Official Ebola update thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I think a flight ban is coming in upcoming weeks. The administration seems to be softening its position a bit -- it came up on the Hill today and later in the day Obama said he wasn't philosophically opposed but was looking to the experts.

I don't get the argument of -- closing the borders makes people sneak in. So what -- they are walking in right now and not being particularly honest, so there is still that element of "surprise" they turn up at a US hospital. Sure the gov't knows where they're coming from but they aren't keeping track of them if they don't show a fever at the airport which someone won't if they were just exposed and happened to dose up on Advil before deplaning so they could make it out of customs and home to their relatives.

It's already here! We must shut the border with Texas now!

Ohio too? Or us that a blue state, so they don't count?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I think a flight ban is coming in upcoming weeks. The administration seems to be softening its position a bit -- it came up on the Hill today and later in the day Obama said he wasn't philosophically opposed but was looking to the experts.

I don't get the argument of -- closing the borders makes people sneak in. So what -- they are walking in right now and not being particularly honest, so there is still that element of "surprise" they turn up at a US hospital. Sure the gov't knows where they're coming from but they aren't keeping track of them if they don't show a fever at the airport which someone won't if they were just exposed and happened to dose up on Advil before deplaning so they could make it out of customs and home to their relatives.

It's already here! We must shut the border with Texas now!

We get it: Texas is a red state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a flight ban is coming in upcoming weeks. The administration seems to be softening its position a bit -- it came up on the Hill today and later in the day Obama said he wasn't philosophically opposed but was looking to the experts.

I don't get the argument of -- closing the borders makes people sneak in. So what -- they are walking in right now and not being particularly honest, so there is still that element of "surprise" they turn up at a US hospital. Sure the gov't knows where they're coming from but they aren't keeping track of them if they don't show a fever at the airport which someone won't if they were just exposed and happened to dose up on Advil before deplaning so they could make it out of customs and home to their relatives.

Can you explain to me how a flight ban might work when there are no direct flights to the US from the countries in question? All these people are having to go through Europe first. It just seems like it would be very, very difficult to track every single person when there are tons of different connections/routes people could use to get here.

Look at the passports.

Tell Belgium. I think they'll listen to us.

[Anonymous]

Most flights from Africa go through de Gaulle. We need to be in cohorts with the French.

[Anonymous]

They just quarantined a nurse that handled Duncan's specimen.
She is on a cruise ship in Belize. Hopefully they stop anyone else who worked on him from traveling .

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/health/us-ebola/index.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obama lied to you. He knew the risk was not extremely low:

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-administration-found-nearly-25-percent-chance-ebola-184611722.html

Oh, please.

The study found there was a twenty-five percent chance that we would see a case here. Despite this, the president said our overall Ebola vulnerability remains very low, which is true. Importing a single case does not equal a U.S. epidemic, as evidenced by the fact that we have seen only two additional cases since Duncan and none outside the hospital setting. The president was right. We will contain it, just as Nigeria did.

I hope so. Nigeria declared a national emergency and shut schools. We will contain it, but we may need to really toughen up with restricting our mobility.

And therein lies the big difference. In Nigeria the monitoring was done by public health employees who entered homes twice a day to measure temperatures. Here we are relying on self monitoring and truthful reporting.
Freedom of movement - people that should be monitored are flying and cruising here!
Basically Americans do whatever the hell they want, while in Nigeria they were STRICT and entering the homes of people.
Therefore to say that if Nigeria could handle it, so can we - is arrogant and wrong to boot - we are operating totally different here.

[Anonymous]

6 reasons for organized, informed panic.


http://m.weeklystandard.com/articles/six-reasons-panic_816387.html



Excellent most current info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They just quarantined a nurse that handled Duncan's specimen.
She is on a cruise ship in Belize. Hopefully they stop anyone else who worked on him from traveling .

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/health/us-ebola/index.html

Yes, just read this: she took of on a one week cruise.
People really don't care and self monitoring is a joke.
Some people cannot even measure their own temperature.
(And granted some over the counter thermometers suck and don't measure well)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They just quarantined a nurse that handled Duncan's specimen.
She is on a cruise ship in Belize. Hopefully they stop anyone else who worked on him from traveling .

