Ebola case in Dallas.

dfwtinman · Sep 30, 2014

This is breaking news. According to the telelvision, the CDC will be holding a press conference around 5:30 p.m. (EST) to announce the first case of Ebola in the US (apart from those coming via medical evacuation).

The patient traveled from Liberia to Dallas by plane, but early report is he was asymptomatic then. Went to hospital with high fever. He is at Texas Health Presybyterian Hospital in Dallas. On a side note, my wife and I were at this hospital for tests (non-related) yesterday.

Here is an early article from 8 hours ago before the CDC confirmed to the press the positive test.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/29/dallas-hospital-isolates-possible-ebola-patient/16461507/

Perks · Sep 30, 2014

Can I ask why this thread gets a green smiley?

Hapax Legomenon · Sep 30, 2014

Lock your doors and windows, it's time to pull a Madagascar.

mccardey · Sep 30, 2014

I'm guessing OP meant to hit the purple sad-face.

I've done that.

dfwtinman · Sep 30, 2014

justJM said:
Can I ask why this thread gets a green smiley?

Fat fingers when posting from my iPhone.

veinglory · Sep 30, 2014

If confirmed it would be the first case to enter the US under his own power. Things really kick of when you find the first person-to-person infection on US soil.

Kweei · Sep 30, 2014

This sort of thing terrifies me.

dfwtinman · Sep 30, 2014

I having been watching the CDC press conference. The director of the cdc said this was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the US and the first person diagnosed with this strain outside Africa.

Karen Junker · Sep 30, 2014

I haven't been keeping up on the news about this disease -- are they saying how many people could have it and not be symptomatic? Also, how it is spread, etc.?

CrastersBabies · Sep 30, 2014

In this case, it seems the CDC has it under hand. But with numbers of infected climbing in West Africa, it's only a matter of time before this travels outside of that region. I guess my big concern would be, what happens when this pops up in another underdeveloped country that doesn't have the medical resources we have?

Probably projecting too much.

benbradley · Sep 30, 2014

Karen Junker said:
I haven't been keeping up on the news about this disease -- are they saying how many people could have it and not be symptomatic?

You mean inside the USA, or anywhere outside of Africa? No, they're not saying. Apparently they don't want to speculate on that.

I heard the news conference, or most of it. I recall the last reporter asking "is the patient a US citizen?" and the official answering with a statement already given: "The patient came to here to visit relatives living in the US."

That looks like a "hole" in that press conference where things could have been said, but weren't.

Here's a Twitter feed of the local afternoon talk radio guy who apparently got some back-channel info from a CDC employee communicating on promise of anonymity - the radio guy says he got info BEFORE the press conference that came out in the conference, so he says it looks trustable, but as with all things like this, take with one or more grains of salt (crude copy-paste, read in reverse order):
https://twitter.com/EWErickson/

Erick Erickson @EWErickson · 1h 1 hour ago

Patient arrived on 20th, to hospital on 26th, sent home. Returned days later. (First tweet about hospital was my error, not source)
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Erick Erickson @EWErickson · 1h 1 hour ago

Individual was sent home from hospital and went back days later.
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Erick Erickson @EWErickson · 1h 1 hour ago

Source says patient traveled through Belgium on the way back to the US.
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Erick Erickson @EWErickson · 1h 1 hour ago

Dallas patient was transported in distress via ambulance.
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Erick Erickson @EWErickson · 1h 1 hour ago

Patient was out of hospital for eight days.
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Erick Erickson @EWErickson · 1h 1 hour ago

Just talked to source with info on the Dallas patient. Had been to Liberia for a funeral. Traveled via Europe.

Also, how it is spread, etc.?

As I recall, they said it's not airborne, but all the details on that (or at least what they said about it) should be in the news stories.

ShaunHorton · Sep 30, 2014

Well, if even half of that is accurate, it certainly doesn't bode well.

benbradley · Sep 30, 2014

He made a blogpost with more details including "the patient's" itinerary:
http://www.redstate.com/2014/09/30/the-ebola-patient-and-a-call-to-my-show/

Cyia · Sep 30, 2014

Ebola isn't airborne. It's spread via close contact with bodily fluids. Underdeveloped areas will allow the disease to spread more quickly, due to lack of sanitation.

The patient zero case in Africa, assuming they've traced it correctly, involved a child, an elderly woman, and a funeral situation, which also made for an easier transmission scenario.

Assuming early quarantine, and no more symptomatic cases from the plane he was on, or the people he's been in close contact with, it's more containable than the original outbreak.

William Haskins · Sep 30, 2014

Cyia said:
The patient zero case in Africa, assuming they've traced it correctly, involved a child, an elderly woman, and a funeral situation

ROSWELL, GA (CBS46) - CBS46 News has confirmed the Centers for Disease Control has issued guidelines to U.S. funeral homes on how to handle the remains of Ebola patients. If the outbreak of the potentially deadly virus is in West Africa, why are funeral homes in America being given guidelines?

The three-page list of recommendations include instructing funeral workers to wear protective equipment when dealing with the remains since Ebola can be transmitted in postmortem care. It also instructs to avoid autopsies and embalming.

http://www.cbs46.com/story/26657838/cdc-issues-ebola-guidelines-for-us-funeral-homes

Synonym · Sep 30, 2014

Oh, how comforting. Our funeral homes have a heads-up.

