Ebola - Everybody Panic!!!

I think you're making quite a leap, essentially projecting from West Africa to the US.

We have the health infrastructure, the expertise, the resources, etc. to minimize and/or control the spread IF both the medical community and the public implement and follow proper protocols. The medical community is on the right track, public education might be a bit more challenging.

But I would never say never.

 

I think that's a big if.

The American people I know and love have a hard time figuring out traffic circles.

 

I am more optimistic.

Nigeria seems to have handled it with far less capacity and resources.
BBC News - Ebola crisis: Nigeria declared free of virus

 

Nigeria declared a national public health emergency over one patient. The US response was comparatively underwhelming.

 

If I understand correctly, Nigeria president declared a national state of emergency in order to release emergency funding.

I agree the US (CDC) response was slow, but is now up to speed, along with actions by medical and government groups across the country focusing primarily on education and training.

I'll have more later after attending a meeting of some of those groups.

 

'Tis true. There is a huge difference between the crowded locations in Africa some of which have 3rd if not 4th world medical facilities by our standards and places like the US that can deliver full teams of white suited CDC level infection teams within a short time.

 

I'm not going to argue about whether or not an Ebola outbreak will occur in the US. My point is that it could. Also, that I've seen a lot of people who clearly have no clue what they're talking about point to really flimsy evidence to support the notion that Ebola is nothing to worry about. Not saying this applies to anyone in this thread.

 

I was at a meeting at the National Association of County & City Health Officials, with CDC officials in attendance, and was impressed with the level of activities that have been put in place in just a short time to focus first on training /communications between CDC and health departments, including online training/webinars.

And second on public education. NACCHO has lots of resource materials and is pushing much of it out directly to health officials. I talked a bit about engaging the local leadership in the public education and we have plans to push more material directly to city halls. The plan is also to engage CVS, Walgreens, WalMart where we have corporate relations to discuss further public education.

Conspicuous by their absence were hospital reps., but CDC is moving quickly to cover all the bases.

 

US ranks below most industrialized countries with universal "socialized" health care, but conservatives freak out when confronted with that fact.

But thanks to Reagan, of all people, everyone has access to care/treatment at hospital ERs if it is life threatening.

I think the greatest inconsistency is in hospital training for this type emergency...basic symptom awareness/response, proper PPE practices, isolation/quarantine/containment, communications., etc. This is where the Dallas hospital failed and where CDC now has a much greater focus.

 

How are you folks hoping to handle people who can't afford to be quarantined?

 

By law, any hospital that accepts Medicare patients must provide emergency treatment to any person regardless of ability to pay. The education issue is raising awareness among those w/o insurance so they seek treatment immediately despite being uninsured and concerned about costs. This currently costs $40+ billion/year of uncompensated care (passed on to those with insurance in form of added costs to premiums).

That does not mean all hospitals have the capacity to quarantine large numbers of people but that hospitals in a city need to communicate more effectively to match the needs with the capacity.

 

My SIL died because the local hospital failed to diagnose MRSA in a timely fashion and treated it incorrectly. By the time they knew actually knew what it was it was too late and she was gone not too long before her 23rd birthday.

 

I wasn't clear. I meant people for whom quarantine would mean loss of a paycheck and/or a job.

 

I have no idea, but was is the alternative to quarantine?
--- merged: Oct 20, 2014 at 6:02 PM ---

Sorry to hear that.

I'm certainly not a health care expert but I know that level of training of ER personnel and/or first responders is inconsistent and essentially dependent on hospital resources. This crisis has raised the issue of uniform training requirements and the question of how to pay for it.

 

So the expectation is that people will voluntarily quarantine themselves even though doing so might jeopardize their homes and livelihoods?

 

The best we can do is educate the public...raise the understanding and urgency of immediate treatment while dispelling the myths and fear mongering.

Beyond that, what is your alternative? Forced quarantine? Quarantine zones?

 

There isn't a politically palatable alternative. There are a lot of people who have really strong incentives to avoid quarantine, and any response plan that doesn't factor this in will probably fail if an epidemic gets too large.

 

Probably so, if implemented with best medical practices and standards and not in response to "fear" or political pressures.

 

If there was an outbreak (and what we know about ebola is consistent) the big problem would be the huge amount of contaminated material generated by even a small number of people.
They were saying that just the one person at the Dallas Hospital created a room full and there wasn't proper procedures in place to properly deal with that large amount.
The high tech hospitals that do have the facilities only have enough for a limited number of patients (in some cases 4 or 5).
We would have to build huge autoclaves and burners just to deal with the waste.
Then we would have to make sure that everyone was properly trained in how to handle everything.

That takes time and mistakes get made in the process.
The best time to do that is not when the problem is happening but before it happens but try telling that to people who want to cut the budget or pass out money to the stockholders.