Ebola Tag

Today DHS imposed a set of travel restrictions that will funnel all travelers coming from countries suffering from Ebola outbreaks through 5 major airports in the U.S. Although these restrictions will not close off ports of entry to these travelers, they will force all travelers coming from those West African countries to submit to both an interview and temperature checks at Washington Dulles International Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, or Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The White House is confident that these measures will help "ensure the safety and security of the American public." Via The Hill:

"This is a situation where the DHS had to work with the airlines that are flying passengers from a wide variety of countries from Europe to the United States. It did require some work with the State Department to inform other countries. So there’s a lot of coordination that had to go into developing and implementing this policy." The White House said it remains opposed to a flight ban, which the president and health officials argue would be counterproductive. "The fact of the matter is giving individuals an incentive to conceal their travel history only puts the American public at risk. ... It makes it harder for us to determine which individuals need to be subjected to the screening that we’ve described," Earnest said.

Who knew this hotel chain was prophetic?...

Hey, that'll work:

President Obama has asked Ron Klain, who served as chief of staff to both Vice President Biden and former vice president Al Gore, as his Ebola response coordinator, according to a White House official. "He will report directly to the president’s homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, and the president's national security adviser, Susan Rice, as he ensures that efforts to protect the American people by detecting, isolating and treating Ebola patients in this country are properly integrated but don’t distract from the aggressive commitment to stopping Ebola at the source in West Africa," a White House official wrote in an e-mail. Klain, a longtime Democratic operative, served as Biden's chief of staff from 2009 to 2011 and as Gore's from 1995 to 1999. He helped oversee the Democratic side in the 2000 presidential election recount as its lead lawyer, a role that Kevin Spacey portrayed in the HBO film "Recount."

Klain has virtually no experience except for the political and the legal. He's another Harvard Law graduate, and briefly clerked for SCOTUS Justice Byron White, but after that there's mostly a long string of Democratic political positions, including a stint as debate prepper. The following [emphasis mine] is really a masterpiece in gracefully laconic understatement by the WaPo. My hat is off to the article's authors:

S--t just got real.

Breaking: Obama signs executive order authorizing DOD to call up selected reserve and ready reserve for Ebola response

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 16, 2014

The call up will assist the military force fighting Ebola as part of Operation United Assistance. The Executive Order appears to be part of sending the National Guard to Liberia. Here's the Order, via Zeke Miller: Here's the key portion of the Order:

A press release issued today by the Texas Department of State Health Services:

Second Health Care Worker Tests Positive for Ebola News Release Oct. 15, 2014 A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States has tested positive for the disease. The health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated at the hospital. Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored. The type of monitoring depends on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus. The worker was among those who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan after he was diagnosed with Ebola. The preliminary Ebola test was run late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin, and results were received at about midnight. Confirmatory testing on a separate specimen will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or exposure to contaminated objects such as needles. People are not contagious before symptoms such as fever develop.

Officials continue to suggest worker error, something the nurses union denies, via CNN:

I was talking with biologists yesterday, as part of a work project, and we all were becoming increasingly alarmed at the bureaucratic response to the reports that nurses in Dallas and Spain were stricken with Ebola. I stated that the "tipping point" would be reached if one of the nurses spread the disease to someone else outside of the hospital setting. Presently, 76 Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital workers being monitored for potential infection with Ebola. Once someone outside the healthcare setting was infected, then the chances of this being a more serious health threat to the nation escalate. We are coming perilously close to the tipping point, as it looks like an Alcon employee who is "closely associated" with the Dallas nurse, Nina Pham, is in isolation and under observation to determine if he displays "Ebola symptoms". The CBS Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate offers a video report and post.

Dallas nurse Nina Pham tested positive for the Ebola virus over the weekend. Pham was one of the medical workers who administered treatment to Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, who died from the virus last week. Pham first noticed that she had some of the symptoms on Friday, and her diagnosis was confirmed on Sunday.

What the first cases transmitted in the west might be telling us...

As the news of the first Ebola case contracted within the country rivets the nation, Enterovirus-D68 continues infecting our children. Now it has claimed the life of a Michigan toddler:

A Michigan toddler has died of enterovirus D68, another reminder of the deadly potential of a disease that has infected hundreds nationwide in two months. Madeline Reid died at Children's Hospital of Michigan, where she had been transferred "for advanced services," according to the Detroit hospital's chief medical officer, Dr. Rudolph Valentini. "The CDC confirmed EV-D68 after her arrival here, and she subsequently succumbed to her illness," Valentini said.

News 8 Wood TV files this video report on Madeline's death. A little closer to my home, there has been a jump in the number of cases recorded.

California health officials Friday said they've now identified 32 cases of enterovirus D-68 statewide, a number that's jumped quickly in recent days. In Southern California, four cases were in L.A. County, three in Orange County and one in Ventura County, according to the California Department of Public Health. All 32 patients were identified as children ranging in age from a week old to 15 years old.

Spain's Ebola patient zero is a nurse's assistant. No one can say she kept mum about the fact that she'd been near an Ebola patient recently. Authorities were well aware of her exposure, because she was on the team that cared for a Spanish missionary and a Spanish priest, both of whom were shipped back to Spain after they contracted Ebola in Africa. Both of them have died. But although health workers in Dallas did not originally know that America's patient zero, Thomas Duncan, had been recently exposed to Ebola, there is a similarity between the unnamed nurse's disease trajectory and that of Duncan. As with him, there also was a delay in her hospitalization and diagnosis. She is said to have reported her first symptom, a fever, on September 30, and yet she was only hospitalized this week. Since authorities knew in advance that she'd been exposed, why the delay, which put many more people at risk? Should they not have erred on the side of caution? There are various possibilities. Perhaps the authorities had such faith in their isolation and protection techniques that they thought it impossible that a health worker could contract Ebola while working under state-of-the-art conditions in a Western hospital, as opposed to in Africa. Or perhaps (as I'm beginning to suspect) the diagnostic criteria for Ebola aren't rigorous enough. One of the first symptoms of Ebola is a fever, defined as above 101.5. But see this [emphasis mine]:

First Dallas, now Houston. Thankfully, Governor Perry put together a Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response. The task force, "will assess and enhance the state's existing capabilities to prepare for and respond to pandemic disease, such as the Ebola virus." Perry also, "called on the federal government to immediately begin enhanced screening procedures at all points of entry, including obtaining additional information, checking temperatures and staffing quarantine stations to help prevent the disease from entering the country." According to a local ABC News affiliate:

A hospital in Cypress says it is treating a patient with an "extremely low-risk" chance of having Ebola.

The North Cypress Medical Center, located along the Northwest Freeway, says the patient was admitted Monday and is being monitored. The hospital issued the following statement about the patient's admission:

"North Cypress Medical Center is treating a patient who has not been diagnosed with ebola. He is considered to be of extremely low risk to the ebola virus. Hospital personnel are taking all precautions as prescribed by the Harris County Health Department and the U.S. Center for Disease Control. The patient is in stable condition and is showing no signs of a fever. Admitted earlier today (October 6th), he has been isolated from other patients. We are working closely with local health and CDC officials who will determine all the steps we need to take to ensure the patient's recovery and the community's safety." 

Over the weekend, it was thought a person in Katy may have had Ebola, but that turned out to be malaria. 

The health department says they've conducted two Ebola tests on patients in the Houston area. Both have come back negative.

"This Ebola thing is the best argument you can make for the kind of government that we believe in."...