<p>Why would they be? He wasn’t contagious then.</p>
<p>So we stopped flights to Israel but we won’t stop them from west africa?</p>
<p>Stopping flights will help but not necessarily stop completely. What if they fly to somewhere else before coming to the US? They can fly around for 21 days without showing symptoms.</p>
<p>I just find it odd that there are reports of doctors monitoring someone in DC with symptoms of the virus. I am not 100 percent confident that we really fully understand how it spreads.</p>
<p>^^^Why is it odd? The person in DC said they had recently been in Africa, right?</p>
<p>
Rodents, insects, etc. - you don’t think leaving it on the sidewalks for days is a potential problem? I have know idea about the survival in the food chain. How would bats be the carriers in Africa?</p>
<p>They seem quite sure about how it spreads. To me, it sounded a lot like the way AIDS spread. Just from reading a few anecdotes, it seems highly contagious once symptoms show. It would be a miracle if Duncan’s girlfriend isn’t infected. </p>
<p>
I’m relieved to know that Hazmat team cleaning out the apartment in Texas is just for show. </p>
<p>Nrbsd4, my understanding is that there are 2 cases. The hospitals where they are being treated are within 1 mile of each other. </p>
<p>HarvestMoon, as you can see from our discussion here, we all agree that reporters have one heck of a trouble sorting out the facts from sensationalism. </p>
<p>“What bothers me is that the screening process is so dependent on honesty as well as education”</p>
<p>What else can be done? I would like to hear everyon’e suggestions. Banning air travel is not going to help (see Igloo’s post). Testing everyone is not going to work because there are no non-invasive, quick tests that can be used at the points of entry to determine whether someone who looks and acts complety healthy actually incubates the infection. Holding everyone who comes to the US in quarantine for 21 days is not feasible either (works with pets in HI, but I just can’t see how this can be implemented in the US with the sheer volume of arriving and deparing people). Thoughts?</p>
<p>The experts are also sure that only mammals can infect people. I am truly glad I don’t have to worry about mosquito bites. In blood Ebola virus can live up to 82 days.</p>
<p>MoonHarvest, Ebola is not contagious until the patient starts to show symptoms. Duncan didn’t have symptoms until 4 days after he arrived in Dallas. The people in Belgium and DC and on the planes are not at risk.</p>
<p>The Hazmat suits are used in an excess of caution. According to infectious disease experts, Ebola is much harder to spread than the common cold.</p>
<p>From the Annals of Internal Medicine:</p>
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</p>
<p>Bats transmit it in Africa because people eat bats in Africa.</p>
<p>If it’s so hard to spread how did the NBC reporter got it while helping to disinfect? One could say it is hard since you need direct contact with a body fluid but it seems like a sure thing if you made a direct contact even a small amount.</p>
<p>“How would bats be the carriers in Africa?”</p>
<p>You were asking if bats could get Ebola by eating the vomit off the sidewalk. I repeat, bats in the US do not eat trash. I have not heard of any bat species that did that! 
So chances of a bat herd descending on the vomit pile and eating it are zero. Looks like that part is covered. No infected bats in TX. Bats get viruses the same way we do - by coming in direct contact with bodily fluids (infected bat biting another bat or bat biting infected human or by smearing bat poop etc.). </p>
<p><a href=“Here's how you can (and can't) get Ebola - Vox”>Here's how you can (and can't) get Ebola - Vox;
<p>"5) You can get the virus by eating wild animals infected with Ebola or coming into contact with their bodily fluids. The fruit bat is believed to be the animal reservoir for Ebola, and when it’s prepared for a meal or eaten raw, people get sick. </p>
<p>So you can get the virus through exposure to bat secretions. However, if you cook a bat infected with Ebola and then eat it, you won’t get sick because the virus dies during cooking."</p>
<p>People got the virus from bats because they ate them raw or undercooked or handled raw meat improperly - after all, this is tribal land Africa, where the concept or running water and soap is non-existent. </p>
<p>The cameraman thinks he might have been “splashed” with something. But, says he really doesn’t know how he got infected.</p>
<p>The cameraman might have had some contacts that he’d rather not share with the world… </p>
<p>Here is an interesting thing about bats:</p>
<p><a href=“Ebola: research team says migrating fruit bats responsible for outbreak | Ebola | The Guardian”>http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/23/ebola-outbreak-blamed-on-fruit-bats-africa</a></p>
<p>I have not been able to find the original research article that this news piece refers to (according to the time passed, it should have been published by now), but I’m working on my mobile phone. </p>
<p>Sorry! I meant HarvestMoon1. :)</p>
<p>How comfortable would you all be sending in an employee into one of these hospitals with suspected cases?</p>