Here we go....there's been rumors all day that 4 or 5 other nurses and Docs may have been infected by Duncan in Dallas.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-...state-disaster-tomorrow-over-ebola-fears

About time, this will allow them to impose legal travel restrictions on the health care workers who came in contact Mr. Duncan.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/D...Ebola-Health-Care-Workers-279336932.html

A good move.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySGZkNPap_s#t=351

bump for significance

20 days til Election Day.

Will obama order a suspension if the outbreaks continue and/or spread?

That's not going to happen

the eligible percentages actually voting in the precincts close to the hospital will be an interesting study.

Don't they become eligible for federal funds if they declare a county "disaster" and it gets approved by the feds?

That's what they always do with bad storms and such. If so, you can't blame the county for wanting their piece of the pie, I suppose.

I heard on the news that the E.R. room for that hospital is virtually empty and the other area hospitals are filling up because of it.

Lets hope it doesn't get into a school

I'm confused. Miles58 has already told us that this sort of chit can't happen in America.

The radio said this morning that the Belton TX school is suspending classes for now.

This will continue to grow and panic will set in. How do you think this "panic" will affect turnout on election day, if there is an election day?

If Obama denied funds for Texas under the disaster declaration for drought and all the wildfires scourging the state when Gov. Perry requested them, then I can imagine he's just grinning as any Dallas Co. request comes in.

But, then again, DFW area is a strong democrat nest...

Who knows?

Is it true that "Miles58" is Tom Frieden's Campfire user name? Would explain why he hasn't had time to post much anymore.

Be careful what you ask for. This could possibly be one step away from the dreaded martial law.

Just sit back and watch the effect this has on local supply shelves.

Yeah, but if you have anything set aside to eat beyond what you bought at WalMart last Monday, then you are tinfoil kook.

how can a medical professional get on a plane?

then I hear Dr. Nancy Snyderman was under quarantine and went to a restaurant for take out food

I think these people have an obligation - moreso than the general public - to treat this threat with the precautions necessary.

The hospital itself is apparently negligent - after watching the staff give the news crew a tour of the hospital and how they are prepared to deal with it - now we hear the other side of the story.....................

a lot of reasonable people in Dallas objected to the plan Dallas Presbyterian put into to effect. No mandatory training for staff? Mandating minimum standard protective wear? No mandatory seclusion or travel restrictions for close-contact staff? No warning alarm system for the EMR when a symptom cluster presents?

they simply didn't take this threat seriously.

The reality is that no one is going to trust that hospital in the short term - and you have to wonder how many patients are going to receive inadequate care because of the perceived threat of ebola - by either not going to the hospital or making decisions to go to other hospitals.


As for the hospital......

The patient wasn't admitted immediately - and the guy was a poster child for Ebola threat, he ultimately died and at least 2 nurses are now infected, one displaying gross negligence by getting on a damn airplane.

Honestly, can you imagine a hospital doing any worse?

Again, the lady called the CDC multiple times to inquire if she should fly home. SHE WAS TOLD TO FLY BY THE CDC DESPITE HAVING A LOW-GRADE TEMP.

Where's Rancho Loco with his definition of hysteria???

Yup.....lawsuit central is right around the corner. Especially, for those who now die in that hospital.

Like a buddy of mine said last night can't you just imagine those 72 people laughing while putting on their suits and then parading around in front of this guy wanting to see the man with ebola?

Sad but true.

BTW what idiot hospital administrator allows that many people even close to the man???

I was not aware of that. If true that's a level of incompetency I can't imagine

But as a health care professional, why in the world is she calling the CDC to ask if she should fly with a fever after working with an ebola patient?

seriously?

Can you imagine how pissed Jerry Jones is? The Cowboys finally don't stink and everyone's distracted by this pandemic crap.

Well, if you asked YOUR Doctor for advice (so you can be a responsible man) would you trust his word that you were OK enough to travel?? The CDC idiots should literally HANG for this.

Forgive me God...but that right there is funny. Especially, to an NFC East guy!!! Thanks for the laugh.

