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Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Yet Another Ebola Case In Dallas

Confirmed: another healthcare worker who took care of pathogen-carrying, pathogen-spreading criminal Thomas Eric Duncan has Ebola.

Now there are two cases from an individual index patient. An outbreak is not contained until there are fewer than two additional cases from any one individual index case.

As if the above isn't bad enough...No hospital 'protocols' for Ebola treatment: US nurses' group.

Meanwhile, some 4500 West Africans with visas enter the United States every month. How many new index cases are among them?

Important additional reading...Ebola Preparation ‘Will bankrupt my hospital!’ Director Reacts to CDC Prep Call.

81 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Well now we have another case and, against procedure, she boarded a commercial flight while symptomatic.

      Flight ban from Texas ?

      It's clear that the contagious disease protocol there is either seriously broken or is being ignored.

      They made the smart move of flying her to Atlanta for treatment.

      Delete
    2. MEMO FROM THE DESK OF MAJOR RICHARD PECKERWOOD, USA:

      Ducky,
      It is clear that you are a brain-diseased liberal. You stand contra a flight ban from the Ebola-stricken countries, where thousands are dying, and in the same breath call for a travel ban from Texas, where so far one person has succumbed.

      Your pinko petticoats are showing.

      //Maj Dick Peckerwood sends//

      Delete
    3. Like most fringe right wingers you are sarcasm challenged.

      However, it must be answered why a nurse who recently treated an Ebola patient and had a 99.5 temperature was on a commercial flight.

      Delete
    4. Oh, I caught the sarcasm, son.

      I also perceive that you've been milking this weak attempt at humor for days now.

      Here's some advice, young man. Get some fresh material.

      Delete
    5. Duck,
      The CDC gave the okay for her to fly.

      Delete
    6. Last new broadcast I heard had the CDC director saying she should not have been on that plane.

      Link to a news source and I'll admit my error.

      Delete
    7. Duck,
      I posted the link further down in this thread.

      Here is the link I posted.

      Delete
    8. Yeah, AOW, I saw it on CBS ... speechless. Utter stupidity.

      Now we should ask why we have treated one patient and had three (including the EMT) infected while Médecins Sans Frontières has treated thousands in Liberia and experienced about ten infections.

      I don't generally get behind your blanket blame of the Feds but this looks like a total cock up.

      Though I still question why he ws sent home after the first contact.

      Total cock up.

      Delete
    9. ... if I remember correctly, the last time I was on you radio show I expressed a disappointment that the CDC, an agency I said I felt we need to have faith with, had found some smallpox culture just lying around.

      Delete
    10. With Ebola, smallpox, and the like, there is no margin for error.

      That the CDC has turned into a dangerous joke appears to be proof positive that idiocracy has arrived.

      This administration has a history of spin, lying, and stonewalling. Those tactics will not work with a pathogen. We're watching an epic fail right now.

      Delete
  2. I have discussed with AOW for literal weeks (since the Ebola numbers climbed in W. Africa) that we were unprepared for Ebola in America.

    This morning I called her. Tears are streaming down my face and I do not cry easily. When I saw images of nurses with their necks exposed on videos, supposedly "ready" for Ebola, I knew we were doomed. Having trained constantly and consistently in the USNR for chem-bio scenarios wearing MOPP IV gear in sweltering heat, I KNOW what it takes to train and be safe. The military, does it right. Period. They set the standard. They set the standard in many things in medicine.

    For weeks, I have brought this concern to my own hospital. Finally, we will provide training for critical care nurses. Now that a unit of labor is down, and nurses may flee the hospitals in Dallas, we will train. And then, in an act of bureaucratic genius, we will have "daily briefings" on Ebola.

    We cannot talk Ebola to death. We can only contain Ebola by proper gear, worn by healthcare workers with weeks (not one damn session) of training in wearing the gear.

    How many nurses will die because of bureaucratic incompetence and callous disregard for our lives? Naturally, my own hospital will continue along with their yearly holiday tradition of gratitude for our labor. We get a fifteen dollar Target card to cover Thanksgiving and Christmas.

    Yeah, now you understand the sacrifices that nurses make for you every day.

    And how many clients did the nurses infect after they cared for Mr. Duncan?

    Tammy Swofford
    Reporting from the hot zone

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tammy,
      We cannot talk Ebola to death.