I suppose it's something to be expected, since we're only a airplane ticket away from most anywhere. On the other hand, will there be closer monitoring of itineraries and perhaps some kind of quarantine if someone else returns from these countries after attending a funeral or working with the ill? Sure hope so.

emax100 · Sep 30, 2014

If it does mutate so it can survive in an airborne environment and survive in water droplets the way the common cold does, then there is no point in trying to figure out who is responsible or who to blame because we are all royally screwed as much as humans can be no matter what we try to do, other than finding a workable vaccine before that happens. At the moment, only very close contact can enable it to spread so there is no need to get freaked out in any way just yet.

Cyia · Sep 30, 2014

Ebola is nothing like the common cold in form, transmission or any other criteria that matters. No matter what you have seen in the movies, all viruses are not created equally, and one does not suddenly begin to mimic the traits of the other when unrelated.

Even with similar beginning symptoms (Seriously -- look up every disease that has similar symptoms to the cold virus; you'll be reading all night.) the genetics of the virus are completely different.

Alessandra Kelley · Sep 30, 2014

AW has had a thread following the outbreak in Africa since last March.

emax100 · Sep 30, 2014

Cyia said:
Ebola is nothing like the common cold in form, transmission or any other criteria that matters. No matter what you have seen in the movies, all viruses are not created equally, and one does not suddenly begin to mimic the traits of the other when unrelated.

Even with similar beginning symptoms (Seriously -- look up every disease that has similar symptoms to the cold virus; you'll be reading all night.) the genetics of the virus are completely different.

True that is why I was getting at the idea of it not turning into the common cold but undergoing mutations so that it has the same ability to survive in an airborne environment. Right now it cannot; if it could, we would be seeing large numbers of infections and deaths in all inhabited continents by now. And so I was not talking about it becoming the common cold but gaining one of the cold's characteristics - the ability to survive in such environments as water droplets or air pockets.

cornflake · Sep 30, 2014

What the hell happened at that hospital in Dallas?

It's a major city; a patient came in with, presumably, among other things, a fever of unknown origin.

I'm also presuming no one asked 'have you travelled abroad recently?'

If they did, and he answered and they still sent him home, they're so dumb I can't begin to formulate a comment.

If they didn't, what the hell?

It's not as if this is some hidden, just-noticed issue. The WHO and the CDC issued instructions and warnings and etc., months ago. There shouldn't be a damn hospital, and certainly not a hospital in any major metropolitan area, that has someone come in with unexplained symptomology that looks anything like Ebola symptoms, that has people don't think to ask if the person has travelled recently.

Even before this, that'd be a common question, but seriously, no one asked him? They just said, 'huh, whatevs, go home?' It's kind of unbelievable in the level of incompetence (presuming he came in with symptoms that look like Ebola ones, which are generic, and really no one asked).

I don't think it'll lead to some unrestrained outbreak, but nor do I think it's as simple as the CDC seems to want to imply. He was symptomatic for who knows how long before he went in the first time, and doing who knows what, in a city, and we know he then went off for two days. Hopefully he just went home and stayed there, but seems unlikely.

Also god knows how many people any of the hospital personnel who may have come in contact with him, or with things he came in contact with while there, could have or were exposed, if any of the medical personnel picked it up.

What a mess, for no good reason but someone not asking a really basic, obvious question they absolutely should have asked.

nighttimer · Sep 30, 2014

I'm going to bed. When Patient Zero carrying the ISIS Virus arrives in the U.S., gimme a holler. :sleepy:

chompers · Sep 30, 2014

cornflake said:
What the hell happened at that hospital in Dallas?

It's a major city; a patient came in with, presumably, among other things, a fever of unknown origin.

I'm also presuming no one asked 'have you travelled abroad recently?'

If they did, and he answered and they still sent him home, they're so dumb I can't begin to formulate a comment.

If they didn't, what the hell?

It's not as if this is some hidden, just-noticed issue. The WHO and the CDC issued instructions and warnings and etc., months ago. There shouldn't be a damn hospital, and certainly not a hospital in any major metropolitan area, that has someone come in with unexplained symptomology that looks anything like Ebola symptoms, that has people don't think to ask if the person has travelled recently.

Even before this, that'd be a common question, but seriously, no one asked him? They just said, 'huh, whatevs, go home?' It's kind of unbelievable in the level of incompetence (presuming he came in with symptoms that look like Ebola ones, which are generic, and really no one asked).

I don't think it'll lead to some unrestrained outbreak, but nor do I think it's as simple as the CDC seems to want to imply. He was symptomatic for who knows how long before he went in the first time, and doing who knows what, in a city, and we know he then went off for two days. Hopefully he just went home and stayed there, but seems unlikely.

Also god knows how many people any of the hospital personnel who may have come in contact with him, or with things he came in contact with while there, could have or were exposed, if any of the medical personnel picked it up.

What a mess, for no good reason but someone not asking a really basic, obvious question they absolutely should have asked.

I have never been asked if I'd recently travelled. And I don't think that ebola would be the first thing to come to mind, particularly for a country that doesn't have it. A lot of its symptoms sound like it could be other illnesses. Yes, it is unfortunate that it didn't get caught earlier, but I can see how it got overlooked.

Hapax Legomenon · Sep 30, 2014

Really? I remember when I came down with a bad cough a few years ago, the doctors were concerned because I'd been in Mexico and Belize the month before.

mccardey · Sep 30, 2014

Hapax Legomenon said:
Really? I remember when I came down with a bad cough a few years ago, the doctors were concerned because I'd been in Mexico and Belize the month before.

I had a bad cough once, and nobody cared at all.

Ebola case in Dallas.

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