GO REDSKINS!

And their boss.

I was being very inclusive.

Have you met many people in the healthcare profession?

Ever meet SES level of government employees?

There's your answer.



Travis

My wife works in a Hospital. The DRs in charge of Infectious diseases in this Hospital have set up their Requirements for protection and Containment.

Their requirement go well past the "Minimal" requirements recommended by the CDC.

At a management meeting The DRs were asked why the Need to go to the Extreme if the CDC doesn't require it, it was a money question.

Their reply, was not very flattering towards the CDC. One comment was made, watch the CDC workers on the TV, see any of them parading around in "Minimal" protection, yet they recommend "Minimal" for the rest of us?

It is almost as if the CDC and our Federal Government wants this to spread.

I have to agree with Trav on this one.

Most of the "health care professionals" I know are neither "professional" nor all that intelligent. I mean no disrespect to nurses who I know and trust to behave responsibly and professionally, but this Dallas-Ohio nurse's idiotic and irresponsible travel behavior was about what I'd expect for the average RN.

You can't blame the CDC for this mess. The nurse knew she was sick. She knew she'd been exposed to Ebola. If she had a shred of sense and real education (most nurses have very little real medical science education) she would have taken personal responsibility for this and would not have gone out in public.

The key to defeating this outbreak is application of sound public health procedures and and acceptance of personal responsibility by every member of the public, including (perhaps especially) healthcare workers.

WTF Doc! News flash - the poor average RN called the CDC more than once, told them all of the relevant facts and the country's foremost EBOLA experts told her it was fine to travel by air.

Can't blame the CDC my azz!

that's like a garage mechanic asking a GM technician if he should change the oil in the car.

It shouldn't have to be asked, regardless of the careless response. Then again, this is the hospital that told a guy from Africa who complained of ebola like symptoms to go home.

With all due respect Doc, you're talking about a country where the majority of voters went for Zero. I don't think as a country, we're big on personal responsibility right now.

If I had been in contact with the ebola patient, I would have not flown for a month and made sure I was somewhat self quarantined anyway. It would be a responsible move for a caregiver IMHO

Great answer!!

Actually, we should keep in mind that when she called the CDC, she almost certainly didn't get to talk to one of the scientists on the Ebola team.

She most likely talked to a telephone operator with a high school education and a photocopied script of "talking points."

Hasn't Dallas always been a state of disaster anyway?




Travis

In all fairness Dave, you tend to pick on Texans a lot....

Well, the cowboys have been. At least for quite awhile.

After watching the news the past five days, I can't imagine why.

Laughin'....




Travis

meanwhile - at DFW,( if you don't see it right away, keep looking)

Too fuggin' funny....




Travis

In all fairness, Dallas ain't TEXAS.

Ft Worth??????? Now THAT'S part of Texas.

What about Laredo, Eagle Pass, Carrizo, Brownsville, Austin, San Antonio...?





Travis

I just lost a ton of respect for you. She was given instructions by the CDC. She followed them to a letter.

Blaming everyone else when they [bleep] up apparently is what doctors do almost universally.

Let me see if I understand this. This is the same CDC that earlier this year lost/misplaced dangerous samples not once but at least 2 (reported) separate times, have repeatedly tried to get ammunition declared a health risk and the current head is a former NY medical official who's claim to fame is outlawing trans-fats, secondhand smoke, and big gulps is the unquestioned source of how to prevent the spread of Ebola. What could possibly go wrong.

I don't care WHAT CDC told they nurse, they are stupid and WHY does she need to hear from them what she obviously already knew?

It's no different than the World Trade Center. A plane fly into one tower and they announced in the other tower that everything is ok. [bleep] you, I'm out of there.

She KNEW something wasn't right, if she didn't she wouldn't have called CDC.

CDC and the nurse were BOTH wrong.

NOT Austin.

West of US 281 puts you in shore nuff Texas.

Sums it up very well.




Travis

Agree but Doc R put all the blame on the nurse.

