Ebola patient is in NY

originally posted by: criticalhit
This is seriously fracked up...

It doesn't necessarily mean it WILL become a major outbreak now, but this is the worst case scenario for how Ebola could become serious.

I basically agree that Ebola and some isolated incidents weren't much of a threat, but laying out the scenario of how it COULD, it was this:

Patient Zero, start of Winter, very begging of November/Late October with temperatures just starting to reach 37F where Ebola can survive outside of a host for several months on surfaces with the longest number of months ahead of it to do so, specifically in NYC, dense human population and traffic, heavy money exchange, largest mass transit system, native species in massive numbers capable of becoming a Vector (Rats) with patient Zero located in an area where the Rats pervade housing (The Bronx) and patient Zero being loose on the streets for a long period, 10 days, onset of viral spread coinciding with onset of flu season spreading the virus effectively enough through air and surface and trash being public bagged city trash so as to spread into vector animal (rats) numbering over 64 Million in the city from saliva in food remains ....

NY is the most viable city for this fast spreading set of conditions to exist, Chicago would be second.

This case has all the conditions and timing to create the highly improbable scenario of global pandemic.

This is actually SCARY as all hell...

If it picks up Rodents as an Animal Vector half the world will die.... and that's an unknown

But, from NYC with Rodents as a vector and the temperature and season right, it could land in every major city with similar conditions in the Northern Hemisphere during a season it can live for months while coughing and sneezing are prevalent, it could become "The Black Death" now... It's possible, the Subway, The shipping, the temperature, the number of flights, the rodent population, it's PERFECT

Roughly 100,000 people per day travel Nationally and Internationally out of NY from JFK alone, that doesn't include Newark, Trains and buses or daily commuters out to the tri state area....

Pray to whatever gods you hold.... That in those 10 days this douche bag didn't throw away the end bite of a street hot dog or piece of Pizza into one of those filthy wide open wire trash bins like several Million Nyers do every day, the ones you know... the Bums and the Rats eat out of.... Because if he did.... Most of us are likely already dead

Have you seen the studies that say that there's a possibility that the Black Death "Bubonic Plague", may actually have been Ebola? One article I read said that during the Black Death, one way they helped curb it, was when a ship was coming into port, the ship was NOT allowed to dock until after 40 days to ensure it did not have the Black Death onboard. Also if anyone in the home had the Black Death, anyone in the home was not allowed to leave for 40 days. Sounds like the WHO may not be far off with their 42 day mark. I don't trust the 21 day mark to save my life! I say we should go after the 42 day mark for ALL patients. There should be a cruise ship that is not in use anymore, but still workable, for quarantined patients that are waiting to pass the 42 days. A cruise ship is essentially a tall town with lovely hotel rooms. Let patients spend their 42 days just offshore, if anyone is found to be positive, they will be immediately helicoptered off to a Bio level 4 hospital. Is it the best plan? Probably not, but for 3am, I'd say it's probably pretty darn good.

Black Death = Ebola

Isn't it great.
Another medical person exposed to Ebola and wandering around town.
But this time, it's not Dallas or Cleveland.
Now it's NYC.
Why should we care if NYC has ebola?
Dallas was no big deal. Cleveland, no sweat.
It was all hype right?
Doesn't matter if he's a threat.
Don't say anything. It's just overreaction.
Doom porn.
Nothing to see here.
All is well.

originally posted by: MarkJS

originally posted by: dianajune

originally posted by: BABYBULL24
Ive read 82 days - WHO says 49 days so it will probably change - that's how they spread it over there :

Men who have recovered from the illness can still spread the virus to their partner through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery. For this reason, it is important for men to avoid sexual intercourse for at least 7 weeks after recovery or to wear condoms if having sexual intercourse during 7 weeks after recovery.

World Health Organization

A couple of questions:

If a recovered Ebola patient uses a condom, how should it be disposed of?

And what about menstruating women? If a recovered female patient was still having her period, what about that? What about other body fluids?

Good question about the condom.

I doubt if anyone knows. If they are healed of Ebola, but 'put' EBOV into a condom, will they get reinfected? IMO as a layman, I would guess that they would give the recommendation to abstain for that time, just to be safe.