      Thus, the Obama Administration cannot manage this outbreak. The Obama Administration has long operated on the principle that speaking is action. Won't work with a deadly pathogen!

      Delete
    2. But AOW, Obama canceled a fundraiser to show how serious he is about Ebola. Problem solved right?

      Delete
    3. Tammy: I can't imagine what nurses are thinking. I read some of the horror stories of what happened in Dallas:

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2792457/Ebola-patient-cared-70-hospital-staffers.html

      Clearly our government is not providing any effective leadership for this problem but I am shocked that health professionals on the spot did not take a more active stance other than recommending nurses tape their necks!

      Delete
    4. Mike,
      Obama canceled a fundraiser to show how serious he is about Ebola.

      Big deal. NOT!

      Talking will not solve this crisis.

      Delete
  3. Disturbing details:

    [T]he nurses treating him worked for days without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols, according to a statement released late Tuesday by the largest U.S. nurses' union.

    Nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments, worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for a patient with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting, said Deborah Burger of National Nurses United.


    More at the above link.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Suppose the ED nurse who missed the diagnosis hadn't missed the diagnosis?

    What difference would it have made? It is improperly-equipped healthcare workers who are being struck by Ebola -- and, thus far, not those staying the apartment with Thomas Eric Duncan.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If you read nothing else in this comments thread, read Tammy's comment! Tammy is an RN in Dallas.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The U.S. outbreak has arrived:

    ...Among the nurses' allegations was that the Ebola patient's lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital's pneumatic tubes, opening the possibility of contaminating the specimen delivery system. The nurses also alleged that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling....

    More at the above link.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. More from the above link!

      Nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments, worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for a patient with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting, said Deborah Burger of National Nurses United.

      Delete
  7. Somebody needs to explain why the CD didn't have emergency response teams in Dallas within hours of the diagnosis of patient "0". The CDC should have taken charge of all protocols in Dallas!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Supposedly they're monitoring over 175 people. If even 10 of those have Ebola and they came in contact with only 5 people each (not likely), it doesn't take a math genius to see where this is going.

    FEMA camps anyone?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Let's save the world we live inOctober 15, 2014 at 8:51:00 AM CDT

    To hell with Ebola, the worlds biggest threat today is Climate Control.Wake up America and smell the pollution,

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is the death knell for Hospitals. There is no way Hospitals can comply with all that is required to meet Level 4 bio protocols. The Government knows it needs to set up a government hospital in each state. As stated the military prepares for these types of hazards. Well done, Obama. You will bankrupt all hospitals and then the government can take them over for a dime.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I reason, Earth is short —
    And Anguish — absolute —
    And many hurt,

    But, what of that?

    I reason, we could die —
    The best Vitality
    Cannot excel Decay,

    But, what of that?

    I reason, that in Heaven —
    Somehow, it will be even —
    Some new Equation, given —

    But, what of that?


    ~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) F403 (1862)

    As Emily Dickinson worked in her garden, baked the family's bread, and penned her poems, the Civil War increased its carnage. In April 1862, twenty-four thousand men were killed during the battle of Shiloh ... There were many other battles that year and thousands upon thousands of other deaths. Oddly, Emily Dickinson never wrote about either the war or slavery, although New England boys were dying every day ...

    Could Emily Dickinson possibly have ignored this? Could she tune out this cataclysm as she worried about her personal relationships? Or did the war have such a profound effect on her that it seeps out in her metaphors,her perceptions of human nature, her profound sense of cosmic justice?

    Although she retreated from the world, she must have been aware of what was going on. If she chose the garden and the writing desk as places of quiet refuge from the unfathomable violence around her, it was a sane thing to do ...

    ReplyDelete
  12. I believe this ties in with what z posted as her lead today. For some reason z was apologetic for going with an article that states an obvious truth.
    The world has reached the limits of growth. Being a good leftist I'll also say that capitalism has reached a tipping point.

    Why do you assume that the West is going to be shielded from this fact?
    Why do you assume we can just become isolationist and continue the pipe dream of unlimited growth?

    We still limit support of family planning (time for an anti Sanger article?) in Africa.
    We refuse to accept the issue of climate warming,
    This is folly and it can't continue.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was just a matter of time before the left's Malthusian anti-humanity broke out full force into the open and went viral.

      The surprise is that Ducky was one of the first to come unhinged. I thought he was made of sterner stuff...

      Delete
    2. No Silver, it's time to admit that the concentration of wealth by Kapital is creating serious problems.

