Have you touched an Ebola Patient’s Puke, Sweat, Sh*t, or Blood? If Not, You Don’t Have Ebola.

[Ms. Toad]

85. When did I define it that way?

Stop putting words in my mouth. I have not said a single word to indicate that I thought every space a potentially symptomatic person might possibly have occupied is a den of death.

Amber Vinson did expose everyone she came in direct contact with once she started having symptoms - which was either Friday or Saturday, based on the interviews the CDC had with her. That includes her family, the party at the bridal shop, and at least her seatmates and people she interacted with on the one, possibly 2, flights. The risk that anyone was infected from that exposure is small, but non-zero. My point, which you know if you are reading with any integrity, is that because of her known exposure to someone with a very active Ebola infection, the minute she experienced symptoms she needed to assume she had Ebola and treat it as Ebola until proven otherwise. That would have prevented - or at least minimized - exposing others.

It turns out that Thomas Duncan was very careful about limiting known exposure to Ebola, and the story about his helping a pregnant woman who died from Eboal is an urban myth. So he apparently contracted it from someone who was not blatantly symptomatic - or from contact with a surface he touched that he was unaware someone who was blatantly symptomatic had touched recently enough to have active virus.

Tearing out the seat covers and carpet where Vinson sat on the plane was overkill. Outside the body the virus is relatively weak and can be destroyed by thorough cleaning with standard cleaning products. Cleaning sufficient to kill any potential virus on places she was likely to have touched did need to be done - including cleaning the bridal shop Amber Vinson was actually in.

Closing and cleaning any place that anyone who was on the plane with Amber Vinson is overkill. People who were on the plane with Amber Vinson and who came in contact with her were exposed (and if they begin to feel flu-like symptoms within 21 days after exposure they need to assume it is Ebola until proven otherwise). Because. in the first two days after exposure (unless they became symptomatic that early), you are not contagious there is no danger that those individuals transmitted their own version Ebola to any surface in the buildings they were in. Any transmission would have had to be of the virus they picked up by contact with a surface touched by Amber Vinson (or by touching Amber Vinson herself). It would have had to persist on their skin or clothing through whatever other contacts they had with anyone or anything else between the plane and their buildings, not to mention changes of clothing, showers, hand washing, etc. Whoever touched a contaminated surface would then have needed to transfer whatever virus they picked up to a cut or mucous membrane. Not to mention that because Vinson was in the early stages of Ebola, her viral load was low, so there would have been minimal viral shedding to create virus laden surfaces. So the chance that anyone does not have Ebola would have transferred active virus by physical contact with virus left by another person to a separate building, in most cases at least a day later, is small. Given how poor most cleaning services are, there was probably a greater chance that cleaning crews would have missed it even if it was somehow present.

But - the fact that the risk of people she exposed are unlikely to come down with Ebola doesn't excuse her failure to treat the early stages of Ebola as Ebola. We will probably get lucky this time - but if we excuse that kind of behavior (and continue to minimize the risk it poses to zero), the next time we may not be so lucky. Ebola is an extremely dangerous virus - and we must treat it that way - which means if you have had direct contact with someone with Ebola, and you develop flu-like symptoms, you should assume it is Ebola until proven otherwise, and stop exposing others.