Something you would HOPE they would do, but we've already seen they cannot go without the social quotient, how about the sexual? I know myself as a woman, I could live 3 months without sex if I knew it might save the life of my partner. Some guys might, but can all?

a reply to: Anyafaj

well... this get's better and better

I was serious in that previous post, this was the exact scenario I called for being just about the ONLY way Ebola could take off in a Pandemic manner...

2 subjective items...

1: Can rodents become a vector (i think likely yes)

2: Would people be stupid enough to throw away Ebola contaminated stuff into open trash...

NYC... pretty damn good chance some guy named Barney is wearing those gloves in an alley right now, pickin his nose, rubbing his eyes eating a stale doughnut.... due to drop dead and not be found for days right about when the temp hits 20 for the first time, or hit a shelter maybe with 30-40 of his skeevy friends... passin that crack pipe around a burning garbage can night after night for a couple of weeks, mouth to mouth, mouth to mouth until it hits his friend Gloria who proceeds to go Arse to mouth with 20-30 people for 5.00 a pop over the next 2 weeks...

Being Comedic Horror guy for a moment...

But i've seen this stuff first hand in NY.... it gets pretty nasty on the streets at night and under the subways etc, etc...

a reply to: Anyafaj

oh... I used that term for a reason. Black Death, the outbreaks Did have a Rat factor i'm sure, my guess is, it needs "the push" the special conditions where it can spread in tandem with other things and remain popping up again and gain, Rat vector + disease that spreads it in tandem like Flu, Pneumonia or even Plague... the messier the better

Sheesh...

So many reasons and scenarios where in NYC this thing could just take off.....

Imagine they "arrest" Barney the bum who ate Dr Dooms Hot Dog bun or whatever from the trash can.... he spends a few days in Rikers....

Imagine an outbreak in Rikers Island? Dozens and Dozens of total scumbags infected and released before they realize it's loose? needle users, rapists, molesters, fist fighting yahoos of all types, perverts and pimps....

You know all those role models being vectors for a short time...

shwooooo

a reply to: criticalhit

"This work provides evidence that different rodent species and one shrew species have been in contact with the Ebola virus - terrestrial species are concerned, contrary to the current hypothesis," the spokesman said. "In addition, these results fit well with the history of fauna in tropical Africa. They show that there is a common Ebola virus subtype for Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon.

Source

*Note that this research is from 1999, and they didnt find rodents who were positive for the virus... but instead found genetic markers showing that the rodents had come in to contact with Ebola some time in the past.

What carries viruses that cause viral hemorrhagic fevers? Viruses associated with most VHFs are zoonotic. This means that these viruses naturally reside in an animal reservoir host or arthropod vector. They are totally dependent on their hosts for replication and overall survival. For the most part, rodents and arthropods are the main reservoirs for viruses causing VHFs. The multimammate rat, cotton rat, deer mouse, house mouse, and other field rodents are examples of reservoir hosts.

Source
*Note this is NOT saying speaking of EBOLA specifically but about Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers in a more general sense.

So i believe its possible... though its not common, nor is it a way the people usually are infected from Ebola. IN this outbreak i believe every single case since the very first case has been human to human transmission.... meaning its not running rampant in the rodent population in West Africa, or any population except Homosapiens

BUt I think the possibilit exists for a mutation to allow it to infect and spread in rodents.... specifically in an area like NYC which has one of the, if not THE, highest population density's of rats. That said, IF a mutation allowed for that... it could just as easily allow it to no longer become harmful to humans at all. Mutations are tricky like that.

I think we should be more concerned with 2ndary infections/contacts of existing known positive patients.... who may not even be aware that they are infected. That is what scares me the most...

a reply to: criticalhit

If the homeless get infected....its the end for NYC. They are in every food place, public bathroom, hospital, public area, jail, homeless shelters, public transportation system and even apartment buildings.

It has been studied by militaries across the world, If you wanted to kill off a metropolitan city through biological warfare, you use the homeless as carriers.

They dont even get medical treatment in most cases. You couldnt even detect it until most people are already sick, if you find out at all where it all originated.

The CIA spent some time in NYC subways in the 70s spraying specific cold virus´and other measurable diseases to see the spread rate. The result was that homeless people were more prone to get what they sprayed and then spread it themselves further.

