Should the Ebola infected Americans be allowed in US?
- Thread starter Warborg
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A'ight, - I was wondering when this would pop up on this board.
Dr. Kent Brantly is already at Emory Univerity hospital, within walking distance of my workplace. He was transported here in a specially designed Gulfstream jet that flies out of an airport in Cartersville, an hour and a half north by driving of metro Atlanta. Inside that jet was an isolation chamber that can be slid in and out of the jet. He was doing well enough that he was able to be suited up in an isolation suit, and (very slowly) walked from the ambulance into the hospital. That is the how.
But why???? Seems to be the resounding question. It turns out this medevac has been done before with other American nationals infected with other hemorrhagic fevers, like Marburg and Lassa Fever. The care they can receive here /is/ vastly superior - here, we still have rule of law. There are no machete gangs attacking hospitals to free sick patients, nor do we have people setting the frickin' quarantine rooms ON FIRE. We also do not have the habit of bathing and handing our dearly deceased before burying them ourselves. We are much, much better off bringing them back to the US this way instead of them coming finding their way back on their own.
This gives us time to train EMTs, emergency room doctors, and urgent care clinics for what to look for.
As for the anthrax at CDC issue, that was something that very easily could have been swept under the rug. Instead, they jumped all over it. No one was infected -- all the prescriptions for antibiotics were prophylactic. The one lab (there are three groups that work with anthrax) is shut down until further notice. All the samples of the rooms came back negative for any spores. Additionally, the strain used was NOT the weaponized, easily inhaled type that is studied by USAMRIID. The lapse is so sensational because of how uncharacteristic it is -- and the other unaffected labs will be even more careful than they already were.
A more correct version of the fish room analogy would be: bring home sick fish, quarantine it, do not share or reuse nets or water, treat, wait, and once cured (it takes Ebola about 7 weeks to be cleared from survivors' body fluids), then finally put it in your tanks.
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Dr. Kent Brantly is already at Emory Univerity hospital, within walking distance of my workplace. He was transported here in a specially designed Gulfstream jet that flies out of an airport in Cartersville, an hour and a half north by driving of metro Atlanta. Inside that jet was an isolation chamber that can be slid in and out of the jet. He was doing well enough that he was able to be suited up in an isolation suit, and (very slowly) walked from the ambulance into the hospital. That is the how.
But why???? Seems to be the resounding question. It turns out this medevac has been done before with other American nationals infected with other hemorrhagic fevers, like Marburg and Lassa Fever. The care they can receive here /is/ vastly superior - here, we still have rule of law. There are no machete gangs attacking hospitals to free sick patients, nor do we have people setting the frickin' quarantine rooms ON FIRE. We also do not have the habit of bathing and handing our dearly deceased before burying them ourselves. We are much, much better off bringing them back to the US this way instead of them coming finding their way back on their own.
This gives us time to train EMTs, emergency room doctors, and urgent care clinics for what to look for.
As for the anthrax at CDC issue, that was something that very easily could have been swept under the rug. Instead, they jumped all over it. No one was infected -- all the prescriptions for antibiotics were prophylactic. The one lab (there are three groups that work with anthrax) is shut down until further notice. All the samples of the rooms came back negative for any spores. Additionally, the strain used was NOT the weaponized, easily inhaled type that is studied by USAMRIID. The lapse is so sensational because of how uncharacteristic it is -- and the other unaffected labs will be even more careful than they already were.
A more correct version of the fish room analogy would be: bring home sick fish, quarantine it, do not share or reuse nets or water, treat, wait, and once cured (it takes Ebola about 7 weeks to be cleared from survivors' body fluids), then finally put it in your tanks.
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sounds to me like the death toll for 11 YEARS on your great tragedy is 386?,, more people die every year from the flu...where's the stack of dead people? as far as the TB OUTBREAK... bus crashes kill more people.....still pretty much sensationalism with no real concept the everyday consequence of disease....more people die of heart disease in EVERY major city EVERY DAY, THAN DIED IN THIS WHOLE "OUTBREAK" let's talk about a real health risk instead...morbid obesity kills more people EVERY DAY than the entirety of your supporting "evidence"has in over a DECADE...NEXT BATTER ..Nothin' against the poster but TWINKIES kill more people
Oh! And the swine/monkey airborne transmission angle. The virus is spread through aerosol droplets, and is not truly airborne. It must remain moist, one of the many reasons that burning of contaminated materials (and the deceased) is a preferred disposal method. The distinction between aerosolized and airborne may be hard to understand, but I can try to explain. With Ebola Reston, the sick monkey spread it to its cagemates first, then it spread to surrounding cages. The entire facility of 20,000 shrieking spitting, vomiting, pissing monkeys eventually did get infected, even across rooms, but this has more to do with 1.) the tremendous amount of particles being flung up into the air, 2.) the humidity of the air, 3.) the exposure time up to days, and 4.) (Maybe?) the relatively poor air handling in the primate warehouse.
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Also, TB isn't secret, it's reported on every week in MMWR. That failing has more to do with the media's priorities.
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A bit of good news: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0G307Y20140803?irpc=932
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Hello; Your take on the "Why" is well stated. That the infected patient will get better care in the US facility is not disputed but is not the query of this thread. There are some that feel the better course would have been to treat the infected people where they were and not take the inherent risk involved with transport and having the individuals around with a large virus load. That, so far, the process seems to have gone well does not alter the fact that some level of risk is involved. You seem knowledgable so can likely think of a number of ways this can go wrong, as can I. Let us wait for three weeks before knowing how well this will play out.
The anthrax episode indeed has not resulted in any reported infections. That the CDC was lucky in this respect is not the point. That the anthrax was mis-handled in the first place is the point of concern. If a mistake is made and no one gets hurt is good but it does not change the fact that the mistake was made.
The CDC is a competent outfit and may pull this off. But there is a valid argument in keeping such a virus away from anyplace where it does not already exist.
Hello; You make a decent explaination for how the virus may have gotten from one infected animal to another with no direct contact. That it happened that way may well be the case. It this determined to be the path of infection for sure? However the circumstances described are not especially unique.
The aerosol droplets could be from a sneeze in a high humidity place, like a fish room or public aquarium. I imagine there are a number of high humidity locations where people are fairly close to each other for a time and some do sneeze. An airplane perhaps?
The main point, to me at least, is that an animal some distance away from the infected animal caught the virus apparently with no direct contact of bodily fluids. It happened is the issue. How it happened is important to understand but does not take away from the implications in that it indeed did happen.
To answer the question just because this has become a fun thread I do not personally feel they should have brought the patient back to the US. I feel it is silly to bring a patient into a densely populated environment even with quarantine especially after the mishandling of Anthrax by the CDC labs recently. I am not saying it is not possible to contain the Virus, but is it smart to bring them to the mainland? I understand completely all of the points that have been made about technology and how we are better suited here to treat the virus than in a small African village, but still you always have to think of worst case scenario. This isn't about who has seen I am legend the most or other comments that have been used to try and make it seem like a non-issue. What it is about is always being prepared for every situation. Since they were dead set on bringing the doctor home they should have set him up on an island on a US territory with medical equipment prepared. Or at a island base of some sort. Some place secure and not a major population center. Once again let me make this very clear I am not arguing it can not be contained or that they aren't taking precautions. I am speaking from a logical standpoint.
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