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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTexas Officials Say 80 People May Have Been Exposed To Ebola Patient: Report
As many as 80 people were in contact with the Dallas Ebola patient at some point, Texas health officials told NBC, marking a significant jump from the 18 people authorities had said may have been exposed to the deadly virus.
Additionally, four members of the patient's family have been ordered to stay home as a precaution even though they are not showing symptoms, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement.
The health officials said 80 people may have come into contact with Duncan, NBC reported. Earlier, they had put the figure at up to 18, including five children.
State officials delivered the order on Wednesday night to the family of the patient, who has been identified as Thomas Eric Duncan of Liberia. Family members must stay home until Oct. 19 and not have any visitors without approval, officials said.
<snip>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/texas-ebola_n_5919522.html
Another day and more FUD!
djean111
(14,255 posts)Botany
(70,504 posts)n/t
cali
(114,904 posts)why else bother?
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Given how people are freaking out about the disease.
cali
(114,904 posts)so it seems reasonable to believe that authorities think they did have some contact, minimal as it might have been, with the patient while he was symptomatic.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)TM99
(8,352 posts)the usual incompetence, ignorance, and poor communication shatters once more the myth of American exceptionalism.
Africa is a third world country full of traditional and primitive beliefs. We in America are modern, scientific, and this could never happen in a first world country like ours with our exceptional health care services.
Until it does.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)pnwmom
(108,978 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)handled the first case, or 3,000th case.
and yes. we will have to wait, see....
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)http://allafrica.com/stories/201404030636.html
FROM APRIL 2014 6 months ago
The U.S. Embassy in Monrovia has been advised that a woman confirmed to have Ebola has traveled to the Firestone Plantation Camp in Monrovia. . . . This woman is the only person in Liberia confirmed to have Ebola at this time.
Currently, the woman with Ebola and her family are quarantined in their home until they can be moved to an appropriate facility. Contacts from the initial taxi, the taxi driver, and the motorcycle driver have been identified and are being followed closely by the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) and the World Health Organization. The MOHSW is coordinating identification, tracking, and preparing isolation plans.
Risk of transmission remains very low as Ebola is contracted through contact with blood and body fluids or contaminated articles. Symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure to Ebola virus, though 8-10 days is most common.
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)After failing to pass on to the medical staff the information that he'd come from an Ebola region?
And, when he came to the hospital in the ambulance three days later, vomiting, it was good that we kept that ambulance in service for another two days without cleaning it, right?
And leaving that family in the contaminated apartment, with the relatives to do the bagging up of contaminated items themselves, that was better than how they'd do it in Liberia, right?
Yeah, we're so superior to those Liberians. We did everything so much better.
I didn't realize it only started 6 months ago. How did the first woman get it??
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Oh, and in case you didn't know, in Liberia they have things called roads...they even have the capability to make phone calls now!
TM99
(8,352 posts)in this day and age.
Universal precautions mean nothing if information is ignored, pertinent information is not communicated between members of a medical team, and days go by with a deadly virus.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)This is a good example of why it's important to pay attention in school, boys and girls.
TM99
(8,352 posts)That was sarcasm.
The responses on DU as ebola cases have grown exponential in countries in Africa have been the equivalent of saying that it can't happen here because Africa is a third world country and the US is exceptional.
Get it now?
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)TM99
(8,352 posts)I guess I assume that something that blatant would be recognized for what it was given my last sentence.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)in thinking, or even that it gives someone carte blanche to do whatever and then run from the consequences
it not only prevents, it actively discourages self-examination: you're never wrong and you have nothing in common with anyone else
it wasn't until the 30s that anthropologists explicitly realized that "primitives" could even see things the same way as Westerners, since their very perceptions were assumed to be warped through a heavy fog of superstition and magical thinking; it wasn't until the 60s that we started considering that we had myths of our own
You got what I was conveying.
We are so certain that our models, myths, biases, and conditions are so superior when in fact, we suffer from all the same problems.
