Ebola In the US: Second Case Diagnosed
A second US Ebola case has been diagnosed. The second case occurred in a healthcare worker who treated Thomas Duncan.
Responsibility for this case belongs to the DC clown krewe in charge current Administration. Had they banned entrance to the US for persons from the countries affected by the outbreak – the same thing that multiple other nations have done, including a number in Africa itself – or imposed a mandatory entrance quarantine for individuals from the outbreak area, this second case would never have happened.
Gee thanks, Mr. President. Are you and your clown krewe compadres subordinates freaking listening yet?
Let’s hope this is the last US case. IMO, if it is we’ll be lucky – and, sadly, I’m afraid we won’t be quite that lucky. I pray I’m wrong.
Fox News has limited further details.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Barack Obama/Joe Biden
Just frigging awesome…
yup.
As I stated before…..if a healthcare worker can contract Ebola in one of the worlds more modern hospitals, then 3000 US Troops heading to Liberia to “fight Ebola” in so much more primitive conditions is simply a disaster waiting for a Hollywood movie title.
I guess this kind of refutes that ‘hard to catch it’ meme, doesn’t it?
I fear for the troops and those exposed here. What about the people on that plane? HFS, Batman!
The people on the plane are almost certainly OK, DefendUSA. He didn’t become symptomatic until some days after arrival in the US, and Ebola isn’t contagious before a sufferer develops symptoms.
The troops sent to Africa arrived not wearing any protective gear, yet, there was a person on the tarmac wearing clothing and taking temps. This seems out of whack.
Yeah, this is most likely the first of a number of cases arising from Duncan’s travels. if the preliminary test is confirmed and it’s a sure case, then that person probably had family and friends that were kissed. The victim may have sneezed in a restaurant using the worthless hand-to-mouth cover, used a public restroom at any number of places, and so on. I’m thinking that it might be best if we raised money for the hospital staff to enjoy a trip to DC, to include a tour of congress and the White House. After all, there really isn’t a threat.
Yep. Sounds like a plan. A very good plan.
What race is the new victim? The Rev. Jesse Jackson wants to know.
The media whore also known as Jesse Jackson is starting to bear a passing resemblance to the character Sloth from “Goonies.”
I do not know whether to laugh or cry.
I did wonder how long it would be before we got this news. Now I know.
And I do not kow whether to laugh or cry.
No threat to us here, huh? Okay, sure, and I just won a billion dollars in the Powerball. Geez, are we completely screwed yet? Or is there more to come?
I’m a little fuzzy on the term “unity”. Does this man we have achieved it.
If I see both sides in Congress begin working together, I’m headed for the bunker.
Damn tablet key pad. “Does this mean…”
Naw, I kind of like that slip of the digits, GD.
‘Does this man we have achieve it?’
Fixed it for you, and the answer is ‘No, he does not.’
Now THIS is scary! The American doctor and aid worker who were brought back to the US for treatment and survived, still don’t know how they were exposed:
http://twitchy.com/2014/10/12/if-you-still-think-ebola-isnt-highly-contagious-joe-scarborough-has-a-reminder-for-you/
They followed the standard protocols, as did the new victim in Dallas. So are we being lied to about how it’s transmitted and just how contagious it is?
Um, yes.
(But I will qualify that ‘yes’ by adding that it’s most likely that the talking heads don’t really know what they’re talking about and are speaking in soothing platitudes.)
No, we’re not being lied to. There seem to be four main possibilities – 1) we’re being lied to, 2) we’re wrong about transmissibility, 3) there was a breach in protocol or 4) this is a statistically unlikely event that somehow happened.
Of those, 2-4 all seem more likely than most infectious disease specialists are all being ‘bought’ and lying to the public about this. But yes, this is scary. Chances are we’ll know a whole lot more within the next week, depending upon whether others come forward or not.
For example, while it’s utterly tragic and scary that this nurse has been diagnosed, as of right now, I don’t believe any of Duncan’s family has tested positive yet. And surely they’re more exposed than someone in protective gear, and for longer periods of time, and of course they were exposed SOONER than this nurse. So what does THAT mean for the transmissibility? Incubation time varies from person to person, so we may see them all come forward soon with symptoms, or we may not. What about other health care people who took care of him? Recall that NONE of the people caring for the Americans who we flew home have gotten sick, and we’re well past the incubation period for them.