Maybe thats why they have been cracking down on homelessness lately.

a reply to: tadaman

We had a possible case, that turned out negative, not too long ago here in the city i live in. What concerned me a great deal was the initial patient went to a free clinic located fairly close to my work. That free clinic is used predominantly by illegal immigrants and the homeless...

My thought then was that if this virus got into the homeless community here- of which we have a large one- that it could turn catastrophic. The homeless population in NYC compared to Richmond, Va im sure is similar to the population difference between the two...

I couldnt imagine the virus turning up in the homeless community there in NY... i honestly dont know, realistically , how they would contain it at that point without declaring some type of martial law...

scary thought indeed

originally posted by: BABYBULL24
Ive read 82 days - WHO says 49 days so it will probably change - that's how they spread it over there :

Men who have recovered from the illness can still spread the virus to their partner through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery. For this reason, it is important for men to avoid sexual intercourse for at least 7 weeks after recovery or to wear condoms if having sexual intercourse during 7 weeks after recovery.

World Health Organization

The isolation of EBOV from semen 40 days after the onset of illness underscores the risk of sexual transmission of the filoviruses during convalescence. Zaire EBOV has been detected in the semen of convalescent patients by virus isolation (82 days) and RT-PCR (91 days) after disease onset [5, 14]. Marburg virus has also been isolated from the semen and linked conclusively to sexual transmission 13 weeks into convalescence [15].[Source]

Can you imagine the unreal scenario?

Well honey, it's been 7 weeks / 82 days / 91 days since I've recovered, so we're gonna do this. At the end, if they are wrong, you may end up with Ebola and/or I may reinfect myself through contaminated contact with the virus.

crazy, crazy. Did I say this is a 'crazy' scenario?

Advice: Consult your medical doctor for the latest agreed-to timeframe after recovering from Ebola, for when you should be resuming sex.

They're saying he hadn't been back to work but his place of work (NY Presby) is on the map, so did he visit to say hi?
'
[Sourcew NYTimes]

originally posted by: Anyafaj

originally posted by: AutOmatIc
Bwahahahahaha....sorry...but, I mean....WHO DOESN'T LOCK THEIR APARTMENT WHEN THEY LEAVE IN NYC????

...the complete lack of common sense, and intelligence of people never ceases to amaze me.


a reply to: Anyafaj

I thought the same thing too and I don't even live there. LOL I live in a tiny blurb of a place with only 4000 people and even I lock my door! Mine is more out of habit. My last place was in the ghetto living next door to a drug dealer's girlfriend in a black mold infested apartment for 13 1/2 years. Unbelievably, it was NOT in NYCrappy, but it was near Syracuse. Lifelong Orangewoman here. LOL

Oh as an update, FoxNews is reporting that CDC may "investigate" the doctor's apartment further tomorrow, and may "go through the apartment thoroughly, like Amber's, Duncan's, and Pham's were.

I live near Syracuse. It's about as close as I want to get but at least I'm not actually within the city. I grew up in Syracuse and was sooooo glad to move away from there. It's not NYC but it's getting there.

University Hospital in Syracuse happens to be one of the Ebola treatment centers in the State, thanks to Cuomo.

Boy just when your think this virus is getting under control in the US it pops up like this.

He traveled most of the NY subway while sick, as other have worried there are a lot of homeless people down there. With it getting colder more of them will take shelter there as well. With the population count in that area the chances of him infecting another is very high, the chance on it spreading depends on who else was infected. If it's only people near him. Then we might be ok, but if one of the homeless we're looking at a big problem. Some homeless like being homeless and left alone bothering them just causes them to get upset and run or attack sometime.

originally posted by: Anyafaj

originally posted by: kosmicjack

I am just absolutely disgusted.



I remember six or eight weeks ago when it was first diagnosed in Nigeria that they were all like - "This is a worst case scenario, it is now in a major population center!"



But let it come to New York, a month after Duncan, no flights stopped, two health care workers infected and it's like - "Oh, no worries, we got this."



This is simply surreal.

I'm sick of the hocus pocus reports of infections, changing data on: contagiousness, infectiousness, when someone is symptomatic, convenient CDC protocol recommendations, accusations of fear-mongering, magically healed patients a week later - and MOST OF ALL - information management instead of crisis management.