Down here in Texas the word is that there are at least four more nurses and a doctor who tended to Duncan who are now running fever.

I'm betting that nurse is a dimocrap. She sure didn't want to stay in Cleveland to be buried, though.

You can't have it both ways. If she is just an ignorant bedpan emptier, then why the hell shouldn't she listen to what the CDC tells her to do?

I think Doc should just do all of his med administration, assessments, and cares without the aid of nursing if he gets any Ebola patients where he works.

who here would get on a plane with a fever after wiping up blood/diarrhea/vomit of a guy that just died of Ebola?


I'm putting about 99% of the blame on the nurse.

Yep......Mr. Clipboard. He's probably upper management so procedures don't apply......

Yes, no, maybe. Perhaps, if the CDC and the talking heads would have taken this seriously and actually communicated hiw dangerous this disease is instead of downaying it constantly.

I mean just look at this board and other places, I would say the medical people have been a lot less concerned with it than the average person and throwing out terms like "fear monger" pretty readily.

No, I didn't. I pointed out the nurse's culpability, which was substantial.

If it makes you feel better, I'll enumerate a bunch more of the players that were patently negligent in this particular instance. Start with Presbyterian Hospital, its ER docs/nurses, and its Infection Control people, when the index case presented to their ER, for multiple failures in treating him, isolating him, and then failing to adequately control & educate their staff on prevention of further infections. Continue with Dallas' public health department, and the state of Texas' public health authority. Blame the Federal govt for failing to adequately fund public health for the past 30 years (cuts to the CDC budget alone have been criminally negligent). Blame WHO, and UNICEF, and the International Red Cross for their failure to address the outbreak in west Africa adequately; but if we blame them, we have to blame the UN and the world of Nations at large for failing to provide adequate funding to these organizations, much in the same way we have to blame the US feds for our domestic public health underfunding. Blame the greed and avarice of the airlines and the travel industry in general for failing to adequately protect healthy passengers from infected persons travelling out of west Africa and out of Dallas.

There's lots of blame to go around. Those players are just the tip of the iceberg.

Just because I pointed out the stupid behavior of the nurse who flew back from Ohio doesn't mean I think she's the only person who is at fault here. But come on... does anyone here on the 24HCF actually think that if they call the CDC's public phone line they're going to get to talk to a doctor or scientist who really knows about Ebola? Of course you won't! You'll get to talk to a telephone operator who maybe has a high school diploma and a set of photocopied talking points.

Asking the CDC for personal health advice, as this nurse did, is like calling the North Pole and expecting to talk to Santa.

Where dd you hear that

It it has not hit Houston yet

Snake

A friend of mine is rather high up in the administration of another hospital. That is the word going around. And with what we know about the way he was treated I see no reason to doubt her and figure it will end up being more than that in the end.

With all due respect, Doc, in response to the "lack of funding" issues you mention, when part of the funds they DID get were spent promoting an anti gun agenda, I ain't at all hossin' to give 'em more.

goalie, don't think I haven't done (and still do) a helluva lot of that stuff myself. Part of the reason I left big city hospital practice to work in the sticks was so I could feel like part of a team again... and me and my nurses and techs ARE a team. We all get our gloves dirty.

Like I said in the post you objected to, I meant no disrespect to the nursing profession in general, but the nurse in question here did something MOST nurses I know would NEVER do. (You should see how badly this nurse is being excoriated by other nurses on internet forums right now!)

I apologize if my earlier post was taken as a slam against nurses in general, it was not intended as such. It could just as easily been an unprofessional doctor who committed this gross error, I know enough MD's who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag.

Guy with the clipboard and no suit is obviously a Mason...

Sure you can.

WTF did she call the CDC if she didn't already have a concern?

PEOPLE are ultimately responsible for THEIR actions, not a person at the switchboard. Again, the INDIVIDUAL is ultimately responsible.

'I was just following orders' is a BULLSHEIT excuse. Always has been, always will be.

I honestly thought someone had photoshopped Obama into the picture.

