Dallas Ebola infection/incubation timeline 10.19.14 (Duncan's family in 21st day!)

[Warren DeMontague]

102. If it was airborne, we'd know it by now.

And I for one sure as shit wouldn't be bothering to make an argument for travel restrictions- like the flu, there'd be no point.

I actually think that a valid debate- which I've only seen brought up once or twice- is whether, if we are going to have a slow but steady stream of ebola importations, we ought to reexamine our standard approach to heroic end of life saving measures. Normally, ethically, in western medicine when someone is about to die they pretty much throw the kitchen sink at them; as I suspect they did with Mr. Duncan- dialysis, etc. and I also suspect that it was in those last terminal hours that the two nurses likely were exposed.

Thing is with ebola (as we see, the folks in the apt. thankfully don't seem to have caught it) it is in the last terminal phase of the illness when the body is most contagious. Really, it becomes as Preston puts it in the Hot Zone, a "viral bomb". And once the patient gets to that point, it is pretty unlikely they will survive.

I think a re-examination of how we treat ebola patients in that last phase may be in order if we really want to protect the lives of health care workers- maybe pain management and isolation is better than a whole bunch of invasive procedures which are not likely to work but may throw a ton of viral material up into the air (not the same, of course, as the virus being "airborne&quot

it's an ethical question, because it forces a re-examination of how we would normally treat someone about to die. But I think it's a conversation worth having.

On a different note, I appreciate your acknowledgment that restricting visa travel is a valid question. There has been a lot of knee-jerkery around that, and name calling.