So another heroic Doctor Without Borders doctor has managed to get infected with Ebola

[pnwmom]

despite being unaware of any breach in following the protocols . . . the strict protocols that the CDC is now suggesting all hospitals should follow.

Thoughts and prayers for all the medical personnel who are risking their own lives every day to help Ebola sufferers. Ebola is a vicious enemy and they are all heroes.

[RKP5637]

1. K&R! n/t

[Caretha]

2. When did this doctor

arrive in the US?

Were the new protocols of the CDC in place when he arrived?

Was going bowling in the new CDC curriculum?

This is your hero?

I hate to say it....but it's just right smack dab in anyone's face that a medically trained person would not & should not go FUCKIN' bowlin and get On MASS TRANSIT..

[B2G]

4. Last friday

And you are not wrong about any of that.

[LisaL]

5. I think we are going to have to start requiring self-isolation for

people who came in contact with Ebola patients.

[TomCADem]

9. So, Treat An Ebola Patient = Become A Pariah?

You have a doctor who is in Africa treating hundreds of patients, which probably entails coming in close contact with the bodily fluids of hundreds of patients. That is how the disease gets transmitted. It is not transmitted through casual contact. Look at Nigeria. They managed to get the disease under control, but most of the casualties sadly enough, were the medical personnel who dealt with the disease first hand.

[woolldog]

24. For 21 days, yes.

[NJCher]

40. so let me see if I got this right

For 21 days, yes.

A person goes to a country like Liberia and deals with suffering and death. They wear a hazmat suit that is cumbersome, at best, to don and doff. They work there under deplorable conditions, probably dealing with inadequate supplies and little sleep. Then they come back to the U.S. and you expect them to stay in their apartment and order out? Sit around watching TV? Playing on their computer? Talking on the phone? Sleep? Are you serious?

And (gasp) you think they should give up bowling, too?

Well, that is the ultimate indignity!! Giving up bowling.

Not to mention being unable to travel on the NY subway.



Cher

[laundry_queen]

43. You know

I just saw a doctor on TV that sounded exactly like that. Paraphrased, it was something along the lines of "they sacrifice so much to help others and when they come back, they want to decompress, have a relaxing time, see the sights in the city, be with their family...they want freedom of movement"

In my mind, I'm thinking, if you've been in an Ebola hellhole for weeks on end, it's this huge sacrifice to come home and order out for 21 days so you can keep that family you love so much safe? Keep others from getting sick? Can't do it for 21 fucking days? I'll admit, I don't get it. At all.

[librechik]

52. agree. Very worried about this attitude of, Oh, I'm different we get from certain people.

we have to stick together on this one, Dr. Harvard.

[notadmblnd]

33. Hell one doesn't have to look at Nigeria.

all one has to do is look at the family members of Thomas Duncan who was blown off by the hospital and sent back home to become sicker amongst his family.

None of the 4 people coming in close contact with him contracted the disease. They were given the all clear a day or two ago.

[polichick]

6. Another doctor who finds it too difficult to stay out of public places for three weeks - wonderful!

[MontyPow]

13. Read up on how Ebola is transfered.

[polichick]

15. Sweat. Urine. Etc. Good thing nobody leaves sweat or urine anywhere...

And the virus can live for several hours in those fluids.

Nothing to think about though.

[MontyPow]

26. You need to do more reading.

[polichick]

37. oops, my mistake - it can live for days in bodily fluids outside the host.

[MontyPow]

44. Just be sure to injest it, or otherwise exchange body fluids.

If you need to worry about that, I'm a little worried about you.

Amazing how nobody has contracted the disease here in the US without actually treating Ebola victims. Why with all the urine, sweat, and bodily fluids exchanged on the airplanes and trains that transported our the victims who actually provided medical care to a dying victim from Liberia.

[MontyPow]

45. Some light reading

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025698921

[kestrel91316]

53. Only in liquids. It dies FAST if it dries, unless it's under a layer of dried BF.

Then all bets are off.

So dried vomit/blood/feces should not be touched.