We have failed security for a President. We have failures of communication in a hospital ER that led to an infectious ebola patient being discharged when he should have been put into medical isolation and treated. If he dies, the onus is on those who failed him when he sought medical attention. And the list can go on.
It is a form of cultural narcissism. It does lead us collectively to not question our actions both with those within our own country but also with those in others. And that blindness can lead to seriously negative consequences from Ebola spreading to the BP oil spill in the Gulf to any number of other situations such as these.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)it's the same thinking behind that Quebecois law: when they say "leave your culture at the door" they're meaning "headscarves and yarmulkes non, suit and tie oui" (and they certainly don't mean take off the suit and tie and run around naked); the French law was even more extreme, with the government flat-out assuming that nobody could ever wear a headscarf of their own volition: anything other than suit-and-tie was, by definition, an imposition from outside
Latin American elites also took advantage of this sort of thinking: they could deny massacres for years because campesinos were assumed to just be so isolated and wrapped up in superstition that they could outright hallucinate, seeing routine military maneuvers as a slaughter of women, children, and the elderly in a river (presumably the descending flocks of vultures the next day were just bits of discarded parachute)
(it's even got a name! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history)
TM99
(8,352 posts)My undergraduate thesis was on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Couple this evolutionary trend in philosophy with Darwin's Origin of Species and Spencer's Social Darwinism, and there is the modern idea that new is always better, civilized cultures trump 'savage' ones, and that we are always progressing as a species not just biologically but culturally.
Evolutionary psychology and years of practice has shown me a very different reality.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)evolving from child/African through teen/Mesopotamian to adult/European; so Tylor was being fair--for the 1870s, at least
Darwin himself actually gave us the first "emergence," a sort of bass-ackwards causality where functionality is produced by processes lacking any actual goal
Darwin himself was sarky about the Social Darwinists: "I have received in a Manchester Newspaper a rather a good squib, showing that I have proved 'might is right', & therefore that Napoleon is right & every cheating Tradesman is also right" (and it's just adorable that the highest peak of evil that Victorian Britain could conceive of was Old Boney)
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)actually hitting the US to realize that we should take this virus serious and start funding a cure. We should have started looking for a cure during the the first outbreak.
Our hubris at thinking it won't ever affect us and our lack of empathy for those that suffer in other countries along with our medical research for profit only will of course come back to bite us.
I don't think this is really the panic outbreak but someday there will really be one.
TM99
(8,352 posts)This is one vector in a very large country.
But, as you say, if we rest in our typical narcissism and ignore the reality of the situation both here and in hard hit African countries, then yes, in the future, things may not be so rosy.
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)TM99
(8,352 posts)Please read my original post, and all replies thus far.
PS - I know.
PeteSelman
(1,508 posts)All is well. We're the best don't you know?
There is a far greater risk of epidemic from this disease than any risk ISIS, the latest bullshit boogeyman, presents.
And what are we focused on?
deutsey
(20,166 posts)But what's most important now is that you remain calm. There is no reason to panic.
Spot on.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Took taxi home? Was sick for a couple days in a crowded apartment.
Then it was reported when an ambulance came to pick him up at the apartment complex the man was vomiting outside the family apartment several times. His family was hysterical, screaming very upset.
We have to wait out the 10 or so days with no more new cases. Right now texas is very humid and warm, lots of flies all over the place.
Lets hope everything gets bleached really well to kill any virus in body fluids on surfaces.
And our emergency rooms take much more notice of any persons who report they just came home from countries with active outbreaks.
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)are only being quarantined at their homes. They should be in isolation for crying out loud! They definitely had direct contact with Duncan, and one of his relatives said he was vomiting when he was picked up. Quarantining those people at their homes just risks spreading the virus to more and more people. That's HOW the damn thing spreads - by people becoming symptomatic at home infecting the people that live there and the environment of their home.
I can't even understand why these people would WANT to be quarantined at home in case of the risk of spreading the infection to family or roommates by becoming symptomatic while at home. I wouldn't DREAM of putting those people in that position and insist on isolation to protect the people that live with me.
