Ebola confirmed in the US!

[Mortblanc]

Continuing information over here is that Mr Duncan realized he was going to get sick, lied on his flight questionnaire and hopped the first flight he could find for the US.

His intent was to get to the US and receive good medical care that might save his life, since remaining in Nigeria meant certain death.

He informed the Emergency room admitting staff that he had been exposed to Ebola and they failed to note that on his treatment forms.

At least that is the poop we are being fed.

With the CDC recommending AGAINST USING HAZMAT GEAR while treating this crisis my level of belief in anything that is being put out is now suspended.

Our government is in full CYA mode at this point since just a week ago the Big O(bama) informed us that it was not dangerous for our 4,000 troops to be in the hot zone, it was impossible for them to be exposed if minimal cautions were followed and equally impossible to bring Ebola back with them. We were also informed that there was no way on earth a carrier could get past security and into the US.

After all, they all have to fill out a form at the airport!

All you need to run any nation properly is another law and another form!

[Devonian]

Continuing information over here is that Mr Duncan realized he was going to get sick, lied on his flight questionnaire and hopped the first flight he could find for the US.

His intent was to get to the US and receive good medical care that might save his life, since remaining in Nigeria meant certain death.

That scenario sounds far more likely and scary and it should start ringing the alarm bells in every western country, as anyone in the hot zones who feel they or their family may have been exposed and who can afford a plane ticket to the US/UK/Spain/France/Italy/Germany etc etc are surely going to do the same and jump on a plane and present themselves at the first A&E/ER department they can access!!

And with 100's/1000's of new casing being confirmed each week, how many others have already, or are in the process of doing the same thing.........

[Mortblanc]

Another aspect that has raised its inconvenient head is the cleanup and disposal of the biohazard waste from the apartment the man was residing in while highly contagious.

This waste is so toxic that none of the local biohazard cleanup crews are licensed to transport the waste to disposal sites over the public road system.

And it was a complex of what you folks refer too as "flats", so it is connected above below and on each side to other units inhabited by more people.

[Barneyboy]

this can get very nasty fast ,if this is not dealt with properly a lot of people will get this .I think I speak for everyone when I say bugger that
thanks for keeping us all in the loop MB it is very handy to have eyes and ears in the USA .PLEASE keep up the good work pal

[Mortblanc]

Our official reaction system and yours are very similar.

Priority #1= control panic.
priority #2= protect officials political positions
priority #3= deal with the actual disease while heaping on piles of political verbiage

More cases are being shipped back home from the hot zone for treatment. News men seem to think they are immune from infection while covering the story and several have come down with the disease even though they have had no direct contact with a victim or dead body. These cases are not being revealed to the public until after the individual has arrived and is in the hospital.

The government is requiring all reports (100%) of "Ebola like symptoms" be reported to the CDC. Problem is that ebola symptoms and flu symptoms are the same and this is the beginning of our flu season. The system will soon be swamped and useless.

OR

They will isolate all flu patients, just in case.

Can you imagine going to the doctor with the flu and finding yourself placed in an ebola isolation unit for observation???

[Devonian]

More cases are being shipped back home from the hot zone for treatment. News men seem to think they are immune from infection while covering the story and several have come down with the disease even though they have had no direct contact with a victim or dead body. These cases are not being revealed to the public until after the individual has arrived and is in the hospital.

If that is correct, then serious questions need to be asked as to how the infections occurred.

Has it mutated and become airborne or is the disease so widespread that there are infected surfaces etc that contributing to the spread of the disease?

I was under the impression that the virus doesn't survive for very long when it is outside of the body?

[Mortblanc]

We need only ask the simple question of why the folks in the hazmat suits have to be hosed down with chemicals, then wait a specific time period before removing the garments, and the gear scrubbed with disinfectant to have that answer?

They are treating the residence of the Duncan victim as a hot zone a week after he was removed. If the virus died in short order they should be able to go in, clean it up with a bit of bleach, hover the carpets and move another family in. Instead, the entire unit of flats is now empty.

The CDC is also warning untrained personnel against using full hazmat gear due to the risk of infection or exposure while REMOVING THE GEAR!

You want to talk about a "catch 22" situation??? You are guaranteed to be infected without the gear but you are being advised against using the gear due to risk of infection while removing the gear!!!

No wonder all the health care workers in west Africa are dead!

I do not think the disease has become "airborne", but it apparently has a longer life span outside the "host" than we are being led to believe.

We have also been told over here that the ebola virus does not mutate, which is a direct contradiction to the fact that there are already two strains, one in west Africa and one in the Congo, so the strain has already mutated at least once.

And this is the first outbreak where the virus has been active for this long. Other outbreaks were short due to killing off entire villages and depriving itself of a "host". The virus has had only a limited amount of active time for mutations to develop in the past.

My feeling is that they are being less vigilant than needed in the reaction to this situation. One does not deal with control of a pandemic by minimizing the situation and glossing things over.

And one must remember that we are in the final month of an election cycle. All of our lower house members and 1/3 of our upper House members are up for reelection. The present admin is barely holding onto any hint of legitimate power and mishandling of this event by every government agency involved is already suspect.

The "administration" (pronounced Regime) absolutely positively must keep a media lid on this situation until after that election!

[CharlesHarris]

[Steve]

There seems to be an assumption amongst preppers in the UK that yanks are stupid and don't know how to deal with this. Apologies, cousins.

The US is perfectly capable of dealing with this as well as any other country in the world, they've been a bit slow in spreading the news ( perhaps because they're such a self-contained country ), but by now it will be all over the US news networks. I doubt the same mistakes will be made again.

[CharlesHarris]