I agree.
But the risk for that seems quite low.
They are wearing protective suits.
What strikes me is how unlikely it is that so many “protected” workers somehow get body fluids in their nose, mouth, etc.
Also, I'd be surprised if an Ebola virus can survive the journey through the stomach, unless, of course, it finds an entry through ulcers, or if the mouth has canker sores or gum disease, or if the esophagus has been damaged by reflux.
See the latest posted article.
Even so, I remember as a Med Student in 1981 making rounds with the chief resident. He would never gown or mask or anything when we went into a patient room in isolation for TB. The nurses would get po with him daily. I asked once why he kept doing that. He answered TB just isn’t all that communicable. Ebola is. Sure, it ain’t Smallpox but the more complicated something is the greater risk Jane Sixpack will inadvertently make a mistake.
I bet it would take me half an hour to teach you to put on GLOVES and take them off again and I bet you would have to do it repeatedly for another half hour before you did it without contaminating one side or the other. With TB or HIV it ain’t that big of deal. With Smallpox or measles it is. And Ebola.
Imagine trying to do this with gloves, suit, respirator, and face shield. Just adding suit to the gloves would add another half hour back again. Try this this evening. Pay attention to every time you find your hand near your face. How many times an hour do you think you do that without even thinking? More than ten, I bet. Do it once with Ebola and you are dead. People ask me what to do about colds. Don’t get them. Same here. Problem is the Klown has left the barn door open and it may be that it is too late right now.
Consider that instead of the hours Ebola took to produce symptoms decades ago now it takes weeks. How many people have it RIGHT NOW? We won’t know for almost a month. Meanwhile those folks are merrily going about their business. Flu season hasn’t even started. I remember when the anthrax envelopes started showing up. Folks started getting Zithromax prescriptions just to hoard them. It took a while before the availability returned. And these were people who should have known better.
Read about how the staff was just collecting Duncan’s contaminated linens, etc and just putting them in a room. They were only wearing gloves for the first two days. In the ICU there is great difficulty isolating a patient as the nurses have to move from one to another. Literally thousands of opportunities a day to contaminate. Nothing is perfect.
In one month the gummint may realize the only way to treat and isolate patients with perfect confidence is a bullet and a flamethrower.