Posted on 10/01/2014 6:20:44 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
The man with the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S. went to hospital feeling sick only to be given antibiotics and be sent home.
It was not until two days later that the man was admitted to the Dallas hospital and put in isolation, it has been reported.
It raises the frightening prospect that he was mixing freely with other people for a full two days while showing symptoms of the virus - the time when Ebola is most contagious.
The unidentified patient has been in isolation
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I am not defending the ER.
However, in just about every outbreak since 1976 the first patients were mis-diagnosed.
The initial symptoms are similar to malaria and a severe case of the flu. This year flu and other viruses are presenting much earlier than usual.
There is no immediate test of Ebola. The diagnosis takes a couple of days to perform.
THIS is one of the reasons the first victims are usually the medical staff and first responders.
I work in an ER. In Texas. It’s not as big or as metro as the one in Dallas. We are not prepared. We don’t even have good TB isolation rooms, much less a plan to isolate anything like ebola. We certainly haven’t had a meeting about how to prepare for ebola should it arise in our area.
I can tell you how things likely went down when he presented to the ER sick the first time. He signed in, touching clip boards, pens, counters, etc. that other people then touched. He then sat in the lobby to wait for Triage. IF they were on the ball, they gave him a face mask, which since it’s “not airborne” wouldn’t matter at all.
Then he would have been called to Triage, had his vitals taken, and a quick 2-3 minute assessment would be done—just enough to determine if he needs to see a doctor, or if he can be fast-tracked for non-emergency conditions. Reports say he was thought to have a non-life-threatening condition, so the latter would have been the outcome. Mean time, in triage, he would sit in the same chair that others after him sit in, come in contact with pulse ox, BP cuff, and possibly part of the thermometer. These are not routinely wiped down completely between all patients at any hospital anywhere—it would make 3 minute Triage process take 10 minutes or more per person, and when you have people signing in to a large, busy ER at a rate of 20+ per hour, that’s not realistic. And since he had “just flu-like symptoms” it definitely wouldn’t have been done after him. Plus the nurse and maybe a tech in Triage would have made physical contact with him, and may or may not have cleaned their hands afterwards. In an ideal world, they would clean their hands after every patient contact. In the real world, a Triage nurse sees potentially hundreds of patients in a day, and it may not happen that they remember to rub alcohol cleaners on their hands 100+ times in a day. And even if he/she had, do regular alcohol cleaners kill ebola? We don’t know—it hasn’t been specifically addressed in any news reports I’ve seen.
Then he would head back out to the waiting room because hey, he wasn’t having an imminently life-threatening situation per reports, so there would have been no reason for him to go straight back. Perhaps he sat in a new seat and contaminated even more people.
Later (after unknown wait time) he would go to a room to be seen. In some hospitals, their fast tracks are large, open rooms containing chair or beds, sometimes divided by curtains and sometimes not, but almost never are they private rooms. After all, resources are limited, and these are non-emergent patients. We can all hope that all they at least cleaned their hands between all patients (rates nationwide hover around 50% for hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers. It’s higher for nurses, lower for doctors).
Finally he would be discharged from the hospital to go home to rest and take his antibiotics. Anyone feel *more* confident about this hospital that sent him home with a presumed viral infection with a prescription for antibiotics?? How did he get home? Private car? Taxi? Bus? Walking? Did he stop at the pharmacy to fill his prescription on his way home? How many objects/people did he touch on his way? How long can ebola survive on dry surfaces? How often have you seen your pharmacist wiping down the counter between patrons? Even really sick-looking ones?
These are just surface thoughts. The extent of his contamination of the area could be staggering. Keep in mind also that this isn’t an “opportunistic” infection like TB that most people can actually be exposed to small amounts of the pathogen and not get sick if their immune systems aren’t weakened. We still have a whole lot of unknowns about this disease’s transmission process.
