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CDC: First Ebola case is diagnosed in the US (Dallas)

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Stet

Banned
Isn't that what we already knew though? What the CDC says is basically fluids being swapped. It's not sneezing itself, but it's getting the mucus from them on you (coming into contact with fluids). That's not the same thing as being airborn, or not knowing how it spreads entirely. Isn't this in line with what we've already known?

Yes, and this quote is super disingenuous on behalf of the reporter:

What Bailey learned from the episode informs his suspicion that the current strain of Ebola afflicting humans might be spread through tiny liquid droplets propelled into the air by coughing or sneezing.

"We know for a fact that the virus occurs in sputum and no one has ever done a study [disproving that] coughing or sneezing is a viable means of transmitting," he said. Unqualified assurances that Ebola is not spread through the air, Bailey said, are "misleading."

That last sentence is completely paraphrased. The only word that has validity is "misleading," and we have no assurance that the rest of the sentence has anything to do with the virus being anywhere close to airborne.
 

legacyzero

Banned

Mononoke

Banned
Yes, and this quote is super disingenuous on behalf of the reporter:



That last sentence is completely paraphrased. The only word that has validity is "misleading," and we have no assurance that the rest of the sentence has anything to do with the virus being anywhere close to airborne.

Thanks. I guess I was just confused by the LA time article. So basically, same old same old.
 

Phreaker

Member
Thanks. I guess I was just confused by the LA time article. So basically, same old same old.

Yes and no. Some scientist who study Ebloa felt the CDC saying you can't catch it by sitting next to someone on a plane or that you can't get it from someone that is asymptomatic might be premature.

I think it's a good sign though that none of Duncan's family has come down with it. They were in the apartment with him for days while he was ill before they knew it was Ebola. It has not been 21 days yet, but I've read the incubation period is usually 5-10 days.

AmeriCares is another great organization helping to fight Ebola in Africa: http://www.americares.org/
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
is the current human body completely doomed against this virus?

is the way it attacks our system too strong for any anti-biotic we may think up?
 

Phreaker

Member
is the current human body completely doomed against this virus?

is the way it attacks our system too strong for any anti-biotic we may think up?

No, some people survive. Your chances are better if you are receiving good medical care.

Antibiotics do not work against viruses. They are working on other medicines and a vaccine though.
 

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
No, some people survive. Your chances are better if you are receiving good medical care.

Antibiotics do not work against viruses. They are working on other medicines and a vaccine though.

This! I gets me so pissed off when people take anti-biotics for the common flu.
 

Chumly

Member
Wait wait wait.. I think people need to look into Nigeria. Not only did Nigeria respond amazingly quick, they immediately nipped it in the bud and had systems on top of systems actively working since the first case. Unlike the USA. It was not wide spread in Nigeria. If this is understood, disregard my comment. But it seems that people think that Nigeria had 1000's of cases that they resolved. They had.. 20. All under observation. Not denying healtchare to them, and sending them on their way with Antibiotics. No, a team of 150 people worked to trace everyone and their grandmothers immediately. No one debating about cleaning up after the victim. Just how it should be done, under the best case scenario of identifying someone with an illness immediately. Not sending them home.

Feel free to use Nigeria as an example of how to do it right. The United States hasn't followed in its efforts that appease concern, at all. The USA isn't Nigeria, in the way the USA is dropping the ball. Not by a long shot. And these problems do reflect problems with our healtchare system in general. That are going to be nationwide occurrences unless there is federal action to get hospitals all on the same page -- but we have states that all do things differently.

The way some people speak about Nigeria is as if it was as widespread as it is in other areas, like Liberia. Their actions spoke louder than all of the talk from other nations.


good idea.

Honestly I not for sure what you are trying to get at. Everyone knows that Nigeria only had 20 cases. To claim that the United States hasn't done proper procedures to contain the disease is laughable. In fact its down right dangerous to start spreading such ridiculous fear among the population. There was a screw up and the only person that has gotten infected from it is one nurse.

I was merely trying to point out that the disease can be contained even in extremely dense third world countries. Even if it spread to India or China it is containable. Thats not to say that there could be initial mess ups and a few more people get infected. Just like what happened in Nigeria with the person escaping they ended up with 20 cases but managed to completely shut down transmission. Now the only way it will spread in that country again is if another infected person comes.
 
I've got a friend telling me Chattanooga Memorial is on lockdown due to a suspected case.