      Charity can only go a small way towards resolving these issues and as charity is now constructed it operates within the very cycle that creates the problem.

      But maybe you stand with the Church's one great folly of opposing birth control?

      Delete
    3. So now it's concentration of wealth?

      Earlier you said it was overpopulation. So which is it?

      Last I checked, the Vatican controlled, oh... zero territory in Africa. You seriously want to blame the Pope for non-Catholics pumping out little Gaia abusers? Seriously?

      You are unhinged, and it dismays me to see it, especially on the heels of you toeing the Obama red propaganda so faithfully by screaming FEAR MONGER! and anyone who voiced the slightest concern at Ebola and the enterovirus Obama spread throughout the US via the illegal immigrant children.

      Relax, kick back in your barkalounger and pour yourself a tumbler of scotch. The grubby hordes will not destroy Mama Erf.

      Delete
  13. Hey Ducky,

    Go visit Z's blog. It will be fun watching your Dr. Jeckyll "politically-correct Hashtags for the poor dark people" struggle against your Mr Hyde "Margaret Sanger pull the weeds on St Malthus Day" urge.

    Please don't stroke out on us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't read anything surprising.

      Once again, this is a structural predicate of kapitalism.
      It is organic and z ain't going to pray it away. It is an organic consequence.

      The article she posted has been with us at least since Swift's Modest Proposal.
      I do notice that you have the usual suspects sticking in the "give 'em a fish ..." mime.
      Butt nuggets who ask what as Africa given us i face of a history of extracting their resources.
      Don't be a fool.


      Delete
    2. Oh by the way, z is waxing eloquent about what a relief it is that she's blocked "leftist" commentary.

      You seem to be in the camp with hr that says "let 'em starve" is the Christian alternative to family planning.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    4. Ducky, I forgot to ask; please also paste where I said "I'll PRAY it away!" :-)
      You truly can be despicable. Lies, mischaracterizations and hatefulness. What a way to live!

      Delete
    5. Go ahead, Ducky....paste my comment about "let 'em starve'...
      let's see how truthful you are.

      .......................................................................you decide.

      Delete
    6. Ducky...come ON, you said what I SAID, let's see it.

      See? The choice IS "DESPICABLE". thanks.

      Delete
  14. ATTENTION, ALL

    Please read this information about the Basic Reproduction Number.

    We now have two Ebola infections (two nurses in Dallas) from one index patient (Thomas Eric Duncan).

    Obama's and Frieden's platitudes mean nothing!

    No, I'm not being partisan.

    No, I'm not being alarmist.

    I understand the facts about the Basic Reproduction Number. It's basic epidemiology.

    I come from a line of doctors and nurses. I get it. DO YOU?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Silver Fiddle...would have loved to have your comment on my article. I'd like to know what you think.

    Ducky, can you see where I said "let 'em starve" or anything close to that? Would love to see it. Please paste it here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Canardo never ANSWERS questions, Z. He only ASKS them the way old fashioned anarchists used to throw BOMBS.

      He won't CONVERSE. He only attempts to LECTURE. He'll talk AT you, but never WITH you.

      Lots people like that, of course, but he's one of the most persistent -- and persistently obnoxious.

      Leftists are just like that. All they want to do is CONFOUND you with their false and demented brand of logic.

      SOUND and FURY! There's too much of it around these days, and not all of it comes from the Left.

      Delete
    2. You'd think I'd have learned. And he was the very first request to comment at my WordPress site that I got. imagine?

      Delete
    3. FT,
      The CDC is incompetent as far as I can tell. Doesn't Duck see that?

      Delete
    4. Quite right, FreeThinke.

      Ducky,
      You are the fool. Free market capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, out of poverty. Marxism, on the other hand, has killed over 100 million and lifted no one out of poverty.

      Why do some nations enjoy a good standard of living, edible food, healthcare, while others are mired in squalor?

      "Kapitol" (as you sneeringly call it) is the answer. Free markets and free people go together. You anti-humanity Malthusians have been bleating on about overpopulation, unsustainability, global cooling, Mother Earth catching her hair on fire, peak oil, peak food...

      But free markets always find a way. But people like you are still bemoaning the demise of the whale blubber industry.

      Delete
    5. I always answer questions and it's odd that a censor like yourself would make the statement.

