The doctor should have known better than to go to a bowling alley soon after he returned. Whether or not he was contagious now they have to perform contact tracing and disinfect the place.
Not to mention riding the subway. Good luck doing contact tracing with that. I'm not saying he was contagious. I hope he wasn't.
Was the bowling alley public subway trip really a must-do thing, for someone who had just directly worked with ebola patients? Could this kind of thinking not be part of the training for this kind of work, I wonder?
It took the MTA over three weeks to remove a used condom hanging from the pole of an F train. I'm guessing whatever trains he took haven't been scoured beyond the bare minimum.
I think discipline is the bigger issue than awareness. Even someone who absolutely knows better can end up thinking that the bad thing can't happen to them.
In my experience with experts I'd say especially someone who "knows better" can end up thinking that the bad thing can't happen to them right up until they, in a fit of being human, have an oops and it does.
Yeah. I hate this 'holier than thou' attitude that some folks on this thread are displaying. We are all human, and we all do stupid things based on our psychology. The best we can do is create systems to help guard against our own mistakes.
"The best we can do is create systems to help guard against our own mistakes."
Like enforced isolation of some kind? The thing that people have been asking for since the beginning, but is a bad idea for some reason that nobody can explain?
Perhaps it's illegal to imprison people who have committed no crime, on the guess that because they were interacting with people who had a disease, they might have it too.
Also, in this case and many like it, imprisoning this man would have been much more expensive than simply testing him for the disease.
There you go; one reason it's a bad idea to imprison someone you think might be carrying ebola is that you can just test their blood and know for sure if they are. Seems a lot cheaper and better all round than imprisoning people.
Please read up on Ebola. It is only contagious when the patient is experiencing symptoms, not earlier. He got fever Thursday morning.
So he knew better, just hackers have no idea. "Since returning, he had been taking his temperature twice a day". Or maybe they just cannot read. So no, they don't have to disinfect the bowling area. But people are hysterical, so they did.
Even the NY Times got it right this time: "People infected with Ebola cannot spread the disease until they begin to display symptoms, and it cannot be spread through the air."
Prior to this outbreak, this Ziare strain of Ebolavirus, now formally known as "Ebola virus", has never infected more than 318 people at a time, and not a whole lot more than a thousand total: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ebola_outbreaks#List_o...
I guarantee that at least one of the things the usual suspects like the CDC "know" about its transmission is wrong. Consequentially wrong? Well, we'll see.
As for this case, he was not feeling well (also described as "sluggish") for a couple of days before his self-monitored temperature spiked. Which is prompting the usual suspects to say that that wasn't a "symptom" ... which is open to question.
What's at risk with your guarantee? An internet handle?
Meanwhile, the transmissions in Dallas have all been in keeping with the things the usual suspects were saying (health care workers did become infected there, but they are known to be at higher risk, PPE is known not to be 100% safe, the hospital did not have great PPE procedures in place).
My "universal" login handle (aside from the occasional rigid company) that I've been using since 1978 (sic); my user page's email also leads straight to my true name, home address, etc.
As for Dallas, the plural of anecdote is not data. We just don't know yet; for example, in 1st World conditions where IV saline etc. are standard, the death rate may be well below the 70% currently estimated in West Africa. Although your points about the Dallas Ebola Magnet Hospital of Excellence's, are correct: while following the then current CDC "protocols" (scare quotes since the CDC and others invested so much into their sanctity vs. health care workers following them), were inadequate, e.g. no neck coverage.
Heck, look at the standard Bellevue Hospital PPE picture that's been floating around for many days, e.g. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/bellevue-hospit... Based on what we suspect the person on the right would stand a serious chance of getting Ebola, and that's no longer the protocol.
I absolutely believe that medical workers in the US that have potential exposure should be very careful about what they are doing (both people traveling back from West Africa and people involved in treatment at US hospitals). The various institutions involved should be helping with this (the hospitals, city, state, federal agencies).
That doesn't mean chickens need to start running at axes the second a known case is identified and isolated.
"That doesn't mean chickens need to start running at axes the second a known case is identified and isolated."
Which is being advocated by precisely who?
My major theme here is that people, and most especially "authorities" should not be lying, e.g. not making absolute statements about things which aren't. So fat that that has resulted in a constantly changing the party line as preceding versions have turned out to be lies. But there's worse, in the most brazen example I know of, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/cdc-you-ca... contradicting yourself in consecutive sentences.
You want "panic"? Convince the American people the authorities responsible for keeping us from getting an epidemic of Biblical proportions are systematically, even routinely lying to us. We're well along the road to that.
well, he went to a bowling alley eight days after getting back to NY. What is more egregious is that the NYTimes is reporting he was feeling sluggish on Tuesday, why didn't he self-quarantine or contact someone earlier than today?
I haven't been to JFK from Africa, but I've been there from London, Amsterdam, and Berlin, flights which are (if anything) shorter... and I was sluggish for a whole week after getting back, just going to throw that out there.
Also, when he says he called DWB on Thursday his temperature was 103. Did it go from 99 to 103 overnight? Or was he running a low grade temperature for several days.
Accounts of how he was found are a bit odd. In some articles the fire department was sent to retrieve him. According to another article, a tenant in his building claims police broke down the door to get into his apartment.
>>now they have to perform contact tracing and disinfect the place.
I wonder how feasible this is. Its not just the bowling alley, using public rest rooms, subway, or utensils at a restaurant. Its almost impossible to find every thing he came in contact with and disinfect it. Plus in case of stuff like utensils, whats to guarantee that they were not mixed with each other and used by other people already.
If some one has been infected due to this by now. It will become impossible to get a realistic perspective of how far this thing would have spread.
In short you are dealing with a exponential growth scenario.Which is why these sort of things are so dangerous.
Everything I've read suggests that this doctor is conscientious, selfless and kind. I don't believe he would have exposed others to Ebola if he had any inclination that he was infected. He measured his temperature twice a day as was required and didn't feel sick until today.
It could be the case that he was infected 2-3 weeks ago, but since the average time of symptoms showing up is 8-10 days because he was symptom-free before leaving for nyc, he might have thought he was fine.
"A 21 day period for quarantine may result in the release of individuals with a 0.2 – 12% risk of release prior to full opportunity for the incubation to proceed."
Totally agree. It sounds like he was all over the place, and using mass transportation. If anyone needs to seek refuge out on Long Island just let me know!! :D
Was the bowling alley public subway trip really a must-do thing, for someone who had just directly worked with ebola patients? Could this kind of thinking not be part of the training for this kind of work, I wonder?