Ebola Patient in Atlanta Hospital

originally posted by: 00nunya00
Please provide evidence that the specific medical professionals discussed in this thread (Brantley et al) did not take all necessary precautions 100% of the time. Thanks.

With all due respect - the OP says nothing about limiting contribution to this thread to only scientific proof, 100% proven links to studies, evidence and that opinions and ideas don't matter. Everyone has the right to contribute their thoughts, ideas, speculation and perceptions. It would be nice to remain respectful of such.

A few posts back you were adamant that 100 medical workers acquired Ebola while wearing hazmat suits - I have no idea if this is true or not, but by your own standards you should have to be providing 100% proof and scientific links to back it up, yes?

We're all here for the same reason and share the same risks. If people are pushed away we lose like minds and they are most precious to have. Please - give the ongoing, continual demands a rest and let people discuss this their way.

a reply to: 00nunya00
I will try to go back and look once I charge my iPad please

ETA
Ok I'm hooked up to an extension cord now charging ok?
Just hang on a sec while I find the tab I was in to go back

Btw I'm not arguing the airborne issue with you or others. Look through my posts. I might in fact have posted it before you did in another thread and have been starring your posts regarding it.
I'm open to any idea

a reply to: raymundoko

Just to clarify this 'airborne' confusion - how do we properly describe Ebola that travels on a sneeze if not airborne? Thanks.

originally posted by: raymundoko

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+.

Can you repost your source for this?

Because according to this study:

The size and the duration of air-carriage of respiratory droplets and droplet-nuclei

....From these measurements it was calculated that the original diameters of the respiratory droplets ranged from 1 to 2000 μ, that 95 % were between 2 and 100 μ and that the most common were between 4 and 8 μ. Similar size distributions were exhibited by the droplets produced in sneezing, in coughing and in speaking, except that, in the case of sneezing, the smaller droplets were relatively more numerous.

Sounds like sneezing produces sizes much smaller than what you posted.

originally posted by: wishes

originally posted by: 00nunya00
Please provide evidence that the specific medical professionals discussed in this thread (Brantley et al) did not take all necessary precautions 100% of the time. Thanks.

With all due respect - the OP says nothing about limiting contribution to this thread to only scientific proof, 100% proven links to studies, evidence and that opinions and ideas don't matter. Everyone has the right to contribute their thoughts, ideas, speculation and perceptions. It would be nice to remain respectful of such.

A few posts back you were adamant that 100 medical workers acquired Ebola while wearing hazmat suits - I have no idea if this is true or not, but by your own standards you should have to be providing 100% proof and scientific links to back it up, yes?

We're all here for the same reason and share the same risks. If people are pushed away we lose like minds and they are most precious to have. Please - give the ongoing, continual demands a rest and let people discuss this their way.

I agree. But apparently 100% evidence is what is needed to keep the "under bridge dwellers" (as another poster put it) from marring this thread with spam. If you look back, I am 100% in support of the sharing of info in this thread.

But that is not the standards we are held to on ATS. If there is a question of 100% certainty of a fact, we can debate and discuss it. Therefore, I only seek to hold everyone to the same standard. If there is less than 100% certainty, it is not in violation to either post or question a post based on "facts" OR speculation. So therefore, I will question every single fact based not on 100% certainty, because it falls within the T&C of this site. I am trying to rid the thread of the same people who do the same on the other side. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. So I want 100% certainty of anything that is stated, otherwise, the other "pooh pooh" comments stand and will keep coming. I appreciate your cooperation. This thread is an interesting read, indeed. I hope the latest reports keep coming. But not when they are challenged at every single turn for every single thing.

a reply to: Destinyone

Thanks for the reply Des.

Bringing back some early info that is relevant.

Dr. Brantly, even displaying symptoms, tested negative the first time.

According to Dr. Brantly’s employer,Samaritan’s Purse, a U.S.-based international relief organization that has operated in Liberia for 13 years, Dr. Brantly first felt ill July 23 but tested negative. Despite that negative result, he was placed into isolation—a provident decision. His symptoms soon worsened, and a repeat test on Friday night showed evidence of the virus.

How both Americans likely were infected...

