Administration Considers Quarantining Healthcare Workers Returning from Ebola Outbreak Area
Well, it looks as if the DC clown krewe clueless fools and mendacious tools running the show current Administration may finally be buying a clue, albeit a partial one. It seems that they are now considering quarantining healthcare workers returning from the area of the West Africa outbreak area on return to the US.
But of course, they’re only considering doing that if it can be done without “impeding whatsoever our ability to combat the epidemic in West Africa.” Apparently they are under the bizarre impression that measures protecting the US from accidental importation of Ebola might somehow prevent our providing support to the effort to counter the West African Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Well, I”ll have to give them credit for finally buying a clue, even if only a partial one. We should have been doing this for at least the past 3 months.
Of course, we should also have been quarantining anyone else coming to the US from or after having spent time in that area, too. But this would at least be a step in the right direction.
But it bothers me that the current Administration still doesn’t really seem to “get it”. Anyone with the common sense to pour p!ss out of a boot can see that there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between taking measures to protect the US homeland from accidental importation of the Ebola virus and providing US assistance to West Africa. Claiming some connection between the two is at best stupid, illogical, and naive – and is at worst a deliberate falsehood. And yet, the Administration seems to persist in making that connection.
Why? I dunno. But, sadly, with this Administration I have to admit I can believe either being clueless or being deliberately mendacious is the reason.
In any case, all I can say is – it’s about freaking time. Now, with all due respect: how about you get up off your immobile azz and actually direct some truly common-sense and effective actions here, Mr. President? Order a quarantine of all returning healthcare workers who’ve spent time in West Africa – effective immediately. And while you’re at it, extend that order to make that same quarantine apply to anyone else who’s coming to the US after spending time in the West African Ebola outbreak area, too.
Yeah, right. I’m not holding my breath.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Government Incompetence
Closing up the coop after the chickens are long gone. Our tax dollars hard at work! To slightly paraphrase the movie, can you believe these retards are actually in charge of (lots of) people?
Not a surprise. They’re being shamed into it by Cuomo and Christie.
Shame? Nahh, can’t be shame. Don’t’cha know that Progressive (Regressive) Libtard Elites are SOOOOO special that they’re ABOVE the law and us little people, and are NOT subject to shame.
You’re right. I fell again into that trap of comparing these cold blooded lizards to human beings.
I stand corrected.
Ummm…. what? Common sense?
Nope. That’s something you can’t buy. Only comes with hard work and an actual sense of responsibility… which we all know does not exist in this (lack of) administration.
However, there are mid-term elections coming up on Nov. 4, which may change current trends and even who has control in Congress.
We are going to see more wild rides for a few more months and then this idiotic 7 years of experimentation will be ending and common sense will rear its head again.
I think they are still running on the “never let a crisis go to waste” plan and figure if they can get one more crisis out of this that they can use it to their advantage.
They’ve already tried to blame it on Republicans and budget cuts so maybe having New York City as a hazmat zone works into that meme.
Looks like the governors beat them to the punch.
“Both New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday they are ordering a mandatory, 21-day quarantine for all doctors and travelers who have had contact with Ebola victims in the ravaged countries of West Africa.”
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/10/25/new-york-new-jersey-order-ebola-quarantines/
Then those two governors still don’t “get it”, either. The correct statement should be as follows (italicized language replaces the striken language to make the policy correct):
The virus has been demonstrated to have a multi-hour life span on hard surfaces. It is therefore eminently possible to be exposed to the bodily fluids (e.g., saliva, sweat) of an Ebola sufferer unknowingly if one is “out and about” among the public in the outbreak area.
Anyone with the common sense to pour p!ss out of a boot can see that there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between taking measures to protect the US homeland from accidental importation of the Ebola virus and providing US assistance to West Africa. Since the most pressing need is for medical staff, and that’s happening via volunteers working with groups like MSF (Doctors Without Borders), there is indeed a connection. To put this into perspective, let’s use MSF as an example. They’ve had over seven hundred international medical professionals volunteer in West Africa. Of those 700, three have contracted Ebola, for a rate of roughly 0.4%. On top of that, two contracted it while in West Africa, with Dr. Spencer’s case in NYC being the first case where someone developed it upon return. For this to develop at home in a volunteer, they need to be exposed towards the end of their time abroad. How likely that is to happen depends on the duration of their stint, and I don’t know what the current protocols are with this epidemic, but it’s likely not to be less than three months. (Typically it’s longer.) Symptoms generally appear within 2-21 days of exposure, but most often within 8-10, so that means that within that minimum of ninety or so days abroad, for a person to be exposed and be asymptomatic upon return, it has to fall within a pretty small window at the end of their duration in West Africa. Most likely within a week, but let’s say two just for the argument. This means the chances of this happening during a three-month deployment is roughly 16% of people getting sick, which is already 0.4% of the international community aiding MSF. Combined, that’s a risk of 0.06% per person. Finally, on top of that, MSF has a protocol in place where volunteers who return to their home country are to check their temperatures twice a day, be on the lookout for any possible symptoms, and remain within a few hours of a hospital. We’ve already seen that Ebola is not terribly contagious in… Read more »
Fine. Then let MSF pay for their quarantine expenses and/or give them a lost income stipend to help cover quarantine expenses. MSF apparently has plenty of money.
