Posted on 08/10/2014 12:46:23 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
I have spent a little time compiling links to threads about the Ebola outbreak in the interest of having all the links in one thread for future reference.
Please add links to new threads and articles of interest as the situation develops.
Thank You all for you participation.
I’ve noticed that. That, and downplaying the level of PPE needed.
That, and the whole downplaying of how nasty the disease is, how it can be communicated by casual contact, or even contact with fomites.
I am not sure if the idea is to kill off the unsuspecting, assist in spreading the disease, or prevent the economic devastation that could result from appropriate isolation and quarantine.
The solution to this outbreak would not have been pretty early on, every delay in isolating the areas where the disease is running rampant means the endgame just gets uglier.
Of course, the meme that the disease is the result of aberrant behaviour and limited to specific groups like AIDS is has been kicked around, even on some threads here--while, in fact, that is demonstrably NOT the case.
The more people try to sugar-coat this, the more bitter the pill the world will have to swallow.
What is going on has happened many times before. This is more than an epidemic. This is a plague. And the history of the next several months has been written before, over and over.
This phase - covering up the horrible truth - won't last much longer. The next phase - large scale population movements - may already be under way.
What IS different this time is this: 
.
This is our biggest problem right now. Maybe the party line is right - HCWs in Africa are getting infected at great rates, despite using PPE we don't even have because [fill in the blank] - but that's not the way to bet. How do I know this?
Well, help me answer this question: "You tell me it's OK to go in this room with a woman from DRC who just was brought here from the airport by Lutheran Social Services with a 103 fever using regular PPE, right? Then how come the patients at Emory are in a special, multi-million dollar BL4 unit and everybody from CDC and on the staff are wearing spacesuits?"
Until the arrival of sick refugees from West Africa is stopped (and it has been going on since at least 2006), this unanswerable question is going to be asked over and over.
Is 3% acetic acid the standard kitchen white vinegar strength?
Think of the global economic devastation if strict isolation and quarantine procedures are NOT followed.
Liberia and Sierra Leone’s economic fall would be a short one, they’re barely above subsistence level now.
In Europe and North America it could well rival the 14th century plague epidemics. Far more devastating than an EMP attack.
That open borders thing working out about as rational people expected. Oh well, at least the left’s intentions were good.
Niman has been on point for much of this outbreak.
If an effective quarantine of the areas involved had been invoked in early May we might not have the problem we have now. Horses are already out of that barn though.
I have,
Think of the high level crooks who would have their tracks covered by a global economic collapse but who would think themselves safe from such a disease and the aftershocks.
Do they anticipate setting themselves up as kings?
It makes a guy wonder, sometimes.
Having had to go to the local suburban ER where umm undocumented citizens of the world congregate with their ailing family members I have my doubts about even the spacesuits and total diligence by hospital staff.
From the ER admitting counter submitting presenting symptoms and patient info to the first examination by the triage nurse to the actual ER bed cubicle or hallway wheel chair, with maybe a stop in the common toilet, a patient presenting flu like symptoms will have had contact with way too many surfaces.
At our local hospital ER we have the pretty much standard open nurse/admin cluster right at the ambulance entrance. The only barrier is a counter with no glass screens. An ambulance entry with 3 or more EMTs bring a gurney in is greeted by a nurse prepping a new chart doing the triage exam determing where to place the patient.
The waiting patient clusters are far larger in urban hospitals with far longer waits measured at times in hours with far greater opportunities for contamination and infection. I’ve never seen an ER waiting room wiped down except for floor clean up after a fluid incident.
All the PPE is employed after exposure has already occurred at the point of building entry.
Oops almost forgot the ever present snack and soda machines, magazines, and ATMs in the ER waiting room along with the nice fabric upholstered seating.
Seems like far too many contact points..
I’ve got a jug of Kroger vinegar. It says it’s 5%. So yes, that would probably work. Just check the label to make sure.
The other aspect of this is the amount of time the surface would have to be exposed to the vinegar in order to be ‘safe’. Some of those antimicrobials in that list work pretty immediately, others probably require several minutes (20-30), maybe more.
If my life depended on it I’d use the meanest one I could easily afford (sodium hypochlorite) at the maximum strength listed. I didn’t see that kind of info. Sodium/calcium hypochlorite is pool bleach/pool shock. I didn’t see calcium hypochlorite on that list I’d check first to see what concentration of that will work.
But be sure to never acidify bleach. Bad mojo that. So don’t mix the bleach/pool shock and the vinegar. Or with ammonia. Read labels/MSDS always.
If this got into the 1st world, we have more ‘stuff’ to contaminate than the peasants in a 3rd world slum.
You know I think I will have on hand some cheap white inspection gloves or cheap “parade gloves”. You can wear them out and properly peal them off as you return to your vehicle.
Thanks for the acetic acid/vinegar info. I was too lazy having morning coffee and cigs to walk the three steps to the pantry.
As to the sodium/calcium hypochlorite as an old life guard commercial pool manager I had to deal with the liquid chlorine pumps and filtration systems, so no mystery there.
It must be noted that Japan has already stockpiled an anti-flu drug, farapiravir, that’s been shown to be effective against ebola in lab animals. South Korea has announced they too will be obtaining that compound in the event of an outbreak there.
Note the statement that fatality rates are ‘only’ 20% in the developed world. Even 20% would destroy economies everywhere.
One of my pet peeves in medicine is the idiocy at hospitals with infection control. Lister established all the proper procedures more then a hundred years ago. Thanks to antibiotics we’ve gotten terribly sloppy.
There should be no Cloth seats, carpets, cloth curtains etc etc in the hospital. EVERY surface should be tile, glass, marble, stainless steel, smooth plastic , in other words easily cleanable.
It’s a Hospital dammit, not a Hotel.
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