<p>We don’t even know the immigration status of the girlfriend so I don’t think we can just make the leap that he was going to marry her for US residency. And, the whole group seemed to at least highly suspect Ebola immediately, so I’m going with that it is most likely he probably knew. But, I’m not too sure why any of that matters. The Liberian Observer talked to his co-workers in Liberia and has quoted his boss, the cab driver, and neighbors. US sources are talking to half-relatives in various states who haven’t seen him in years. I don’t know what happened but I don’t believe everything, either. Especially, when it’s completely illogical and just pops up out of nowhere a week later. Like the wedding.</p>
<p>I read a comment from a guy from the Harvard School of Public Health which I thought was very good. In essence he said that the follow up response has been disturbing in that there seems to be more emphasis on blame than on honest evaluation of how to not have this happen again. The ball was dropped at about every point in the proceedings from his arrival here to the ER response to the quarantine, clean up, communications and identification of jurisdiction. Assuming this is contained and passes as a footnote in history it should be used as a drill and case study to figure out how to respond better next time. By better I don’t just mean bigger. As some have noted they seem to be going big in a showy way to compensate for past mistakes. That just adds to the confusion.</p>
<p>They were a couple in Liberia, it says, and had a falling out about 10 years ago. She came here presumably with whichever child is his. Strangely it says that she is 54 and had a child die at birth recently. Hmmmm . . . It also says that the home they are quarantined in was provided by a congregation member from her home church.</p>
<p>I do know that at one of the press conferences on Thursday (I think), the spokesperson shared that the ‘faith’ community had stepped in and offered accommodations. He said it was like how the faith community stepped forward during the refuge crisis this summer… now I wasn’t clear if it was the same faith community, or a different faith community, but he did make it clear that it was someone who stepped forward to offer it as opposed to the officials seeking something out.</p>
<p>awcntdb - from your link, it looks like it was not a CDC, but a DOT issue! I’m quite familiar with that organization’s idiotic requirements it sometimes imposes on shipping stuff. We periodically run into issues with shipping things to collaborators, and some of these regulations make zero sense, but we have to adhere to them.</p>
<p>In this case, the DOT classify this waste as “Class A” material, so special DOT permits would be needed before it can be taken to incinerator. The CDC had nothing to do with it. Rolls eyes.</p>
<p>This is like HIV: don’t swap personal fluids with an infected individual.</p>
<p>Ebola is much easier to identify though: awful fever, diarrhea. In later stages they are bleeding out of every major orifice as their insides are liquefied. </p>
<p>So mitigating this hubbub is the fact that Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers are not airborne. Ebola is nasty if you have it, but you have to be clueless and/or incredibly unlucky – like with HIV – to get it.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, we’ll be OK as a species until an airborne form of killer flu or hemorrhagic fever (or something else that acts fast and is lethal) evolves.</p>
<p>Personally, I couldn’t care less about why the guy is here, if they were getting married, etc., etc., etc. The only thing which disturbs me is the incompetence of the nurse & doctor during his first visit to the ER. I believe both have admitted they knew he had recently been in West Africa. </p>
<p>Now, I am not in the medical field, but they must have been living under a rock the last several months to not make a connection at all. There have been several instances in the past few months (since around the time the US medical personnel were being airlifted to the US) of people who have been in the effected area, not feeling well, and showing up at ER around the country. Several in NYC. They were reported in the news right away and I heard how they were put in isolation rooms and tested immediately. Fortunately, none were found to have Ebola. But for these two, for it not to even cross their mind, leaves me dumbfounded. </p>
<p>News flash - it is the CDC that is responsible for classifying viruses and diseases and determining their clean-up, transport and disposal. </p>
<p>It was the CDC that had the virus classified wrong and thus the DOT had no authority to grant transport permits given the guidelines it had. In short, the DOT did not have a transport procedure set out for it by the CDC specific to the transport of Ebola.</p>
<p>The keyword here is “Special”. Obviously, there was no permit even available to be given, i.e., the CDC had not given the DOT specific Ebola transport instructions, which is the CDC’s job.</p>
<p>The DOT cannot grant permits to transport medical wastes without first the procedures from the CDC. The fact that no such permit even existed to be granted means the CDC had not even done that and finally had to allow the DOT to grant a special permit to the hospitals. </p>
<p>Bottom line - if the CDC had classified the virus correctly in the first place, there would be no need for a special permit because the needed permit and its procedures would have already been developed. Well, they live and learn. At least now that permit would be standard, but it should have been ready before the need of the first Ebola transport.</p>
<p>They found the homeless man and have him isolated now, for observation.
So, hopefully that means contact tracing is complete and they are able to monitor all the people at risk.</p>
<p>There are several hundred new posts since I last checked in, so I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I heard on NPR a bit ago that all of the experimental drug that has been being used to treat Ebola is gone and there won’t be more anytime soon. So the Dallas patient’s family and doctors are deciding about using a new experimental drug.</p>
<p>Anyone know why more of the first experimental drug is not available? </p>
<p>I would not be surprised if the issue is not growing or finding the plant, but rather the separation and purification processes to get the actual active molecules in the proper concentrations. Its effective half-life after being produced could also be an issue as well. Some vaccines have to used relatively quickly. </p>
<p>There is a balancing act between how much can be made and how quickly it must or can be used. The result could be that there is pretty much always a shortage, depending on the number cases that arise.</p>
<p>From wiki ( not always the best source) from what I understand, ZMapp is basically made by combining 3 kinds of cells, including mouse spleen, replacing the mouse components with human, extracting the antibodies, inserting that into tobacco plants, then harvesting. Apparently after you introduce whatever it is into the tobacco plant, it will take several months to harvest the drug.</p>
The whole backstory rewrite thing is annoying but mostly irrelevant, imho. It’s a distraction.</p>