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The Nurse Who Won't Stay in Ebola Quarantine
Fact: This lady opted to go to West Africa to help Ebola patients.
Fact: Currently, the waiting period to see if one develops Ebola is 21 days.
Fact: All other Americans who have had contact with Ebola patients have on a mandatory or volunteer basis, gone into quarantine.
Fact: The U.S. government has permitted state and local governments to handle their own Ebola procedures and protocols.
Fact: The U.S. military is using quarantine for U.S. military personnel who have aided West African nations.
Fact: I have no idea why this lady hasn't been apprehended!?! She isn't a special snowflake. Does any one have any light to shed on this?
Fact: Every time I board a plane (my choosing), I must submit to TSA screening of my person and baggage. The "meeting resistance" isn't fun whenever it happens, but I do it because it's the cost of national safety and security. I submit to this. We ALL submit to procedures for the greater good and health of this nation. Why is this brat any different?
Re: The Nurse Who Won't Stay in Ebola Quarantine
Let's start at the simple beginning, Ebola, like the majority of hemorrhagic fevers is not contagious until the patient is symptomatic.
Secondly the health care care workers in the US who have been exposed to Ebola have not gone into quarantine, they have self monitored for 21 days. Big diff, taking your temperature twice a day and reporting it is very different than quarantine.
If you would like to become less hysterical and more educated, I suggest the WHO website.
May I also remind readers about the treatment of HIV patients back in the 90s as another shining example of media fueled BS.
Ban travel to the affected area and ban ingress from those who have traveled to the affected area. In the old days you'd be sent home from Ellis Island if it was found you had an illness.
Why is Ebola any different?
I remember how HIV patients and AIDS patients were treated during the 80s when the virus seemed to be everywhere. Paitents with AIDS would sit in a filthy hospital room for days; plain ole paper plates and other disposables would sit and pile up in teh corner. Housekeeping was afraid to go in there thinking they'd catch something by way of removing the patient's used paper goods.
I remember 1981. None of us in our hospital was given an in-service or education about AIDS: we had to find it all out for ourselves.
We were actively handling bodily fluids; we worked in the lab. This was still the days when we worked minus gloves or masks. And if you got stuck on a sharp or cut yourself on glass from a tube that contained blood, you'd have your blood drawn for liver enzymes. They'd check you for a base level and then call you back in 6 weeks to make sure they remaned normal.
And you'd fill out an incident report and get a tetanus shot.
That was the only procedure and only standard.
I'm not hysterical. I've done my research on Ebola. I also know that while viruses apparently don't mutate to change their methods of transmission (at least viruses that have been known for the past 100 years), viruses DO mutate all the time in other ways. Meaning that a 21 day - take your temp and report in to a disease center - waiting period with contact with other people, may not be effective. If Ebola has or does mutate - the time during which a person becomes symptomatic and therefore contagious could be altered (longer than or shorter than 21 days).
Early in the P&CEs Board I posted an article from the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) website. It does discuss, politics and media BS aside, some interesting things about Ebola. You should read that. While it's not a scientific research journal article, it is based on science and written by PhDs in the field with an extensive works cited section.
I recently heard of a story about the TSA opening an urn of someone's mother's ashes. The urn, not properly resealed, opened up its contents in the man's baggage while he was on his way to disburse her remains. The TSA messed up BIG TIME. There is no excuse for this behavior, just like there is no excuse for the State of Maine mistreating this nurse during that few days by not giving her proper consideration and comfort.
We learn from our mistakes and move on. But just because the TSA and the State of Maine messed up does NOT make it a choice without consequences for people who refuse to submit to that governmental authority.
We submit to, sometimes embarrassing and always annoying, pat downs when we fly to protect the greater society from explosives and weapons getting on board aircraft. People who choose to travel to Ebola stricken nations have to know that there are results of their good choices. We have a nation to protect here. And, the federal government HAS allowed the state and local governments to do their own Ebola "management." This is still a form of authority set in place to protect a larger group. It is still valid no matter how any one person feels about it. The "rights" of the larger group should reign above the "rights" of the individual here.
Just because someone speaks out about group "rights" versus individual "rights" does not make him or her a fear-monger.