I say that because MSF has turned down contributions of $2.5 million (Aus) from the govt of Australia intended for use in countering the West Africa Ebola outbreak.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/aid-organisation-to-refuse-ebola-cash-from-australia-20140917-10ifd0.html
Hondo,
Eminently good suggestion. Just think of it as part of the individuals “deployment”, money well spent.
As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I work for a medical provider. Corporate headquarters released their ebola guidance the other day, which non only incorporated all the CDC guidance, but also required that any member of the organization who has traveled to an infected area was quarantined from any of our facilities for 21 days, as well as any employee who had contact with someone traveling from the area (unless providing patient care with the appropriate protocols in place).
LC, what you’re forgetting is that this is no longer a health issue, but a political one. There isn’t a politician alive that wants to be known as the one that didn’t take action (Do Something! Syndrome) and let a potential crisis develop. The President is toeing the medical line right now, but his home state of Illinois just adopted the NY/NJ measures. Mid term elections are coming – too bad for the health workers, but the political tide is going to turn against them.
Forgot to add that the irresponsibilty of health care workers isn’t helping their cause. I am not a physician – Forgot to add – I don’t know squat about the workings of the ebola virus. I do know that traveling around the country after being exposed firsthand to ebola patients seems to be an incredibly stupid thing to this non health care professional. The medical community needs to make a far better attempt to inform laymen, and reign in personnel that can have a very major negative effect on the policy for treating this disease. Falls right into Congressperson Snuffy’s lap…
The primary reason why healthcare in the US is so expensive is exactly because physicians and other healthcare workers were irresponsible and didn’t policy each other.
This is no different.
As to the good doctor in NY’s infection. I’d have to believe that the highest risk of making a mistake is in the first few days when someone arrives on site, or towards the end of a tour when you are perhaps overconfident in what you are doing, and perhaps distracted and smelling the barn. Not a to dissimilar situation from what I witnessed in 30 years of service in peace and conflict.
Similar to the effect politics had on the ROE from my first tour in Iraq in 2004 to my last one in Afghanistan in 2012.
LC,
I think you missed the point. The clowns opposing the quarantine are trying to say that medical personnel would balk at having to spend 30 days in quarantine after working in an area that treated ebola.
Having seen the dedication of MSF physicians, pretty much NOTHING stops these people from helping others.
As a side note IMHO the quarantine facility should be an Ebola free enviornment OUTSIDE the US.
Noting for the record that their dedication is typically overshadowed only by their arrogance. THEY by God don’t need no steenkin’ quarantine rules because no damn bug is gonna get them…
All it takes in one like that to cause a problem…. and there are 700 with that potential?
The nurse quarantined in NJ is already complaining of being quarantined in “inhumane” conditions – and intending to sue for it. Cuomo has already backed down, and no doubt Christie will be right behind.
There are several levels of points being missed, by a whole lot of folks and agencies, for whatever reasons.
One is that an emergency plan is something developed long before a crisis occurs. It’s why we have police standing by to respond to an armed robbery instead of rounding up folks to respond after the armed robbery occurred. Same with any sort of medical and/or civil emergency.
When the emergency occurs, you implement the plan. Even Americans who cannot articulate why this mess is so disturbing have an understanding somewhere in their gut that either there was no plan for an ebola type emergency or that previously developed plans are being ignored. Either way, ordinary Americans are reacting to what is perceived as betrayal by those who are supposed to be dealing with this.
Another important point is that this is what happens after decades of encouraging Americans to expect others/government to think for them. Regulations are so complex that local hospitals (and every other business) are now unable to operate without a stamp of approval from some bureaucrat. The end result is that everything is someone else’s job, and ultimately there is collective impotence.
The weight of bureaucracy is what brought down the Soviet Union. Sure feels like we reached that level here as well.
Pardon us as we see this “plan” to “consider” options in dealing with ebola. Infectious disease is not something new. Health departments around the country have dealt with it for not just decades but hundreds of years.
This really is not as difficult as it is being portrayed. Of course, to do what needs to be done might just threaten their political agenda, so the lies and obfuscation continue.