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

[Ms. Toad]

104. You asked me to provide a single case, and stated flat out that there were none.

Show me a case in which Ebola was transmitted in any manner other than what is described in my OP. Show me. Come on.

Oh wait, there aren't any. And never have been, either.

I provided one confirmed case - a case which is recited in most formal studies on transmission which explore whether transmission without direct contact occurs.

From the first article noted in my preceding post, published in the peer reviewed, Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal:

The patterns of exposure of 24 case-patients and 65 healthy contacts were defined, and crude and adjusted prevalence proportion ratios (PPR) were estimated for different types of exposure. Contact with the patient’s body fluids (PPR = 4.61%, 95% confidence interval 1.73 to 12.29) was the strongest risk factor, although transmission through fomites also seems possible.

. . .
All but one (95%) had had direct physical contact with the patient who was the likely source of their disease; the remaining person (case-patient 7) had slept wrapped up in a blanket left by his brother, who had just died of EHF.

So - out of 24 patients in which contacts were traced, one case was, in fact, transmitted without the direct contact you noted in your OP. And if you are now claiming that transmission is possible not by direct contact with fluid, but by indirect contact via things which someone with Ebola has touched, that is exactly the panic you are accusing me of trying to incite.

By insisting that there is NO risk of transmission by Amber Vinson, you are insisting on a reality that does not match with the little scientific research there is on the subject, which has documented the presence of Ebola virus on environmental surfaces where no fluid was visibly present, which has documented the presence of Ebola virus in a variety of bodily fluids other than blood or vomit, which has documented 13 cases where the transmission appears to have been by indirect contact, and which has been unable to make the flat, unqualified statements you have been making.

Things touched by Amber Vinson (fomites) may contain Ebola virus. Things such as the plane seat she was sitting in where she may have sweated, cups she was drinking from on the plane (and passed across the aisle) which may contain her saliva, wedding dresses she may have tried on (into which she may have sweated) are not miraculously free of her bodily fluids, either. They are likely much smaller quantities - both because the quantities are likely low and because the viral load was likely low, but they are not miraculously free. As such, these may be capable of spreading the disease as well. The risk is low, but it is not zero, which is my entire point.

That reality is not inciting panic - it is emphasizing the importance that people exposed to Ebola who develop flu-like symptoms assume it is Ebola (and quarantine themselves) until it is proven NOT to be Ebola. The same position the CDC now takes, the same position the monitoring Summit and Cuyahoga Counties are taking via their enforced monitoring protocols, and that WHO has previously had. Insisting Amber Vinson's actions created NO risk (which encourages others to act in a similar manner) is foolish.