PolWatch (03-13-2015)
exotix (03-13-2015)
Americans favored quarantining Wolf Blitzer.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borow...g-wolf-blitzer
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Through all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn't laugh we just would go insane. - Jimmy Buffett
Yah, the problem being that there should already have been protocols in place for handling highly infectious patients, viral, bacteriological, what-have-you. The big urban hospitals are supposed to be the main line of defense in case of a biological or chemical attack on the US - but as we saw, some of them weren't ready, & apparently had no idea what to do to prepare or cope with a threat novel in its details but very similar to the biological agents we knew the USSR & others had developed over the years.
Very bad marks for the Presbyterian hospital in Dallas-Ft. Worth area (where the Nigerian fatality was, & subsequent infections of nurses), & I believe their chain nationally is still feeling the effects. As the Ebola PR crisis in the US melts under direct sunlight, there should be a very intense, quiet effort to bring CDC/military protocols for chemical/biological/nuclear attacks up to speed in all the bigger urban hospitals.
& we should look @ siting additional healthcare facilities away from major urban areas - if there ever is a real chem/bio/nuke attack on the US, the large urban areas are natural targets - it's where the majority of our healthcare centers & personnel are located. Terrible planning, from a threat-abatement POV.
*update*
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebo...atment-n322781
The American healthcare worker infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone is in serious condition
The person was flown back from West Africa in isolation on a chartered flight, the NIH said in a statement Friday.
The NIH admitted the patient to its high-level containment facility in Bethesda, Maryland.
It's the same unit that treated nurse Nina Pham and that kept watch over a doctor and a nurse who were eventually found to have escaped infection.
"The unit staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola.
NIH is taking every precaution to ensure the safety of our patients, NIH staff, and the public," NIH said in a statement.
"Out of an abundance of caution, CDC and the State Department are developing contingency plans for returning those Americans with potential exposure."
Just In
U.S. Ebola Patient in Critical Condition
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebo...dition-n324366
An American being treated for Ebola at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, D.C. is now in critical condition, the NIH said Monday.
It's bad news for the health care worker who was infected in Sierra Leone while trying to help fight the West African epidemic, which has sickened more than 24,000 people and killed more than 10,000 of them in a year.
"NIH physicians have changed the status of the patient with Ebola virus disease being treated at the NIH Clinical Center from serious to critical condition.
No additional details about the patient are being shared at this time," NIH said in a statement.
The patient works for Partners in Health, a group that has 2,000 employees in West Africa, including 100 expatriates.
The group says 10 other clinicians who worked to help the Ebola-infected patient are being evacuated to the United States for observation because they may have been exposed to the virus.
One has been taken to the biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska's medical center after developing symptoms.
"At this point, this person has not tested positive for the Ebola virus," said Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the unit.
"However, because of a change in symptoms, we decided the most prudent course of action was to bring the individual to the Biocontainment Unit, where we can better monitor symptoms and safely perform testing.
However, some of the symptoms which prompted the move to the Biocontainment Unit have resolved this morning."
They others will all self-quarantine outside of three special isolation units where Ebola patients have been treated: at the NIH, Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the Nebraska Medical Center.
They can be speedily treated if they begin to show symptoms.
Video Inside
Argh. I'm surprised that we - the US NIH/CDC - aren't asking for volunteers among those previously infected with Ebola to donate some plasma. I'm further surprised that we're not incubating a supply of plasma, with the antibodies (?) - whatever the viral equivalent is - against Ebola.
& that we don't - apparently - have a supply of the various anti-Ebola meds that may have helped those infected before who cleared the symptoms. Isn't that a logical progression?
We don't have anything to give front-line troops/doctors/health workers who would be the first line of defense if the stuff falls into the pot? That failure seems very shortsighted to me.