LisaL
(44,973 posts)They claim they can control it, but these claims ring hollow to me.
I am not impressed by what is being done here at all.
Nigeria had special places set up to put these people in quarantine.
We are not even doing that.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)And saying that they're being quarantined at home "even though they aren't showing symptoms". Well, DUH. Of course they aren't showing symptoms yet when the average window between exposure and symptoms is 8 - 10 days and can be as long as 21 days.
Meanwhile, these people are at home with their families using the same bathroom, the same tube of toothpaste, someone is probably doing the laundry of the person in the family that might become symptomactic... and what happens if they do become symptomatic?
All Mr. Duncan did was help to carry an Ebola patient by her legs, and he became infected. Now these people that have had direct contact with Duncan while he was symptomatic are only staying at home using the same toilet, toothpaste, dishes, furniture, etc. when they are probably likely to become symptomatic.
It's ludicrous that they aren't in strict isolation.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Get a grip..
MelungeonWoman
(502 posts)The family members become exposed when the paramedic becomes symptomatic. That would be 8 to 21 days after the exposure to Mr. Duncan.
If I were the one exposed I would (air) kiss the family goodbye on day 7 and wait out the next 2 weeks in isolation with a life alert necklace. That would, however, leave the house in a questionable state of habitation if worse came to worse. I sure wouldn't want my family left in the position of cleaning up after me. I hope Texas provides accommodations for these exposed individuals to prevent that from happening.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)They have already had enough exposure...if they are going to get it they will.....they were with the patient in the early stages of the infection.....he was vomitting on the ground before the paramedics arrived....thus the response to "get a grip".
jwirr
(39,215 posts)there is a team of people who are responsible for getting needed items such as groceries to them until they can do so themselves. This team would not come in contact in any way - just leave items at the door.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)As soon as one of these monitored people have a fever, they will be quarantined safely. They are all taking their temps regularly.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)If/when they become symptomatic their families are then also exposed. The should be in isolation to protect the families or roommates with whom they live. As another poster said even Nigeria isolated people that were exposed but not yet symptomatic.
This virus kills 50 to 90 percent of victims. Exposing those people that came into direct contact with a symptomatic Ebola patient to the people that share their homes is inexcusable.
Mr. Duncan became infected merely by helping to carry an Ebola victim by her legs. Mr. Duncan's family was with him and helping him while he was symptomatic, and the paramedics that took him to the hospital not knowing he had Ebola also came into direct contact with him. One of his relatives said that he was vomiting while paramedics were with him. And these exposed people were SENT HOME TO THEIR FAMILIES rather than put into isolation to protect their families or anyone else they may share their home with from also becoming exposed if/when the exposed family member starts getting symptoms especially when symptoms once they start very rapidly proceed to the death of the person.
And it isn't just their bodies that infect people... anything they used like the toilet the toothpaste dishes they used, linens or furniture, doorknobs, etc. can have droplets containing the virus on them. Some of these people are children who cannot be trusted not to touch things of the symptomatic person or those things that have used that have been contaminated.
There is no excuse sending these known exposed people home to their families instead of isolating them. None. All that does is insure that more people unnecessarily are at risk for exposure.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)the ones quarantined to their home.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)and they're also quarantined to their homes. The nurse and doctor who treated him and sent him home not knowing he had Ebola when he first went to the hospital would also have to be quarantined
They just upped the exposure to this guy from 18 to 80 to 100 people. What about them? Are they also quarantined to their homes or just walking around? Do they even know yet that they may have been exposed?
They also used the ambulance twice more for other people before finding out that Duncan had Ebola. What about those patients or any family or friends that may have road with them?
The ambulance has been isolated but these exposed people were sent home to their non-exposed families or roommates.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)would make sure my family were staying someplace else before I came home. Also it is possible to be quarantined to one room of a home or one floor. I am sure that they consider the situation before deciding who stays home and who goes to another form of isolation.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)There is no risk that they will infect each other. Meaning, should the partner show signs, they can be removed and quarantined without infecting the others.
