Anonymous donor has provided a home to the Ebola relatives in a gated community.

[pnwmom]

Good for the donor.

But why the city couldn't have used its own funds to rent property for these people, instead of trapping them in the contaminated apartment for almost a week, still isn't clear to me.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/03/family-relocated-from-apartment-where-ebola-patient-stayed/16677643/

Friday afternoon, however, the city confirmed the family has been relocated from the apartment and moved into a private residence in Dallas County.

A city official told ABC News the home is in a gated community and was donated by a person who wants to remain anonymous. City officials had a hard time finding anyone willing to let the family stay in their home because of health concerns.

SNIP

Prior to the scheduled cleanup, county officials said soiled bedding and other contaminated items were placed in plastic bags and remained inside the apartment with quarantined family members.

When cleaning crews entered the apartment, they learned Duncan had slept on every mattress in the apartment during his time there, raising further questions about just how much the family was exposed to the Ebola virus in his time there and why it took so long to get a cleaning crew into the residence.

[uppityperson]

1. Good and I have a difficult time being polite in expressing my anger at it taking so long

When cleaning crews entered the apartment, they learned Duncan had slept on every mattress in the apartment during his time there, raising further questions about just how much the family was exposed to the Ebola virus in his time there and why it took so long to get a cleaning crew into the residence.

[pnwmom]

2. I missed that particular factoid. Geez. What a disaster this has been.

[kestrel91316]

4. OMG he did not do that!?!?!?!!? WHY???

[Mariana]

23. Sick people don't always think clearly. nt.

[kestrel91316]

28. True. But everybody in that apartment had to be thinking EBOLAEBOLAEBOLA

and just stood by and let him vomit for days??? And didn't think to pour bleach or lysol on everything?

[uppityperson]

29. How do you know they didn't pour bleach or lysol? How do you know what everyone was

thinking? Seriously. There is not a lot of information but a lot of speculation and assumptions.

[kestrel91316]

3. I don't care if they're in the presidential suite at the freaking Hilton. All I care is that they

STAY PUT AND OBEY THE ISOLATION RULES.

It's wonderful that someone has done this for them. I doubt they will feel so charitable if they wind up with ebola and the house needs hazmat work.

[uppityperson]

5. Indeed, making them stay in a contaminated apartment for days exposed and endangered them a lot.

[pnwmom]

6. We should care. By keeping them in the contaminated apartment for days,

an apartment in which the patient had slept on every bed, the state increased the chances that one or more of these people was exposed to enough virus to infect them, too.

[kestrel91316]

10. I understand doing it the first day, until alternate arrangements could be made. But beyond that

it just opens them up for a wrongful death lawsuit IMHO if those folks do come down with ebola very late in the isolation period. And most certainly if they do so after Oct 19.

[VanillaRhapsody]

30. I believe that was the problem.....

accomodations....

[Generic Other]

37. It feels more like the response of overwhelmed health professionals

in the midst of a pandemic than the first case! That is alarming. A good wake-up call for all.

In the middle ages, the cry "Bring out your dead," ironically will not be an option in the modern age, especially if infrastructure/bureaucracy are overwhelmed. The CDC and WHO are our best defense at this point.

I can't see how we can avoid more cases since we are sending 1400 soldiers to the area. And 13K+ plus people have US visas in the infected countries. It will certainly require professionalism, nerves of steel and maybe the world working together to end this scourge in Africa and to prevent its spread. We better hope its our lucky day.

I really appreciate your keeping us informed on the dangers Kestrel. It's hard for me to entirely trust the for-profit system being able to respond to a public emergency. I prefer to face danger with as much information as possible.

[kestrel91316]

39. Thank you. I just get tired of the misinformation, the pooh-poohers, and

the frantically irrational panickers.

[cwydro]

7. CNN interview with the female relative

who called the ambulance for him...who was with him prior to pick up.

She is not under quarantine, and she doesn't know what to do.

Major fuck up on so many levels.

[pnwmom]

8. And I think she helped bag up his stuff. So she's certainly at risk.

I can't believe how sloppily all of this is being handled. What a disgrace.

[kestrel91316]

15. If she knows she was exposed, why has she not come forward to speak to the hordes of CDC personnel

and state/local public health investigators to get on the contact list????? They are swarming that place.

[LisaL]

18. CDC should have been contacting her.

They are the ones that are supposed to do tracing of his contacts.
Apparently that was not done well, since she clearly is his contact, but was not quarantined.

