The other thing we need to avoid is the temptation to demonize the sick or at risk population. If we do, no nurse or doctor will take care of us when we get sick. In fact, it looks like one fo the things that is saving lives is transfusions from ebola survivors. Think about that.
cant be that difficult if all those countries are doing it. Plus there are passenger lists that are accessible. Look at Duncan he came into the USA and lied about being sick. OFC healthcare workers here tending to ebola patients here and from Africa need to be quarantined and medical personnel allowed back in but the rest ban from those areas from entering the USA.
no one is demonizing sick people we want to send medical help and supplies and allow medical personel back and forth but we want to keep us safe here in USA, nothing wrong with that. Duncan is a perfect example how allowing people from that area to enter the USA can potentially put many at risk.
I think you need to keep the virus in an isolated place. The more movement the greater risk of it spreading. Also if they do not have Ebola why not let them travel, that is discrimination. They would be healthy people after being isolated in West Africa for 21 days. I think athe only thing we are doing for patients here is isolation and lots of hydration, IV nutrition and abx's to prevent infection. An maybe a blood transfusion for antibodies. The first doctor that got Ebola received the antibodies from a patient in Liberia he was treating that beat it. Tough questions, but IMO if you decide to go to West Africa to help, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask that they be isolated in West Africa for 21 days and getting a clean bill of health before getting on a plane to travel anywhere. Things are easier to contain when you keep the players so to speak in a certain place.
Bulldogs, how exactly do you plan to isolate people in west africa? And what do you plan to do with the doctors, nurses and other health care workers who treat people in the. US? Would you isolate them while they are treating the ebola patients and for as long as they treat ebola patients +21 days? No one is going to want to treat people with ebola in the us then. It is not an easy thing to figure out. OTOH, so far we have one death from ebola. How many from driving accidents etc etc? Maybe it is a tempest in a teapot.
June I agree. If and only if you go to WA to fight Ebola, you should stay over there for 21days prior to returning. Where do we Isolate our Dr's and Nurses in WA? In military hospitals that we are setting up now Nothing we can do for nurses and Dr's here in the states that get it here , If they get it here we treat them here. But the doctors who have gotten it over there should stay over there for treatment. Why bring the virus home when we can treat it there . Tough questions but if this or any other doctor gets Ebola in WA and is put under self quarantine here and they go out riding Subways, bowling, taxis and one of their contacts here gets it----- trust me the lawsuits will be flying.
I dont see where that gets us anywhere in terms of stopping the spread of the disease. All it does is make people feel like they are doing something when they arent and give a false sense of security. It's not like i dont mind at all getting a lethal disease as long as i got it from a good american. Ebolla is ebolla whether you get it from a world traveler or a nurse who has never been 25 miles from home.
Think of it this way. Maybe it will turn out that the only way this disease can be dealt with is by getting people who are immune because they already had it to take care of us when we have it. Presumably they cant get it or spread it. But what if most of those people are in west africa and they say poop on you americans, you did everything to keep people from helping us, we arent coming over to take care of you. Whatever we do, it should be based on science, not on acting out our fears about people who make different choices than we do. Also remember if we have an outbreak other countries will look at us the way we are looking at west africa. What comes around goes around so it would be good to come up with scientifically based fair practices.
if we implement a travel entry ban from the infected areas and quarantine medical personnel that have been near or treating ebola patients, then the chance of anyone in the USA contracting it is extremely low and that's the point imo to stop the spreading of it and hopefully a cure and a vaccine for it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-us-military-to-provide-equipment-resources-to-battle-ebola-epidemic-in-africa/2014/09/07/e0d8dc26-369a-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html
Some feel that by making it hard for aid workers to come and go will reduce the number of people who will volunteer to help. What about all the soldiers we have sent there? Will they all be quarrantined? What if they have a death in the family? Then there is the chocolate. Will my chocolate be restricted? it really is a tough problem to figure out. The more i think about it, the happier i am i am retired. This is a hard one to get right.
Hopefully. But what matters is not whether we perceive that we are helping but how the people we think we are helping perceive it. For instance, the nurse who was the first to be quarantined. She apparently feels she has been treated shabbily. Part i am sure is that these rules were not in place when she got on the plane. Also, we dont know how she was treated. Anyone who has ever been to the dmv knows officious workers can make anyone implode. I am not necessarily in disagreement with your point of view, it is just the more i think about how the details would work, the thornier the problem is. And human nature being what it is, you know there will be some people who take advantage of the situation to just treat some people poorly. I do think it is time for the cdc to come up with statements that are not contradictory. And to at least impose a 21 day common conveyance travel ban on people within the us who have been exposed either here or abroad. After that, it gets tough to work out the details.
I agree the CDC has botched this badly and that's a big part of the problem we don't trust them to keep us safe and even have their facts straight on ebola. with all their contradictory statements and making statements that turned out not to be so.
June, Why bring it to our homeland intentionally when we can fight it and treat it in WA? The lawsuits against this Doctor and the CDC/Federal Gov't in NY would be mind blowing if he gave it to anybody and was supposed to be under quarantine. What good is a self quarantine anyway if nobody is there to enforce it? The second nurse in Dallas had already hired a lawyer to sue the CDC and Presbyterian Hospital for negligence. They did not even have the proper protective wear for the nurses. If we can, keep it in WA and fight it there with everything we have. Phase two human trials from Glaxo and Johnson and Johnson will be getting underway in Liberia in a month or so. Phase I vaccine results are excellent.
I do think we had better stop blaming the nurses and doctors who are in fact the heroes of the epidemic. Besides being just a lame thing to do, we need these people.