Second Dallas Ebola Patient, Sundat 10/12

I'm sorry, during the course of the thread, leaving then popping back in, I have mixed up your posts and those of Stacy71. My apologies. I do think you're overly worried though and Stacy71 is definitely panicking imo.

I read various things.. the family thought she had pregnancy complications, malaria, etc. Someone here mentioned that they had not seen it in the news that she was turned away from Ebola wards. She most definitely was according several news sources I read.

It has clearly been reported that they tried to get her admitted to different places in Libera and she was turned away, including from an Ebola ward. CNN stated this in more than one article www.cnn.com/2014/10/01/health/us-ebola-patient/
and this LA Times article specifically mentions what I recalled reading. www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-ebola-liberia-20141003-story.html She was turned away from 2 Ebola wards for a lack of space.

It sounds as if the family was in denial about what she actually had at the start.

That is what I read as well.

I had read in the New York Times that he had driven with the lady to three Ebola wards, but I had also read elsewhere that his family said he never went with the pregnant lady.  Regardless, I found the reading on the way that the dead are prepared for burial much more interesting.  It certainly helps to account for the way the disease spreads to widely in the countries over there.  There seems to be so much love and tenderness in preparing the body for burial, but the virus lives on the body for up to 3 days so it can infect many as they say their good byes to the deceased.  While I believe more cases will pop up over in the US, I can't imagine it spreading as rapidly as it has in Africa. 

:blush:I did the same thing. After I read the thread and went back to respond to you, I didn't know who "you" was, but "knew" it was PretteyInPeank that you were talking to and thought I could find it that way. Oops.

This. I remember when the disease du jour was Avian Flu and also SARS. I'm not saying that Ebola is a walk in the park, but to keep it in perspective, the flu claims many more lives per year. The media, however, loves to jump on the latest deadly disease, and now it's Ebola. 

Yes, and I would just add to this that the plague became a much less common problem when how it was transmitted was understood and steps taken to solve that were taken.  

That will happen with the Ebola virus, as with everything similar - and now we have the advantage of two vaccines and other medication being tested so we have at least already started on that journey, it's not going to take a few centuries!


 

I don't think anyone has been hammered for their worry and no, actually I don't think we can reassure with facts. People who panic about things like this have access to the same facts as everyone else......some choose to view things with perspective and others panic. And actually I think that's very unhelpful because they will pass on their fears, everything gets talked up and false 'facts' get spread causing more concern and panic which makes the spread of reliable, true advice more difficult.

The problem is when people start saying things that are not based on fact and unnecessarily freaking out over something with little to know risk. I posted a thread just a day or so ago about a customer that called at my work insisting on knowing where the package was being shipped from (which I couldn't answer because it was a drop ship) became if it was coming from Dallas she was insistent that she could contract Ebola from it.

Also there were comments that took a scientific study out of context saying that Ebola could be airborne. That is where we do need to be cautious. Too many misinformation and downright lies out there being touted as fact.

Plague is pretty common here in New Mexico. I hear of two or three a year. It's carried by rodents, along with hantavirus and tularemia. I had to clean out a barn a couple of years ago that had rats in it, and for weeks, if I felt bad, I worried about plague and hantavirus.   Certainly not the level of occurrence as some other illnesses like flu, etc. though.

well then, I am glad I am allowed to be worried.

The problem is, one person can come in contact with 100 of people in one day. This nurse was not one on the list that was considered high risk even though she treated the man. The number of people she came into contact with cannot be figured precisely. Yes, she was smart enough to get treatment when she started getting ill, but she could have had the fever and been contagious for hours before she caught it.

Since she wasn't considered high risk and contracted the virus, who else hadn't been monitored or isolated that may have it?

I'm not saying it is going to spread to the general public tomorrow, but I don't think it is something we hope doesn't spread either.

Of course, I come at this from a health care worker's wife who is worried about her husband coming into contact with the virus and maybe bringing it home to my kids.

Of course we are all worried. No one wants Ebola in America. But if you look at the 3 West African countries where is is rampant, it's a wonder more people aren't infected. Yes I do know the "official" number is a huge underestimate. But they have no health care, really, since the hospitals are full to capacity. They are living and dying in the streets. If it's as contagious as our worst nightmares allow it to be, everyone in those countries should be dead. But they aren't. And it was successfully controlled in Nigeria and Senegal.

But why the nurse wasn't considered high-risk is a mystery to me. Just by the fact she cared for him so many times should have placed her in that category, despite wearing personal protective gear. Health care workers here have ZERO experience with Ebola and should be given much more support. And who would want dialysis on that machine?

And thanks lucyg!

I don't think the average citizen needs to worry too much about their exposure. Although I do think the US could do more to prepare. I read an ad this week from the nurse's association asking for more training on dealing with this illness.

I am sure this is the case. I think we are being reactive instead if proactive. Universal precautions are great, but I'd like this to go further. I've seen some of the lackadaisical way some staff has been about patients on droplet precaution and it worries me.