NYC Doctor being tested for EBOLA

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Multiple contacts...

Developing...

[CJCRANE]

1. Source?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. CNN

[CJCRANE]

4. Thanks!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. You're welcome.

Your onsite site re-reporter...

[Yo_Mama]

8. NYC Health Dept - a returned MSF doctor

http://nypost.com/2014/10/23/nyc-may-have-its-first-ebola-case/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-23/patient-being-tested-at-bellevue-for-possible-ebola-nyc-says.html

[CJCRANE]

13. Thanks for the links

Looks like someone dropped the ball on this one.

[Warpy]

15. It seems more like it hit him very fast

I hope he's gotten to the hospital to be treated in time. I also hope it's just a bad norovirus or even food poisoning.

Unless he bled, vomited, or shit on other people, it is unlikely to spread to anyone in his building if it's Ebola.

[Ms. Toad]

19. He had symptoms on Tuesday - just not a fever.

Hmmm . . . now where have I heard that before.

Dr. Spencer began to feel sluggish on Tuesday but did not develop a fever until Thursday morning, he told the authorities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/nyregion/craig-spencer-is-tested-for-ebola-virus-at-bellevue-hospital-in-new-york-city.html

[LisaL]

20. Yep.

[Warpy]

21. It also said he was nauseated

It didn't say he was vomiting.

How many days do you have when you feel a little sluggish? It's not a specific symptom of anything.

His first real symptom was the high fever. Combined with nausea and a history of travel to the Ebola hot zone, that was enough to send him to the hospital.

I wish him the best. It seems he went right in instead of trying to hide it, being hospitalized before he became ill enough to be contagious.

[Ms. Toad]

23. When you have been exposed to Ebola,

and you are in the incubation period, and you have flu-like symptoms (sluggishness, muscle aches, nausea, etc.) you have to treat it as if it is Ebola until proven otherwise.

If I feel sluggish AND I have been exposed to the flu or a cold, I absolutely start taking the additional precautions to keep from spreading the (generally) non-fatal conditions. Given how deadly Ebola is, especially a doctor, should have done the same.

So what he didn't do was (1) refrain from commercial travel for 21 days and (2) keep himself away from all people once he started having symptoms which should have been treated as ebola.

[Yo_Mama]

34. This is so strange - could this be some sort of psychological reaction these people are having?

It's just NOT possible that this guy could have done this if he was thinking clearly.

Maybe the horror they've seen causes them to develop some sort of mental block, or something. Or maybe he got viral encephalitis and is a bit nuts due to it.

[Ms. Toad]

38. I think that many medical workers (particularly doctors) have God complexes.

For years doctors spread childbirth fever from one new mother to another by not washing their hands between patients because they believed gentlemen's hands could not be dirty.

I went to the doctor this week - with GI symptoms - in one of the watch counties in Ohio. I was in the office for at least 20 minutes before anyone asked if I had traveled outside of the country. And - the doctor never washed his hands in the room which means, at a minimum, he carried the germs from the door handle into the room. (From the looks of the sink, no one had washed their hands in it for quite a while.) They never took my temperature, although they did ask (around the same time they asked about travel) if I had been running a fever.

But - I don't know how you can be in a county with all the publicity about Ebola, and not have that prompt very early questions about travel & fever (or contact with Amber Vinson).

And I don't know how you can (at any time of the year) not wash your hands - after touching the door handle - in the room of each patient.

(Fortunately, he did not need to touch any area where his germy hands had any risk of infection - and I washed my hands after touching the doorknobs. And, fortunately, my GI symptoms were at pretty close to zero risk of being Ebola related.)

But it is the attitude of invincibility - that I don't really thing is any better or worse in connection with the Ebola infection than it is any other time. But Ebola is not just any other infection, so we have to get better.

[Warpy]

42. Your post is wrong.

Your post is wrong because feeling sluggish can be attributed to things like poor sleep, constipation, an unremembered bad dream before waking, and all sorts of things.

Your post is wrong because fear is getting in the way of realizing that people who have been exposed to Ebola are not contagious until and unless they start to become very ill.

Your post is wrong because there is no safe place in Africa to quarantine a doctor for three weeks before travel. There are no guarantees that exposure won't happen outside the facility treating Ebola patients. There are so many diseases in Africa that can mimic the symptoms that only a blood test will differentiate among them.

And your post is wrong for second guessing a true expert in the field, the doctor himself. He knew he wasn't contagious and entered the hospital with full precautions while he was still very unlikely to be contagious.

The panic over Ebola in the US is misplaced. I'd rather go with the science, thanks.

Since he's been here for 10 days, he was most likely exposed outside the hospital to infectious fluids from a person who thought he was sick from something else on his way out of the country, something that could have happened whether or not he'd been quarantined for 21 days in Liberia.