[pnwmom]

31. She has been talking to them and they are following her. She's somewhere on the list.

She's living a few blocks away in her own separate apartment, with her children. She says that the children have been told that they can't go to school, and she can't go to her job, but nobody has told them they have to stay indoors. She says she is voluntarily confining them all indoors herself. But she's worried about running out of food and how she's going to pay her rent without a paycheck.

She was closely involved with the uncle's care, so it seems odd to me that the CDC isn't treating her exposure as seriously as the people who were living in the apartment.

[seabeyond]

33. Isn't the rule watch for symptoms. They are not contagious until symptoms.

So it is a watch and wait. Correct?

[pnwmom]

34. Yes, but she was exposed as much as some of the people in the other apartment.

So the question is why they are treating the two groups of relatives differently -- one with a guard at the door, and the other not even told they need to remain indoors.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

9. Why did it have to come to this?

Even if the city wouldn't do it, why didn't the CDC take appropriate action?

[BrotherIvan]

11. Good question

Why are they in a home? Why not in a secure hospital facility?

[ColesCountyDem]

13. Because they are asymptomatic and, hence, cannot transmit Ebola. n/t

[pnwmom]

32. But almost anywhere would have been better for them than being trapped in the

contaminated apartment, an apartment where, for some reason, the Ebola patient had slept in every bed.

[ColesCountyDem]

35. I can't argue with that.

The manner in which this has been handled has been nothing short of bizarre.

[kestrel91316]

14. We don't take up hospital beds with asymptomatic people who may very well never get ill.

But their deliberate and repeated breaking of isolation protocols early on does mean they need to be FORCIBLY kept in one place. Any hotel room would suffice. The instant anybody gets a fever, and before they start in with the puking and projectile bloody diarrhea, you whisk them to the hospital for actual treatment.

[BrotherIvan]

16. But perhaps an exception for a disease they are tying to contain might be an exception

Less than the cost of one bomb. I don't know, but it seems like they are setting up all of these people to get infected by locking them all together in a place where the virus was active. Seems like a stupid time to pinch pennies, really. I would hope the same for small pox or tuberculosis or whatever. I wouldn't criticize them for erring on the side of caution.

[magical thyme]

40. it's not penny pinching. hospitals are not hotels.

Hospitals are places that are rampant with disease. They do the best they can to keep from spreading germs, but face it, the germs are ubiquitous. You don't stay in hospital unless you absolutely must, unless you are a glutton for punishment.

They also are not hotels or motels. The people involved are far more comfortable and safe confined to a home with food and supplies brought to them than confined to a hospital room with hospital food.

Furthermore, I had read they were arranging for some kind of tutoring for the children. Possibly something online.

The house donors were friends of the family and willing to do so.

[jwirr]

17. Repeated breaking of isolation protocols? I heard that they sent a child to school. Were there other

problems?

[pnwmom]

22. The reports I saw used the word "violations" without specifying what they were.

But all of the children did go to school on Monday and Tuesday, and they probably weren't supposed to. On Wednesday only one of the kids did -- so somehow he didn't get the message.

[kestrel91316]

24. Sending a child to school who had contact with an ebola patient

is terrifying enough. And cause enough to bring on the armed guard.

(quintuple facepalm)

[kestrel91316]

12. It's the local public health's responsibility. They are the miserable failures in this. CDC is there

to provide guidance, advice, clarification of policies, a little extra manpower in the contact tracing.

CDC folks don't come clean apartments.

[pnwmom]

20. I read somewhere that the CDC hired "The Good Guys."

So they don't clean apartments, but they hire the people who do.

[kestrel91316]

25. I suspect they did it because the locals didn't think to or said it wasn't necessary.

[KittyWampus]

21. Same problem FEMA had after Sandy- everyone kept expecting FEMA to do everything

But the fact is FEMA coordinates. It doesn't do the day to day legwork.

[kestrel91316]

27. Yep. CDC is not your mother.

Here in Los Angeles we have very proactive public health professionals. So I'm used to it and expect it.

There is simply no excuse for a big city like Dallas to NOT have the same level of competence in public health. Unless you take into account the fact that they do not want government services and refuse to pay for them.

[Generic Other]

38. Except you are in earthquake country

they are just in Bush country. You actually have training in LA. Dallas says every poor person on their own.

[valerief]

19. They'll spend as much money as they can telling you how prepared they are

and how they've done this before and how they're on top of it. But actually doing it? They won't spend shit and they'll fuck it up endlessly.

Texan healthcare.

[flamingdem]

26. Yay for people who care

[Gothmog]

36. I like the Dallas County judge

He is doing his best here. The man meet in person with the family and found them a place to stay