Fault? Arguing over fault at this point is like the passengers and crew of the Titanic arguing who was at fault for not seeing or avoiding the iceberg about 20 minutes after impact.

Let the survivors worry about fault later.

holy [bleep]

--------------
The 3-day window of Sept. 28-30 is now being targeted by investigators for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the key time during which health care workers may have been exposed to the deadly virus by Duncan, who died Oct. 8 from the disease.

Duncan was suspected of having Ebola when he was admitted to a hospital isolation unit Sept. 28, and he developed projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea later that day, according to medical records his family turned over to The Associated Press.

But workers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas did not abandon their gowns and scrubs for hazmat suits until tests came back positive for Ebola about 2 p.m. on Sept. 30, according to details of the records released by AP.

People are responsible for their own actions but up until the last few days the CDC and the media made this thing out to be something that only semi-literate witch doctors in Africa had to worry about and that pretty much the standard protocols used for treating almost any patient over here would work.

A lot of arrogance without much knowledge of what has actually been happening in Africa.

You don't think the CDC gave the caregivers a special number to call?

Don't worry, he ate his Cheerios this morning. Good to go.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if in the end it turns out that one of the main honchos okayed her request.

Is the nurse hot?




Travis

I'm not keen on the CDC's politicized role in the gun control debate, but keep in mind that that was/is a tiny part of what CDC really does.

CDC's underfunding goes back to the 80's. Example: They desperately needed to build new state-of-the-art viral studies lab buildings at the BL-3 and BL-4 levels back in the late 80's, and Congress gave them $90 million toward that (about half of waht was needed). Before CDC could use that money as intended, Congress took half of that money away for "budget cuts".

It hasn't got any better since then, as far as I can ascertain.

I have no idea if they did or didn't, but I suspect they had/have other priorities and expected the people at Presbyterian and at Dallas Health Dept to handle those sorts of questions.

I would be VERY surprised if that were the case.

A couple of things that were readily apparent in previous Ebola outbreaks, and have been active in west Africa during the current outbreak:

1) Media frenzy provides a lot of misinformation to the public and creates local panics.
2) Conspiracy theorists accuse their own governments/authorities of deliberatley causing the epidemic.
3) Families and friends of Ebola victims accuse the healthcare workers actually treating sick people of deliberately killing their loved ones.

There's a lot of paranoia going on here.

Clearly a "disaster", I suspect we will see close to a dozen health care workers involved in the initial case infected with ebola.

No Doc, we most certainly can blame the CDC for this. The "minimum requirements" for PPE that they put out are absolutely foolish.


We can blame the hospital for allowing the care givers involved to leave the hospital and not quarantine them for 30 days

Well, she initially had a fever of 99.5 degrees when she traveled to Ohio and then she got sicker, so one can assume it went up from there. So to answer your question, she was hot and then got hotter.

Not confirmed, but supposedly there are a husband and wife in isolation in Midland showing Ebola-like symptoms, that were in the ER in Dallas at Presbyterian the same time as Duncan.

Cripes...

False Alarm..."Two People Tested Negative For Ebola at Midland Memorial Hospital"

http://www.newswest9.com/story/2679...e-for-ebola-at-midland-memorial-hospital

So, have they declared the state of emergency yet?

DocRocket

even a few short years ago, I would have agreed. Now, with the track record of this administration with regards to doing America harm, I pretty much believe that the American government is complicit, with malicious intent, in allowing Ebola to come her to this Country.

They certainly are complicit in the Entervirus D68 epidemic spreading. You can trace each outbreak back to locations across the Country, where obama dropped off Central American children.

Did anyone mention that 3 Belton Tx schools are shut down
today to clean and disinfect? Two students were on the same
flight as the nurse.

Sadly, there are not many like you are describing left in the country..............personal responsibility is a thing of the past for at least 50% of the population.

MM

A student at Yale might have it...


NEW HAVEN, Conn. � A Yale University student who recently traveled to Liberia is being evaluated for Ebola-like symptoms, according to a report from Connecticut's NBC affiliate.