[TomCADem]

42. Same Was Said of AIDS...

...stay away from folks who are HIV positive because you can never be too safe. I remember Karl Malone complaining about the possibility of an open cut transferring AIDS from Magic Johnson. Can we take the disease seriously without succumbing to wild conjecture?

[MontyPow]

46. No, we can't! And ISIS! BENGHAAAAZI!

[greytdemocrat]

49. Perhaps, just perhaps...

A little less smartass comments and a tad more concern for
the possibility of a major outbreak in a city like NY.

For should it happen, I'm sure you'll have additional words
of "teh stupid" for us.

[MontyPow]

51. Not losing any sleep. Not gonna happen.

I mean what if there were an outbreak in a major southern city like Dallas.

Oh yeah, there wasn't.

[pnwmom]

7. Unfortunately, the same bravery that sent him to Africa to work with Ebola patients

misled him into thinking he couldn't have gotten infected there.

[MontyPow]

11. I highly doubt that. I'm sure this doctor was fully aware of the risks.

These people aren't rubes.

[bigwillq]

12. This Good Doctor is no hero.

He's an irresponsible fool.

[uppityperson]

16. He isolated himself once his symptoms started, was not contagious before that.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/10/23/health-care-worker-being-tested-for-possible-ebola-at-new-york-city-hospital/

City officials say Spencer acknowledged riding the subway and taking a cab to a Brooklyn bowling alley in the past week before he started showing symptoms.

According to a rough timeline provided by city officials, the doctor's symptoms developed Wednesday, prompting him to isolate himself in his apartment.

When he felt worse Thursday, he and his fiance made a joint call to authorities to detail his symptoms and his travels. EMTs in full Ebola gear arrived and took him to Bellevue in an ambulance surrounded by police squad cars.

No symptoms, minimal chance of being contagious.

He was an "irresponsible fool" to help treat and contain the epidemic? Oh.

[bigwillq]

17. Thanks for the info

I posted this in another thread earlier.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5706509

[pnwmom]

23. Other articles said he started feeling unnamed symptoms on Tuesday. n/t

[LisaL]

28. He was feeling fatigue according to the press conference.

So when exactly did he became infectious?
That's the question.

[MontyPow]

25. I'm quite sure I made no such statement.

[bigwillq]

8. This

[MontyPow]

10. Perhaps you should learn about how Ebola is transmitted.

[Caretha]

48. Perhaps

that Doctor should.

[MontyPow]

50. Yeah. What a clueless jack.

[LovingA2andMI]

21. October 17th

And to stay away from others for 21 days in Self-Isolation was just too darn HARD to do for this Doctor.....

[Crunchy Frog]

3. To be perfectly fair

These MSF doctors are treating hundreds of patients in very primitive conditions, where they are often practically wading through contagious body fluids. I'm not surprised that some of them are getting infected, even while using extremely high levels of protection. I would be very surprised if anyone using a similar level of protective gear, in a fully equipped American hospital, were to contract the disease. (And the nurses in Dallas were not in a properly equipped hospital with proper gear.)

I agree with you that these doctors are heroes. I hope they finally get some meaningful support from the international community.

[uppityperson]

14. Thank you for your post, [phone]

He knew he would be exposed and possibly come down with it. Where they work is beyond most people's comprehension, how they work.

This is the best post I've read, thank you very much. DU is getting me down today, I really apreciate this.

[Crunchy Frog]

22. Thanks.

I was expecting to get beaten over the head for one of my posts, so I'm glad that someone appreciated it.

[uppityperson]

18. Have you any idea where he was working, the conditions? Not just what protective gear he wore but

what the conditions in the area where he lived were?

As Crunchy Frog wrote below
"These MSF doctors are treating hundreds of patients in very primitive conditions, where they are often practically wading through contagious body fluids. I'm not surprised that some of them are getting infected, even while using extremely high levels of protection. I would be very surprised if anyone using a similar level of protective gear, in a fully equipped American hospital, were to contract the disease. (And the nurses in Dallas were not in a properly equipped hospital with proper gear.)

I agree with you that these doctors are heroes. I hope they finally get some meaningful support from the international community."

[pnwmom]

20. Yes, I'm familiar with that. But the protective gear took into account those conditions,

so it should work. And it does, most of the time. That does little to help those who get infected anyway.