Viruses don't respect national borders and this is just something we're going to have to deal with on a case by case basis until there is an effective vaccine.

[LisaL]

43. Incubation period is up to 21 days.

So I really fail to understand how you can claim that he was most likely exposed outside the hospital.
He hasn't been out of Africa for 21 days yet. Nowhere near 21 days, in fact.

[Ms. Toad]

62. It CAN be related to those other things -

and Ebola should not be the first thing to jump to mind when you have those symptoms, unless 10 days earlier he was treating Ebola patients. In that case, for the safety of others - and the costs you impose on the public when you act irresponsibly - should be big red flags to stay out of the public. Just as New York was treating his condition as Ebola before there was a firm diagnosis, he should have as well as soon as he started having symptoms consistent with Ebola.

As for a true expert in the field - remember, it was also true experts who designed the inadequate protocols that were on the books in Dallas - protocols those experts now admit were woefully inadequate even if followed perfectly. As for second guessing medical experts, I've been doing that for years - and most of the time the experts ultimately agree that I am right, and they are wrong. As did the CDC implicitly when it adopted the protocol you can search here and find that I suggested should have been in place all along.

As for your exposure theory - are you really seriously suggesting that someone you are calling an expert managed to carry out very challenging procedures perfectly enough to prevent exposure from the known Ebola patients he was treating - and then paid no attention when he exposed himself to the bodily fluids of someone else, in a country where Ebola is rampant, merely because he thought they had something else? I guess that behavior would be consistent with the kind of magical thinking it would require to think it is just hunky dory to walk around with Ebola symptoms for 2 days.

It is not panic to insist that medical personnel stop acting as if they are invincible, and to insist they take any symptoms of illness which are consistent with Ebola seriously if they know they have been exposed. We can't afford to do otherwise.

[Crunchy Frog]

45. It's a non specific symptom.

He should have stayed put until he either felt completely well again or until he felt badly enough to go to the hospital, given his history and extremely high risk.

He was not just some ordinary schmoe who was feeling a little sluggish.

[Yo_Mama]

32. Ohhhh, now I change my mind.

I was thinking it was another virus because of his active social life, but apparently he doesn't have the sense he was born with.

[ladjf]

3. The DOW drop 75 points immediately. That's a Henny Penny Market.

[morningfog]

5. Multiple contacts? Did he just arrive from West Africa?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. I believe so and he went to a bowling alley./NT

[LisaL]

7. He arrived 10 days ago.

[CJCRANE]

9. Shouldn't he have been in quarantine?

[LisaL]

10. I believe so based on new rules.

But maybe these rules didn't apply to him as he came into US before they were implemented?

[Yo_Mama]

11. They don't quarantine them, and 21 day monitoring for incoming only just began

This doctor supposedly came in ten days ago, so I suppose he had no requirements. Other returning HCW have self-quarantined, but there was no requirement to do that.

[Warpy]

17. They're not contagious until/unless they start to show symptoms

and then people have to have contact with blood, vomit or feces. It might be possible to contract it from profuse sweating as the fever spikes then falls but that seems to be a long shot.

High risk groups are family, health care workers, and possibly undertakers.

As long as he didn't bleed, puke or shit into the bowling ball, no one who bowls for kicks at that alley needs to be concerned.

[Ms. Toad]

25. He was a health care worker with direct exposure.

That puts him at tier 1 or 2 being used in Cuyahoga County & Summit County Ohio - neither one is permitted to hop on a commercial plane within 21 days of last exposure.

As for the folks at the bowling alley - no one ever sweats there. Especially not via their hands on the ball or their feet into the shoes. Ebola has been found in sweat. The risk of transmission is low, but it is not zero, and going to the bowling alley after experiencing his first symptoms will likely prove very costly in terms of monitoring all of the contacts from at least Tuesday when his symptoms started.

Everyone who is exposed, especially health care workers (both because of likelihood of transmission based on the nature of the exposure - and the medical training they had to have in order to get in that position in the first place), need to start taking this more seriously.

[LisaL]

27. Yes, if turns out he has Ebola, and if he did go out and about,

there are going to be a lot more people having to monitor.

[Yo_Mama]

29. Yes, this story is surprising.

I still think he has the flu, but what was he thinking?

[Yo_Mama]

31. Or sweat, fluid from watering eyes, mucous, sputum etc.

It's not as simple as it has been made to appear.

A good sweaty workout at the gym might leave traces of virus. There's a reason why they are going in with Hazmat crews and cleaning the living quarters of these people.

[Crunchy Frog]

47. I suppose that means that none of the "contacts"

are going to be asked to put their lives on hold for the next 3 weeks, while they're asked to isolate and self monitor. Nobody's going to be kept from working or kept out of school, or otherwise have their lives turned upside down.

