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Ebola in Texas


Devin Johnston
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I live in Texas where the first case of Ebola ever to unknowingly come to our shores surfaced two days ago. It was brought here by a man from Liberia who had just recently entered the country. Why we're still allowing flights into the US from African countries without at least testing these people is a decision no reasonable person will ever understand. What I find disturbing is that this man actually went to a hospital with symptoms and was sent home with some antibiotics. He spent a total of 4 days walking around symptomatic before he was quarantined. The CDC says that there are procedures in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening, and that there's a zero percent chance that anyone else was infected. I'm sorry but I'm calling total BS on this, unless the hospital is completely incompetent they should have identified this man as a potential carrier of the virus the first time he was admitted. If there are procedures in place wouldn't one of them be quarantining anyone who's recently traveled from an African country known to have and ongoing Ebola outbreak who's showing early signs of infection! Shouldn't he at least have been watched and tested before releasing him back into the population?

I think this is just the first of many such incidents we’re going to see of infected people not being properly handled. The only thing I am sure of is the absolute incompetence of government and public officials to handle what’s coming.

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lucky for me, i skipped my usual doorknob licking hobby at the hospital over the weekend.

 

The man in question wasn't exhibiting symptoms during his travel and I'm sure the staff associated with his first visit will be disciplined. Sadly, our hospitals are much too accustomed to non-emergency cases wandering into their critical care units abusing the system so they routinely toss out generic antibiotics and send them on their merry way without a second thought. If it were not for a strong healthcare union, they would be fired.

 

I'm certain the media had a graphics package all set and ready to go just waiting for this to happen.

 

>>"The only thing I am sure of is the absolute incompetence of government and public officials to handle what’s coming."

 

There's no shortage of incompetence in any field including our own.

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I think the over-use of antibiotics has more insidious long term implications than ebola.

 

Not as much over-using as not completing the full stay on them the moment lazy people start feeling better. Some future generation will be once very "thankful" for that. But over-prescription of them is very common everywhere. I've once heard good argument on that by one doctor saying it's not as much doctors being lazy as people often perceive but people literally demanding them, they came to doctor so obviously he must give them some guaranteed-to-work instant solution, even though they have flu.

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lucky for me, i skipped my usual doorknob licking hobby at the hospital over the weekend.

 

Two of the body fluids listed were sweat and urine. It probably doesn't require licking a doorknob to pass these along, especially in a places like public restroom environments.

 

It would be interesting to find out if this person contracted it by casual contact.

Edited by heni30
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antibiotics is practicly in everything including food, they feed it to fish( salmon) and to pigs and what not...body fluids like sweat and urine huh? testers found that fluids on money and on subway grips and everywhere because some people do not wash hands in the WC. if you put flyers from Africa in carantine then they take the train or bus to another country. Africa -Paris-NY. And its cheaper with European or Asian airlines anyway. Guess there is no easy solution, thats why we had that problems with SARS and Birdlfy etc.

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" testers found that fluids on money and on subway grips and everywhere because some people do not wash hands in the WC "

 

Well, there goes hand shaking and open mouth kissing out the door. Donald Trump NEVER shakes hands.

 

 

"And to use my RECTUM HELPER! Ofcourse..."

 

Wow, I thought you were joking. That's great that research is being done in that area. I remember going to Europe the first time and discovering the foot squat toilets and how much more natural and efficient that felt.

 

However, here in the states I think people would find the use of the word rectum offensive. So when marketing over here something like "Poop Pal" or "Butt Buddy" would work better. It's gotta be catchy - like "Snuggie".

Edited by heni30
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Quite interesting that out of all the countries in the world (almost 200) the first infection outside the infected african countries coincidentally hits the US...

And interesting that they put entire regions under quarantine in liberia, but they don't have a quarantine at the airport or in the US.

Edited by numerobis
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well ''it'' hit the airport in Brussels first...people come into the countries via ships, busses and airplanes..put the entire country in caranteen...be glad that they found out early and he went to a hospital ''The incubation period for the virus is 2 to 21 days, meaning that a person could be infected with the disease for up to three weeks before he or she show any signs of it.''

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Two of the body fluids listed were sweat and urine. It probably doesn't require licking a doorknob to pass these along, especially in a places like public restroom environments.

 

It would be interesting to find out if this person contracted it by casual contact.

 

News reports say he helped get a young woman to a hospital. They refused to take her, then she died, then her brother who had also helped carry her died. Then this guy got on a plane. Like that.

 

And vomit...

 

And I saw a news item (unconfirmed) mentioning that the guy was puking all over Texas as he was getting to an ambulance, once the CDC had been told the hospital sent the guy home. I'd hate to have been the person who cleaned up after this man.

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I read something similar this morning about the vomit, also unconfirmed was the claim that hundreds of people could have been exposed to this man during the 4 days before his quarantine. The ambulance he was transported to the hospital in was kept in service for 2 days before it was taken off the streets and cleaned. The CDC claim they have protocols in place to handle Ebola patients except none of the medical personal seem to have been aware of them. It doesn't seem to me that there taking this very seriously despite what they are saying.

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I was talking to my CDC buddy at the pool today and he just rolled his eyes with pretty much John's attitude.

 

He was talking about a viral "load" transfer, where it takes more than just a superficial contact to

transmit it.

 

So John, I stand corrected. It seems like you really do have to lick a doorknob to become infected.

Edited by heni30
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He's a lab technician.

 

But here in Atlanta CDC people are everywhere. When my daughter was younger, 4 of her friends' parents worked there.

 

Devin, you need to hightail it from TX.

 

Epidemics, server crashes; there's probably locusts right around the corner.

 

My wife made us move from San Francisco to Atlanta because she believed the big one was coming and CA was going to break off and sink into the Pacific.

Edited by heni30
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Ebola is not very contagious under normal circumstances.

 

Jeeez - I don't know who is telling you this but.... AFAIK (and I've been within about 15 miles of an outbreak in Africa years ago) Ebola is one of the most transmissible of diseases. It's only major shortcoming when it comes to its potential as a global pandemic, is that it debilitates and then kills its carriers so quickly and effectively that this reduces its ability to spread itself around the world.

 

The very last thing I would be - is complacent about Ebola, the incredibly courageous volunteers and doctors who help the victims are wearing full body suits, facemasks and breathing filters and yet some still get infected, so for someone to suggest that contagion is nothing much to worry about seems (to me at least) to be grossly irresponsible. I would be extremely concerned about Ebola making it to the shores of the US where air travel presents it with the potential to spread rapidly enough to become a major event. Fortunately for me - that 15 miles years ago - equated to 2 days travelling in that part of the Africa, even in my 4x4, but 2 days travelling out of Houston Airport......!

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