So far I can't find anything about this online at all, except for a story about the hospital performing an ebola preparedness drill a week ago.

Stet says everything is fine. Relax.

Stet would probably say this story doesn't exist yet.

Edit: Found two or three Twitter mentions, hospital says they are very confident the patient does not have ebola. Now Stet would say everything is fine.
 

jmdajr

Member
A lot of these scares are not even being reported by the media. I guess that's good that most if not all have turned out to be nothing.
 

Nivash

Member
Why again is it a bad idea to restrict travel from countries dealing with Ebola?

Because of several reasons.

1) It wouldn't work. People would just find some way to travel through some other country first. All you would do is give people a reason to lie and make it more difficult to diagnose or track potential cases.

2) It would seriously hurt both the affected countries' economies and the ability of the WHO and other organizations to respond to the outbreak. Travel ban means no trade and no supplies or assistance. This would actually worsen the outbreak and lead to a higher risk of future cases in other nations.

3) It would have a not-negligible effect on the economy of the US and other countries. US trade with Liberia was worth $270 million of which $173 million was export, trade with Guinea was worth $179 million of which $80 million was export and trade with Sierra Leone was worth $124 million of which $83 million was export. That's over half a billion worth of total trade and a third of a billion in exports right there that you would wipe out overnight. We're talking thousands of potential jobs lost in an economy that's not exactly in the best shape.

And say it spreads to Nigeria again and that they can't control it as easily this time. That's $18.2 billion dollars in trade. Nigeria is the 35th largest trading partner of the US. $11.6 billion of that is oil imports, so expect a small oil crisis on top of the other negative effects.

Basically: travel bans are dumb. They don't work, they make things worse and can be ridiculously costly in our globalized world.
 

Konka

Banned
So far I can't find anything about this online at all, except for a story about the hospital performing an ebola preparedness drill a week ago.



Stet would probably say this story doesn't exist yet.

Edit: Found two or three Twitter mentions, hospital says they are very confident the patient does not have ebola. Now Stet would say everything is fine.

Well. I am for one shocked.
 
Because of several reasons.

1) It wouldn't work. People would just find some way to travel through some other country first. All you would do is give people a reason to lie and make it more difficult to diagnose or track potential cases.

2) It would seriously hurt both the affected countries' economies and the ability of the WHO and other organizations to respond to the outbreak. Travel ban means no trade and no supplies or assistance. This would actually worsen the outbreak and lead to a higher risk of future cases in other nations.

3) It would have a not-negligible effect on the economy of the US and other countries. US trade with Liberia was worth $270 million of which $173 million was export, trade with Guinea was worth $179 million of which $80 million was export and trade with Sierra Leone was worth $124 million of which $83 million was export. That's over half a billion worth of total trade and a third of a billion in exports right there that you would wipe out overnight. We're talking thousands of potential jobs lost in an economy that's not exactly in the best shape.

It would not be perfect, but I think restricting air travel from Liberia etc. until the respective outbreaks in their countries are over is the right thing to do.
 

reckless

Member
Because of several reasons.

1) It wouldn't work. People would just find some way to travel through some other country first. All you would do is give people a reason to lie and make it more difficult to diagnose or track potential cases.

How, is there really gonna be some underground transportation system for poor people, that are deathly ill?

And due ti the time to travel and the incubation time it would be easy to actually see if the people were infected because they would be more likely to show symptoms by then.

2) It would seriously hurt both the affected countries' economies and the ability of the WHO and other organizations to respond to the outbreak. Travel ban means no trade and no supplies or assistance. This would actually worsen the outbreak and lead to a higher risk of future cases in other nations.

You can just ban non-essential / non - aid travel.

3) It would have a not-negligible effect on the economy of the US and other countries. US trade with Liberia was worth $270 million of which $173 million was export, trade with Guinea was worth $179 million of which $80 million was export and trade with Sierra Leone was worth $124 million of which $83 million was export. That's over half a billion worth of total trade and a third of a billion in exports right there that you would wipe out overnight. We're talking thousands of potential jobs lost in an economy that's not exactly in the best shape.
The grand scheme of things that is a very little money for the U.S. And the way things are going, we're gonna lose out on a lot of that trade anyways once the government in Liberia starts collapsing.

And say it spreads to Nigeria again and that they can't control it as easily this time. That's $18.2 billion dollars in trade. Nigeria is the 35th largest trading partner of the US. $11.6 billion of that is oil imports, so expect a small oil crisis on top of the other negative effects.
Basically: travel bans are dumb. They don't work, they make things worse and can be ridiculously costly in our globalized world.
Most people talking about travel bans are talking about commercial air travel, most trade is done by ships and these are easier to track and monitor contacts of those possibly infected.
 