Basically, there’s lots we don’t know. It’s time for extra vigilance, not panic.
Agreed. Wifey and I were discussing this and how lame the “we think she breached protocol” explanation is.
BUT… if she is the only victim of all the nurses that attended Duncan, doesn’t it follow that she caught it by some means that didn’t affect the others (ie. breached protocol)
Just sayin, if its because “we are missing how it can be spread” then you would think other staff on the team attending the patient would come down with it.
What bothers me most is that the 2nd case described here was a nurse. He wore full hazmat protection while caring for this guy, yet managed to contract the disease.
I’m thinking that it most certainly can be transmitted through the air, and that the government’s comments about that not being possible are simply there to try and calm folks down.
Well, we are on the verge of going full Zombie Apocalypse here and unless we seal shit down in the next few days, it’s going to make the Bubonic Plague look like a mild cold.
Could it have been a nurse that was exposed during Duncan’s first visit to the ER when he was symptomatic but undiagnosed?
Beat me to it when I wasn’t looking, GDC.
Word is it’s an ICU nurse, not an ER nurse. So when the nurse did see him, they were already in protective gear.
Mere speculation, but there may have been a breech in protocol when removing the PPE which could have exposed the nurse. Just a guess, considering the garb would have to be removed at some point after treating and handling Duncan.
Yep,
This.
Not sure I’d go that far, AW1 Tim. Bubonic plague killed somewhere between 30% and 60% of Europe’s population in the mid 1300s.
I don’t think Ebola would be quite that bad, percentage-wise. But even if it “only” killed 15% in a worldwide pandemic, that would be 1 billion.
Let’s pray that doesn’t happen.
Can you imagine what would happen if it got to China or India?
Add all of SE Asia to that.
Think about secondary deaths.
Just one tangent – food distrubution industry stops showing up for work out of fear of catching. Loading docks mostly empty of people. Within two weeks, store shelves become bare. Food riots in every american city, LA Riots on a national scale.
Within 2 weeks? Um no. Within a week.
Seeing as there’s always a run on bread, milk and other such things when a winter storm is coming, I’d give it about half a day before the stores are stripped bare.
Good thing I’ve stocked up, isn’t it?
Almost everything can be frozen, you know. I may go get some pizzas. They’re on sale. And some pepperoni, and I’m trying to justify spending the money to buy ground beef for lasagna.
Yeah, why not? You only go ’round once that you know about, right?
The Travel Channel is doing an episode of all things bacon. One of the things was a bacon lasagna.
Bacon mac & cheese. Bacon with everything, including bacon.
And sometime this winter, I will be adventurous and try to make bacon-peanut butter-chocolate mac & cheese.
BACON, the perfect meat! You CAN’T go wrong in adding it to burgers, soups, sandwiches, chili or nearly anything else!!
Was the infected employee on duty when Duncan first arrived at the hospital and, later, was on duty with him wearing a protective suit? I don’t know. There is a lot we don’t know, other than this: hundreds and hundreds of people were potentially exposed to the contagion, if we look only at the days that elapsed between his arrival in the country and his leaving the hospital after his first visit. Remember the deputy who felt ill? He was home and walked into a local healthcare facility for a checkup. He was reported negative but the stupid was extremely strong–had he been positive for the virus. The center shut down for deep cleaning.
Here’s an update: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/12/health-ebola-idUSL6N0S70LK20141012
The CDC director is blaming a ‘breach in protocol’. I take that with a grain of salt right now, for several reasons.
One is that he wasn’t there in Dallas superivisng anything so he’s talking through his hat, as far as I’m concerned.
Another reason is that the way this thing spreads itself does not seem to me to be as cut and dried as we have been told, and that is a problem.
And another reason has to do with individual immune system response. Not everyone has a rugged immune system.
The evolving rate of speed for showing symptoms means that the average (10 days) is not really applicable. It is going to vary from one person to another.
Haven’t any of you known someone who never seems to be sick, even with a mild cold? And then there are people who are constantly coming down with something. This nurse may be one of those people who manifest symptoms quickly, but since we don’t exacdtly know how or when she was exposed, we can only guess.
Awareness is your best defense.
