outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

One thing few people know about is the far reaching power of public health authorities to issue enforceable edicts concerning quarantines and the banning of public gatherings when a pandemic disease threatens whole communities. Most of the laws authorizing these powers have lain unused in western nations since roughly 1920. They still exist, if needed. If they are imposed, we need to cooperate with them.

idk, I hate to armchair qb disease experts, but why not just wait until the typical incubation period is over? Cuz if she doesn't start showing symptoms til she gets to another city, now you've got a potential outbreak in a second city.

― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 15, 2014 10:19 PM (1 hour ago)

there's a difficult balance to be struck in public health situations like these between being overly safe (dozens of people with any contact with duncan being forbidden to leave their house for 3 weeks) and allowing people to live their lives somewhat normally. it comes with difficult calls. technically 99.5 is not a fever; of course in hindsight the CDC probably wishes it were more cautious, but sometimes the wrong call is made. from what i've read, it doesn't seem like an egregious error. (compared with, say, the hospital discharging duncan originally, given his symptoms and travel history)

i fear we're fast becoming a nation of armchair quarterbacks

Do public gatherings even occur anymore? I thought we all just sat in front of computers all day.

Ebola is all "Yeah! I'm finally here in the U-S-of-A! Party land! Where's the party at?! Party?! Helloooooooo?!"

i fear we're fast becoming a nation of armchair quarterbacks

― the late great, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 11:17 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel you, but reading that Dallas news article it's kind of stunning how poorly this was handled

yeah and the magnitude of the mistakes seems to be escalating, somehow

I'm actually quite surprised that no "is it a coincidence that Liberia and Liberal share so many letters?" questions have been asked yet.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nigeria-stopped-ebola-2014-10

stanm you haven't been reading the fox news comments

I don't think it's armchair quarterbacking to complain about the fundamental mishandling of something that has the potential to adversely affect hundreds of people, and possibly kill some of them. It's been pointed out that there is no reason either of the Texas nurses should have contracted ebola. The fact that one of them, a trained medical professional with an understanding of the situation who of her own volition called the CDC several times to complain of potential symptoms and still got the go ahead to travel is mind boggling to me. Whatever happened to an abundance of caution?

That Nigeria article right above gets it right: containment, and an overabundance of caution. "During this contact tracing process, officials made a staggering 18,500 face-to-face visits." And that's Nigeria, which does not have the reputation of running things right. But here in the US, a nurse exposed to ebola concerned enough to call the friggin CDC gets the OK to fly. Again, just to stress: you can quibble that 99.5 is not a real fever, but it is enough to make you feel off, enough so that she knew, was worried, and yet was reassured that she was fine. I'm amazed she didn't second guess the advice and stay home, just in case.

I promise I won't make a Facebook macro out of this, but it says something when you can't bring baby milk on board a plane, but Ebola? Sure, why not.

Well, as long as you drink the baby milk and prove it's safe, it's OK to bring on board. Same with ebola. As long as you're only showing the start of ebola, it's cool, as long as you get where you're going before you start vomiting and bleeding from your eyes.

Cleveland people are already sharing a version of the "Bad News Brian" meme with the captioning "BROWNS START WINNING - CLEVELAND GETS EBOLA." Even though, you know, *nobody in Cleveland has Ebola.*

Nobody in Cleveland has Ebola
No Murray the K or payola
It all might be dire,
like a river on fire,
But we haven't been the same since Lou Groza.

CLEVELAND - Police say a 60-year-old man was arrested at the Cleveland Horseshoe Casino for inducing a panic.

When he went to cash out, he said his wife was a nurse who had returned from West Africa and contracted Ebola.

As a precaution, the casino immediately shut down the pit where the man had been.

He was later arrested at home. No other information is available at this time.

The Ohio Gaming Commission is handling the report.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/60-year-old-man-arrested-at-cleveland-horseshoe-casino-for-inducing-panic-after-ebola-remarks

ED. NOTE - WAS HE ARRESTED AT HOME AT THE CASINO?