But, he sweated profusely in the bed and the sheets are still on the bed! I also expect, at least the partner, to show symptoms early next week.
bklyncowgirl
(7,960 posts)Those hospital emergency workers may have failed to stop an epidemic.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)And even if half of those end up being infected, that will not be an epidemic. It will stop with that generation.
JimDandy
(7,318 posts)such as Ebola, can and is being classified as an epidemic. In fact, Ebola can be classified now as a pandemic. Personally, though it doesn't feel like an epidemic to me, but then I am far from where the cases are...for now.
TBF
(32,060 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)I could be wrong, but I think it is only those people he had contact with AFTER he started showing symptoms, which started on the 24th.
ecstatic
(32,704 posts)magical thyme
(14,881 posts)touching contact. not necessarily when he was infectious.
They will trace everybody who *may* have had contact to find out if they actually did have physical contact and when.
herding cats
(19,564 posts)This is how things are done in situations like this and it's the very reason you won't see Ebola spread across the US, or the state of Texas, the way it has in some rural areas of West Africa. It will be contained even if the net had to be made a bit wider due to the failure of the hospital when Mr Duncan first went to the ER.
"We're starting with this very wide net, including people who have had even brief encounters with the patient or the patient's home," department spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. "The number will drop as we focus in on those whose contact may represent a potential risk of infection."
Thompson sought to downplay the higher number of possible contacts Thursday morning and said interviewing them was simply routine.
"If you go to a restaurant and people got sick and there were 50 people who were there, we'd have to interview all 50," he said. "It doesn't mean anyone else got sick. If two got sick, we'd have to contact the other 48. In this case there's possible contact with the family members. But no one has any symptoms.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20141002-family-of-ebola-patient-confined-to-dallas-home-as-officials-interview-up-to-100-possible-contacts.ece
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)And Nigeria isn't exactly a First World country. So we, in theory, SHOULD be able to get things under control in this country as well.
ecstatic
(32,704 posts)rounding up and quarantining any suspected infected people at gunpoint. That will never happen here.
jambo101
(797 posts)In the meantime such headlines are worthless media generated hysterical bs created to feed crisis junkies.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)This group, out of an abundance of caution, would include everyone he was in contact with after he first showed signs of a fever, starting on the 24th. The risk of infection wasn't very strong until closer to the 28th, when he was violently ill.
All the contact people from the 24th until he was really heaving are not likely to have been actually exposed or infected.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)between exposure and symptoms. Of course they aren't showing symptoms yet. It's only been 7 days since he FIRST started showing symptoms and 5 days since he was finally taken to the hospital with much worse symptoms while he was still with his family and when paramedics transported him having no idea he had Ebola.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)I live in Kansas City and everyone in my office is scared and talking about it today. It's ridiculous.
jambo101
(797 posts)Imagine all the people that will die today from cancer,car accidents,gun related incidents etc.
I think this ebola hysteria is the least of our problems at this point.
A sobering perspective.
http://www.hlswatch.com/2010/01/12/6700-americans-will-die-today/
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)assured by Perry and others up and down, even here on DU, that contagiousness doesn't occur until symptoms are showing. So, I'm thinking these 80 were not at either of the airports nor on the plane he was on to come to Dallas.
So, what's up?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)These 80-100 must have been after the symptoms, not including the airports.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)TBF
(32,060 posts)TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)People aren't contagious until them become symptomatic which is anywhere from 2 - 21 days from exposure with the average being 8 - 10 days. Mr. Duncan did not become symptomatic until he was already here and with his family.
When he started having symptoms, he went to the hospital, told them he had just come from West Africa yet he was diagnosed as having some unspecific flu type virus, given antibiotics (which do nothing to combat viruses) and sent home.
Two days later his symptoms became much worse, and an ambulance was called to take him to the hospital. A relative said that he was vomiting while paramedics were with him. Mr. Duncan's nephew then called the CDC and told them that Mr. Duncan had Ebola.