Nivash

Member
How, is there really gonna be some underground transportation system for poor people, that are deathly ill?

And due ti the time to travel and the incubation time it would be easy to actually see if the people were infected because they would be more likely to show symptoms by then.

You can just ban non-essential / non - aid travel.

The grand scheme of things that is a very little money for the U.S. And the way things are going, we're gonna lose out on a lot of that trade anyways once the government in Liberia starts collapsing.

Most people talking about travel bans are talking about commercial air travel, most trade is done by ships and these are easier to track and monitor contacts of those possibly infected.

Who needs an underground system? Just take the plane to another country that isn't on the list first. Unless you're talking about some global travel ban but then you're basically sentencing the outbreak nations to starve to death because you just killed all trade. And no, you can't just do a "light" travel band. It's not how things work.

You know what, just read this. It's written by a CDC director that I'm probably just paraphrasing anyway.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014...-support-travel-ban-to-combat-ebola-outbreak/

Also this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...da2974-26f2-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html
 

Raist

Banned
It would not be perfect, but I think restricting air travel from Liberia etc. until the respective outbreaks in their countries are over is the right thing to do.

People could just travel by train or anything else to a neighbouring country with 0 Ebola cases (such as Mali, Ivory Coast, etc). What to do then? Ban these countries as well? And where do you draw the line?
Forbidding entire countries' population to travel because 0.01% to 0.1% of the population has been infected over almost a year is just crazy.
 
People could just travel by train or anything else to a neighbouring country with 0 Ebola cases (such as Mali, Ivory Coast, etc). What to do then? Ban these countries as well? And where do you draw the line?
Forbidding entire countries' population to travel because 0.01% to 0.1% of the population has been infected over almost a year is just crazy.

Don't you need a passport for travel?
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Ebola could lead to failed states

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29603818

The Ebola epidemic threatens the "very survival" of societies and could lead to failed states, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

"I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries," she said. "I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure."

She warned of the economic impact of "rumours and panic spreading faster than the virus", citing a World Bank estimate that 90% of the cost of the outbreak would arise from "irrational attempts of the public to avoid infection".

Ms Chan also criticised pharmaceutical firms for not focusing on Ebola, condemning a "profit-driven industry [that] does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay".
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Weren't WHO the ones who were constantly trying to incite a panic with swine flu (I remember even at the time thinking their proclamations were very odd) and then it got found it that they have a bunch of ties to pharma?
http://www.bbc.com/news/10235558

CDC seems pretty good though.
 

Stet

Banned
Criticizing pharmaceutical firms for not focusing on areas that can't pay is kind of ridiculous. They're not going to pay 10 billion out of their own pocket to develop, trial and bring to market a new drug for zero profit.

Criticize governments for not subsidizing scientific research enough, or criticize the FDA and the marketplace for making the D part of R&D so expensive.
 
So it's not just banning travel from a country, it's basically discrimination based on place of birth then. What about people with a passport from X living in countries Y?

I'm not sure where this is going/insinuating? Restricting travel from countries that are part of the outbreak is good public safety policy.

We restrict travel to Cuba because of a decades old pissing match.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Criticizing pharmaceutical firms for not focusing on areas that can't pay is kind of ridiculous. They're not going to pay 10 billion out of their own pocket to develop, trial and bring to market a new drug for zero profit.

Criticize governments for not subsidizing scientific research enough, or criticize the FDA and the marketplace for making the D part of R&D so expensive.

Criticize governments for not producing their own drugs you mean. Yes.
 

reckless

Member
Who needs an underground system? Just take the plane to another country that isn't on the list first. Unless you're talking about some global travel ban but then you're basically sentencing the outbreak nations to starve to death because you just killed all trade. And no, you can't just do a "light" travel band. It's not how things work.

You know what, just read this. It's written by a CDC director that I'm probably just paraphrasing anyway.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014...-support-travel-ban-to-combat-ebola-outbreak/

Also this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...da2974-26f2-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html
How is that not how things work?
Just have a commercial air travel ban, hell a lot of air lines are already voluntarily doing that due to the risk. That greatly reduces the ability for the virus to spread to far away places.
And that doesn't kill all trade, trade is not done by commercial air travel.