Something else to consider PH2 as a corollary to your observation that some people never seem to get sick: In order for a virus to create a disease state it must replicate at an accelerated rate sufficient to overcome the body’s immune system. It may be lurking in a person’s system constantly, like the various herpes virus forms, but does not begin such accelerated replication until a triggering event occurs such as burning your lip or getting sunburned as in the case of herpes simplex.
Considering that, could it be possible that the Ebola virus is in the systems of some persons with more effective immune defenses such that it remains below the replication rate required for actual infection in them yet may somehow be present in sufficient quantities as to be transmissible to other humans with lesser immune defenses? As with the cold virus, some folks may never get an actual cold but they very well may transport and transmit the virus.
The only thing we know for sure about this virus is that we don’t know zip as far as its transmissibility.
That is all true, Poetrooper, and I did not say much of anything about what response the virus will have to cold winter temperatures because that remains to be seen.
We all know that the cold and flu season is on the horizon and coming up fast, and flu shots are available almost everywhere. If someone who has a suppressed response to ebola shows up at a clinic and gets the flu vaccine, will that trigger ebola symptoms?
I don’t know. It hasn’t been addressed in the science end as yet. And we all know that flu and other rhinoviruses do better in cold weather than in summer. This is worrisome and it does need to be considered NOW, not when someone comes down with it in December during the holiday shopping rush.
I am not by nature, a panic mode person. However I do not stick my head in the sand when someone yells, “Head’s Up!”. I think for sure we are at the “head’s up” point in this. There is so much I don’t know about the series of events from Mr. Duncan’s first ER visit with flu symptoms to his later isolation for Ebola. (Although since he lied to get here for better treatment, that first visit would have been his opportunity to be honest, for a lot of people’s sake, and say yes, I was exposed to Ebola, which he did not report and was thus sent home with antibiotics.) Since in my understanding, which is limited, those “flu like symptoms” of his first ER visit, were the indication he was contagious at that point. He left for home and family and community. I am not happy Mr. Duncan died. However a little honesty and less selfishness on his part could have gotten him better care sooner and more than that it could have saved many people from possible exposure. A contagion suited nurse who is now positive for Ebola concerns me greatly. It just adds a lot of questions for me about how this is transmitted and I see no answers yet. Perhaps the nurse even unknowingly, broke protocol somehow. I don’t know and I guess no on else does either. I imagine the scenario has been gone over step by step with the nurse many times to try to determine how it could have happened. Anyway, the nurse and all those Mr. Duncan could have exposed are in my prayers. As is our nation. I pray most of all that Obama will have the care and common sense for the citizens of this country he is charged with leading, to take strong, determined and strict steps now, to prevent this entering our country again. As well as dealing with the current cases and areas concerned. Those areas will now include the place in Chicago, Jesse Jackson is transplanting the Duncan family to. I am not sure but… Read more »
Sparks,
But again what I know about this Ebola I could write on my thumbnail, what I don’t know, well…
And that is the problem with what the “Experts” know about this virus. They don’t know shit.
Read Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo.
I think this might be the reason that the feds have been training in “zombie scenarios.” You need to shoot people who are infectious and are coming to harm you if they touch you.
It’s a sad thing being able to do the simple math of putting two and two together. I only hope and pray that I am wrong.
Good series of books for the genre, not my favorite, but good. 🙂
I’m not posting this link to Newsmax to spread panic, and some of the time, they tend to be a bit googly-eyed, but here, they are simply relaying information.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/US-Ebola-Dallas-Hospital/2014/10/12/id/600131
This is their front page: http://www.newsmax.com/
At the bottom, there is a link to a story about an NBC news crew that broke its promise to stay in voluntary quarantine for the full 21 days after returning from Liberia. One of them was seen in public.
This is a link to that story. This is how it will spread. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/nbc-news-crew-ebola/2014/10/11/id/600111
Ex-PH2…Thank you for the update articles. Of course the nurse is being blamed but it IS possible she did something wrong. I don’t know and apparently she doesn’t either.
As for the news crew, well, thanks guys for being the supposedly intelligent people you claim to be. You agreed to isolate yourselves then lied and went about your business. This isn’t like defying a judge to reveal a news source where you stand on principal. It is a potential outbreak of a deadly virus and you folks are in a major metropolitan area. I wish no ill for any of them but they are going to awfully stupid and deeply saddened if one of their spouses, kids or even coworkers catches this because of their high minded attitudes. I do pray not though.