Meanwhile, all the people that came into direct contact with Mr. Duncan... his family, the paramedics, the nurse and doctor who treated him the first time he went to the hospital and was sent home are only being quarantined at their homes with their families. And if/when those people become symptomatic their families or anyone else that shares the home will then be in the same boat.
They all should be in isolation since they are known people that were exposed to Ebola yet they're sent home to possibly infect the people that they live with. Which is exactly how this fucking virus spreads.
It's utterly inexcusable that these people aren't in isolation so the people that share their homes aren't also put at rusk just as they were.
Mr. Duncan is also not receiving ZMapp because we don't have anymore. ZMapp is the experimental treatment that seems to be successful in saving the lives of stricken Ebola victims.
With the large window between exposure and symptoms, it's outrageous that we're accepting anyone on commercial flights from any of these hot zones. Screening people before they leave isn't going to do a damn thing since because of that window between exposure and symptoms people just like Mr. Duncan may travel symptom free yet be carrying the virus.
We cannot stop this epidemic coming here when we're accepting possibly infected people from these hot zones who aren't yet showing symptoms.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)they better get some and they better not let Mr. Duncan die after saving those docs.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)What "they" better not do is allow any more people to come here from hot zones without 20 plus day isolation first.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)Period. Mr. Duncan is not a US citizen. He came here to visit family. We have no obligation to accept non-citizens here, and accepting any non-citizen from a hot zone is asking for it.
TBF
(32,060 posts)I suspected the first case would be Texas (actually I was really expecting here in Houston rather than Dallas) because there is so much travel between Texas and Africa.
The US imports nearly as much oil from Africa as it does the Middle East. Executives, lawyers, bankers traveling back and forth - involved in high $$ deals. If the US says "no planes from Africa" how do you think the multi-national oil companies are going to respond to that?
It is something that is pretty scary to those of us with compromised immune systems. I don't blame the administration for trying to quell fears, but it is a serious issue - for some of us more than others.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)Seeing as both of those docs that received it are recovered and alive they need to get on the stick and develop much much more. Not just for US citizens but the people dying by the thousands in Africa.
I never understood why no one was working on an anecdote since Ebola first made an appearance decades ago.
djean111
(14,255 posts)TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)Same reason we did nothing in the Rwandan genocide. So what. They're just poor Africans, and we don't get oil or anything else vital that we need from them. What a disgrace that was. It's exactly things like the Rwandan genocide that's what we should be using our military for. But no, we only care about bombing for the profit of the rich assholes that own the government. We're a fascist government still trying to pretend that we aren't.
ctaylors6
(693 posts)From NY Times article:
Health officials said to think of the contact tracing as moving in concentric circles. Health officials focused first on those who had the closest and most intimate contact with Mr. Duncan after he became symptomatic because they are at the greatest risk of infection. That group includes at least four family members and three medics who are being isolated.
The next group includes those who had more casual contact with Mr. Duncan after he grew sick. More than a dozen people in this category will monitored by the authorities for 21 days, which is the longest documented time it has taken for this strain of Ebola to begin to cause illness. These people will have their temperatures checked daily but are free to go about their daily routines unless they begin to show symptoms.
The final group includes the secondary contacts those who came into contact with people who came into contact with Mr. Duncan. Since the risk of infection in this group is minimal, they are not monitored daily. But their names are put in a database in case any one of them unexpectedly becomes ill and so authorities know how to reach them quickly if needed.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)At this point, it is good they are looking further, hoping they have learned and do better next time. In reality I expect they are now trying to do cya stuff, make it look like they are On The Job.
B2G
(9,766 posts)If not, that's how it could get out of hand quickly, especially if they don't know they were exposed.
Hospitals won't catch that since they wouldn't have been in W. Africa. Seasonal flu would be the initial diagnosis. Don't want to think about what would happen after that.
ohnoyoudidnt
(1,858 posts)I'm not ready to get as hysterical as the media wound want.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)My mother and sisters, and extended blood relatives of both mother and fathers side. This pisses me off.