One thing to keep in mind is that the early symptoms of Ebola look like a lot of other illnesses (including bad colds, the flu, etc.) And no hospital is going to want to be the hospital that sent an Ebola patient home (particularly after Duncan was sent home the first time). So, particularly as cold & flu season gets going, we are going to be seeing a lot of stories where a “potential Ebola patient” is quarantined, but turns out to have something else.
Obama: “Ebola is not something that is easily transmitted”
Minute 1:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij90EjI3nQE
Yes.
Thing is, I don’t judge hospitals for not having the right equipment or specially trained staff.
Normal civilian oriented hospitals and medical staff are not expected to handle Ebola cases. So I don’t judge nurses for not having training and I don’t judge hospitals that don’t have the special wards or hazmat suits. They weren’t built with the idea that this would happen and nurses aren’t trained to normally handle these things. Usually, if someone wants ot handle Ebola, they are expected to go through training in medical schools, virology, and then end up with additional specialized training.
Realistically, as more come in with symptoms and likely real cases, hospitals are going to have to improvise as it happens.
Someone posted an idea in a thread this morning that the hospitals should have check-in stations setup outside the facility. Lots of good ideas on this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3214463/posts
But that’s the insidious danger- isn’t it? While no hospital is going to want to send the next ebola case home- going into flu season, how many “chicken little” episodes can we have before ebola becomes just a joke on the late night talk shows about hypochondriacs with the sniffles and we(collectively, at the behest of the CDC officials who’ll be parroting “You see? Told you so, it IS hard to catch!”) get ebola fatigue and therefore fail to recognize when it actually does hit and start to spread wide?
“turns out to have something else.”
...such as Entero D68.