Judge rejects Ebola quarantine for nurse
She is free to move about,,,
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Judge rejects Ebola quarantine for nurse
She is free to move about,,,
This lady has been in close contact with the below. She still has till Nov. 10 to be considered clear. I would not want to risk infecting my family or friends. You can put about 100,000,000 of these on this period. Pic is from Preston's book.
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...ps639d68c5.jpg
Dave
Quarantine and isolation policy needs to be based on sound science and what has been shown to work effectively in practice. Policy should not be a fear based knee-jerk reaction relying on incorrect or outdated concepts for addressing communicable disease transmission. Political posturing in response to public fears only creates more problems and increases population risk rather than protecting the public.
Public health officials usually have sufficient authority to take necessary action. However, the temporary compromising of civil rights to protect the public health must be reasonably based on the science known and never arbitrary and capricious. The nurse in ME does not present a risk while there are no symptoms of disease and probably will never have ebola. Cooperation for monitoring her health status during the 21 day window is reasonable and ME health officials should expect her cooperation.
Policy measures imposed should be realistic. We can talk about tough entry policy all we want, but we know how effective government has been in preventing the entry into the US of undocumented persons and illicit drugs. We may be better served by policies that encourage potentially exposed persons to self identify and cooperate with surveillance/monitoring programs. After all, if they start to show symptoms of ebola, their survival depends on getting high level treatment in a medical isolation facility. We do not need fearful potentially exposed persons to be hiding from US and state health authorities.
My only concern is whether we really do understand the science, or just think we do for now. Viruses mutate at relatively high rates from my understanding. Having said that, you can only make policy based on current best-knowledge and best-practice.
James.
Interesting Charts from the BBC
This Eye-Opening Chart Shows What Nation Has the Most Ebola Cases Outside West Africa
Many ways to look at those numbers of course and to analyze them many different ways... or overthink the whole issue
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
I was just recently reading a "New" release from our CDC that says droplet transmission is possible there is a ton of articles including some from the CDC you really have to sift through it
My understanding of it was that it all really depends on the "Virile load"
Much of this reminds me of the early days of HIV info slowly coming out, the only difference is it is happening faster because of the internet today then it did back in the 80's
I haven't learned one new thing about ebola and the way it spreads since I looked it up this spring when the first reports appeared.
Every example so far has been exactly according to the known facts - people without symptoms or just starting to exhibit symptoms have not infected anybody, people with severe symptoms are highly contagious. Every infection has happened through close contact with a person in their highly contagious stage when bodily fluids have not only many orders of magnitude higher concentrations of the virus but also come out of the person in huge quantities.
Unlike HIV/AIDS in the 80s this disease is well known and well studied for decades, not being discovered right now, and it's not that hard for a person to learn about it.
+1 Gugi
There are only seven proteins in Ebola but they are devastating to humans and other primates.l
How Ebola Is (and Is Not) Like HIV/AIDS
Ebola was discovered in 1976
HIV was discovered in 1983
The major difference between the two is that HIV can be transmitted without symptoms being present
Has anybody heard or read that this Ebola virus is more potent/stronger than the ones in previous outbreaks?
Bob
I heard just the opposite Bob
BUT
According to the reading I have been doing there is NO difference in any of the strains, this is of course being argued between "Experts"
I meant that the current knowledge of ebola is not like the knowledge of HIV in the early 80s. It's one thing to have unknown disease that is being figured out in real time and things change very quickly, and very different to have a disease that has been studied for 35 years through several outbreaks in different regions and now having immensely superior technology allowing us to know the exact structure of the current virus down to the individual atoms.
I can certainly understand the fear at the stage when the epidemiology is not known and crucial new information is being discovered daily. But I can't understand the current overreaction to a disease that in USA is extremely hard to catch for anybody other than the people involved in the direct care of very sick patients of which currently there are none.
Passing strange then that this is the same old Ebola yet instead of affecting a few hundred people in one area the current one encompasses 3 countries and has infected over 13,000 people killing near 5,000 so far. The BS meter is starting to pin in the red zone for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by gssixgun
Bob
Vincent Racaniello, virologist at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, wrote a post about the virus mutation. It is long-but worth reading-and the main takeaway should be this sentence: “We have been studying viruses for over 100 years, and we’ve never seen a human virus change the way it is transmitted.”Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
There is a reason epidemiology is something people have studied and continue to study a lot - it's not trivial.
The same exact thing, a burning match stick, can destroy from just a tenth of the stick to hundreds of thousands of acres depending on the conditions and the response. It doesn't mean that one flame was made of something more special than the other, just that the conditions of the subsequent spread were different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
I don't see an "Overreaction to the Disease" I see a reaction to bad messaging and timing by Politicians and Medical experts that proved to lose the public trust.. Now I see exactly what you said earlier
"The problem with adversarial measures is that they cause counter reaction and there are plenty of loopholes that would be suddenly employed and new ones developed.
It is complete foolishness to switch from cooperative to adversarial position when it doesn't guarantee you 100% effective prevention which you want, and will dramatically decrease the chances of achieving the real goal"
Or complete foolishness trying to bully the Public Trust Genie back into the bottle...
No, wasn't thinking of means of transmission. Just wondering if it is more potent this outbreak.Quote:
Originally Posted by DickWhitman
Bob
And how. praytell, is that determined? LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by BobH
I don't know what this 'bad messaging' is that's lost the public's trust.
We're 2 days away from an election - if the public really thought they are being put in mortal danger by the government the only talking points for any politician on the ballot would be 'close the borders', 'isolate everybody who has been in contact' and such.