      Z has posted an article that advocates a cataclysm in Africa. Now, thy may well have one before Silverfiddle realizes that Kapital's days of growth ARE OVER.
      We've gone through a period of accelerated extraction of resources and it can't be sustained.

      Delete
    6. And Silverfiddle, you need to stop conflating market economics with capitalism. One creates wealth while the other concentrates it to the disadvantage of many
      It's like still not being able to distinguish between health care and the insurance vehicle or calling the ACA, socialized medicine.

      Delete
    7. Drop the semantic bullshit, Ducky.

      Free markets allow people for discover organic solutions to their problems.

      Cloud the issue with whatever leftwing rhetoric you want, but you cannot refute that fact.

      What the benighted people in third world sewers lack is basic institutions that foster an open marketplace. Having said that, I will agree with you that our own marketplaces are becoming more corrupt and less free. Of course, we disagree on the causes.

      I don't know what solution you could offer. Politburos and panels of 'experts' have already been tried, leaving ruin and misery in their wake.

      Delete
  16. AOW; that this poor nurse was not told to NOT fly for just 30 days is unconscionable. We're not doing all we can......that's insane. I know that's taking some of her rights away, I get that. But what about the rights of the folks on that flight? They're all scared witless now and should.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Z,
      that this poor nurse was not told to NOT fly for just 30 days is unconscionable

      A friend just phoned me and told me the following: The nurse told the CDC that she had a slight fever and asked, "Is it okay for me to fly?" The CDC told her that she could.

      I haven't confirmed the above. If anyone here can confirm or debunk, please post a comment to that effect.

      Delete
    2. And she KNEW she had a fever when she flew! THAT's news, too. I do believe that her not vomiting or having diarrhea WHEN she flew makes it slightly safer for the people on board, but.....this is unspeakable; I'd have thought whoever told her she could fly might have checked with Frieden, who says she shouldn't have been given the okay. What a flub. I'd have thought "Anybody around Duncan at the time asks to fly or anything like that, , let me know IMMEDIATELY and, whatever you do, do NOT let them FLY!"

      Delete
    3. Z,
      If she was running a fever and both she and the CDC knew, why was more exposure allowed? She could have gone into organ meltdown at any given point -- even in Cincinnati.

      Delete
  17. What???

    Dr. Tom Frieden, director for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said during a telephone press briefing Wednesday that you cannot get Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus, but that infected or exposed persons should not ride public transportation because they could transmit the disease to someone else.

    How does that make sense?

    ReplyDelete
  18. AOW...I have to run and will be back, but I believe as long as it doesn't morph into AIRBORNE, we're all pretty safe.
    But that contradiction in Frieden's words about public transportation are puzzling to say THE LEAST!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Z,
      For all practical purposes, Ebola Zaire in the later stages (when the organs are melting down and bodily fluids become projectile in nature), the disease is airborne.

      Safe is a relative word when it comes to viruses.

      Delete
    2. Obama and the CDC was for sitting next to people with Ebola on a bus before they were against it...

      Delete
    3. AOW...if someone's not vomiting or the diarrhea is .......um...not REALLY happening (for want of getting into detail) it is not airborne. And, I don't think anybody'd get on a bus or plane if either of those two were happening. But, you never know!
      I agree we can't be safe enough...and that SAFE is relative.

      Delete
    4. Z,
      This graphic shows the droplets from sneezing. Fewer droplets are emitted in a cough, but the droplets are still in the air.

      Also see Doctor: Ebola Might Be Transmitted In Air Via “Droplets”. The doctor is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

      Delete
    5. From that second link in my above comment:

      A recent research study suggests that Ebola could remain infectious in an aerosol for more than an hour.

      Delete
  19. _____ TO OUR DEAR CANARDO _____

    Grating on our nerves with irksome baas

    Offered in a bilious spirit vile

    Fill with nasty thoughts some ancient Kas.

    Use your time for something more worthwhile.

    Could you for once relent, and quit your jeering?

    Kindergarten kids show better manners.

    Your comments sound too often like Bronx cheering.

    Oh why must you into our works throw spanners --

    Using oafish taunts and gibes and sneers?

    Regale us please, instead, with something pleasant.

    Surprise us after all these noisome jeers.

    Entertain -- enlighten -- serve us pheasant --

    Let your mind subject itself to scouring

    Filth away that keeps you dark and glowering.



    ~ FreeThinke

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bravo, FreeThinke!