[Crunchy Frog]

29. Nothing can take those conditions into account.

The best that they can hope for is that it will work *most* of the time, but, given the conditions, some health workers will inevitably become contaminated and get sick.

That's why these people are so heroic. They're risking their lives to help other people. There is no perfect protection that will always offer 100% protection in the conditions they are working under in West Africa.

And this says absolutely nothing about the risks to American health care workers treating single patients in *properly equipped* American hospitals.

[pnwmom]

31. I hope are right about prepared American hospitals, but our over-confidence led to lots of mistakes

in Texas, so I'd rather we err on the cautious side from now on.

[uppityperson]

32. He doesn't wear protective gear out in the world, where he was living, when he ate, etc.

It is possible that he came across, for instance, open latrine running across the ground. Or helped someone in the community, exposing himself.

The protective gear is worn only at work. Here in the USA we rarely have living conditions like are where he was. Or the facilities.

[pnwmom]

34. But wouldn't a doctor know better than to get near an open latrine?

And we've been told over and over that casual contact doesn't spread Ebola.

[uppityperson]

35. Have you seen any of the videos from W Africa, of the field hospitals, villages, towns?

Have you EVER seen conditions like that here?

[pnwmom]

38. Yes, and no. But if anyone could avoid contagion, it would be a trained doctor.

Again, do you really think he'd go near an open latrine? Or that he could catch it through casual contact?

Even in Liberia, the most common way to get exposed is to physically care for an Ebola patient, or to wash his body after death. People don't get it through the air or just walking around.

[Barack_America]

19. Scolds the 99.9999% of Americans who haven't done fuck all for West Africa.

The pomposity of it just baffles.

[uppityperson]

36. +

[ecstatic]

27. Dr. Brantly thinks he caught it outside of the hospital setting

And that could be the case with Dr. Spencer as well.

Brantly is “100 percent” convinced he did not get infected with Ebola while treating patients who were known to be infected. He thinks he may have become infected by someone he saw while he wasn’t suited up in the personal protective equipment that doctors, nurses and other health care workers wear to treat sick Ebola patients – rubber boots, a full body suit, two pairs of surgical gloves duct taped tightly around the arms, a hood, an N95 respirator, goggles and a rubber apron.

“It is very hot, but we were safe,” Brantly said. “I am very convinced that I did not contract Ebola in the isolation unit, because our process if so safe. Our team was well trained. We took care of each other.”

http://www.today.com/health/ebola-survivor-dr-kent-brantly-im-not-worried-about-virus-1D80123173

[LisaL]

30. Brantly doesn't know how exactly he got it.

This guy doesn't know as well.
I think the point is, both of them were in direct contact with Ebola patients (gear or not).
But yet we don't have any quarantine requirements for these people when they come back to US.

[Man from Pickens]

39. oh yes what a hero

who helped a deadly disease cross an ocean it could not cross on its own and exposed countless people to the possibility of infection...

I'd rather not have any "heroes" at all, frankly. Everyone who gets that label seems to have a body count attached to them.

[morningfog]

41. It is not countless. The number outside the hospital is easy to count: zero.

Those treating him are easily counted, too.

[markpkessinger]

47. The virus was going to arrive here sooner or later in any case . .

. . . if not via a Doctors Without Borders physician then from an international traveler. Look, for the guy who died in Dallas, the CDC identified a total of 48 people who had direct contact. And of those 48 -- including the man's immediate family who lived in the same apartment with him for a full five days while he was symptomatic, and who weren't removed from that apartment until several days after that -- only TWO people were infected: two nurses who directly treated him. They have both recovered, and all of the remaining 46 have reached the 21 day mark without becoming ill. That should tell you something about how extremely unlikely it is that this doctor transmitted the virus to anyone else (save perhaps his fiance, who is under quarantine, but so far is not symptomatic).

The hysteria over this, coming, it seems, mostly from those outside of New York, reminds me of the weeks and months following 9-11, when New Yorkers got to work cleaning up the mess and putting their lives back together while the rest of the country went into a collective fit of pants-shitting!