Local Dallas grapevine says the Lab Tech’s cruise ship trip was approved of by CDC ahead of time, as the Tech was not in a “Exposure risk pool” prior to Pham and Vinson coming down with Ebola.
By Jason Hanna and Faith Karimi, CNN
updated 8:08 AM EDT, Fri October 17, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/health/us-ebola/index.html
(CNN) — A Texas hospital health worker who may have handled Thomas Eric Duncan's fluid samples has been quarantined on a cruise ship in Belize — another reminder of the widespread fears of the deadly virus.
Though the employee did not have direct contact with Duncan, he or she “may have had contact with his specimen,” the U.S. State Department said Friday.
A doctor at the cruise ship has declared the worker symptom-free and in good health, but the worker will remain under isolation as a precaution, it said.
It's been 19 days since the worker handled Duncan's fluid samples — two days shy of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola.
The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital worker boarded the commercial cruise ship Sunday from Galveston, Texas.
At the time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not updated its monitoring requirements, and required only self-monitoring, said Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department.
“The hospital employee and traveling partner have voluntarily remained isolated in a cabin,” Psaki said. “We are working with the cruise line to safely bring them back to the United States out of an abundance of caution.”
The Belize government turned down a request by the United States to evacuate the worker through the international airport in Belize City.
“We remain in close contact with U.S. officials ... we have maintained the position that when even the smallest doubt remains, we will ensure the health and safety of the Belizean people,” the government said in a statement.
Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died last week.
[snip]
Dr. Frieden is doing substantial damage to the CDC. He knows this. Yet he refuses to resign. This is a very bad time to have a Director of the CDC that is not trusted by the American people.
Poll: CDC approval drops since Ebola crisis
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/poll-cdc-ebola-approval-111976.html
KENDALL BREITMAN | 10/17/14
Americans’ approval of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seen a dramatic drop since Ebola emerged in the United States, according to a new poll.
A CBS News poll found that only 37 percent of those polled said that they think the CDC is doing an “excellent or good job.”
Democrats were more likely to have positive views of the CDC, with 49 percent saying that it was doing an “excellent or good job,” while only 35 percent of Republicans held that view.
In May, a Gallup poll found that 60 percent of Americans thought that the CDC was doing an “excellent/good” job — making it the highest-rated agency — above the FBI, NASA and the CIA. According to CBS News, new polling results show that only the FBI receives an approval rate above 50 percent.
Criticism of the CDC has been mounting since Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with Ebola, died on Oct. 8. Since then, two health care workers have been diagnosed with the virus. CDC director Tom Frieden appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday to answer questions from Congress.
The poll was conducted from Oct. 15 to Oct. 16, surveyed 1,008 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.