If they worked for Fox news and not NBC, they’d be put in front of a firing squad 10 minutes later due to “national security” and some such.
But since its NBC, its “freedom of the press”.
I’m less nice about it, especially these smug media dickbags. If they become infected, I hope they die slow and painful, but I hope no one else gets it because of them.
Elitist snobs like Nancy Snyderman think rules & keeping promises are for the little people.
Do you think she’ll feel quite so smug when it moves into her highrise neigborhood? I hope it scares the living sh@#$@~t out of her.
All I know is we have a rubber-necking judge who visited Duncan’s apartment after he had been removed and before it had been cleaned, who is now giving press conferences.
If this story is correct, Friedan is speculating. He should be fired.
http://keranews.org/post/live-blog-cdc-says-protocol-breach-dallas-hospital-led-new-ebola-case
He does not know.
I have read the supposed explanations for NOT banning travel to the US from West Africa and none of it makes sense to me. None of it. The CDC director, Betty Friedan–or something like that–says that it will only make matters worse. Yeah, Betty, for whom? If the do-gooders want to go into these cesspools, they are welcome to do so. Reasonable precautions can be taken upon their return, such as a 30 day quarantine at, oh, Alcatraz, or somewhere abutting the Mexican border. At least we would have some border security there!
“…and Ebola isn’t contagious before a sufferer develops symptoms”
Do we know this with 100% certainty? We haven’t really been studying Ebola for that long.
Also, would your statement apply to all strains of Ebola? I would have thought – if it can mutate to become worse/better re things like communicability (airborne), lethality, etc… couldn’t it also “evolve” to shed before symptoms develop?
“I don’t believe any of Duncan’s family has tested positive yet”
Has there been any sighting of the Duncan family since they were moved? I would think they would be one success story (“see how hard it is to catch this?”) that would cycle the news 24/7.
So where are they?
I had thought I heard the magic date for his family is 19 October? Or maybe 24 October? I can’t remember which for sure, but that’s the day they’ll know 100% that they aren’t infected due to the incubation period.
I just saw the news and they have isolated a person with “Ebola-Like Symptoms” Two towns over from me. They are not doing screenings here and the person is from West Africa. But we have nothing to worry about.
My kids go to that doctors office…
Ah, hell. Hell.
I am truly sorry to hear that.
I’m not paranoid, but I do not trust the CDC’s arrogant attitude or their unadmitted lack of understanding of this disease. I do not take it lightly that someone in that group makes a statement without real confirmation.
I worked for a veterinarian for 2 years when I was in college, to figure out if that was what I wanted to do for a living. If you remember the concerns about BSE in cattle in the UK, along with hoof-and-mouth, and how many farmers were forced to destroy entire herds because cattle imported from Europe had NOT BEEN TESTED for these diseases, you will understand my attitude toward the CDC.
We do constant testing of dairy cattle in this country for TB, with a simple test. They don’t do that in the UK, and someone started the asinine rumor that badgers were responsible for dairy cattled picking up TB, with the results that badgers were being trapped and destroyed BASED ON A STUPID, INCORRECT RUMOR.
What I see coming out of the CDC is the same arrogance, the same lack of understanding and the same rush to blame without stopping potential carriers at the border.
If this does become an epidemic, or subsequently a pandemic, I think it’s fair to lay the entire blame for that on the (lack of) administration and the jackass who has his own head up his backside so far he can see all the way to China. There is NO excuse for what is happening, period. And if that asshole thinks he’s immune to it – well, he’s not. No one is.
(End of rant.)
Exactly. The last few weeks have been like watching some moron wave around a rifle while insisting “dont worry its not loaded”
Easy to be “relaxed” and not “paranoid” about it when you can go to work and be in a fully sealed bunker that will keep you safe from disease and people.
A bunker? Naw, Eric, he’ll buzz off to Hawaii because it’s ‘isolated’.
Well, no, it isn’t.
Expanding on the food shortages comment above, here’s a professional industry report on what happens if interstate and local trucking goes down.
http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/What%20We%20Do/Image%20and%20Outreach%20Programs/When%20Trucks%20Stop%20America%20Stops.pdf
From the report;
“Significant shortages will occur in as little as three days, especially for perishable
items following a national emergency and a ban on truck traffic. Minor
shortages will occur within one to two days. At convenience stores and other small
retailers with less inventory, shortages will occur much sooner.”
