It looks like the rumor I posted up-thread at 4,043 has been proven out by reality.
Dallas case #3 is being sent to Emory in Atlanta.
New Ebola patient to be transferred to Atlanta
Rick Jervis and Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY 1:14 p.m. EDT October 15, 2014
DALLAS — A 26-year-old nurse identified as the second Texas hospital worker to test positive for Ebola is “ill but clinically stable” and will be transferred late Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The nurse, identified by family members as Amber Vinson, was identified by Martha Schuler, the mother of Vinson’s former stepfather.
Vinson was among the workers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who helped care for Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, who died of the virus in October.
The CDC said the nurse flew on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth on Oct. 13. She first reported to the hospital with a low-grade fever on the morning of Oct. 14 and was immediately placed into an isolation unit.
Public Health workers will begin interviewing the 132 passengers on Flight 1143 immediately.
“Individuals who are determined to be any potential risk will be actively monitored,” the CDC said in a statement.
In Washington, President Obama cancelled a campaign trip to New Jersey and Connecticut and scheduled a cabinet meeting to deal with the latest Ebola developments.
Frontier Airlines said in a statement that the passenger “exhibited no symptoms or sign of illness while on flight 1143, according to the crew.” The airlines also noted that Vinson had traveled to Cleveland on Flight 1142 on Oct. 10.
The plane “received a thorough cleaning per our normal procedures which is consistent with CDC guidelines prior to returning to service the next day,” Frontier said in a statement. “It was also cleaned again in Cleveland (Tuesday) night.”
The airlines said customers who may have traveled on either flight should contact the CDC at 1-800-CDC INFO (1-800-232-4636).
At an early morning news conference, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said he could not rule out more cases among 75 other hospital staffers who cared for Duncan and were being monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We are preparing contingencies for more and that is a real possibility,” Jenkins said.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement that a preliminary Ebola test on the latest case was conducted late Tuesday at a state public health lab in Austin. A test to confirm the result will be conducted at the CDC in Atlanta.
“Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored,” said state health department spokeswoman Carrie Williams. “The type of monitoring depends on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus.”
New cases of Ebola in West Africa could reach 10,000 per week by December as the virus outbreak races out of control there, World Health Organization officials said this week.
Dallas authorities moved quickly to try to contain any spread of the disease from the latest case.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who rushed to the health worker’s apartment early Wednesday, said a contamination team has already treated common areas around the apartment and would enter the woman’s unit later Wednesday.
The mayor, who went door to door at the apartment to advise other residents of the situation, said that it was the city’s goal to provide as much information as possible and “to deal with facts not fear.”
“The only way we are going to beat this is person by person, moment by moment, detail by detail,” Rawlings said.
He also sought to ally concerns over the latest case, which he conceded had ratcheted up anxiety in the city.
“It may get worse before it gets better, but it will get better,” Rawlings said.
Dallas nurse Nina Pham, 26, who contracted the disease from Duncan before he died Oct. 9, said Tuesday she is “doing well” and thanked the medical staff at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital for her care.
Jenkins said Wednesday that her condition had been upgraded to “good.”
He also said CDC investigators were looking at what the latest hospital worker and Pham did similarly while caring for Duncan, a Liberian national who had traveled to Dallas to visit his girlfriend and her family.
He said a new 21-day incubation monitoring period begins each time there’s a new Ebola confirmation, and that the spread of the virus has been heart-wrenching for the hospital staff and their families.
“I’ve seen more grown men cry this week than I care to see,” Jenkins said.
None of the original 48 people who had contact with Duncan prior to hospitalization have shown signs of the virus, he said.
While health officials have not determined how the two nurses became infected with Ebola, a nurses’ union slammed the hospital for its handling of the Duncan case.
According to a statement released late Tuesday by the largest U.S. nurses’ union, Duncan was left in an open area of a Dallas emergency room for hours, and the nurses treating him worked for days without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols,
Nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments, worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for a patient with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting, said Deborah Burger of National Nurses United.
RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of Nurses United, said the statement came from “several” and “a few” nurses, but she refused repeated inquiries to state how many. She said the organization had vetted the claims, and that the nurses cited were in a position to know what had occurred at the hospital. She refused to elaborate.
Among the nurses’ allegations was that the Ebola patient’s lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital’s pneumatic tubes, opening the possibility of contaminating the specimen delivery system. The nurses also alleged that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling.
Wendell Watson, a Presbyterian spokesman, did not respond to specific claims by the nurses but said the hospital has not received similar complaints.
“Patient and employee safety is our greatest priority and we take compliance very seriously,” he said in a statement. “We have numerous measures in place to provide a safe working environment, including mandatory annual training and a 24/7 hotline and other mechanisms that allow for anonymous reporting.”
He said the hospital would “review and respond to any concerns raised by our nurses and all employees.”
Vinson, the latest hospital worker infected with Ebola, lives in a well-kept neighborhood in northeast Dallas of apartment complexes with names like the Green In the Village and the Cliffs in the Village clustered around the Village Country Club.
Police on Wednesday restricted traffic on Village Bend Drive, where the worker lived, as residents in the community came to grips with the fact that Ebola had sprouted in their otherwise tranquil neighborhood.
James Coltharp, 50, was walking his two Boston terriers Wednesday morning. He said that Duncan, the first Ebola patient, lived less than a mile away. The second, Nina Pham, lived about two miles away. Today, the virus was just 100 yards away from where he lives.
“It seems to be getting closer and closer,” he said. “We thought we had dodged a bullet and then – boom, boom – here we go again.”
Coltharp said he’s most concerned about the common areas in the community – the tennis courts, local pool and nearby stores – that the nurse may have visited.
“I just hope we’re being told correctly how it spreads,” he said. “There’s definitely concern but not panic.”
Contributing: Gregory Korte in Washington, Kim Hjelmgaard in London; Assocaited Press.