Ebola - Everybody Panic!!!

Ebola is still a minor threat to the general public, but what do you think will happen over the next few months? Do you think the hospitals, CDC, and FEMA are even close to being prepared to handle an epidemic? Do you think the media and politicians know how to handle this if it spreads to 1,000 people, 20,000 people? Do you think individuals will change their habits and alter their plans in the next few months? Would you not go to work or not go home for the holidays because you had cold or flu like symptoms? How many fast food workers don't get paid time off if they are sick? How many workaholics will bleed out at work because they are too important? How prepared are you? Could you handle three weeks in quarantine without leaving your home, especially if you 'know' you aren't sick? Do you think the general society would be able to handle it?

I think the CDC has made some amateur mistakes and hospitals aren't helping things. When there are only 4 hospitals with specialized infectious disease areas that can handle 10 people in isolation, that is a problem. Montana Hospital 1 of 4 That Can Handle Ebola - KULR-8 Television, Billings, MT

Although this isn't an airborne disease that could spread to thousands within a week, I would hope that the CDC and FEMA have some plan in place to take over airplane hangers or indoor stadiums to handle a thousand or two cases. They also need to have a way to sort the patients who have the flu and keep them away from the ebola patients. It will be a mess if this starts to spread right around the holidays and people start infecting others and traveling around the US and world while asymptomatic, but infected. The CDC doesn't have the manpower to track that many people, especially after this latest plane incident...

CDC Taking Active Steps Related to Hospital Preparedness for Ebola Treatment: 10-14-2014 | Fact Sheet | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC
Here's What You Need to Know About Our Response to Ebola Right Now: | The White House

 

I don't know, I saw a newsfeed in my FB timeline that said a CDC doc, or some other doc, was saying that ebola may be transmitted by air.

I googled ebola airborne transmission and am slightly worried. Slightly.

Google


edit:

Ok, I found the article link in my FB feed...

Ebola Is Airborne, University Of Minnesota CIDRAP Researchers Claim

I don't know anything about any of this, so I'll leave it up to you guys to allay my fears.

 

Viable Opposition: The Airborne Transmission of Ebola

Viable Opposition: Aerosols and Ebola - How Far Can Ebolavirus Spread?

I knew the Reston variant was airborne, and that droplets can contain the virus. We will see how many of those people on the airplane become sick in the next two-three weeks...

I have my biohazard suit and bleach already.

 

Houston isn't that far from Dallas, lots of folks travel back and forth between the two cities. I'm not concerned unless it turns out that ebola is an airborne virus. Something tells me that the healthcare workers who contracted ebola did so through inproper protective/precautionary procedures. How many hospitals have seriously & thoroughly trained their staff, even the specialty teams, to deal with extremely dangerous infectious diseases? My guess is very few.

Edit--I'm not sure how the genral public and our "leaders" would react if there is a pandemic or an epidemic. Asking sick people to go without pay while quarantined & undergoing testing for ebola would be a serious problem.

 

It sounds like the hospital didn't have a plan and didn't have the right gear to handle it.

Dallas nurse Briana Aguirre: 'We never talked about Ebola' before Thomas Eric Duncan arrived - Health - TODAY.com

 

I can't believe they leery the last on the plane.

 

That doesn't surprise me, and it could apply to just about any hospital in the US. How many times have we been through a fire & evacuation drill, all the while thinking "Enough of this crap, I have work to do."?

 

Sorry, Ralphie, but I don't understand this /\ post. Autocorrect???

 

they just closed the Cleveland schools because a staff person may have been on the same flight...Facts not Fear
xoxoxoo

 

Thanks, @snowy
Fears allayed. If you're not worried, what with all your contact with chilluns, then I'm not worried.

 

Someone who is dying of Ebola throws off a whole lot of fluid: blood, sweat, sputum, diarrhea, etc., etc. And all of that fluid is full of virus.

It sounds like the Dallas hospital was just criminally careless with the Ebola patient's body fluids. They weren't set up to handle them safely and dispose of them. It's not surprising that two nurses there have been infected.

People get infected with Ebola by contact with a sick person's body fluids. As long as those fluids are properly handled, we will have very few cases of infection happening within the developed world.

Africa is a whole different story, because public health conditions are so bad there. For example, sick people are at home because there aren't hospital beds for them.

"Airborne" transmission from a not-yet-sick infected person is barely a theoretical possibility. I doubt we will see even one case in the next few years.

 

I work in healthcare, so yes, it's a bit scary to me. I am "trained" in use of personal protective equipment and how to utilize it, but it is SO easy to make a mistake if you haven't practiced 1000 times with someone VERY trained and experienced watching you and telling you when you mess up. My bet is that the hospital a) didn't have adequate PPE, b) the staff wasn't trained extensively in its use, c) even if they were trained, they made mistakes. There's also a good chance they just didn't dispose of PPE or material adequately, which is something nursing is NOT trained specifically to handle - environmental services are responsible for that portion. If they are untrained or do something wrong, everyone gets screwed.

Things like MRSA require precautions to be taken as well, however those precautions differ in some facilities. In inpatient rehab, for example, patients could go to/from the therapy room and use joint equipment as long as it was cleaned afterward, with no requirement for them to wear a mask or gloves. Considering the number of people in and out and using crowded elevators, for example, I think that should be re-thought now that there are even more deadly diseases in the mix.

My manager stated today that she thinks there's a chance of airborne transmission, which seems absurd coming from a healthcare worker, but that's the world we live in. Everyone is scared.

 

I was informed this morning that my employer, a healthcare organization, needs to inform the public that we'll be ready for it, and as a result my job is now "all Ebola, all the time."

What fun.