Have land borders restricted but open and monitored like they are now and monitor ships coming from the area.
 

Stet

Banned
Criticize governments for not producing their own drugs you mean. Yes.

Governments don't produce drugs. Scientists do. They need to get paid for their research. They can either get paid with fellowship grants or by pharmaceutical companies who buy their research and then front the billions to bring the drug to market.

If you don't want to be beholden to pharmaceutical companies, you'll need to find another way to pay those billions, or lower the price.
 

KHarvey16

Member
Fair enough as I haven't read everything written in the thread. I still never say never, though. To offer a deliberately unlikely example (as all black swans are by definition, and an ebola outbreak in the US would be a black swan given the insistence of its impossibility), say a massive solar storm disrupts electric power distribution two days after four people are infected in a major urban center. Or take any other natural disaster that disrupts social systems and strains emergency response, etc. The point is that it is so improbable it would be silly to worry about it, however, it certainly can happen. Think on Fukushima's planned robustness to earthquake shock and the results when the shock was accompanied by a tsunami.

Well certainly anything is technically possible, but any event becomes less likely the more improbable events you layer into it.

One fortunate characteristic of ebola is that it's not contagious until a person develops symptoms, which means even if something extremely unlikely happens we won't have large swaths of population suddenly becoming sick. It's not terribly contagious to begin with, and slow enough that adapting to some natural disaster or other event that changes the variables drastically isn't as difficult as it might otherwise be.


It sounds like she's suggesting the collapse would be due to fear and panic, not the virus itself.
 

Nivash

Member
Weren't WHO the ones who were constantly trying to incite a panic with swine flu (I remember even at the time thinking their proclamations were very odd) and then it got found it that they have a bunch of ties to pharma?
http://www.bbc.com/news/10235558

CDC seems pretty good though.

I think the WHO was right about H1N1. It was an almost completely new agent seemingly created by mixing the genetic materials from four known flu strands and the early reports out of Mexico were chilling as they indicated unusually severe illness and deaths in young adults. It basically looked like a repeat of the Spanish Flu that killed 50 to 100 million people in 1918 - it had a case fatality rate of 10-20 % and ended up killing between 3-6 % of the total global population. It handily outclassed WW1.

Epidemiologists worldwide have been dreading a repeat of the Spanish Flu ever since. We know that we have no better treatment for influenza than for Ebola, because we still have no direct way of attacking viruses. We know that isolation and quarantine are pointless because it's airborne and spreads before the patient develops symptoms, and contact tracing is futile because there are just too many possible exposures. The only way we can limit an influenza outbreak is by vaccinating as many people as possible before the pandemic reaches them.

But influenza spreads like the wind. The first case was in March in Mexico and it had already reached the US by March 7th, before the WHO was even aware of it. By the end of April it was spreading through Europe and there were cases in South Africa. By the end of May it was present in 62 countries and was present on every continent. That's just three months. If you want to even remotely stand a chance at developing a vaccine in time you need to do so immediately and ignore the usual safeguards. This was done and the first vaccine was being distributed by September 21, a record five months after the WHO declared an emergency.

We can't afford to take chances with new flu strains. If the same thing happened again I would expect the WHO to take the exact same stance. We got lucky with H1N1. The early reports out of Mexico turned out not to be indicative of the strains overall case fatality rate. We might not be as lucky next time.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Governments don't produce drugs. Scientists do. They need to get paid for their research. .

Yeah cause when the government does something, it doesn't pay anyone, it holds a gun to their head, right?
 
Well her whole life just got turned upside down. Let's hope for the best.

They don't know what to do with her dog :(


Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins' office confirmed earlier today that the nurse's dog remains in the apartment. Water and food have been delivered for the dog, a King Charles spaniel, and authorities are developing a longer-term plan for how to deal with the dog while it's owner is being treated.

"If that dog has to be the boy in a plastic bubble... We are going to take good care of that dog," Jenkins said earlier today.

Jenkins said the dog would not be euthanized. A dog named Excalibur that belonged to a Spanish nurse with Ebola was destroyed despite a worldwide outcry.
 

Raist

Banned
I'm not sure where this is going/insinuating? Restricting travel from countries that are part of the outbreak is good public safety policy.

We restrict travel to Cuba because of a decades old pissing match.

I don't know where this is going either, because first it was suggested to ban travel from specific countries, which leads to obvious issues, then based on passports which is another can of worms, and now you're going back to banning travel from said countries.