      I hereby dub thee Poet Laureate of Right Blogistan! (For, Wrong (left) Blogistan would never have you!)


      Delete
  20. So, the nurse shouldn't have flown because her temperature was slightly elevated; yet, those from the Africa Ebola Zone -- many individuals who may well have been exposed to Ebola -- can fly into the United States even if their temperatures are below a certain threshold. How does that make sense?

    What is the body temperature point at which those screenings become gateways to quarantine? And where will they be quarantined?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous,
    It really is madness, isn't it?

    Cannot Americans and political leaders regardless of party not see this non sequitur?

    ReplyDelete
  22. It's all part of the Ducky Plan

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. From the Dallas News:

    "Health care workers treating Thomas Eric Duncan in a hospital isolation unit didn’t wear protective hazardous-material suits for two days until tests confirmed the Liberian man had Ebola — a delay that potentially exposed perhaps dozens of hospital workers to the virus, according to medical records."
    -----

    Seems as if Texas needs to spend less time trying to close down Planned Parenthood and more getting their hospital procedures in order.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did they have the necessary suits on hand?

      Does some kind of protocol prevent acquiring the suits until the pathogen is confirmed?

      Is this a failure of the hospital bureaucracy? The federal bureaucracy?

      Delete
    2. ... but I'll tell you, AOW, if I were Tammy I'd be in close touch with the organization that represents Texas nurses and getting answers to why things went so badly at that hospital.

      I'd start there before I started on Obama.

      Delete
    3. Duck,
      Here's how I see things at the moment. Keep in mind that the word if is the biggest word in the English language.

      If Thomas Eric Duncan hadn't lied so as to bypass the screenings (Africa, 1st visit to Texas Presbyterian), what's happening right now would not be happening.

      If the CDC hadn't bragged that any hospital in the U.S. could handle an Ebola patient, what's happening right now would not be happening. Clearly, every hospital -- for whatever reason -- cannot handle a patient with a pathogen such as Ebola.

      We should "close the door," ready up the protocols here, and, at the same time, work carefully to curb Ebola in West Africa. Right now here in the United States, those in charge are operating in crisis-management mode, a recipe for disaster. Keep in mind that Ebola has never been successfully stopped -- except via death and draconian quarantine.

      Delete
  25. Please read today's editorial in the Los Angeles Times: In U.S., an Ebola crisis of confidence. Good essay.

    ReplyDelete
  26. My hospital moved every patient out of the ICU yesterday and sent them packing to the CCU upstairs. We have cleaned out the complete unit to make it a dedicated Ebola unit because the rooms have the negative ventilation system.

    Personally, I would lose my own job if I dared to tell how the dunderhead bureaucrats at my own hospital totally ignored any concern expressed many weeks ago about an Ebola case in the U.S. Training? Zero. We have (drum roll) now quickly installed new motion sensor paper towel dispensers.... And the word is that we have nurses "ready" to "volunteer" to care for Ebola patients. Hmmm

    As for me, I think I can get twenty dollars per lap dance and if I save half of that to cover a future hip injury.... that, and finding a club that caters to blind men.... My second choice, is to squirt the mustard on the hot dog at the local 7-11. You know, just be the helpful clerk.

    Reporting from the hot zone -

    Tammy

    ReplyDelete
  27. The other shoe drops...

    http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-official-being-monitored-ebola-210301335.html

    Tammy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From the link:

      [Dr. Wendy Chung] Dallas County's top public health epidemiologist confirmed Thursday that she spent time at Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan's bedside and that she is among those potentially exposed to the virus.

      Paid leave, no doubt.

      I can't imagine that all those furloughed -- thanks to Thomas Eric Duncan's lying and bringing Ebola to the United States -- are on paid leave.

      Were I to be furloughed and/or quarantined, I don't get paid. I'm self-employed. I can't imagine that such is not the case for the owner of the Cleveland bridal shop that the second Dallas nurse visited.

      Delete
  28. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I just have to say this....

    How much of an economic hit is Dallas taking -- thanks to Thomas Eric Duncan's lying and bringing Ebola to the United States.

    I can't imagine that another index case from the African Ebola Hot Zone will not arrive.

    Indeed, I can't imagine that another index case isn't already here.

    4500 a month coming in. What are the odds that there will not be another index case?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Duck,
    According to my local morning news (local CBS affiliate), all the nurses were wearing the protective gear recommended by the CDC.

    ReplyDelete

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