<p>I think we should pass a law to deport foreign nationals with Ebola until we find a cure. We taxpayers paid up half a million dollars to treat this patient and we get sued. What are we? Idiots?</p>
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<p>In the PC age, yes we are.</p>
<p>Igloo, even if such deportation was constitutional, it is much more cost efficient to keep them contained in a hospital than to cart them off to an airport, load them off on an airplane, etc., all done in a manner that is safe for the rest of us. </p>
<p>I completely understand your outrage about lawsuits. </p>
<p>How about keeping them contained in their home country? That sounds best to me.</p>
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<p>Oh, dear. What gives you the right to tell other people how to grieve? People do and say all kinds of crazy awful things when they’re upset, angry, and grieving. IT’s hard to be gracious when you’re hurting. </p>
<p>“them”…</p>
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<p><a href=“Immigration, Ethnicity, and the Pandemic - PMC”>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862341/</a></p>
<p>At one point, “them” was great-grandma and great-grandpa.</p>
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<p>Not part of the calculus today because in the present climate that is considered discrimination. Self-preservation and self-protection are not part of equation.</p>
<p>The question of today is what right do we have to make sure a disease remains contained among a certain peoples? We are citizens of the world and if we get sick too that is part of the world citizenship deal. (Like I somehow voted to be part of a third world world - I do not recall that plebiscite). I had some idiot at my favorite watering hole tell me this a couple days ago. I kind of just let that drop there; no convincing such person that if you harm yourself, you can actually help others elsewhere a whole lot less. </p>
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<p>Having paid a part of their care and being threatened to be sued gives me every right, I am afraid. In private, you can grieve any way that suits you but if you are going public on that, you have to show some manners. </p>
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<p>And maybe say thank you to a community that gave the person an entire hospital wing to himself. </p>
<p>Imagine the reduced care others received because those beds were not useful. I would like someone to actually calculate how many other people received worse care because they could not be admitted because of this one person taking up a wing. Where is the concern for those, most likely, american citizens who pay the taxes that run the country and their city and were denied the best care they could get? </p>
<p>Things are changing fast. The CDC Chief is coming under pressure because of some of the nonsense he is saying, </p>
<p>Company doctors, rightfully so, are correcting their clients who ask them if X and Y are true. Only public health people who live off of the CDC and similar public institutions paychecks and who follow orders are believing the weirdness of certain proclamations. </p>
<p>There is now pressure coming from the top to reign this guy in from the nonsense that quarantining in country would not stop the spread, but then the answer when someone is found infected is to quarantine them in an hospital wing ad to quarantine suspected exposed people. Huh? So, small quarantines are the answer after a spread, but large quarantines are not the answer to limit /contain any spread. Imagine trying to parse that logic in a logic philosophy course.</p>
<p>Anyway, the word I got is if another case in the US arises, a radical change in policy is coming. And my sources have not been wrong yet. </p>
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<p>No, you don’t, anymore than I have the right to demand that you show compassion to others. After all, you drive on roads and travel in airspace that my tax dollars go to maintain.</p>
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<p>For the love of God. Are you going to propose death panels next?</p>
<p>Those complaining that Mr. Duncan’s family are ingrates must be ignoring the public statements in which some of them expressed gratitude, at length, for every single person taking care of him.</p>
<p>I had thought that this thread could not sink any lower, but I was mistaken.</p>
<p>Wow. This thread… just, wow. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t say it’s sunk at all, Consolation. </p>
<p>Combine limited resources with unlimited lawyers and irrational community organizers, throw in a man who was intelligent enough to travel internationally but not pass along to the docs the pertinent parts of his Typhoid Mary skit and what else would you expect?</p>
<p>Quarantine is is still a word, still has a workable definition, and should apply, best as able, to any traveler coming in. That some will be missed, possibly because they’re trying to be, shouldn’t matter a whit. As the saying goes… “if it saves one child’s life…”.</p>
<p>I’m tired and have lost count of the days…does anyone know how many more days Louise and the immediate “close contacts” have until they can feel that they have dodged this bullet?</p>
<p>^ ~Oct 19 </p>
<p>To circle back to one of my enduring points . . . I think he did get good care and within limits the rest of us would get the same care. The most critical limit is numbers. I can’t image any hospital could devote those kinds of resources to many people at the same time. I would guess that the more people any one facility was treating the greater the chance for slip ups with exposure of care givers. This is not something that is easily scalable. I am not worried about personally getting Ebola but I am at least concerned about what could happen if the case numbers are more than a few at a time in any given place. There comes a point where cities, counties and states can’t devote the resources to identifying and tracking each contact.</p>
<p>I also wish that we had a Surgeon General to serve as the mouthpiece and public educator for the CDC. I think it would temper the sway of the media and let the CDC types spend their energy doing what they do best. We need an official educator out front giving credible information to the masses. We kind of have Sanjay Gupta by default but he is tied to one news outlet. A Surgeon General could have cleared up the blood type issue right away as well instead of having it fester for several days.</p>
<p>Sanjay Gupta didn’t want to be Surgeon General. Remember? Now, he’s doing it by default. </p>
<p>And the current Surgeon General nominee is unpopular among some prominent groups over his opinions about a different epidemic . . . but that’s another thread :-< </p>
<p>The hospital’s statement addresses questions as to whether Duncan received substandard care on his first visit because of nationality or lack of insurance. I believe them. </p>
<p>However, it does not even mention the question of why they failed to test for Ebola on his first visit. </p>
<p>saintfan, I do think he got good care – once he was diagnosed. Really my only problem is the fact that they let him slip through their hands on the first visit.</p>