Ebola Patient in Atlanta Hospital

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

So it was the "right thing to do" when it was Americans, and not Africans for the last 20 years? Niiiice. Ebola has been around since before this nurse got her license.

She wants to insist that all of their precautions will protect us all? Suuuuure, just like the totally-safe-for-transport hazmat suits are 100% failsafe against ebola, right? Riiiiiight. Too bad 100+ medical professionals have gotten it in hazmat suits. :/

She admits the docs involved "derive satisfaction from treating this virus". Nice. Happy to be a guinea pig for their play-time. Perhaps they could have derived that satisfaction from African patients, and not just white ones.

Can we verify this person is even a nurse, let alone one at Emory? Nope, because of privacy laws. How convenient. So much for the op-ed.

Sigh.

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Thanks. Hadn't seen this. Still doesn't mitigate or excuse the risk. They could have had the same "benefits" treating them in situ.

The purpose of any hospital is to care for the ill and advance knowledge about human health. At Emory, our education, research, dedication and focus on quality — essentially everything we do — is in preparation to handle these types of cases.

And just how many cases have they actually handled at Emory? None.

Ebola won’t become a threat to the general public from their presence in our facility, but the insight we gain by caring for them will prepare us to better treat emergent diseases that may confront the United States in the future.

A future that you may be accelerating by bringing this virus to this continent.

Nice PR piece.

a reply to: Krakatoa

.3 microns at 99.97% efficiency is what google tells me.

a reply to: Krakatoa
From what I've read tears in suits aren't as much the issue as improper decon procedures in removing the suits or improper use of the suits themselves (maybe gaps in coverage or the issue you guys are discussing).

But that's the most of experts of experts talking yet still speculating.

The more likely reason for all the healthcare workers being infected is contact with patients at just the right stage of (what's it called?) shedding when no one is protected.

And as they say, it can spread via blankets and the like too.

a reply to: Druid42

Thanks. Well given that, it is likely not a viable vector then. I think we are back the more likely candidate of lax decon procedures and cross contamination. Which is not surprising given the onsite location.

originally posted by: 00nunya00
a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Can we verify this person is even a nurse, let alone one at Emory? Nope, because of privacy laws. How convenient. So much for the op-ed.

Sigh.

You can verify her position.
verification

Sigh

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
a reply to: Krakatoa
From what I've read tears in suits aren't as much the issue as improper decon procedures in removing the suits or improper use of the suits themselves (maybe gaps in coverage or the issue you guys are discussing).

But that's the most of experts of experts talking yet still speculating.

The more likely reason for all the healthcare workers being infected is contact with patients at just the right stage of (what's it called?) shedding when no one is protected.

And as they say, it can spread via blankets and the like too.

Oh no, they are "speculating" our two hero US medical professionals got it from an infected co-worker they were too ignorant to identify as an ebola victim. Dontcha know. Pew pew! :/ (Try to Google THAT explanation, it's nearly impossible to find. :/ )

originally posted by: DancedWithWolves

originally posted by: 00nunya00
a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Can we verify this person is even a nurse, let alone one at Emory? Nope, because of privacy laws. How convenient. So much for the op-ed.

Sigh.

You can verify her position.
verification

Sigh

She can claim to be whoever she wants to be, fact is, we can't verify because of privacy laws. So case closed, on either side, right? Right.

originally posted by: 00nunya00

originally posted by: DancedWithWolves

originally posted by: 00nunya00
a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Can we verify this person is even a nurse, let alone one at Emory? Nope, because of privacy laws. How convenient. So much for the op-ed.

Sigh.

You can verify her position.
verification

Sigh

She can claim to be whoever she wants to be, fact is, we can't verify because of privacy laws. So case closed, on either side, right? Right.

Wrong. Not Everything is a conspiracy. I was simply sharing a legitimate Op-Ed from an on the scene source. I did not ask you to agree with her. If you can't get past a Google search to verify where she works...well...oh well.
Peace

Thanks everyone for your ongoing contributions and hanging in there. I'd like to let you know what I have surmised from reading these posts about Ebola and maybe at the same time clarify some of the miscommunication I believe is happening.

Ebola is not in our breath but is in our body fluids.
Ebola is not spread by breathing on someone but can be spread by sneezing (bleeding, sweating, etc.) on someone.
Ebola is not transmitted through the air but can be transported through the air (i.e. air born) 'on' body fluids.
Ebola has an incubation period of about 21 days and can survive without a host from 48 hours? to several days? Therefore if someone has it and sweats on a door knob the next person can open the door and potentially contract it (would the virus then have to be transmitted from the hand to an orifice to become ill like rubbing an eye or covering a yawn?).
Ebola on a small enough micron fluid could travel far enough to be picked up by an air vent otherwise the general parameter is up to about 3 feet.