Thomas Balcezak, chief medical officer for Yale-New Haven Hospital, said at a press conference Thursday that the patient was in "good condition" and remained in isolation at the facility.

NBC Connecticut reported that the patient was a researcher from Yale University, but hospital officials would not confirm that during the press conference, citing patient privacy concerns.

Balcezak said the patient had recently returned from Africa and had been monitoring their symptoms since their return. He said the patient contacted their primary physician as soon as they came down with a fever, and was quickly admitted for emergency care. Officials had not yet confirmed the patient had contracted Ebola, but a specimen was collected and sent to a testing facility in Massachusetts.

�We�re expecting that we should have the preliminary results to this test sometime in the next 24 hours,� Balcezak said.

New Haven Mayor Toni Harp told reporters that officials got news that the patient was exhibiting symptoms Wednesday evening.

�We hope this is not an Ebola case, and right now there is no reason to believe, but we are taking these precautions,� Harp said.

Richard D'Aquila, the hospital�s chief operating officer, said the facility was "well prepared to handle an event like this, adding that the facility had been preparing for dealing with Ebola cases �for weeks.�

If word got out about this it might spark a bonna fide panic in the local population. Maybe that is why the word is not getting out.

Very glad to hear it was a false alarm. I don't want it to spread anywhere near me, especially since my wife works in health care.

OK. I've been a little busy to check in. I see that full scale panic has set in amongst the fear mongers.

First, Ebola is not airborne, and with a very high degree of probability it will never develop that capability and if it by some miracle does, it almost certainly will simultaneously become less lethal and less infectious. If you doubt this find one (single) other example of a virus becoming airborne and more lethal. The example doesn't exist.

Ebola IS highly infectious, make no mistake about that, and it's killing about half of those infected give or take some on any given day. The tissues it attacks do not lend them selves to producing airborne virus particles. The excreta does not lend itself to producing airborne particles within the viable lifetime of the virus particles. Probability greatly favors greatly reduced production of viral particles in tissues that enhance the airborne capability of the virus.

If you do get exposed, or have reason to suspect exposure...

Check into a motel. Have five gallons of bleach, disposable clothing, a five gallon bucket, a clothes storage size plastic bin, a thermometer, and a sheet of poly delivered outside the door. Quarantine yourself. Disinfect every thing you brought through the door with a 10% bleach solution and that includes every inch of your skin. If you make it two weeks without a fever you're almost certainly safe, and so is your family.

This is not going to get out of control here. The breakdowns of Dallas have been noted and duly committed to adjusted practice. What happened in Dallas was cavalier treatment by physicians who did not appreciate the opponent. A lot of them are [bleep] bricks now, and rightly so.

This would be an appropriate time to offer up a prayer or two for DocRocket. He's less than 1/4 of the way through what I consider one of the most important public health books ever written and at the same time one of the most brutal books ever written. He's in too far to back out, and he's got most of the mountain ahead yet. When he gets done, there's a lot of cogitating to do and then a reread and gathering of cites and references. He's on a manly mission and it'll take him a lot of time. He needs support. Warned he was before he began, but he's a man of courage and he took the job on.

Nope, and they are not going to...

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/eb...ainst-ebola-disaster-declaration-n227571

Just for the record I double checked what "ebola like symptoms" are:

Nausea and vomiting
Diarrhea, may be bloody
Red eyes
Stomach pain
Bleeding and bruising

Shoot, sounds like me after any good night out at the bars...

Coming to VA now too?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...e-5565-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html

I posted it on another thread but I will post it here also.I question my daughter pretty much everyday.She works in the hospital complex.I got a little upset and mentioned how the hospital messed up.She jumped back at me saying how CDC had been calling the shots from day one.The hospital just followed orders.I didnt know it worked like that.It seems that most people that work there are really put off with CDC.

Keep in mind that medical policy and regulations are vested in the states; the Federal agencies only act as monitors. In this case, Texas was responsible for regulating the hospital and its operations, not the CDC; although the CDC certainly did not cover itself with glory.