(10-20-2014 08:16 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  This weekend, there was an ebola scare here in El Paso. They shut down the entire hospital.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

So, what was the outcome?

(10-21-2014 05:12 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  Government and medical people saying it "couldn't happen" are not helping.

Somewhere I saw the comment that every zombie movie starts out with guys in medical frocks saying "this could never happen".

I don't agree with the blanket statement... government and hospital people should be able to go in front of the public and say "this will never spread" because they have taken every reasonable step to make it impossible to spread ... self-quarantine of family, "the 50", and health care workers ... buy out their salaries, plane tickets, vacation packages, grocery delivery, and whatever other expenses can be handled at reasonable cost - probably uner $100k at that stage - and say that it can't spread with a straight face. Not that it's unlikely to spread, but it can't... six weeks later and the infection has run it's course. The public shouldn't have any reason to think that running around with your hair on fire was a reasonable reaction.

Down the road, whether the Liberia/Sierra Leone outbreak runs to 60,000 or > 1million, when the next ebola case manifests in the West, the confidence that people have will be related to the amount they felt assured in the previous instance, not how effective the actual response was. If their skepticism with the government response was rewarded with big mistakes by said government, then the trust will not be there next time, nevermind that the total extent of the outbreak will very likely be two nurses who are both doing well and will hopefully survive.

Also note that the incidence of Ebola outbreak in the west - though the numbers are statistically insignificant - stands at four, and thus far three have survived. Add in about three patients that were airlifted back to the US, and it gives promise that the 70% death rate in Africa can be reduced quite a bit. That's highly speculative, but in small numbers, the results thus far look good.

(10-21-2014 07:54 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Last Spring the CDC downplayed the initial African Outbreak and said that any US Hospital with ICU and a Dialysis Machine could treat Ebola cases.

Ooooops

If the CDC did their job well, I don't see any reason that would not be true.

If there are large numbers of patients in the US at any time in the future, then it has to be the case. Sending everyone to Emory just won't work well.

(10-21-2014 08:52 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(10-21-2014 07:54 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Last Spring the CDC downplayed the initial African Outbreak and said that any US Hospital with ICU and a Dialysis Machine could treat Ebola cases.

Ooooops

If the CDC did their job well, I don't see any reason that would not be true.

If there are large numbers of patients in the US at any time in the future, then it has to be the case. Sending everyone to Emory just won't work well.

Consider this latest outbreak a trial run. Hopefully lessons were learned.

Like every infectious disease, Ebola morphs... The current thought is that it is only transferred through bodily fluids, but that it can live for something like 6 hours exposed to air. The 'new' protocols as WMD correctly states aren't really anything new, they are merely the same protocols that are used for ANY 'fluid' infection... They're just being updated with new ways of donning the equipment or adjusting to changes in the equipment... like longer or shorter gloves or where such things are located. They're being moved to more quickly accessible places, and people are being STRONGLY encouraged to wear masks in the waiting room (even on occasion, being removed if necessary)

Interesting read...




F. Landis MacKellar and Jose G. Siri: Reasons to Calm Down About Ebola - WSJ - WSJ

http://on.wsj.com/11ZWnzz Wrote:Ebola is not particularly successful in humans by viral standards. HIV, to take a familiar example, has been killing more than a million people a year for almost two decades. Ebola has hitherto caused only small, localized outbreaks. This is likely because Ebola is not adapted to human hosts, but is introduced into populations on rare occasions, when people come into close contact with its natural reservoirs—thought to be bats and possibly other wildlife. Since the virus didn’t evolve with humans, it wreaks havoc on our bodies but achieves only limited success in propagating itself.

...

The reason to use hazmat suits is not the probability of contagion; it is that, if you are infected, the probability of death is high.

(10-21-2014 12:33 PM)I45owl Wrote:  Interesting read...




F. Landis MacKellar and Jose G. Siri: Reasons to Calm Down About Ebola - WSJ - WSJ

http://on.wsj.com/11ZWnzz Wrote:Ebola is not particularly successful in humans by viral standards. HIV, to take a familiar example, has been killing more than a million people a year for almost two decades. Ebola has hitherto caused only small, localized outbreaks. This is likely because Ebola is not adapted to human hosts, but is introduced into populations on rare occasions, when people come into close contact with its natural reservoirs—thought to be bats and possibly other wildlife. Since the virus didn’t evolve with humans, it wreaks havoc on our bodies but achieves only limited success in propagating itself.

...

The reason to use hazmat suits is not the probability of contagion; it is that, if you are infected, the probability of death is high.

The fact that ebola kills people so quickly can't be good of it's own "life" expectancy.

The phenomenon you are referring to is the R0 rate that I mentioned in another thread.

Ebola is like a 2-3. Off the top of my head, HIV is +/- a 5. Flu is probably something well into the teens.

In layman's terms, it means that the average Ebola infected person is likely to infect only 2-3 others... so it represents a speed of contagion. The problem with infectious diseases is that often, the more they become accustomed to their hosts, the more easily they spread.... i.e. their R0 rate increases, which exponentially increases its spread

(10-19-2014 10:11 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(10-18-2014 09:56 AM)Kronke Wrote:  

(10-18-2014 07:32 AM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  If you're 8 miles from ground zero, the story is not over-hyped.

Yeah, it's always those people no where near the crisis that tell you to calm down, and call you a fear mongering conspiracy theorist.

Me ==> 3 miles from "ground zero"... among other loose connections to Presby, I've been there a dozen or so times this year. So, no.

(10-18-2014 09:56 AM)Kronke Wrote:  I've said it a number of times, they'd feel differently if patient 0 landed in their city and was spewing blood out of every orifice all over their hospital. If you think that's hyperbole, ask the nurse that said the hazardous waste was piled to the ceiling; and that's just from ONE patient.

Nope. Three people getting sick in a city of over a million people doesn't send me into panic, especially with the limited chances of it spreading to a larger number of people.

Just to follow up on this, the hospital where my primary care physician is was just named one of the Ebola centers for Texas. And, most of the reaction was still irrational fear - this has likely run its course after infecting a grand total of two other people, both nurses who are in "good" condition as of the last update.

(10-21-2014 12:35 PM)VA49er Wrote:  The fact that ebola kills people so quickly can't be good of it's own "life" expectancy.

That's a HUGE part of it... but history shows that these sorts of diseases often morph.... staying alive longer in the dead patients or people start developing antibodies and living longer WITH the disease which is why we are so careful with them.

It's irrational for healthy people to wear masks in public... It's not irrational for people with suspected colds or who visit people with suspected colds (like a hospital) to do so... and CERTAINLY not irrational to wash your hands a lot.

(10-22-2014 02:43 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  and CERTAINLY not irrational to wash your hands a lot.

As a compulsive hand washer that worries I'm projecting my own phobias onto my kids, thank you for that.

Supposedly Amber Vinson has no detectable virus in her blood stream and its only been a week at Emory. I guess the monoclonal antibody therapy has some promise.

(10-23-2014 08:06 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Supposedly Amber Vinson has no detectable virus in her blood stream and its only been a week at Emory. I guess the monoclonal antibody therapy has some promise.

Let's keep our proverbial fingers crossed.

As a note, I went to my doctor's office to have blood work done prior to a physical. I walked past a conference room where there was a group out in the hall and one of them was giving instructions on how to tie the laces above the waist in the back. I resisted the urge to blurt out "and please cancel any travel plans you have after treating an ebola patient", but I didn't think that would be too helpful, as they looked pretty serious in any event. I presume they were getting Ebola training, but that's just a guess... this is one of two Ebola centers in Texas, though.