Writebol was in charge of the decontamination “wash-down” station that was used in the ELWA center, now a 20-bed unit in Monrovia dedicated to treating Ebola patients. According to Isaacs, her exposure may have occurred when a local worker in the unit contracted the disease but continued to work; this individual, whose name was not disclosed, died of Ebola over the weekend.

The wash-down station is part of a very formalized and well-planned infection control approach to decontaminating workers who have spent time with Ebola patients. Isaacs estimated that on one day, July 24, staff spent about 48 hours in direct care of the 16 patients with Ebola. Dr. Brantly probably saw each patient twice on a regular day. While caring for patients, clinical staff is heavily robed with gown and apron; three pairs of gloves; a hood; and goggles.

The break in technique may have occurred—though it is “completely speculative,” said Isaacs—in the wash-down area, where workers emerging from the isolation ward are sprayed with a chlorine solution, a cheap and effective killer of the virus. It is possible that the local employee worked in this area while contagious; in this area, staff members remove their gowns and gloves, and therefore are not fully garbed and protected. Additional information will be necessary to determine whether this theory plays out; if so, teams will need to rework the decontamination approach to assure there is no preventable moment of vulnerability.

To emphasize back to my main point...WE HAVE A TESTING PROBLEM. Tests are not reliable until symptoms occur and even after that as evidenced by Dr. Brantly's first negative result.

The isolation unit in Atlanta may be the least of our problems.

Flyiers who don't know they are sick and the lack of reliable testing with pre-symptomatic individuals and symptomatic people is....dang....that's how this will spread. Not from the isolation unit.
source

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

I have an African source somewhere that indicated they were infected by another healthcare worker. I'll go look.

Meanwhile, I completely agree we have a testing problem.

originally posted by: wishes
a reply to: raymundoko

Just to clarify this 'airborne' confusion - how do we properly describe Ebola that travels on a sneeze if not airborne? Thanks.

Droplet.

a reply to: 00nunya00


Ok here is the page the image came from. It appears to be a thumbnail to a video I can't watch
Link to image source
That's the best I can provide. As I said I'm just googling her name in image search, then I click on view image to get the photo link

I'm not asserting all my posts are factual evidence, just posting what I find, as best I can with the limits of not using a computer
Thanks

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Found it.

It's believed both Brantly and Writebol, who worked with the aid organisation Samaritan's Purse, contracted Ebola from another health care worker at their hospital in Liberia, although the official Centres for Disease Control and Prevention case investigation is yet to be released.

Link.

a reply to: kruphix

Once again, airborne includes droplets. What controls is droplet size.

I.B.3.c. Airborne transmission:

Airborne transmission occurs by dissemination of either airborne droplet nuclei or small particles in the respirable size range containing infectious agents that remain infective over time and distance (e.g., spores of Aspergillus spp, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis).

CDC Link.

a reply to: 00nunya00

It is sad this once very informative thread has lost a lot of the early relevant posters. I gave up on it this morning because a couple of people literally chased a lot of other people away.

If that is how ATS works these days...it's too bad. Because valuable information is not being shared because it's just not worth trying to have a decent discussion. I lost interest in spending my valuable time researching, or calling friends who work for CDC and Emory just to have a constant stream of challenges thrown at me when trying to share information.

This thread has pretty much dwindled down to the few die hard posters who have the fortitude to put up with childishness, and try to step around it.

That's a shame. It had so much potential...

Des

originally posted by: 00nunya00
Please provide evidence that the specific medical professionals discussed in this thread (Brantley et al) did not take all necessary precautions 100% of the time. Thanks.

I think you need to look at the photos, they speak for themselves.
Who knows how they contracted it, could be from transfers or airborne.
Who really knows?

a reply to: Destinyone

Des

I'm losing interest as well. It's a real shame.

Maybe take a break for a day until some new info comes out, that we can discuss calmly
We would like you to stay. It's your thread. A good one at that.

PURELY SPECULATIVE "WHAT IF" SCENARIO:

What if all of these doctors and nurses contracted Ebola from an experimental vaccine intended to protect them from it-- and it backfired? This would explain the 'bring them home to study' scenario, instead of waiting for them to recover over there.

Also might explain why the doc was able to walk into Emory (the donated blood from a survivor of Ebola helped him fight off the vaccine-gone-bad?) while the nurse had to be rolled in on a gurney.

