uppityperson
uppityperson's JournalWill they start quarantining abusers and the mentally ill?
After all, the first most likely will be a threat to someone in the near future and the second just might. So let's make them stay home to keep the public safe!
I am wondering if others have considered the larger impacts of the "detain 'til they can prove they aren't a threat" quarantines.
Thoughts?
Now THIS is how to do it right
This is what information the media needs and how to report it. Good job Detroit Free Press.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/10/29/michigan-monitoring-eight-ebola-exposure/18105729/
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"Due to the enhanced screening at airports, they were identified as having low risk and then the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) contacted the state health department," Smith said. "There's no additional risk to the public at this time. This is a good thing that we have identified low-risk individuals, and we can monitor them in case there is a change in their health."
Smith said the cases involve individuals who were in countries with widespread Ebola transmission within the last 21 days but that to her knowledge, they have not had direct contact with anyone who has Ebola or been symptomatic.
The health department is not releasing any identifying information about the individuals, including their county of residence, Minicuci said. "We're protecting the rights and the privacy of these individuals," Minicuci said. "These aren't positive cases at this time."
If any of the individuals test positive for Ebola, the department will release more information, Minicuci said....(more at link on signs, symptoms, etc).
Why wasn't anyone worried May, June, July, Aug about workers returning, people entering
the USA from ebola outbreak areas?
And yes, there have been volunteers volunteering and returning and tourists and travelers from the ebola outbreak countries.
Among us for the last 6 months.
Why no concern about them?
Bonus question. Why were there no cases of ebola passed on from any of them or of any of them?
Bonus bonus question. Why do you fear them now?
New CDC Risk categories for Ebola, Get your Info Here
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/exposure/risk-factors-when-evaluating-person-for-exposure.htmlThe following epidemiologic risk factors should be considered when evaluating a person for Ebola virus disease (Ebola), classifying contacts, or considering public health actions such as monitoring and movement restrictions based on exposure.
1. High risk includes any of the following:
Percutaneous (e.g., needle stick) or mucous membrane exposure to blood or body fluids of a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic,
Exposure to the blood or body fluids (including but not limited to feces, saliva, sweat, urine, vomit, and semen) of a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic without appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE),
Processing blood or body fluids of a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic without appropriate PPE or standard biosafety precautions,
Direct contact with a dead body without appropriate PPE in a country with widespread Ebola virus transmission,
Having lived in the immediate household and provided direct care to a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic
2. Some risk includes any of the following:
In countries with widespread Ebola virus transmission: direct contact while using appropriate PPE with a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic
Close contact in households, health care facilities, or community settings with a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic
Close contact is defined as being for a prolonged period of time while not wearing appropriate PPE within approximately 3 feet (1 meter) of a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic
3. Low (but not zero) risk includes any of the following:
Having been in a country with widespread Ebola virus transmission within the past 21 days and having had no known exposures
Having brief direct contact (e.g., shaking hands) while not wearing appropriate PPE, with a person with Ebola while the person was in the early stage of disease
Brief proximity, such as being in the same room for a brief period of time, with a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic
In countries without widespread Ebola virus transmission: direct contact while using appropriate PPE with a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic
Traveled on an aircraft with a person with Ebola while the person was symptomatic.
4. No identifiable risk includes:
Contact with an asymptomatic person who had contact with person with Ebola
Contact with a person with Ebola before the person developed symptoms
Having been more than 21 days previously in a country with widespread Ebola virus transmission
Having been in a country without widespread Ebola virus transmission and not having any other exposures as defined above.
Article about it, what it means in actions.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/cdc-tweaks-ebola-guidelines-travelers-n235011
Self Monitor vs Self Contain, OMG!
There is a big difference between these processes and they are being used inaccurately in too many cases.
Self Monitor
This is monitoring, watching, checking yourself for signs or symptoms of a disease. Most of us do this all the time.
Have you ever noticed your throat hurts or your nose is stuffy and you may be coming down with a cold? Ever feel achy and hot and take your temperature to see if it is high and you might be coming down with influenza?
Congratulations! You self monitored.
This is what people who have worked with others with ebola are doing, here in the USA and elsewhere in the world. They self monitor themselves for fever and other symptoms of the disease by taking their temperatures at least a couple times a day and watch for other symptoms. If they have symptoms, they seek medical help.
Self Contain
This term is being used in lieu of quarantine for some reason. Quarantines are enforced isolation.
Want to help in the fight against ebola?
Here are 2 NGOs that have been working in W Africa, trying to help those sick, contain those exposed, educate everyone. They are in need of more funding and would appreciate anything you would give to help. If DUers have others, please add them. Being able to help is good.
Doctors without Borders. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/support-us/donation-faq
Direct Relief International. http://www.directrelief.org/ http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/14/charities-11_Direct-Relief-International_CH0057.html
I hereby resolve
to do the best I can to not react to first fast news reports about most things, but to be patient and wait for accurate information to be released.
Unless of course it is something like a tornado is headed my way.
But I try my hardest to not buy into fast reporting, instead wait for accurate reporting.
Have a good evening or whatever time of day or night it is where you are when you read this.
Pregnant women in Liberia becoming victims of the ebola outbreak
I found a couple articles talking about the problems pregnant women, and people with other non-ebola health issues, are having in Liberia. They help explain how awful things are.
If you can't prove you don't have ebola, you are not admitted to a hospital, if you can find one open, and if they have an open bed. If you can't prove you do have ebola, you are not admitted to an ebola ward.
