentally validated are parenteral inoculation and aerosol inhalation." Although it goes on to say that the "Epidemiologic evidence suggests that aerosol exposure is not an important means of virus transmission in natural outbreaks of human Ebola fever." (is an infection artificially introduced into a fresh population halfway around the world from the source considered to be a "natural outbreak"?)

And this one does not necessarily agree. "Although they are not naturally transmitted by aerosol, they are highly infectious as respirable particles under laboratory conditions."

So, experimental evidence for/against aerosol transmission under both natural and laboratory conditions:

From Kobinger's 2012 study as reported by Science News ---

* pig ---> macaque: YES
* rhesus macaque ---> cynomulgus macaque: NO

From the europepmc.org link above ---

* rhesus ---> rhesus : YES

So ---

* human ---> human: JURY IS STILL OUT.

[billvon 2,400]

> rhesus ---> rhesus : YES

Well, that wasn't rhesus to rhesus. They prepared cultures and sprayed them on the monkeys, so it was culture->rhesus. It was an experiment to determine whether weaponized Ebola was a threat. Here's a description of the actual experiment:

===================
The monkey was placed in a gas tight, environment
controlled Hazelton chamber (24C and < 40% relative
humidity) that contained a modified Henderson apparatus
and a Collison nebulizer (Henderson 1952). The
nebulizer, driven by compressed air at 20 PSI, generated
an aerosol flow rate of 16.5 I/min and disseminated
the 25ml of test solution at 0.35ml/min. The median
mass diameter of the generated aerosol particles
ranged from 0.8 to 1.2 im. The aerosol was mixed
automatically with a secondary 8.5 I/min air supply and
circulated through the exposure box. The aerosol
challenge dose was determined by a mid-exposure
sample collected in an all-glass impinger calibrated to
sample at a rate of 12.5 I/min. The aerosol specimen was
impinged in supplemented EMEM containing an antifoam
emulsion. After a 10-minute exposure, the Hazelton
chamber was flushed with clean air and the virus
contaminated contents exhausted through double HEPA
filters.
=====================

That's unlikely to occur on a bus.

They still haven't seen any primate to primate transmission via aerosol. There's one questionable study where an infection was seen in a macaque, but it's unclear whether that was due to normal airborne vectors or due to "aerosolized excrement ejected during normal cage cleaning" (i.e the pressure washer blew some shit around.) Again, unlikely in a bus, although certainly a cautionary tale for people cleaning up after symptomatic people.

[kallend 1,623]

billvon

> rhesus ---> rhesus : YES

Well, that wasn't rhesus to rhesus. They prepared cultures and sprayed them on the monkeys, so it was culture->rhesus. It was an experiment to determine whether weaponized Ebola was a threat. Here's a description of the actual experiment:

===================
The monkey was placed in a gas tight, environment
controlled Hazelton chamber (24C and < 40% relative
humidity) that contained a modified Henderson apparatus
and a Collison nebulizer (Henderson 1952). The
nebulizer, driven by compressed air at 20 PSI, generated
an aerosol flow rate of 16.5 I/min and disseminated
the 25ml of test solution at 0.35ml/min. The median
mass diameter of the generated aerosol particles
ranged from 0.8 to 1.2 im. The aerosol was mixed
automatically with a secondary 8.5 I/min air supply and
circulated through the exposure box. The aerosol
challenge dose was determined by a mid-exposure
sample collected in an all-glass impinger calibrated to
sample at a rate of 12.5 I/min. The aerosol specimen was
impinged in supplemented EMEM containing an antifoam
emulsion. After a 10-minute exposure, the Hazelton
chamber was flushed with clean air and the virus
contaminated contents exhausted through double HEPA
filters.
=====================

That's unlikely to occur on a bus.

Have you been on a NYC bus?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Andy9o8 0]

Quote

They still haven't seen any primate to primate transmission via aerosol.

At the risk of repeating myself, that's all well and good, but in the context of "contact with bodily fluids", the "aerosol" discussion still doesn't address whether it can be transmitted when someone puts their hand on a freshly-sneezed loogie honked out onto, say, a handrail on a train or bus by someone who's contagious. I'm really not trying to be alarmist here; I just want the question addressed directly and not sidestepped.

[muff528 3]

Hmmm. ...that looks like a different experiment by the same guys - maybe this one?: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7547435

Here's a link to the pdf you referred to (I think): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1997182/pdf/ijexpath00004-0007.pdf

But, I think this one describes the experiment I was referring to (re: rhesus to rhesus) The abstract seems to suggest that the monkeys (infected and non-infected) were simply placed together in the same room together: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8551825 Yes, it does also suggest that poop particles could have been the culprit rather than oral particles or droplets. I suppose either could be found on a NYC subway or bus.