Not the case at all and as always 80%-90% of congress will be reelected.
Obama is supposedly very unpopular but nobody is really challenging him - if he was that bad people would be running on the promise to impeach him and replace him with somebody else.
Just like his healthcare bill is supposedly really bad and unpopular, yet virtually nobody is running anymore on 'repeal and replace' despite the 50+ house votes for that while that voting had no effect other than pandering to the hard-core base.
When you look at the real facts there is nothing dramatic going on, just the usual BS with media and politicians trying to blow up and capitalize on the latest 'thing'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
I sure can't convince you nor will I try
But the simplest of Google searches will give 100's of articles from Left, Right, and Scientific sources about it if you choose to open your eyes
"Lack of public trust about Ebola"
I am pretty sure you already know this however
You are right, you can't convince me by simply saying something is so when the overwhelming evidence I find is to the opposite.
Attachment 183552
We just have different definitions of what "people don't trust the government for X" means. You seem to find something special about ebola, I find the 'trust level' marginally worse than on virtually any other issue X.
For example how much people trust the government to
- maintain the stability of the US financial system
- to repay the US debt
- to uphold the Constitution
- to make laws that are good for the country
- to enforce the laws fairly
- ...
Do the polls, listen to the pundits, follow the media circus and you'll find out that the only thing people trust the government for is to screw them personally. Yet, they keep investing in the US stock market, keep liquid assets in the banks backed by FDIC, go to vote, etc.
Talk is cheap, so I've learned to look at how people behave to find out what they really think.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/ar...anted=all&_r=0Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
"You seem to find something special about ebola,"
In an Ebola thread I would expect so,
You can always start having conversation on the substance at hand instead of looking for yet another unfounded assertion to make.
I disagreed with your assertion and explained why, you first accuse me of being close-minded and refusing to see the evidence for your argument which you fail to provide and then accuse me of simply arguing for argument's sake.
One thing you got right though, I am only interested in discussions based on rational arguments and concrete evidence to back them up, and have given it enough chances - time to accept that it is not going to happen.
I have seen footage of the area that has the highest infection rates, in all honesty, it amazes me there are so few cases of the disease. I doubt the western world has much to worry about, but I do think air travel should be restricted from countries affected. Australia has made the right decision.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
That is absolutely correct as I have said from the beginning "The facts simply don't matter" that is the part that you and most every other "Medical Expert" just can't seem to understand.. But keep parroting over and over and over, the public at large doesn't really care about the science...
No matter how many times they say a Fear of Ebola is ignorant and irrational the way it was handled from the beginning by the Politicians, the Medical experts and the media have made the facts and the science irrelevant...
That is easily proved by the FACT that 80% of Americans still want a travel ban as of last polls,
As to arguing for the sake of the argument I am only going by the fact that you have repeatedly tried to introduce new topics and have deflected throughout which I have simply ignored and stayed on the Ebola discussion
I am guessing by the amount of virus found in say the blood of an infected person. Something quantitative like PPM.Quote:
Originally Posted by DickWhitman
I keep reading about the "Viral load" of an infected person and trying to get a grip on that not being a medical professional.
Is the viral load higher that an infected person carries with this out break compared to previous ones of the same strain? If the viral load is higher does that mean you can more easily get infected by contact with bodily fluids from the infected person than before?
The method of transmission remains the same but is the probability of infection higher due to more of the virus being present than before?
Pray tell, LOL et cetera.
Bob
No. It doesn't matter. Feel better?
Either way it's out of your control and the only people dealing with late stage Ebola symptoms are health care professionals (like myself).
Over 90% of Americans supported universal background checks on weapon purchases yet that wasn't sufficient for it to happen and so it didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by gssixgun
You can try to mischaracterize my arguments as much as you want, but I already gave plenty of evidence demonstrating that your understanding of the politics is only superficial.
The 'facts' indeed still appear to matter to most americans - the polls do show that the overwhelming majority does not think they are at risk of infection, that there is not a significant risk of epidemic, and that the government is capable to handle an epidemic if one is to happen. CDC is still trusted far more than most other parts of the government, even with the drop from 73% to 62% after the infected nurse was allowed to fly.
Sorry, but simply asserting something doesn't make it true.
You can try to mischaracterize my arguments as much as you want, but I already gave plenty of evidence demonstrating that your understanding of the politics is only superficial.
Sorry, but simply asserting something doesn't make it true.
I disagree with your assumptions about this Ebola situation and the politics so basically my response to you is that same as yours to me..
PS: the poll I found with just a fast search is at a 37% for the CDC but then again it is from a far right wing source CBS :p
You're right however it is higher then other agencies like the IRS and SS
pps: @Bob I found this while checking sources on Gugi's CDC numbers it has some info on the stains and virile loads with links to search farther
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...lumn/17800077/
I'll have to take your word for it but that does nor necessarily make me feel better. I am liable to talk to another health care professional and get an opposite opinion. It has nothing to do with being in control either just trying to learn more about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by DickWhitman
Unfortunately in the Ebola zone it is not only health care professionals dealing with late stage Ebola victims. That is for several reasons already laid out that I understand. That is why I was wondering if it was more easily transmitted due to having a higher viral load to these unprotected people making it harder to get under control.
Anyway it is going to a long while before the dust settles on this one and it gets sorted out. Going to be interesting if anything new is learned about Ebola from this outbreak.
Bob
Mr Ebola is very smart. He knows when the jig is up. He just takes a vacation for a while and when our guard is down it's his time again and the zowee.
Mr. Ebola is great at getting you to look at what the left hand is doing while the right hand is doing something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