If you are having pregnancy/birth complications, more common if you have not had prenatal care which is getting more and more difficult to find, you give birth in unsanitary unsafe places unattended by medical people. Or you die. Or both.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/30/ebola-outbreak-pregnant-women_n_5901816.html
In an effort to keep the virus contained, Fatumata Fofana was denied access to a hospital in July because she didn't have Ebola.
Amid being transferred to two different clinics, the pregnant Liberian woman developed medical complications while still in labor. Fofana and her baby died.
Unfortunately, Fofana's story is not uncommon in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia. Pregnant women without the virus are suffering the consequences of the region's increasingly detrimental Ebola outbreak, as the nation's overwhelmed health care system continues to buckle, The Washington Post reported. When compared to the summer months of 2013, Liberia experienced a 14 percent drop (52 percent to 38 percent) in infants delivered by a skilled birth attendant, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
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“If you stub your toe now in Monrovia, you’ll have a hard time getting care, let alone having a heart attack or malaria,” Sheldon Yett, the Liberia representative for UNICEF, told The Washington Post. “It’s a tremendous threat to children and a tremendous threat to families.”....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/with-ebola-crippling-the-health-system-liberians-die-of-routine-medical-problems/2014/09/20/727dcfbe-400b-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html
While the terrifying spread of Ebola has captured the world’s attention, it also has produced a lesser-known crisis: the near-collapse of the already fragile health-care system here, a development that may be as dangerous — for now — as the virus for the average Liberian.
Western experts said that people here are dying of preventable or treatable conditions such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and the effects of high blood pressure and diabetes, such as strokes. Where services do exist, Ebola has complicated the effort to provide them by stoking fear among health-care workers, who sometimes turn away sick people or women in labor if they can’t determine whether the patient is infected. And some people, health-care workers said, will not seek care, fearful that they will become infected with Ebola at a clinic or hospital.
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When compared with 2013, the period of May to August 2014 saw a sharp drop in the percentage of infants delivered by a skilled birth attendant (52 percent to 38 percent); the percentage of women who received prenatal care within six weeks of confirming their pregnancies (41 percent to 25 percent) and women who receive treatment for malaria (47.8 percent to 29.4 percent), among other measures.
For a few weeks in August, the government ordered all health facilities nationwide closed because so many nurses were becoming infected with Ebola. “If you broke a leg and you needed surgery, sorry,” said Sister Barbara Brillant, national coordinator of the Liberian Catholic Church’s health council. “If you had appendicitis and needed surgery, sorry. It’s not available.”
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Pregnant women are especially vulnerable in the new environment. While treatment of some kinds of problems can be deferred, the arrival of a child cannot. As a Washington Post photographer watched one day last week, a woman in labor arrived at the JFK Ebola treatment center in a taxi, sent by workers at the hospital’s recently reopened maternity ward because she had no evidence she was free of Ebola. But no one came to the Ebola facility’s gate — and even if someone had, the woman’s chances of gaining entry were next to zero. With no evidence that she had Ebola, the isolation center would not bring her inside among those who have the virus...
Direct flights from Liberia/Siera Leone/Guinea to USA, by the numbers....
Zero. None. No direct flights.
How many have traveled from those countries to the USA in recent months? Thousands.
How many have been stopped by the screenings preflight? Last month 17. All together, 77.
How many cases of ebola diagnosed from those thousands why traveled into the USA? One.
This does not mean be complacent, but calls to ban fights that do not exist? Ok. Let's also ban flights from Mars.
This article is about doing better screening, and touches on the need for more personnel and equuipment to be sent and used to fight ebola where it is and is a decent read, beyond addressing all those (non-existent)flights we need to ban or block.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-will-augment-ebola-screenings-for-airline-passengers-in-us-and-africa/2014/10/06/2e14a1c0-4d7d-11e4-babe-e91da079cb8a_story.html
“In recent months we’ve had thousands of travelers arriving here from West Africa,” he said, “and so far only one case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the United States, and that’s the patient in Dallas.”
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There are no direct flights by U.S. carriers from Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia. The vast majority of travelers from Africa to the United States fly through hub cities in Europe. Duncan flew from his native country to Brussels, where he boarded a flight to Washington Dulles International Airport, changed planes and continued on to Dallas.
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Public health officials have warned that a complete travel ban would cause economic harm, hinder the delivery of food and supplies and even limit the ability of doctors, nurses and humanitarian workers to travel into those areas.
Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said Sunday that the agency has increased exit screenings at airports in the Ebola-riddled countries, using a combination of thermometers, questionnaires and “visual inspection” of travelers. This screening has stopped 77 people from boarding planes, including 17 last month, he said. However, Duncan was able to make his way into the United States simply by filling out a questionnaire saying he had not had contact with anyone infected with Ebola. When Duncan left Liberia, he had no fever and had no symptoms associated with the virus.
How did Thomas Duncan get infected, what he was told? (malaria)
http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-ebola-liberia-20141003-story.htmlA chain of confusion and denial links the Dallas apartment complex to which he moved to a dark green house about 30 yards from Duncan's door in Liberia, where the desperate family of a dying pregnant woman treated her illness as malaria, not the highly infectious virus that has killed more than 3,300 people.
Now two members of the Williams family, Duncan's neighbors and landlords, are dead, three other people are sick and Duncan has become the first person to develop symptoms of the disease in the United States.
If not for the Williams family's insistence, perhaps based on wishful thinking, that 19-year-old Marthalene Williams didn't have Ebola, the disease might never have reached U.S. soil...(much more, please read it at the link)
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