Therefore -
As long as you don't contract infected bodily fluids you won't become ill.
Because of a 21 day incubation period anyone who becomes ill needs to trace back 21 days prior to ascertain the potential source.
Even if it manages to get 'into' a vent doesn't mean it will travel far enough to infect anyone, it is just an indication if the micron is smaller and catches a draft it will travel further than the general 3 feet guideline.
People in hazmat suits wouldn't contract it unless they came in direct contact with infected body fluids.

Maybe anyone concerned should begin wearing disposable gloves in public so they don't touch an infected door or money or buttons on card machines? I don't think we're 'there' yet... time will tell and every finger and toe I have is crossed it never gets to that point.

As far as quibbling - It is preferable to ask a question about a post made rather than bark back at the poster. And no, I'm not a troller just because I don't have an avatar - I don't have an avatar because it's not important to me to have one.

originally posted by: DancedWithWolves

originally posted by: 00nunya00

originally posted by: DancedWithWolves

originally posted by: 00nunya00
a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Can we verify this person is even a nurse, let alone one at Emory? Nope, because of privacy laws. How convenient. So much for the op-ed.

Sigh.

You can verify her position.
verification

Sigh

She can claim to be whoever she wants to be, fact is, we can't verify because of privacy laws. So case closed, on either side, right? Right.

Wrong. Not Everything is a conspiracy. I was simply sharing a legitimate Op-Ed from an on the scene source. I did not ask you to agree with her. If you can't get past a Google search to verify where she works...well...oh well.
Peace

Nope, you must submit 100% proven facts and statistics to be taken seriously in this thread. We only accept PROVEN facts and theories, and all others are subject to debate. Sorry, but we can't even be sure that this op-ed is from a real nurse, so it is subject to debate and denial. Please submit 100% proof of her claims. Otherwise, as another poster said, "you're just wasting our time." Official government-sponsored 100% proven facts only, please, and even those we are allowed to debate. I do not believe this nurse. Please submit real-world evidence that the US is protected from ebola. Otherwise, it's all speculation. And therefore subject to debate.

I found an interesting article the projects the spread of ebola based on current reports and modes of travel.

Where the Ebola outbreak is most likely to spread next
Updated by Julia Belluz on August 6, 2014, 8:50 a.m. ET

Last spring, most people would have guessed that this Ebola outbreak in West Africa would be over by the end of summer. Now, we're in the midst of the deadliest outbreak in history, which has lasted longer and spread further than anyone could have predicted.
Where the outbreak is occurring now

There have been confirmed cases of Ebola in four countries: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (which share borders) and Nigeria.

To see how Ebola has spread through West Africa this year, you can click through this timeline from HealthMap. Interactive map at link.

The burden of the disease is in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia right now. There have only been a handful of cases Nigeria, the most recent being a Lagos nurse who died after treating Nigeria's first Ebola victim, the Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer.



Where Ebola will go next

There are suspected Ebola cases in Europe, Asia, and North America but none are confirmed. Public health officials are relatively unconcerned about Ebola becoming a big problem in the developed world. That's because outbreaks persist in countries with poor sanitation and a shortage of resources to contain them, not in resource-rich places like the US.

For this reason, spread within Africa is really what public health officials are worried about. "Our first concern is that this is going to go into adjacent areas through people traveling in the region," said Daniel Bausch, associate professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, who is working with the WHO and MSF on the outbreak. "In the short term, the main vector is the traveler: local people traveling from one village to the next, on more regional scale, plane travellers."

This pie chart shows the final destinations of travellers originating in the three countries currently most affected by Ebola. As you can see, travel from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia within the continent is much more prevalent than travel elsewhere.



This part is a must read...

All countries in West Africa are already on alert. National authorities in Ghana, Nigeria, Togo and the Côte d'Ivoire are working with the WHO on prevention efforts and monitoring potential cases.

To do this, contact tracing is essential, said Bausch. "With Ebola outbreaks, most of the time there's one or very few introductions of the virus from the wild into humans, and all the transmission after that is human-to-human transmission. So people who are traveling locally as well as on planes and other modes of transport, that's the way this would get around."

These efforts are already underway in Nigeria, where the disease hasn't yet turned into a full-scale outbreak but there are concerns that it might. Some 70 people who came into contact with a recently diagnosed Ebola doctor have been quarantined, said Dr. Ezie Patrick, the executive director for Africa with the World Medical Association who is based in Nigeria.

But resources to deal with more potential cases aren't presenting themselves, he added. "In the current process, we don't have the facilities to isolate the patients," he said. When there's a suspected case of Ebola, it's reported to the Nigerian centers for disease control and they take over the case management. Patients often need to be moved from their homes to city centers. "When patients are moved from a rural to urban areas," Patrikck added, "the risk of spread increases exponentially."
The worst-case scenario

Even if the outbreak didn't move across any other country border, intensification within the already affected areas is the most immediate health threat.

