Today brings the first case of Ebola contracted in the USA and the second victim to be diagnosed here. This time the victim is a health care worker who treated the first patient in the hospital. The event reveals a major problem.
1. We do not know exactly what the new patient did for the first Ebola victim. We do know, however, that the new patient always wore full protective gear when treating the first guy. That means that the protection was somehow inadequate to keep the Ebola from spreading.
2. As of today, none of the others with whom patient number 1 had contact is showing signs of Ebola. We are getting near the outer limit of the incubation period. If any of the others actually caught the disease, it will show in the next few days.
3. Hopefully, the disease was caught with patient number 2 as soon as it was detectable. The patient took his or her own temperature and detected a fever (as required by the CDC protocols). Once the fever appeared, the patient was placed in isolation until the diagnosis was completed. Since Ebola is not thought to be contagious until after the symptoms appear, that would leave almost no time for someone else to have caught Ebola from patient 2. Further, the longer a patient is symptomatic, the more contagious that patient becomes, so patient 2 was, at most, slightly contagious.
4. Since the first Ebola patient was returned to the USA for treatment, we have consistently been told that in America our health care system would be able to deal with this disease without allowing it to spread. Now that has been shown to be wrong. Full protective gear still resulted in someone getting Ebola. What does that say for the thousands of troops that were sent to Africa? Will their protective gear work properly? Will they use it properly?
1. We do not know exactly what the new patient did for the first Ebola victim. We do know, however, that the new patient always wore full protective gear when treating the first guy. That means that the protection was somehow inadequate to keep the Ebola from spreading.
2. As of today, none of the others with whom patient number 1 had contact is showing signs of Ebola. We are getting near the outer limit of the incubation period. If any of the others actually caught the disease, it will show in the next few days.
3. Hopefully, the disease was caught with patient number 2 as soon as it was detectable. The patient took his or her own temperature and detected a fever (as required by the CDC protocols). Once the fever appeared, the patient was placed in isolation until the diagnosis was completed. Since Ebola is not thought to be contagious until after the symptoms appear, that would leave almost no time for someone else to have caught Ebola from patient 2. Further, the longer a patient is symptomatic, the more contagious that patient becomes, so patient 2 was, at most, slightly contagious.
4. Since the first Ebola patient was returned to the USA for treatment, we have consistently been told that in America our health care system would be able to deal with this disease without allowing it to spread. Now that has been shown to be wrong. Full protective gear still resulted in someone getting Ebola. What does that say for the thousands of troops that were sent to Africa? Will their protective gear work properly? Will they use it properly?
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