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I would imagine the stress of knowing you were in an Ebola infected apartment must be incredible. Officials have said one thing (no risk if not directly in contact with body fluids) but have decontaminated schools, squad cars, taken the ambulance that transported Duncan out of service, etc. Decontamination of the apartment took 3 days. So their actions certainly don't jive with their assurances. And being tight-lipped and giving sketchy details don't help inspire confidence.
Nor does the CDC refusing to answer any questions regarding the patient in Atlanta and ending the press conference immediately after the question was asked. On a smaller scale, here on CD every thread about Ebola in the Dallas thread has been closed. That concerns me, as my son takes the train to work in Dallas every day and is exposed to hundreds of Dallas residents. It's one thing to talk about Ebola when you are sitting hundreds of miles from the source, but quite another when you are in the thick of it and see how local officials are handling this. I wish the moderators would reconsider.
The deputy most likely does not have Ebola. But no one is taking any chances, and you really can't blame them. But with flu season right around the corner, I can only imagine the concern of whether the symptoms are flu or Ebola? ERs are going to be swamped.
There was a blurb on Bloomberg TV that ebola can be transmitted even by people who have been cured. The virus stays alive in their blood and can be transmitted by sex. Maybe other ways too. So they're thinking about telling people who've been cured not to have sex for three months after they're discharged.
And yet HIV has a higher basic reproduction number than Ebola. In other words, the average person with HIV infects more other people than the average person with Ebola.
Why? For one reason, a person with Ebola is infectious for a few weeks, and that's it - they either die or recover. A person with HIV is infectious for the remainder of that person's life - most likely, years, quite possibly many years, and often years before becoming symptomatic.
This makes HIV a disease that is virtually impossible to isolate. Ebola? Not so at all. Which is why, once HIV was introduced to any population, it was inevitable that it would never be isolated. Prevented through a future cure or vaccine? That's possible. Isolation? Impossible. Compare that to Ebola, with which there have been 27 known historical outbreaks (and probably many more before the virus was discovered in the mid-1970s). In 25 of those outbreaks, the spread was quickly contained - the other two are the current outbreaks (one of which, in the Congo, is also probably going to be contained). Except for a few very small outbreaks (often just one person) in labs, in all of these instances the virus had to jump anew from its natural reservoir (believed to be bats).
Ebola is far, far easier to contain than HIV.
I understand that Ebola could be easily contained, but I'm having trouble trusting the CDC to do a good job of it in light of what has happened so far in Dallas, and the fact that they haven't stopped travel. Issuing tourist visas to people from affected countries? Adding enhanced screening at five airports, but not at Houston Intercontinental or D/FW, both of which have direct flights from West Africa (or at least Houston does from Nigeria).
It's already gone beyond the possibility of isolation in Liberia, and cases double every three to four weeks. Even so, we're still apparently allowing travel. So, even if no one around Duncan ends up getting sick, we'll still be waiting on tenterhooks for the next case to inevitably arrive on our shores.
By the way, those other outbreaks were in isolated communities so containment was a lot easier. There was always a fear that once it got to a major city it could get out of control. Yet, we had some time to do something about it in the early days and never did.
Do these people have any idea of how many dogs get euthanized every day? One more really is just a drop in the ocean, especially when it's a possible ebola dog. The things that people pick and choose to be outraged by are so arbitrary.
Its more that irrational, reactionary killing out of nothing more than fear is something governments throughout history have been known for doing, and this is a sensitive topic among those of us with a conscience.
I swear to god America is, for all intents and purposes, a ****ing third world country. Because willfully refusing to protect the country from contamination from ebola infested countries is not a first-worldy thing to do.
What exactly is so hard about it? Should be common sense.
Thanks Obama. We're getting the 'change' you promised!
I think there are federal laws govering quarantine, too.
As a child of the 1960s, I have to say, I agree that we're behaving in many ways like a third-world country. We're now England of the late 1800s, watching the sun set on our hegemoney. It was nice while it lasted.
There was a blurb on Bloomberg TV that ebola can be transmitted even by people who have been cured. The virus stays alive in their blood and can be transmitted by sex. Maybe other ways too. So they're thinking about telling people who've been cured not to have sex for three months after they're discharged.
They're "thinking about it"? I thought they've already been doing that. They've known that the virus lives in the semen for up to seven weeks after recovery. I wonder how they'll make sure that happens though. I'm sure Dr. Brantley will wait, but what about the people who aren't healthcare workers?
And I was wondering if someone recovers from Ebola, does that then mean they are immune to it like chicken pox? Or are there too many different strains for that to be possible? If the Ebola survivors won't get it again, maybe they should be the ones taking care of the new cases.
What threads have been closed on CD? There's quite a few ongoing threads on ebola right now, just look under 'current events' and you'll find them.
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