[muff528 3]

Here's an interesting little snippet from the pdf file above:

"We also demonstrated aerosol transmission of
Ebola virus at lower temperature and humidity than that
normally present in sub-Saharan Africa. Ebola virus
sensitivity to the high temperatures and humidity in
the thatched, mud, and wattel huts shared by infected
family members in southern Sudan and northern Zaire
may have been a factor limiting aerosol transmission of
Ebola virus in the African epidemics. Both elevated
temperature and relative humidity (RH) have been
shown to reduce the aerosol stability of viruses
(Songer 1967). Our experiments were conducted at
24°C and < 40% RH, conditions which are known to
favour the aerosol stability of at least two other African
haemorrhagic fever viruses, Rift Valley fever and Lassa
(Stephenson et a/. 1984; Anderson et a/. 1991). If the
same holds true for filoviruses, aerosol transmission is
a greater threat in modern hospital or laboratory
settings than it is in the natural climatic ranges of
viruses."

[jclalor 12]

It's nice watching The President give a press conference, and see him continually state that the US should be on the side of medical science in the fight with Ebola.

[Andy9o8 0]

Are you going to try to squeeze an Obama-bash out of this?

[billvon 2,400]

>but in the context of "contact with bodily fluids", the "aerosol" discussion still
>doesn't address whether it can be transmitted when someone puts their hand on
>a freshly-sneezed loogie honked out onto, say, a handrail on a train or bus by
>someone who's contagious.

Right. If someone sneezes out a great big loogie, and they are symptomatic, and it gets on the bus rail, and you pick it up, and it gets in your mouth, then it's an infection risk because you have been in contact with their bodily fluids (mucus.)

[Andy9o8 0]

billvon

>but in the context of "contact with bodily fluids", the "aerosol" discussion still
>doesn't address whether it can be transmitted when someone puts their hand on
>a freshly-sneezed loogie honked out onto, say, a handrail on a train or bus by
>someone who's contagious.

Right. If someone sneezes out a great big loogie, and they are symptomatic, and it gets on the bus rail, and you pick it up, and it gets in your mouth, then it's an infection risk because you have been in contact with their bodily fluids (mucus.)

See?? We're all fucked.

-----

'Course, it doesn't have to be a great big loogie, or into your mouth. It can be a garden-variety wet sneeze, and somebody's contaminated hand rubbing an itch on their eyelid, the inside of which is a mucous membrane.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Andy9o8

Quote

They still haven't seen any primate to primate transmission via aerosol.

At the risk of repeating myself, that's all well and good, but in the context of "contact with bodily fluids", the "aerosol" discussion still doesn't address whether it can be transmitted when someone puts their hand on a freshly-sneezed loogie honked out onto, say, a handrail on a train or bus by someone who's contagious. I'm really not trying to be alarmist here; I just want the question addressed directly and not sidestepped.

It's actually a really good question.

I don't know if there is a definitive answer.

I was having this discussion somewhere else (FB) and during the course of "don't panic, it's not that transmittable" found out that there has been no live, intact virus found in sweat.

Looking around a bit on google, I found THIS
Study of various body fluids from sick people and where virus was & wasn't found. I found it amusing that they even tested a body louse to see if it would be infected (it wasn't).

Sputum (the technical term for "loogie") was 0 for 2.
I don't think that's a big enough sample to reach a definitive conclusion, but it is an indication.

I have heard (news radio, most likely NPR) that Ebola can be contracted via aerosol (you can catch it that way), but not really transmitted that way (sick people aren't putting out virus when they cough or sneeze).

And the Hickox story is getting rather silly. I hadn't followed it that closely, and after hearing a couple conflicting reports, I did a bit of looking.
She showed a fever on entering the country with a forehead scan. Skin temp can be a very unreliable measure of actual body temp.
So they took an oral temp. She showed normal (98.6) and showed no other symptoms. So, rather than saying "it must have been a bad forehead scan, let her go," they threw her into "jail."
She is still not showing any symptoms, but Maine wants to keep her in quarantine.
She has said her patience is running out and she won't cooperate much longer (paraphrased).
I don't blame her. There's no valid medical or scientific reason to keep her isolated.
The politicians are overreacting. As usual.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[tigra 0]

They didn't just throw her in "jail". They kept her in a tent in the hospital parking lot- with no heat or plumbing- for 4 days. Bentley the dog was treated far better than this woman. Murderers on death row are treated better. Now she's pissed and in no mood to cooperate. I can't say that I blame her.

I have mixed feelings on the self quarantine issue. Logically, I know these doctors and nurses pose very little risk to the public. They're monitoring their temperatures, and know the signs and symptoms. They know what to do if symptoms appear, they are not wandering the streets projectile vomiting, with mucus running down their faces, etc ....... But the fear and panic are real and I don't think it's right if a business ends up closing its doors or suffers a huge financial loss just because someone who was supposed to be under a self quarantine wanted some soup or decided to go bowling, or trying on wedding dresses. Not to mention all the tax dollars spent tracing their steps, etc .......... I kind of feel like these medical professionals should "take one for the team" and stay home for the 3 weeks and their employers should also "take on for the team" and pay them- at least until thing settle down and "we" get a better handle on the situation.

[GeorgiaDon 340]

Quote

They didn't just throw her in "jail". They kept her in a tent in the hospital parking lot- with no heat or plumbing- for 4 days.

They put Sheriff Arpaio in charge of the ebola quarantine program!?

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)