Remember, the area at the epicenter of the outbreak housed a lab/hospital studying Ebola. The FDA stopped the study in January due to safety concerns (just before the outbreak.) The local government just recently shut the lab down entirely.

/speculation

Arguments about methods of transmission aside, this statistic seems to be a top concern:

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical

(I had to leave this next part out of the quote to get it to display, but it's from jadedANDcynical and it's a really good point.)

Epidemiological modelling based on the data from previous EBOV outbreaks has produced a basic reproduction number (R0) of 2.7 with a 95% confidence range of 1.9 to 4.1 (Legrand et al., 2007). This R0 is comparable to influenza (Mills et al., 2004) and would seem to be comfortably within the range required to generate an EVD pandemic.
The 2014 Ebola virus disease outbreak in west Africa

So an Ebola patient spreads it to 2.7 people (or between 1.9 and 4.1 people) on average based on past outbreaks (with no indication R0 for this outbreak is any different). That average is called R0. And whether or not it's airborne, the real problem is that each Ebola patient still spreads it to about the same number of people as each Spanish flu patient did in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic because the R0 is about the same for both.

The R0 for this outbreak needs to be brought down to less than 1. Then each patient spreads it on average to less than one new person and the outbreak dies out. There don't seem to be many ways to do that:

1. Successful quarantine or containment,
   
2. A successful new vaccine or treatment (which is probably why they really brought two Ebola patients to Atlanta),
   
3. Lucking out and having it mutate into something less virulent through chance or divine intervention, or
   
4. Running out of a susceptible population (because they're all dead...).
   

Denial or not worrying about it doesn't seem like a good strategy unless you like #4 above. And while I certainly wouldn't object to some good luck or divine intervention, it seems logical to also try to quarantine and contain it while working like crazy towards a successful vaccine or treatment.

a reply to: loam
That seems to corroborate what may have happened in decontamination, with exposure to a worker who later died, once protective gear was removed.

This stuck with me when I originally read the article.

As did this tidbit from the CDC press briefing.

In terms of testing in the U.S., there are no commercial labs I'm aware of that provide testing for Ebola virus.  We have testing capability here at CDC and through the Department of Defense Laboratory at Fort Dietrich in Maryland. 

source

The president's executive order begins to take on new meaning once you realize testing isn't always reliable or available.

Lots of exposed people are probably crossing borders daily by air. The Atlanta situation is the least of our concerns imho.

I think the main reasons the testing is getting covered up and not reported is because of how problematic testing is period. Unreliable and unavailable.

Now what? Stop all travel or hold everyone for 21 days who may have been exposed? There is our threat, problem and dilemma worldwide.

Start making and handing out the syrum to healthcare workers everywhere. At 60 to 90 percent mortality...if someone starts to crash...it's the only ethical answer I can see.

Thanks for the help digging up info. Much appreciated!

a reply to: Destinyone

I am still lurking, but not posting. I cannot trust myself to resist the urge to tell certain posters to go take an airborne fornication at a revolving pastry, therefore I remain silent. People are dying and thousands more may and posters are arguing and pooh poohing accurate, factual information because of semantics!

I do thank one of them, though. I was unaware a Doctor of Viral Epidemiology was incorrect when he put "virii" on the final exam. Wish I had known that back then.

Thanks to all that continue to post information as ATS is a wonderful focal point of information.

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

The whole thing is one big cluster f*.....

As I have said before, the time to respond was in March, when MSF said it was out of control. It took until toady, really if you think about it, for WHO and the CDC to publicly acknowledge the seriousness of the situation.

When flu season hits, we are going to hear all kinds of madness.

Yup, that train already left the station.

a reply to: Destinyone

originally posted by: Destinyone
a reply to: 00nunya00

It is sad this once very informative thread has lost a lot of the early relevant posters. I gave up on it this morning because a couple of people literally chased a lot of other people away.

If that is how ATS works these days...it's too bad. Because valuable information is not being shared because it's just not worth trying to have a decent discussion. I lost interest in spending my valuable time researching, or calling friends who work for CDC and Emory just to have a constant stream of challenges thrown at me when trying to share information.

All threads have a lifespan, just like people. But I hope you don't give up, Des. It's a really good thread on what may well be one of the most important issues of our time, depending on how the next few weeks and months go.

You may need a thick skin to turn all that Ebola away. Maybe this is nature's way of helping you develop that thick skin.