3 Texas schools close due to Ebola concerns

[kelly1mm]

BELTON, Texas (AP) - A Central Texas school district has temporarily closed three of its campuses after two of its students traveled on the same flight as a nurse who has since been diagnosed with Ebola.

The Belton Independent School District campuses and some school buses will be disinfected on Thursday. The superintendent announced the closures of North Belton Middle School, Sparta Elementary and the Belton Early Childhood School late Wednesday.

The students' parents are keeping them home voluntarily for 21 days.

The nurse, Amber Vinson, was diagnosed with Ebola on Wednesday. She flew Monday from Cleveland to Dallas.


Link:

http://www.kltv.com/story/26799812/3-texas-schools-close-due-to-ebola-concerns

Well this should go over well ........ Panic and overreaction may be the main problem with this virus in the end, at least here in the US.

[Warpy]

1. Yes, this is ridiculous.

I guess the panicky dimwits just wanted to make the papers.

[kelly1mm]

5. Now two schools in OH are closing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025673301

[Skidmore]

11. More like reduce liability for not taking steps

to take preventive measures in case someone is infected and becomes symptomatic later.

[Downwinder]

2. Will this come at a financial cost?

Effect average daily attendance or excused? Have to be made up? Will the district save expenses by closing for 21 days?

[kelly1mm]

3. I think the schools will be closed for 1 day (today, Thursday) but the 2 students

that were on the plane will stay home 21 days.

My reading of the admittedly lacking article.

[Downwinder]

4. I missed 21 days with Scarlet Fever with no ill effects.

penicillin shot every day, got awful tired of being in bed.

[Yo_Mama]

9. The district isn't closing - the students who may have been exposed will get lessons at home

I'm sure.

This may be an excess of caution, but if you are the the district superintendent, this is the safest way to deal with it. Close the schools, clean the schools, notify all the parents that no one who may have been exposed will be at the schools, and resume operation without having other students removed from the school.

Look, when the only real weapon you have against a disease is quarantine, you'd better use it.

This takes the probability of transmission to zero.

Frontier (the airline) is doing the same - putting the flight crew on paid leave for 21 days. The Dallas schools did the same.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. The major effect of Ebola in this country will likely be mass hysteria. n/t

[morningfog]

7. What a fucking mess. Absolute idiocy. Anti-science, ignorant actions that will make it worse.

[HereSince1628]

8. I'm not sure it's really anti-science. It could be huge sensitivity to liability

I'm not sure the US approach is actually 'scientific'. CDC's approach is definitely influenced by consideration of information in the medical literature. So one could say it's based on consideration and application of scientifically gained information

But as has been seen the CDC's approach is also one that is much subject to trial and error.

That's the basic nature of difference between the scientific acquisition of information and the application of that information in a technology.

Think the galloping Gerty suspension bridge, beautiful edifaces built on theory can be ruined by reality

Engineers understand physics, but as they design structures they build in fudge factors, because experience says, unexpected things happen.

Medicine has to be treated with similar recognition of margins of error around any planned implementation. It's not really clear that the advisers from the CDC really understood the realities face in an American hospital

[Yo_Mama]

10. The Dallas schools did the same

In any case, the battle for the school to try to tell everyone there is no risk would be immense. This way they don't have to fight that battle, and the public has lost confidence in the CDC, for reasons that are obvious.