That's a relief.

[Warpy]

49. They won't be asked to isolate unless they are feverish.

They will be told to come in and get tested if they get any GI symptoms, including the nausea reported by today's patient.

While quarantining everybody who goes bowling or rides the subway in NYC sounds like a good idea to the panicky, it's just not necessary.

People need to go with the science, not the fear.

[Crunchy Frog]

53. I'm more interested in what's actually going to happen

rather than what ought to happen.

I'll be very happy if your predictions turn out to be true. I'm not really optimistic about it at this point, though.

[Warpy]

57. Try going with the science

You'll live longer with lower blood pressure.

[Crunchy Frog]

60. Which science?

The science of disease transmission, or the science of human mass psychology, or the "science" of what NYC officials are actually going to do in this situation?

If my blood pressure were much lower than it is, I'd be dead, but thanks for the concern.

[brooklynite]

12. UPDATE - just spoke to our Emergency Operations Coordinator (Govt) - almost certainly Ebola.

[LisaL]

14. Sure sounds like Ebola.

And he was treating Ebola patients in West Africa before coming back to US.

[In_The_Wind]

16. Damn!

[Ms. Toad]

24. I figured it was.

How many health care workers, with known exposure to Ebola, who start having vague symptoms during the incubation period, who ignore them and go out gallivanting about town (or the country) do we have to have before medical personnel lose their "God" complex and take this more seriously.

[Barack_America]

35. Gallivanting?

What evidence do you have to support that claim?

[Ms. Toad]

36. Bowling falls in that category.

He's out in the public mingling with a substantial body of people for pleasure.

Even as the authorities worked to confirm that Mr. Spencer was infected with Ebola, it emerged that he traveled from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the subway on Wednesday night, when he went to a bowling alley and then took a taxi home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/nyregion/craig-spencer-is-tested-for-ebola-virus-at-bellevue-hospital-in-new-york-city.html?_r=1

[polichick]

46. Really - bowling and four different subway trains - how thoughtful!

[Princess Turandot]

18. According to Doctors Without Borders, he was self-monitoring as per their guidelines..

Initially, the man contacted officials at Doctors Without Borders Thursday morning to report a fever, complying with the organization's protocols.

"As per the specific guidelines that Doctors Without Borders provides its staff on their return from Ebola assignments, the individual engaged in regular health monitoring and reported this development immediately," said Doctors Without Borders spokesman Tim Shenk in a statement.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ebola-outbreak-nyc-doctor-being-tested/

After speaking with them, he called 911, for 'pick-up' by a HAZMAT ready ambulance/crew.

[brooklynite]

39. ...and then decided to go bowling when he was diaplaying symptoms...

...riding the subway.

[MerryBlooms]

22. Dang. :-(

Sending good thoughts to him, his family/friends, and his caregivers.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. Let's hope he has a full recovery.

[kentauros]

28. There's another symptom that needs to be added to your graphic:

[font size="3"]Common Sense Reduced to 0% Effectiveness[/font]

[FreeJoe]

30. Quarantine NYC!

Won't someone think of the children!

[Yo_Mama]

37. Positive per NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/nyregion/craig-spencer-is-tested-for-ebola-virus-at-bellevue-hospital-in-new-york-city.html?_r=0

Second test pending at CDC to be sure, but it's a go.

[B2G]

40. Press conference at 9. nt

[flamingdem]

41. Self monitoring - nice for the infected

Not so nice for their associates.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. Gee, where are all the people yelling to shut up about ebola, that it's no big deal?

Why would anyone think someone with ebola running around Manhattan might be dangerous to anyone, after all we've been assured by DU's resident medical experts that it is almost impossible to get, and that talking about ebola is way more deadly than the virus itself?

[LiberalElite]

48. I live in NYC, work in Manhattan, take the subway everywhere - I have

many other things to worry about. Ebola is not one of them.

[Warren DeMontague]

50. Personal worry? No, probably not.

Is it something we collectively should take seriously, and not pooh-pooh the people who point out that it's not something to screw around with? Yes.

To the point where whatever sort of self-monitoring MSF is having their staff do upon return from the field, I don't think it's enough.

[LiberalElite]

51. I didn't say I don't think its serious but

I'll be goddamned if I'll let this take up space in my mind when I have a life to live. I'm not getting caught up in the Ebola mania.

[Warren DeMontague]

54. There have been fewer DU ebola fear threads, than there were threads afraid of the SI swimsuit issue

So I suppose one can take some small measure of comfort in that, or something.

[seabeyond]

58. oh fuck that bullshit warren. are you not tired of this whine yet, you find a way to put into

every one of your posts?

who the fuck said not to take ebola seriously? seriously. who?

[Warren DeMontague]

61. Hey, it's a simple fact.

Don't shoot the messenger.