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/health/us-ebola/index.html

Yes, just read this: she took of on a one week cruise.
People really don't care and self monitoring is a joke.
Some people cannot even measure their own temperature.
(And granted some over the counter thermometers suck and don't measure well)

Death of Nigerian man on plane to JFK

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a flight ban is coming in upcoming weeks. The administration seems to be softening its position a bit -- it came up on the Hill today and later in the day Obama said he wasn't philosophically opposed but was looking to the experts.

I don't get the argument of -- closing the borders makes people sneak in. So what -- they are walking in right now and not being particularly honest, so there is still that element of "surprise" they turn up at a US hospital. Sure the gov't knows where they're coming from but they aren't keeping track of them if they don't show a fever at the airport which someone won't if they were just exposed and happened to dose up on Advil before deplaning so they could make it out of customs and home to their relatives.

Can you explain to me how a flight ban might work when there are no direct flights to the US from the countries in question? All these people are having to go through Europe first. It just seems like it would be very, very difficult to track every single person when there are tons of different connections/routes people could use to get here.

Look at the passports.

Most countries don't even bother with passport stamps anymore. How exactly would that prevent us from admitting recent travelers to West Africa?

1. Citizens of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea must travel under their country's passport, same as we travel with a US passport. They will not magically acquire a Belgian passport just because their flight is through Brussels. US could very easily ban everyone with a passport from one of those countries from coming in. Sure, that will not catch the very few individuals who have dual citizenships and thus can travel on an alternate passport, but the amount of people who have e..g., Liberian and UK citizenship is vanishingly small.
2. It is not correct that most countries do not bother with passport stamps. True, most countries in Western Europe do not - if you fly into Italy and then go to Germany and France from there, you will only have the Italian stamp. That is because these countries are under Schengen Agreement, which allows free travel between their borders. Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea are not under any such agreement. If you show up in Guinea, you get your passport stamped, you don't get out of it because you flew in from Nigeria. So checking for stamps would be fairly effective.

Is that going to keep everyone who's been to the affected areas out? No. It would, however, keep out 99% of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obama lied to you. He knew the risk was not extremely low:

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-administration-found-nearly-25-percent-chance-ebola-184611722.html

Oh, please.

The study found there was a twenty-five percent chance that we would see a case here. Despite this, the president said our overall Ebola vulnerability remains very low, which is true. Importing a single case does not equal a U.S. epidemic, as evidenced by the fact that we have seen only two additional cases since Duncan and none outside the hospital setting. The president was right. We will contain it, just as Nigeria did.

I hope so. Nigeria declared a national emergency and shut schools. We will contain it, but we may need to really toughen up with restricting our mobility.

And therein lies the big difference. In Nigeria the monitoring was done by public health employees who entered homes twice a day to measure temperatures. Here we are relying on self monitoring and truthful reporting.
Freedom of movement - people that should be monitored are flying and cruising here!
Basically Americans do whatever the hell they want, while in Nigeria they were STRICT and entering the homes of people.
Therefore to say that if Nigeria could handle it, so can we - is arrogant and wrong to boot - we are operating totally different here.

Not that differently. One of the infected Nigerians fled by plane to a different city after developing symptoms, despite their "strict" monitoring. Still managed to contain it in the end. No one on the plane got sick.

[Anonymous]

My opinion of DCUM posters has never been so low.

[Anonymous]

I noticed that in some people the Ebola virus seems to cause a more progressive and violent disease compared to others. They were showing a video of Nurse Pham this morning and she looked okay (was able to talk, wave etc.). I read that the other nurse is very ill. While critically stable, it seems that the disease is progressing faster in her. I wonder what makes Ebola progress faster in some people vs. others. The doctor and his missionary assistant who were treated at Emory also seemed to have a 'milder' version of the disease while Thomas Duncan succumbed to Ebola in a terrible way within one week of being admitted to the hospital.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My opinion of DCUM posters has never been so low.

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I noticed that in some people the Ebola virus seems to cause a more progressive and violent disease compared to others. They were showing a video of Nurse Pham this morning and she looked okay (was able to talk, wave etc.). I read that the other nurse is very ill. While critically stable, it seems that the disease is progressing faster in her. I wonder what makes Ebola progress faster in some people vs. others. The doctor and his missionary assistant who were treated at Emory also seemed to have a 'milder' version of the disease while Thomas Duncan succumbed to Ebola in a terrible way within one week of being admitted to the hospital.

It kind of makes one wonder if race plays a role in the severity of the virus. I am not saying it does, but has the health community even considered this?