"The worst-case scenario is that the disease will continue to bubble on, like a persistent bushfire, never quite doused out," said Derek Gatherer, a Lancaster University bioinformatician who has studied the evolution of this Ebola outbreak. "It may start to approach endemic status in some of the worst affected regions. This would have very debilitating effects on the economies of the affected countries and West Africa in general."

""Ebola may start to approach endemic status in some of the worst affected regions.""

This dire situation could come about because of a "persistent failure of current efforts," he added. "Previous successful eradications of Ebola outbreaks have been via swamping the areas with medical staff and essentially cutting the transmission chains. Doing that here is going to be very difficult and expensive. We have little option other than to pump in resources and engage with the problem using the tried-and-tested strategy—but on a scale previously unused."

Resources are already extremely constrained in most of the countries affected right now. As Dr. Bausch said, "If you're in a hospital in Sierra Leone or Guinea, it might not be unusual to say, 'I need gloves to examine this patient,' and have someone tell you, 'We don't have gloves in the hospital today,' or 'We're out of clean needles,' — all the sorts of things you need to protect against Ebola."

In these situations, local health-care workers — the ones most impacted by the disease — start to get scared and walk off the job. And the situation worsens.

""There were 55 people in the Ebola ward, and myself and one other doctor.""

When Bausch was in Sierra Leone last month, he said all the nurses went on strike in one of the hospitals where he was working. "There were 55 people in the Ebola ward," he said, "and myself and one other doctor."

He'd walk into the hospital in the morning and find patients on the floor in pools of vomit, blood, and stool. They had fallen out of their beds during the night, and they were delirious. "What should happen is that a nursing staff or sanitation officer would come and decontaminate the area," he said. "But when you don't have that support, obviously it gets more dangerous." So the disease spreads.

www.vox.com...

That gives me a lot more perspective on the situation than we are getting from our own government.

Des

a reply to: 00nunya00

Laugh out loud.
Have fun with that debate. I pass.

There are some quality members contributing in this thread who have proven over time to appreciate multiple sources of information and who will weigh differing opinions in their quest for knowledge.

I leave the Op-Ed for their consideration. You are free to disregard. Thanks to those who contribute.

Peace

Bye

A sneeze is micrometers, not nanometers...you read it wrong.

a reply to: Druid42

a reply to: DancedWithWolves
Don't go DWW...we fall into a playful mood to break the tension sometimes. Your input is very valuable.

Des

originally posted by: NavyDoc

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: kruphix

He is right.

Ebola being Airborne in humans is at this time purely speculation.

Thank Cuthulu that the Reston strain didn't make the jump to humans.

It's my understanding that the Reston strain DID make the jump to humans. Fortunately, humans have not become ill, but have tested posted for the Reston EBOV.

Because they aren't always in hazmat suits when they are exposed, in fact they usually aren't. Read some of the bios of people who caught it...only had on a mask, didn't know someone had it etc etc.

a reply to: 00nunya00

originally posted by: DancedWithWolves
a reply to: 00nunya00

Laugh out loud.
Have fun with that debate. I pass.

There are some quality members contributing in this thread who have proven over time to appreciate multiple sources of information and who will weigh differing opinions in their quest for knowledge.

I leave the Op-Ed for their consideration. You are free to disregard. Thanks to those who contribute.

Peace

Bye

I can certainly appreciate your source if we have verification, and it passes the "logic" test we have set forth. The fact is, ebola has spread to Western professionals who have taken every precaution they can to protect THEIR OWN LIVES, let alone anyone else's. None of us has actually been in that position. So when we question the spread, it comes down to: are YOU more knowledgeable and precautious with your life than a doctor who has studied this virus for decades? I think not. So, to accuse them of being foolhardy or reckless with THEIR OWN LIVES is irrational, therefore we should take their word on it that they were 100% protected the whole time.

So how did they get infected? Hmmm....

a reply to: wishes

One thing, it isn't airborne...you can't use that term when referring to a pathogen. Airborne means you breath it out and its there and then floats around and finds a host.

Ebola can't attach itself to a less than 5 micron droplet because the smallest droplets that leave the body are from sneezing and are, as posted earlier, over 50 microns in size mainly ranging from 74-200+.

originally posted by: raymundoko
Because they aren't always in hazmat suits when they are exposed, in fact they usually aren't. Read some of the bios of people who caught it...only had on a mask, didn't know someone had it etc etc.

a reply to: 00nunya00

Citation please? I have not read where the "doctor who was notoriously meticulous" ever exposed himself to ebola patients (maybe via AIR, but certainly not "droplet transmission"). Please, citation needed. That is news to us.