Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Kudos to THP and the CDC!



Ebola currently doubles in West Africa every three weeks.

Apparently in Dallas, it's taken 21 days.

(CNN) -- A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for Ebola, health officials said Wednesday -- casting further doubt on the hospital's ability to handle Ebola and protect employees.
The worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated, health department spokeswoman Carrie Williams said.
The preliminary Ebola test was done late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin, and the results came back around midnight. A second test will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored," the health department said.
But the pool of contacts could be small, since Ebola can only be transmitted when an infected person shows symptoms. Less than a day passed between the onset of the worker's symptoms and isolation at the hospital.
Official: Duncan should have been moved
An official close to the situation says that in hindsight, Duncan should have been transferred immediately to either Emory University Hospital in Atlanta or Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Those hospitals are among only four in the country that have biocontainment units and have been preparing for years to treat a highly infectious disease like Ebola.
"If we knew then what we know now about this hospital's ability to safely care for these patients, then we would have transferred him to Emory or Nebraska," the official told CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

 Damn, it's a good thing "we know how to control Ebola" here, have US medical facilities, and first-world sanitation, unlike those poor boobs in Monrovia and such, right?


Meanwhile, CDC supergenius Frieden has decided that maybe sending an actual, y'know, CDC response team, to Dallas immediately might have maybe sort of possibly perhaps been helpful, unlike all that bloviating and reassuring from 1500 miles away with their heads firmly clenched somewhere upstream from their anal sphincter muscle.

More Frieden jackassery on parade.

Great work, Frieden.

Pity about the additional 100+ people now known to be exposed because you and your agency are run like the government equivalent of the Jamaican Bobsled Team, but thanks for the comedy relief. Just a thought, but I'm thinking it would have been quicker and simpler to just pull your pants down to your ankles, and slap your butt at the next press conference, to demonstrate what a crackerjack job you're doing.



And great work to you too, Scarecrow THP-Dallas.
Whoever runs your outfit obviously came highly recommended from the Wizard of Oz.
I have to figure anyone standing between the staff exits and the parking lot there about now is probably clinging to a lightpole to keep from being trampled to death.

Would the last employee leaving THP please turn out the lights?

8 comments:

  1. Where are Duncan's family?
    aside from a brother who blamed skin color for Duncan's death they have been strangely absent from the media glare.
    Unlike Zimmerman whose family back to his Grandparents were in the spotlight Duncan's are invisible, are they alive?
    And what happened to the missing homeless man suspected infected?
    I think maybe Atlanta and Nebraska may have said, "No Dallas it's your goat screw you handle it" and then fingers in ears shouted NA NA NA NA NA!

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  2. How was she allowed to fly, even though she was on the list of contacts? And is it true that Purdon Texas is now sequestered off by military after family of five has tested pos?

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  3. It's even worse. That plane was used for five more flights ... this is an awesome amount of negligence on the part of the CDC and the Administration.

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  4. 1) The Purdon story is a hoax, and has been debunked everywhere, even Snopes.
    2) She was not under isolation, and all 76 workers who treated Duncan were considered "extremely low risk", and were self-monitoring.
    3) The plane was used five more times because until just a few hours ago, no one friggin' knew that someone with Ebola had flown on it. Duh.

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  5. Yes, but if they had treated this more seriously from the get go, she would not have been flying.

    Did anyone think what might happen if someone with an Ebola infection also gets the flu? Maybe she was sneezing on the plane and it is known that Ebola does infect epithelial cells in the lungs and airways.

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  6. If they'd treated this more seriously, Duncan wouldn't have gotten here, and this would all be academic.

    You can damn people for doing things they know are stupid, but you can't fault an airline for not being clairvoyant.

    The people running the show are idiots, pure and simple.
    Everything that follows is a result of that more than anything else.

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  7. "You can damn people for doing things they know are stupid, but you can't fault an airline for not being clairvoyant. "

    I agree with you. My claim is that the Administration and the CDC is culpable and responsible for the consequences.

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