Good discussion here, with gleanings from the information about the type of protective gear and procedures actually used.
http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2j0lgc/texas_healthcare_worker_tests_positive_for_ebola/
I am thinking particularly about the military being sent to Africa: we need to find a way to reliably decontaminate the surfaces in the room and on the clothing of the caregivers before the clothing is removed.
There is a suggestion to use bleach sprays and UV lights at the link, above.
I wonder if it would be useful to use nebulizers to deliver antiviral fluid in the air of a room. The purpose would not be as a substitute for the usual cleaning, but to help knock down floating particles.
If this has already been posted, my apologies.
http://dtolar.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/ebola-a-nurses-perspective/comment-page-3/
I suggest that each unit have an experienced nurse appointed to teach and watch decontamination.
I have had quite enough of inexperienced eggheads telling us that this virus is not going to be a problem. Mr. President, Mr. Director of the CDC, I am talking to you, both.
That’s a good article, Valerie.
The only thing the writer didn’t address, which I’ve already brought up, is the virus’s survival and transmission rates in cold weather.
There’s a reason it’s call the ‘cold and flu season’. Viruses love the cold, and the droplets from coughing and snseezing become part of the airborne scenario, even if they aren’t in the HVAC system. There’s also no discussion yet on what happens to this particular virus in our sewage systems. Is it depleted by normal filtering and cleaning processes, or is it resistant to all of that? No answers, because no one has addressed that yet.
Chlorine and UV light will both kill the Ebola virus. Chlorine is one of the methods we use to treat water.
(That information came out of the book “The Hot Zone.”)
Can the virus “piggyback” onto airborne flu? I’m assuming the droplets are too large – ie. you have a patient infected with both flu and ebola. He sneezes and the flu particles go airborne while the ebola particles drop off after a few feet?
I realize I’m not using appropriate terms here, but do you get what I mean?
Also, is that possible or would one crowd out the other? That ebola replicated in the host would hinder/destroy flu replication?
Precedent. This article is about mistakes made in handling the Spanish Flu.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/obamas-great-big-ebola-error-11450
“Stateside, at a military camp outside of Gettysburg, a young post commander named Dwight David Eisenhower ignored Washington’s advice to ignore the disease. Instead, he developed health protocols that broke the back of the disease’s run through the ranks. Impressed with the success of his methods, the Army ordered Eisenhower to dispatch his staff to other camps to train them on how to rein in influenza.”
So, here’s your successful model: Recognize that you may not get anything useful from above, take the problem of infection seriously, and deal with all the information as best you can.
This can’t be possible. “There is ZERO chance of Ebola spreading within the US.”
That is why the populace doesn’t trust the gummint (except the military) and why all these politicians need to be fuckin’ fired.
They don’t care because they’ll be kept safe. Even if there’s a larger outbreak, they’ll be kept safe and sound.
It is also why we should keeping posting here updates with facts, not rumors, about what is going on.
This is a collecting point, and the more we find out about this and post it, the more people will be better informed.
Hondo…
The people who are infected in Africa are now “shedding” the virus before they get fevers…which raises the “aerosol”risk of transmission. To whit: for every sick person, 2 more become infected, which gives a 2.0 in terms of “viral efficiency”.
Only one?
As this article says, it’s a bit difficult to be cool-headed or trusting about this, when there is zero room for error.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/13/ebola-outbreak-it-hard-to-trust-cdc-when-there-is-no-room-for-error/
It is not going to just disappear, which I think is what the (lack of) administration hopes for.
I know this is not nearly as much fun as pounding a phony cpo, but it’s important, too. It does dispel some misinformation, but it also reveals that the virus can shift itself to deflect the body’s own immune system reactions.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/scientists-rein-in-fears-of-ebola-a-virus-whose-mysteries-tend-to-invite-speculation/ar-BB9aPvz
At least, they are working quickly to have a better understanding of it and may be able to come up with something that keeps it from becoming infectious.
Also, there was a story on the news yesterday and this morning that honeysuckle contains a molecule which stops the flu virus from procreating. You can take advantage of this by making yourself some honeysuckle tea.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/11154857/It-cures-flu-but-where-can-you-buy-honeysuckle-tea.html
If you can’t find it through Amazon, try a traditional Chinese medicine shop instead. If this does work as indicated, the molecule blocks the flu virus’s spread.