[seabeyond]

63. no. it is a story you tell, that grows in fairy tale proportion to the point of stupid

[Warren DeMontague]

65. It's all in the archives, open to an easy search.

There were scads of threads about the SI swimsuit issue, too many to count, and a full blown month long meltdown over it.

[seabeyond]

66. yes. in the archives, and your exageration continues to grow not to mention what the game some of

you were playing was really what the fight was about. who the fuck cares about SI but you and riff, bringing it up in every one of your damn posts. which was the whole point to the original to do. all about causing problems/flaming.

but hey... why dont you keep it going here. then you can claim the fight went on for years and years.... i tell you

[Warren DeMontague]

69. No, but it when the history is written of DU in 2014

that will most likely be one of the big landmarks, seeing as it took up most of the spring.

The end of summer apparently belonged to spiderwoman's butt.

Again, I just calls em like I see em. Only one "fighting" here is you.

[seabeyond]

73. for you. obviously. says fuckin a hell of a lot. nt

[morningfog]

52. Someone who is asymptomatic is of zero concern.

Absolutely no worry. He was isolated as soon as he showed a fever.

[Warren DeMontague]

55. Again, good news, if true.

Like Amber Vinson on the plane, I too doubt anyone caught it at the bowling alley or on the subway. But we still don't know.

[seabeyond]

56. dallas, one came in the country. died. two infected, healed, contained. NY, one come in the

country, with fever, he is quarantined. lets see what happens. odds in favor no one contacted ebola, while he did not have a fever, ergo, not contagious.

so? what is your point?

none of our doctors should be a part of doctors without border? they are not to come back in the country? they should be automatically quarantined for 21 days, regardless of showing no symptoms?

what is your point?

[Warren DeMontague]

64. Either ask the question or put the answer in my mouth, but please don't do both at the same time.

What's the point? I think it depends, really, on how much exposure went down.

Absolutely the Drs. of MSF who go over there are heroes. And I'm not blaming this guy for anything. We're fortunate that he IS a Dr. who is familiar with it, by all accounts he's been very methodical in running down all his potential contacts.

Here's my point, and again, Manhattan is a dense metropolis full of millions of people, so a little caution is probably not a bad idea- IF (big if) it turns out he was symptomatic early enough on to pass this on to any contacts beyond, say, his girlfriend--- then it's possible a re-evaluation of the monitoring of health care workers who have just returned might be in order. That does not mean an automatic quarantine, but procedures should be open to revision if it turns out there were gaps.

Make sense?

My only other point was that there has been a concerted effort from some quarters to tamp down all ebola-related discussion. I know it bugs you when topics you consider important are minimized or "silenced" on DU, I feel the same way.

[seabeyond]

67. i asked 4 or 5 question and did NOT "put the answer in your mouth" as you accuse.

so please.... do not falsely accuse me of shit....

[Warren DeMontague]

70. Question #1 and #6 were both "what is your point?"

Questions #2-#5 were "none of our doctors should be a part of doctors without border? they are not to come back in the country? they should be automatically quarantined for 21 days, regardless of showing no symptoms?", presented in the form of a question, but which were actually answers you made up, to questions #1/#6, i.e. answers you were putting in my mouth. Hence my post.

I've been donating to MSF since this deal began, back in the spring. It'd be pretty ludicrous of me to do that if I didn't think doctors from all over the world should be trying to save lives there.

[seabeyond]

74. wrong. i asked you questions. that simple

[seabeyond]

68. dallas, 1 person came in with it and died. two got infected and healed. ny, 1 comes in with it,

is quarantined when he shows symptoms, ergo contagious stage.

My only other point was that there has been a concerted effort from some quarters to tamp down all ebola-related discussion. I know it bugs you when topics you consider important are minimized or "silenced" on DU, I feel the same way.

because people actually speak factually about the disease instead of hair on fire is not minimizing or "silencing" but educating.

no. i still do not see the point to the original post of yours, i replied to. even with your further explanation.

[Warren DeMontague]

71. ....'hair on fire' regarding a level 4 communicable pathogen with a 70%

lethality rate whose infection rates are currently growing exponentially.

Indeed we should save the seriousness for that what is truly serious. Indeed.

[seabeyond]

72. so seriously, total snark from you thru out the whole subthread, starting from your first post

i addressed.

what you did was jump in without a basis, or actual fact. when pointed out, ... backpedal, redirect or anything else. doesnt fly

[Warren DeMontague]

75. Well, then, I guess I'm a smartass.

Like the song goes, "So, sue me."

[mucifer]

59. Watch how on the ball Rush Hospital in Chicago is

Waaaayyy better than Texas:

http://wgntv.com/2014/10/22/after-evaluating-passenger-for-ebola-rush-staff-says-they-now-know-what-to-expect/