A Doctor on the Virology of Ebola

Rush Limbaugh ^ | 10-14-2014 | Rush Limbaugh

[sheikdetailfeather]

October 14, 2014 Listen to it Button Windows Icon Windows Media

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's Thomas in Washington, DC. Thomas, you're our first call today. It's great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Longtime listener first-time caller. I really appreciate what you're doing.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I wanted to make a statement that I think the American people need to hear. (huffing for air) Sorry, I was just out jogging. The... (gasping) I'm a physician here in Washington, DC. I used to be in the military.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: I do understand a little bit about viremia and infectious diseases. Before a virus can become contagious and secrete bodily fluids, et cetera, whichever way you're going to catch it, it has to start replicating and develop a viremia on your body. Before... (panting) Excuse me. According to the guidelines on the CDC, they state that 21 days is the incubation period, so to speak, and before the viral entity in your body gets large enough before it becomes contagious.

[Smokin' Joe]

You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!

[Beagle8U]

I never said we should be paying his medical bills, just that hospitals have different standards of treatment for those without insurance.

He did inform them the first time that he just arrived from west Africa. You are right, the next time they will rush them to quarantine.

We need to cut off all travel from Africa, otherwise every one of them that can scrape together enough for a plane ticket will be here for free treatment.

[exDemMom]

A person infected with a virus does not necessarily have to be showing the sickness symptoms while they are infectious and be able to transmit the virus.

A person infected with Ebola does not have to be carrying a fever or vomiting to be infectious. You could be sitting next to her in a bus and inadvertently exchange minute sweat droplets.

Some viruses, especially those that transmit through the respiratory route, DO shed before symptoms appear. However, Ebola is not like that.

Ebola is not contagious before symptoms appear. Ebola causes those symptoms in order to reach new hosts. The sweat of a non-symptomatic person won't transmit. Virus *can* be present in saliva during symptomatic illness, but even then, is probably not viable. Look at table 1. The virus is present in some fluids during acute phase, but even when present was not viable in most samples. Note that virus was NOT present in the sweat from an acute (symptomatic) patient.

[KSCITYBOY]

Containment is the number one protocol for containing a disease - why does the US allow people that can have am illness for 21 days before symptoms in to our country.

[Bigg Red]

My question is how do you come in from jogging out of breath, speed dialing Rush, and still not having caught your breath and get right on the air. Just seemed odd. Maybe Rush had some arrangement with the doctor.

***
I am suspicious, as well. Did not go to the link, though. Sorry, can’t stand Rush.

[Aliska]

He was the first caller and could have had his cell phone with him. Still, I think it's hard to get on that show, would have taken Snerdley a few seconds to screen him.

I blow hot and cold with Rush. I can stand him again lol.

No, color me dubious. Good material, if true, but strange call. Or very out of shape doctor.

[Lazamataz]

How safe do you think unprotected sex and intimate kissing with a pre-symptomatic nurse would be?

Maybe.

But I'd still hit that nurse.

[Royal Wulff]

They don’t wait until the show starts to begin screening calls.

[Pelham]

Rats spread the Black Plague in the 1300s.

Proving our superiority and technological advancement, we are using passenger jets to spread Ebola in the 2000s.

We rule.

[Pelham]

“Some respiratory viruses shed prior to symptoms, but Ebola is not a respiratory virus.”

IIRC the Reston strain that only infects monkeys turned out to be airborne when it was first thought that it couldn’t be transmitted that way. What’s the chance that ebola Zaire could mutate?

[Ancesthntr]

Your reply is the first that I have heard about Duncan having bought the ticket so far in advance. Doesn’t mean that’s incorrect, of course, but that’s the first I heard of it.

I agree that Duncan wasn’t, in the main, so smart. He handled a dead-by-Ebola body, and did so a couple months after the outbreak began...so he had to know that he was taking a huge risk. Which, BTW, begs the question of why he came here - again, he knew of the risk and “just happened” to come to the place to which 2 Ebola victims were evacuated and successfully treated.

All things considered, it was/is a very sad situation for his family, and for those he infected (and those near both him and the other 2 - who are all living on pins and needles wondering, “Am I going to die this horrible death soon?”). I blame Duncan a bit, but I blame Lurch and Zero far more for allowing such travel. We KNEW a month before Duncan came that West Africa was a hugely risky place, and should have banned travel before Duncan came.

Show me proof that he arranged the trip months before and I will only blame Duncan for being stupid enough to expose himself to Ebola in the first place. Also, I’d like to know if it was a ticket for a particular date, or an open ticket good for a year (or whatever time period). That would also speak to intent - especially since many times open tickets can be cancelled or postponed for little or no cost.

[Bigg Red]

:)

I can’t stand Rush’s constant self-promotion. Yes, he is a smart fellow, so there is no reason to keep telling me so. Five minutes is about all that I can take of his show. Between the egotism and his constant rehashing of an issue, I switch him off.

Doesn’t really matter much for me, though, as I don’t have much drive time these days. And for many, many years I have been out of the habit of listening to radio at home.

[Bigg Red]

So, don’t you agree that it seems odd that this caller would still be out of breath from jogging?

[cynwoody]

Duncan's Ebola exposure took place only three days before his departure. He had, er, procured his airline ticket (and obtained his visa) well before that.

Source

He had hoped to come to the US in June to attend his son's high school graduation, but his visa was not approved until September.

For a guy who knew he had Ebola and found himself in a major American city instead of a third-world rathole, Duncan was mighty resistant to the idea of treatment, as demonstrated twice. First when he quietly accepted that worthless antibiotic prescription on his first visit to the ER and second when Youngor Jallah called the ambulance:

She took his temperature — 102 degrees.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” she said.

Duncan tried to resist. He had been to the hospital once already, several days earlier, and all they had done was send him home with antibiotics. Jallah didn’t listen to him. She dialed 911.

“My daddy is going to the bathroom constantly,” she told the operator, referring to Duncan, whom she considers her stepfather.

Fifteen minutes later, two paramedics knocked on the door. Jallah greeted the two men but told them that they couldn’t enter until they put on gloves and face­masks.

Reportedly, Marthalene Williams was the first Ebola case in the neighborhood. Her family was assuring all who helped that her illness was pregnancy-related and not Ebola. So, it's quite possible Duncan did not know he'd been exposed and therefore did not lie on that form at the airport.

Of course, he should have known. The cabby knew (or highly suspected). But I think Ebola was simply off Duncan's radar screen. I think his plan was simply to emigrate to America, leave his return ticket unused, and quietly become yet another Liberian visa overstayer.

[petitfour]

I think it would be most illuminating to read his texts and other correspondence in the days before he came here. Assuming he had a phone.