On Ebola - leaking? licking? then calm down.
I've been posting various and sundry over on FB; last night I posted a link to The grim future if Ebola goes global (which itself links to a larger essay, Ebola - Failures of Imagination) and noted, It is ever so important to manage to control Ebola where it is already, rather than to let it go endemic in larger portions of the world. This is why the treatment of that one nurse coming back through JFK was such a problem - not just because it was unnecessary* but because if health workers don't go over to West Africa then it's far less likely to get under control.
*srsly, if one is asymptomatic one is not contagious. During incubation the virus isn't even in the blood yet.
I didn't go into a lot of detail about that - it's Facebook. Thing is, I've been watching the responses of late and been kinda boggled. None of the people in close contact with that guy in Dallas turned out to have caught anything from him. There don't seem to be any further transmissions in Dallas once the hospital actually started using appropriate precautions. And yet I'm watching ZOMG Must Disinfect Bowling Alley and Must Take Asymptomatic Nurse And Slap Her Into Solitary Quarantine.
Here's the thing: true, a negative [early] blood test for Ebola doesn't mean one is necessarily out of the woods if exposed. But what it does mean is that if one has acquired the virus it's busy hanging out in the spleen or the liver, and not anywhere likely to be infecting others, like the blood, let alone anywhere else. And the PCR tests they're using can pick up a really small amount of the virus, before it's particularly symptomatic.
To put it crudely, as I did, "If they're not leaking and you're not licking them, you've probably got nothing to worry about."
I'm far more worried about the stuff in that first link above -- that Ebola becomes endemic in a bunch of places with low functioning health systems, and is hence something that a) affects all manner of other stuff (see the comment about where 40% of generic drugs are made) and b) means we have to worry about the occasional "spark" all the time.
Oh. And what's really fun? Ebola's early symptoms are much the same as the flu. What you wanna bet ERs get inundated with flu folks worried they have Ebola? (Can't get a flu shot til I'm done with this sinus infection.)
Oh, and finally, a couple related images that amuse me.
Oh, and related, Emory Hospital's lessons learned, 4 successful patients so far
And the insights of an ebola doctor who became a patient Brantly, who contracted the deadly disease in July while working in Liberia, did not believe he became infected in his hospital's Ebola treatment unit, where "our process was incredibly safe." He thinks it more likely that he contracted the disease while working in the emergency room or some other part of the hospital.
Edit: Katie Hickox you are not helping (Having been released from the ridiculous full isolation in a tent in NJ to go home to Maine, the nurse tells the media she does not plan to adhere to the home isolation. She has a point - she is not dangerous unless symptomatic, but timing, dude, timing.)
*srsly, if one is asymptomatic one is not contagious. During incubation the virus isn't even in the blood yet.
I didn't go into a lot of detail about that - it's Facebook. Thing is, I've been watching the responses of late and been kinda boggled. None of the people in close contact with that guy in Dallas turned out to have caught anything from him. There don't seem to be any further transmissions in Dallas once the hospital actually started using appropriate precautions. And yet I'm watching ZOMG Must Disinfect Bowling Alley and Must Take Asymptomatic Nurse And Slap Her Into Solitary Quarantine.
Here's the thing: true, a negative [early] blood test for Ebola doesn't mean one is necessarily out of the woods if exposed. But what it does mean is that if one has acquired the virus it's busy hanging out in the spleen or the liver, and not anywhere likely to be infecting others, like the blood, let alone anywhere else. And the PCR tests they're using can pick up a really small amount of the virus, before it's particularly symptomatic.
To put it crudely, as I did, "If they're not leaking and you're not licking them, you've probably got nothing to worry about."
I'm far more worried about the stuff in that first link above -- that Ebola becomes endemic in a bunch of places with low functioning health systems, and is hence something that a) affects all manner of other stuff (see the comment about where 40% of generic drugs are made) and b) means we have to worry about the occasional "spark" all the time.
Oh. And what's really fun? Ebola's early symptoms are much the same as the flu. What you wanna bet ERs get inundated with flu folks worried they have Ebola? (Can't get a flu shot til I'm done with this sinus infection.)
Oh, and finally, a couple related images that amuse me.
Oh, and related, Emory Hospital's lessons learned, 4 successful patients so far
And the insights of an ebola doctor who became a patient Brantly, who contracted the deadly disease in July while working in Liberia, did not believe he became infected in his hospital's Ebola treatment unit, where "our process was incredibly safe." He thinks it more likely that he contracted the disease while working in the emergency room or some other part of the hospital.
Edit: Katie Hickox you are not helping (Having been released from the ridiculous full isolation in a tent in NJ to go home to Maine, the nurse tells the media she does not plan to adhere to the home isolation. She has a point - she is not dangerous unless symptomatic, but timing, dude, timing.)