Now the health department in NY is admitting he took 2 subway trains to get to the bowling alley AND went to the restaurant. Glad he had a wonderful time! And after two MSN reported he threw up, now the Health department is saying he never once threw up or had diarrhea. Considering I don't trust them for crap, I'm inclined to believe he did get sick to his stomach, at least once. They're claiming he ONLY came in contact with two friends, and his fiancé. So let's me get this straight, the bowling alley and the restaurant were abandoned and it was only them there? As well as the two subways? So who played conductor? The girlfriend?

Just like our Dart Rail lady who vomited on the pavement, had fever and told EMTs she was on a watch list and lived at the Ivy Apartments. They spun that into the lady spitting on the pavement, was not on any watch list and lived in an entirely different apartment complex. End of story.

originally posted by: MrLimpet
a reply to: texasgirl



It was obvious he put blame and fault on Texas for the first Ebola patient in the U.S. IMO ~ He gave a slight impression that Texas was stupid. He & they were so much better.



Sometimes things have a way of turning around and biting you in the ...



I truly hope that the NY Gov. doesn't have to eat his words.

I mentioned in another thread a while back about an interview with a NYC doctor and he was bragging about how they were prepared to handle any Ebola cases that came his way because "we are New York and we're such a better people than Dallas". I kept thinking "What an arrogant fool!"

Here's your chance to prove yourself, DOCTOR.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
There's no excuse, this doctor should have known better!

Seriously true. It's stupidity at a deadly level.
Ebola Nurse Amber and now this doctor ... no common sense.

Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, was placed in a quarantined unit at Bellevue Hospital on Thursday, six days after returning from Guinea, renewing public jitters about transmission of the disease and rattling financial markets. [Source]

Ut oh. Rattling financial markets. Better get on that. Stay calm and buy (pharma, preferably, thank you).

While the outbreak is burning strong in West Africa, Ebola emerging in NYC was pretty much inevitable. The city has one of the largest Liberian-American populations in the US and has a high number of medical workers per capita. Prior to this situation Amber Vinson's journey across America was our worst case scenario and thus far no secondary cases have emerged from that event. Dr Spencer's travels through NYC in the days leading up to his diagnosis is our previous worst case scenario in spades. The lack of secondary infections in Duncan's families case and Vinson's case, should lead people to the conclusion that even while symptomatic (or per-syptomatic), Ebola is difficult to spread through casual contact. Due to prolonged contact with highly contagious patients healthcare providers are thousands of times more likely to become infected than anyone who has casual contact with someone in the early stages of the disease.

NYC will be a testing ground for my above observations. Hopefully when the dust settles in 21 days, people will reacted more calmly when additional cases pop up throughout the US and Europe- and they will. Until the disease is combated more effectively in West Africa, a small number of cases will continue to appear.

From what I'm reading, Craig Spencer, this doctor, was in Guinea for a month. And he went with his fiance (not sure about that part)?


[Source CNN]

It seems to me that the guideline for MSF Doctors Without Borders is a bit longer. But maybe that is just the commitment and they are not always deployed? Or can come and go at will?

Availability for a minimum of 9 to 12 months
With the exception of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and ob-gyns who may be accepted for shorter assignments of 6 weeks to 3 months
Because of the degree of responsibility MSF aid workers are expected to assume, the time needed to acclimatize to a project and context, and the need for continuity among field staff for the benefit of both our locally hired staff and patients, MSF requires a 9 to 12 month time commitment for most profiles. Due to the nature of their workload while in the field, a shorter time commitment is required of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and ob-gyns. [Source MSF Site]

Or maybe they are so strapped they are making exceptions, but to me it seems as if this is a pretty short ramp-up time.

Also, I believe it is now 17 doctors from MSF who have ebola. I think I remember reading last week it was 16.

ETA: NY Doctor Craig Spencer Followed Proper Protocols After Returning From Ebola-Stricken West Africa

Neither MSF or federal, state, or city public health officials require that medical professionals caring for Ebola-infected patients completely isolate themselves upon returning home. Instead, they require the following:

1. Check temperature two times per day
2. Finish regular course of malaria prophylaxis (malaria symptoms can mimic Ebola symptoms)
3. Be aware of relevant symptoms, such as fever
4. Stay within four hours of a hospital with isolation facilities
5. Immediately contact the MSF-USA office if any relevant symptoms develop

These guidelines are the same as those used by the CDC for anyone returning from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa.

Maybe it's time these protocols were revisted?