<p>“Duncan flew from Liberia to Brussels and Brussels to Dallas. CNN likes to drag out the drama.”</p>
<p>@Flossy my post was referring to the Newark plane that was detained this afternoon coming in from Brussels. Apparently they have let the passengers go and taken the vomiting passenger to the hospital for tests. Relative of the ill man was from Liberia according to CNN.</p>
<p>On Duncan you missed one of his connections. From Brussels he first flew into Washington DC with a 3 hour layover. From there he proceeded to Dallas.</p>
We were returning on a red-eye from California in August. I woke up at one point to find that D had gotten a bought of airsickness and H hauled her off to the restroom. Fortunately, it was before Ebolas on a Plane. I should have remembered to give her pills before the flight :(</p>
<p>“I thought it took several hours to test for Ebola.”</p>
<p>The existing tests themselves do not take that long. The lion’s share of the testing time is actually the time that it takes to transport the sample to the lab, followed by sample prep time.</p>
<p>I know, I was referring to CNN still not reporting that the passengers were cleared. But, that doesn’t look so clear anymore, either. CDC officials in HazMat suits took them to the hospital and said they don’t think it’s Ebola. Well, do they know? And, there are conflicting reports about whether the other passengers are still being held. The latest seems to be that they are off the plane and being held at the airport. We are heading for a real lack of public trust with this one, imho. It’s just being handled awfully by everyone.</p>
<p>Now if CNN could only find a way to link this to the missing plane they would be in heaven . . . they must feel that the airline angle is right in their wheel house. :-@ </p>
<p>11% of my daughter’s elementary school is unvaccinated, so I do worry about measles, even though my family is all thoroughly vaccinated. </p>
<p>scout59, thanks for the NPR link to the R0 stats. I’d been looking for something like that. I’ve read that this Ebola outbreak is at about 1.7 R0, when other outbreaks have been about 1.4. The difference is presumably because it is in more urban areas of Africa this time, so more contacts. I would think that diseases significantly below the SARS R0 of ~4 are clearly not easily contracted through airborne means.</p>
<p>I don’t think they have actual answers, yet. And, I agree about the reporting. And, the official don’t panic statements while we stand here in HAZMAT gear stuff, too. Mixed messages are not good.</p>
<p>It takes three to four hours to run the test for Ebola, not including the blood draw and transportation time. When did this plane land? Then they had to get CDC or someone to the airport. Has that much time passed yet?</p>
<p>Yes, CNN loves airport/airplane stories. They are constantly on in every airport in the U. S. so they know their target audience. </p>
<p>Yeah, kids in my state are pretty well vaccinated, too. But look at this map of California (where, state-wide, at least 8% of children are not vaccinated for measles):</p>
<p>Well, while we obsess with Ebola, ISIS and Putin can breathe easier. There you go, another conspiracy theory for the paranoid to worry about. B-) </p>
<p>If Duncan doesn’t make it my next concern is the flap over what would happen to his body. We know what would happen if he died in a clinic in Liberia, but I can imagine the family making a scene over not having access to him.</p>
<p>It’s really a shame that we basically cannot believe a single freaking word that news outlets tell us. They are so frantic to get the story first that they don’t remotely seem to care about fact checking, questioning official sources who make conflicting statements or statements that defy common sense and belief. They run with a story, then spend the next week backtracking and revising it until the whole concept of truth and accuracy is completely lost on the public.</p>