Officials work to find, contain those closest to Dallas Ebola patient [cleanup not their job]

Dallas Morning News ^ | October 3, 2014 | SHERRY JACOBSON

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Government health officials said Thursday that they were tracking down as many as 100 people who may have had contact with a contagious Ebola patient and were forcing four adults to be isolated at home.

State and county officials executed a communicable disease control order to force four unidentified people,believed to be adults, to remain inside the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan developed Ebola symptoms. The order allows health workers to monitor the apartment’s occupants daily. Five children and an unknown number of adults share the apartment at The Ivy in Vickery Meadow in northeast Dallas.

The apartment,where Duncan had been staying since Sept.20, still contained potentially contaminated material Thursday,health officials acknowledged. Duncan’s clothing and bedding were in plastic bags that were still in the apartment. Ebola is transmitted by contact with an infected patient’s bodily fluids.

Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Zachary Thompson,asked why no agency had removed the contaminated goods,said that was not his department’s responsibility. Members of his staff went into the apartment only to administer tests and not to help the family clean up...

County Judge Clay Jenkins said Duncan’s personal items will be “appropriately disposed of.”

“They have a bag of household trash and they have mattresses pushed against the wall,”Jenkins said. “We are going to,as quickly as possible,improve the hygiene there.”

Earlier this week,the county had asked the apartment’s occupants to stay home and be available for testing. Each occupant was to have his or her temperature taken twice a day.

But when Dr. Christopher Perkins,the county’s medical director,showed up Wednesday to check temperatures,not everyone was home.

“There was noncompliance with the request to stay home,”said Thompson.

One of the children attended school Thursday, despite a stay-at-home order issued the day before by Dallas school officials. Students at four Dallas schools are believed to have had close contact with Duncan.

[Girlene]

You’re right...I just reread that. The CDC spokesbabe, Abbigail Tumpey, should be fired - calling it a wimpy virus. Good grief.

[matt1234]

Public schools, affirmative action and PC have reduced the brain of the average gov’t beaurocrat to jello.

[zimfam007]

I love the quote that this is a “wimpy” virus *rolls eyes*. This is another lapse in medical community judgement regarding the type of vocabulary used when communicating to the public about the sustainability of this virus to hold up against various environmental factors/pressures. One would say that Bacillus anthracis is not a “wimpy” microbe b/c it can “hibernate” in spore form under extreme environmental factors/pressures over years and even decades. However, the Ebola virus does not have this capability thus it being labeled as “wimpy”. This is so dangerously misleading b/c this virus can “live” outside of its host for prolonged periods of time in a microbial sense. Granted UV light is a death sentence for this microbe as it is for so many other various other microbes but to say that the Ebola virus is “wimpy” is such an egregious medical semantical error when speaking to laymen about the virulent nature of this disease.

[USNA74]

So, they’re trying to ID the 100 people he came in contact with. And what about the 30 people each of those 100 came in contact with, and the 30 people each of those . . . . .

Time to get serious about this, stop the flights to West Africa until this is under control.

[dogcaller]

Last night I googled ‘Level 4 biosafety’ and read up on how they handle this stuff in the lab. Not only do they wear those ‘space suits’, the suits have positive air pressure inside to further minimize exposure potential. In Dallas the CDC is treating this like someone had a bad hot dog at the county fair.

[moovova]

"Five children and an unknown number of adults share the apartment..."

It takes a smells like a village.

[moovova]

My way of thinking...cleanup for an Ebola incident should be cheap.

Somewhere around the price of a 5 gallon jerrycan of gasoline and a book of matches.

You could get fancy and use a flame thrower, but that would run up the cost. Definitely be more fun though.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping…

A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread

[null and void]

Whoop whoop whoop whoop nyack naack nyack

The game of Ebola Roulette continues...

*click* spin *click* spin *click* spin…BANG!

Eeeee-bolllll-aaaaaa ping!

Bring Out Your Dead

We’re gonna need

a bigger cart!

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

[Mercat]

Use the sanitizer I now see at every grocery store. Go directly home. Wash hands thoroughly. Wash the food before putting it away. Repeat.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[ansel12]

One of the kids went to school? Others left their quarantined apartment? These people are jerks.

Although they are in the heart of America, their inability to follow directions to prevent an outbreak to the greater population, is just like what we hear about Africans.

Small town America with no foreigners has a lot less to worry about than cities with a lot of foreigners, and not just because of the numbers involved between big city and small town.

[DH]

I think you have a valid PC point there..../s/s/s/s/s/s