Maybe he was arrested twice? Once for inducing a panic, the other for fleeing the scene of a panic?

one of the lesser known side effects of ebola is being arrested extra

from the looks of the case of the nurse who was infected in Spain, "austerity" budget cutbacks were at least partly responsible.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/279361722.html

Naturally, Breitbart ran with the airborne ebola story.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/lax-us-guidelines-on-ebola-led-to-poor-hospital-training-experts-say.html?referrer=

looks like the CDC will be updating its guidelines

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/lax-us-guidelines-on-ebola-led-to-poor-hospital-training-any-idiot-with-half-a-brain-already-assumed-but-glad-the-CDC-is-finally-taking-this-seriously-anyway.html?referrer=

oh did my link not work?

i really feel for frieden, who is a great scientist, if maybe not the best at press conferences and saying the right thing in public. hopefully the hysteria will subside soon

Really good article/summary here, from a doctor involved in the African response: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary

Not just any doctor, Paul Farmer! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer

Texas Health Worker Who May Have Handled Ebola Specimen Is On a Cruise

these texas health workers are real jetsetters, if it weren't for the ebola i'd be jealous of them.

Ebola "czar" on the way for US, this should be "fun"

Just found out last night that my girlfriend's brother is the point man for ebola preparation at one of the hospitals most likely to become the ebola treatment center in the Chicago area. I don't know that I have any more reason to be nervous than I did before, but I'm definitely more nervous than I was before.

well, that one's easy. just refrain from all contact with your girlfriend or her brother!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSAXkp9cqbk

The guy in this article is my new hero:

Peter Pattakos spent 20 minutes Saturday in an Akron bridal shop, getting fitted for a tux for his friend's wedding. Thursday, his friend sent a text message, telling him that Ebola patient Amber Joy Vinson had been in the store around the same time.

"I thought, 'Oh, that's interesting,'" Pattakos said in a telephone interview Friday.

. . . "I didn't exchange any bodily fluids with anyone, so I'm not worried about it," he said. "I'm much more likely to be mistakenly killed by a police officer in this country than to be killed by Ebola, even if you were in the same bridal shop."

"mistakenly"

also:

"I wish people would freak out this much about climate change," he said. "It's one of those problems that's real easy for the media to cover, rather than some of those other problems that people should be more concerned with."

New hero

Really good article/summary here, from a doctor involved in the African response: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary

― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Thursday, October 16, 2014 10:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

highly highly recommend this article btw

http://africasacountry.com/misunderstanding-the-ebola-crisis-is-worse-than-ignoring-it/

Overheard in the elevator this morning: "You know the ebola scare is an enormous marketing opportunity. No one wants to come out and say it, but we're all thinking it."

from Jordan's linked article:

Read any article on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa these days and I guarantee you will come across references to Africans eating wild animals, people hiding infected family members from health workers, patients being taken to witch doctors for treatment, or conspiracy theories about how the disease is man-made

tbh, i've scarcely read any of this. maybe i just pick better news sources? idk.

I've seen "people hiding infected family members from health workers" all over.

Fox’s Andrea Tantaros: African Ebola patients may visit ‘witch doctor,’ not hospital

President Obama selected Ron Klain, a former chief of staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joseph R. Biden Jr., to coordinate the government’s response to the Ebola outbreak.

i heard pieces about 'bush meat' on NPR for sure

curious about the bush meat angle -- is that not how the virus made the leap from its natural host to humans?

Americans say avoiding international air travel over Ebola outbreak

(looking forward to taking advantage of discounts in air travel)

Not this time. It has been a factor in the past but bats are more dangerous and thought to be the source of this outbreak.

would ebola even be a thing without september 2014 being the hottest september on record?

i heard pieces about 'bush meat' on NPR for sure

― festival culture (Jordan), Friday, October 17, 2014 4:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

preparation/consumption of bushmeat is absolutely contributing to the epidemic and has been reported widely in the peer-reviewed literature. i'm not sure what you're referring to but saying that this/distrust of health authorities/burial practices are some sort of right wing BS is incorrect

the article was criticizing the media playing up those things, as oppose to the dire absence of a health-care infrastructure, as being the major cause of the out-of-control ebola epidemic in west africa

causeS

lots of interesting writing about that here:

http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/585-ebola-in-perspective