So put a fence around Dallas for 3 weeks. Of course it would have been simpler and cheaper to quarantine all passengers from certain areas first. But this is your guberment at its finest.
British airlines are banned from service to West Africa. Our government does’nt care for our safety.
I was just wondering if diatomaceous earth could prevent ebola
Opinions?
Anybody?
This is really astounding.
They did not want to be accused of profiling.
You are thinking it through...door handles handrails, counters, chairs, water fountains, bathroom fixtures, and almost endless list of common contact surfaces which could become contaminated and in turn, infect others. Add a couple of days of being sick, and we can only hope the patient stayed home and watched TV.
The CDC should release every bit of info about this patient! His flight info, his name, etc. The public armed with this info could help locating those who he had any contact with. I doubt this patient will survive Ebloa. Will the CDC cover up the fact that he has died?
I have a hard time believing anything the CDC says about how and at what stage Ebola can be transmitted. The Hot Zone countries in West Africa should be isolated from any form of travel out. Get our troops out of there right now!
“Anyone feel *more* confident about this hospital that sent him home with a presumed viral infection with a prescription for antibiotics??”
Good catch there. I missed that one.
Then again, they were just following the traitor’s plan: take some asperin and go home to die.
I think we could market “tinfoil hats” ;-)
It is a great filtering material, though.
If you put it under a good microscope, you will see the skeletal remains of plankton (diatoms) usually composed of silica (quartz). The lattice like structure makes diatomaceous earth a great filtering material, and it is also used a a carrier for pyrethrum as an insecticide/repellant (The pyrethrum is derived from chrysanthemums and is the active ingredient, the diatom structures irritate insects and work into the joints in their exoskeleton).
If you were looking for a chelating agent, zeolites might work better, but even that is likely ineffective against a virus (more useful for capturing positively charged metallic ions and heavier metals).
Are Visa's still being issued?
Contact Tracing will allow you to do that in a more “targeted” manner. For example, you quarantine the family. You look for symptoms among them. If they have any symptoms or develop symptoms you take the trace back one layer or two.
The circle can go wider, but it need not impact the entire city area of Dallas.
Public health officials have the authority to step in and force this. And they will.
What is going to happen is that someone who has a public job is going to be infected and they will refuse to go get treatment because they know what that will mean. They will continue to go to work because they need to make money or because their boss is an idiot who whines about them calling in sick.
THIS is what would cause wide spread infection.
Your comment made me ponder hand washing and nurses.
They may not wash their hands as often as they should.
When I cook dinner I wash my hands countless times. Constantly.
It makes my hands terribly dry even with gentle dish soap and lotion when I’m done for the day. Surgical soap and alcohol based “sanitizers” will really tear up skin if used constantly.
Nurses often have such beautiful hands and nails...
While it probably won’t kill the virus(it is rumored to kill bacteria, parasites and fungi and also to remove toxins and heavy metals)I wonder if daily intake over a long period of time could help with immune response.
It probably can’t hurt to try...
Excellent summary. My wife works at a hospital as well. She is in admin, but has spent a lot of time working with the ER as she is on, what I call, the SHTF committee to deal with mass injury events (plane crashes, pandemics, etc.)
The process of moving through her ER is EXACTLY what you describe.
What you don’t touch on is any language barrier, fear about “honest answers” and the impact on him and his family, and other problems with dealing with foreign patients.
When you combine the presentation is flu-like, the cultural differences in treatment, and the fact that most ERs are running on shoestring...it is a mixture that is rife with potential problems.
One difference is that her hospital has been doing all sorts of training lately—mostly because they are expecting a huge flu impact this year.
Thanks for your informative post. I hope you copied it. You will be posting it a lot in the coming days.
DE is also rumored to make ones body inhospitable to cancer.
You talking about taking the food safe variety of Diamatacheous Earth orally?
He was here for two weeks BEFORE being admitted for Ebola - and there’s the people on the plane to check - and the people they’ve interacted with...
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