Again, if someone travels first by rail or road to another "non-outbreak" countries, how are you going to stop that. Conversely, why would you stop millions of people from travelling just because one infected person got on a flight to the US.

If you want to implement these kind of extreme measures, then Texas has to be shut down too.
 
I don't know where this is going either, because first it was suggested to ban travel from specific countries, which leads to obvious issues, then based on passports which is another can of worms, and now you're going back to banning travel from said countries.

Again, if someone travels first by rail or road to another "non-outbreak" countries, how are you going to stop that. Conversely, why would you stop millions of people from traveling just because one infected person got on a flight to the US.

If you want to implement these kind of extreme measures, then Texas has to be shut down too.

As far as I know, air travel to the United States from another country requires a passport. This is the gatekeeper for air travel restriction. Hop a train to somewhere else, go to airport, nope sorry can't book a flight with your passport sorry. Inconvenient for those people, yes. Important for ending the epidemic? I think so.
 

KHarvey16

Member
As far as I know, air travel to the United States from another country requires a passport. This is the gatekeeper for air travel restriction. Hop a train to somewhere else, go to airport, nope sorry can't book a flight with your passport sorry. Inconvenient for those people, yes. Important for ending the epidemic? I think so.

There's no epidemic in the US to end.
 

Raist

Banned
As far as I know, air travel to the United States from another country requires a passport. This is the gatekeeper for air travel restriction. Hop a train to somewhere else, go to airport, nope sorry can't book a flight with your passport sorry. Inconvenient for those people, yes. Important for ending the epidemic? I think so.

So once again, how about people with a passport from a specific country who haven't been living in that country for a while?
Your solution basically restricts the right to travel purely based on nationality, irrespective of whether they've been anywhere near their country with an ongoing ebola outbreak.
That's not just restricting travel from a specific part of the world, but purely forbidding travel to people who hold a passport from that region.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Funny how some Gaffers were saying that dedicated Ebola treatment centers was "dumb".

Now: Dedicated Ebola Hospitals Sought After Nurse’s Infection

U.S. and local health officials want to set up dedicated hospitals in each state for Ebola patients, part of a new emphasis on safety for health-care workers after a nurse caring for an infected patient in Dallas tested positive for the virus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also reconsidering its existing infection control protocols and will boost health-worker training with a series of calls and online seminars, officials said today.

It makes no sense to expect your average hospital to not only know but properly apply all safety measures. You need to centralize this.
 

Shiv47

Member
This must be going all guns blazing on right wing media; my father, who's a far right winger, was ranting to me yesterday (the first time we had spoken since the ebola thing blew up in the US) about how the "communist in the White House" didn't know what he was doing with this, and that this was going to explode. Then today he forwards me some email from some email newsletter investor guy with a master's degree in "general science" with advice to buy rubber gloves, bleach, wear gloves and face protection in public, prepare an emergency pantry, etc, IF the disease mutates into an airborne version.
 
This must be going all guns blazing on right wing media; my father, who's a far right winger, was ranting to me yesterday (the first time we had spoken since the ebola thing blew up in the US) about how the "communist in the White House" didn't know what he was doing with this, and that this was going to explode. Then today he forwards me some email from some email newsletter investor guy with a master's degree in "general science" with advice to buy rubber gloves, bleach, wear gloves and face protection in public, prepare an emergency pantry, etc, IF the disease mutates into an airborne version.

My father-in-law is just as unbearable.
 

Stet

Banned
Funny how some Gaffers were saying that dedicated Ebola treatment centers was "dumb".

Now: Dedicated Ebola Hospitals Sought After Nurse’s Infection



It makes no sense to expect your average hospital to not only know but properly apply all safety measures. You need to centralize this.

That's not what "some Gaffers" were saying is dumb. Having one hospital in each state that is 100% confirmed to be able to deal with infectious disease is common sense. Having dedicated Ebola-only hospitals is stupid.
 

sturmdogg

Member
This must be going all guns blazing on right wing media; my father, who's a far right winger, was ranting to me yesterday (the first time we had spoken since the ebola thing blew up in the US) about how the "communist in the White House" didn't know what he was doing with this, and that this was going to explode. Then today he forwards me some email from some email newsletter investor guy with a master's degree in "general science" with advice to buy rubber gloves, bleach, wear gloves and face protection in public, prepare an emergency pantry, etc, IF the disease mutates into an airborne version.

We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola

So it seems the possibility is there?
 
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