That ‘visiting from Liberia’ should have sent alarm bells ringing all over the place! Why were the docs, or PA’s most likely, so negligent?...................
Assuming that information was given the first time.
I would guess if he hadn't shared that info in the first place, a few days after "why didn't you tell anybody" type questions, the story would change.
They don’t know where Liberia is. May as well have said he was from Mars.
I can guarantee that the people who registered this man into the Emergency Department did not know that Liberia was in Africa. Even if there was a screening question (which there may not have been...there will be now) asking if the patient had recently been to Africa, had he answered, “I just came from Liberia”, the screener wouldn’t have realized that was a ‘Yes’.
Whoever ultimately treated the patient would not necessarily have asked, mostly because of time constraints and the assumption that had there been a concern, it would have been noted by the screener. Also, to assume someone with an African-sounding name had recently been to Africa would be seen as ‘racist’.
In any event, if the patient was concerned about Ebola, and he was willing to share this information openly (which I have doubts about), had he simply mentioned the word, ‘Ebola’ 7 kinds of hell would have broken loose and he would have been rushed into isolation and wheels would have started turning immediately to identify contacts, notify CDC, etc, etc.
There will of course, now be much more specific questions asked of ALL patients at screening, and isolation protocols put into place which will tie up emergency departments across the country as the season of colds and flu approaches. None of these will have much effect because all of these patients have been spreading the virus as easily outside of the hospital as they would once they arrive. But there will be no quarantines or restriction of flights, because that wouldn’t be ‘fair’.
Bottom line... don’t depend on anyone but yourself to protect you from this. If the government will not prevent this from entering the country, and it has already proven that it will not, then things could get messy, and expecting hospitals to be able to contain this is naive. Where was this man before he went to the ER? How many days did he have a cough/cold. How many friends/family members were in close contact with him? How many other people from Liberia were on his flight?
Still, I don’t think panic is necessary (yet). Ebola is as far as we know only spread by close contact, so I am a little less worried about casual contact, even being in the next seat on a plane with an asymptomatic person or touching a doorknob after them shouldn’t be dangerous. What does concern me is the number of close contacts this man had, and theirs, and theirs. Not to mention the fact that I doubt he was the only person on that flight from Liberia, and I know that his was NOT the only flight into America from an affected African country.
Just my 2 cents,
O2