<p>I also like this NY doctor doing the press conference Dr. Mary Travis Bassett. </p>
<p>I stand corrected… he only ran three miles.</p>
<p>The nurses at Harborview (our local hospital which will handle Ebola cases if needed) are saying that they are ready and underwent a number of drills. Which is a good thing. When I taught labs, we made the students extinguish a real fire (in a bucket, in the middle of an empty parking lot, with the prof with another extinguisher standing by), because knowing the theory without any practice is just not the same! </p>
<p>D is a doctor currently practicing at a NYC hospital and finds it remarkable that considering his recent return, this doctor didn’t self quarantine. She mentioned that part of triage questioning includes asking if the patient has been in West Africa during the past three weeks. Because this guy possibly exposed people in NYC, that question no longer singles out possible ebola cases. In theory, anyone coming in with fever is suspect. She feels very strongly that no matter what the official protocol he should have known better. </p>
<p>Yes, I agree there’s no way this guy was acting responsibly by not self-quarantining! Doctors without Borders should have procedures in place and have their staff self quarantine when they have been working in an affected area with very ill patients as he was. </p>
<p>The one MD in our legislature is calling for drills in handling ebola in our state. I am very nervous about our preparedness (or lack thereof), as we have so few medical centers and they are already pretty stretched meeting current needs!</p>
<p>As far as who goes on a three mile run when they feel sluggish? My husband will go on a twenty mile run when he feels sluggish. But if he had been in direct contact treating Ebola patients, he would absolutely self quarantine. Seems odd to me that a doctor, who knows that he was in serious risk of contracting Ebola, and has seen how people die horribly from this disease, could even consider exposing others. Wouldn’t, at the very least, most of us here in his situation…the second they started to feel even a slight bit crummy, would immediately stay away from people? And who gets a 103 degree fever without feeling bad beforehand? Maybe his “feeling sluggish” was actually a low grade fever.</p>
<p>I hope this is just a case of sloppy reporting, because the media gets it wrong quite often.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>God help us.</p>
<p>At work today, patients seemed to want to talk a lot about this. NOT ONE was expressing panic or anger at PHD. </p>
<p>However, one common theme was “I always knew ebola would make its way over here. But I never thought it would be Dallas. I thought it would be NYC.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It really does not matter if there was no actual risk at the bridal shop, if the result is closure of the person’s store because of lack of business or by state health authorities, as that is a real loss to that person. The result is other stores rightly do not want an Ebola patient event within their retail space. I cannot blame them there.</p>
<p>And that is the issue with the reflexive hysteria argument - the argument is slowly and surely running up against people’s personal economy reality by no choice of their own and the loss of economic security is a real fear, as many live paycheckp-to-paycheck. That is not hysterics; that is real.</p>
<p>Additionally, in New York, if people get quarantined or monitored from just going to a bowling alley to have fun, that event means they cannot go to work and that is a real loss to them too. Most likely, the lost days would be taken either out of vacation time or most would just not get paid, as very few companies have insurance to cover these kind of events.</p>
<p>I do think what some people are calling hysteria is somewhat shortsighted re given the actual disruption even precautionary quarantines and self-monitoring can have on a family or person, not to mention the psychological toll. People have deduced that even precautionary quarantines etc. can wreak havoc on their lives, and no one wants that. And I do think that calling people hysterical for realizing this reality is not giving them credit for knowing that even if they do not catch the disease and the risk is very low just being in the proximity can damage them.</p>
<p>All that after the Vinson case. What was he thinking?</p>
<p>He wasn’t. That seems to be the point. At some level, all people are self-motivated. The guy probably dealt with stuff in Guinea none of us would want to see or know about. He was ready to get back to his normal life, and got stupid about the precautions he should have been taking.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not thinking (rationally) is the definition of stupid.</p>
<p>“At work today, patients seemed to want to talk a lot about this. NOT ONE was expressing panic or anger at PHD.”</p>
<p>I suspect that if they (or their loved ones) personally had come into physical contact with him, they would be expressing anger. As it stands, it is just those other people that have to be concerned about it.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t understand the seemingly entitled attitude that some medical professionals have, that their right to do whatever they want supersedes their responsibility to not risk other people’s lives. If he woke up with a 103 degree temperature, he may have been in the subway system with a 100-101 degree temperature the night prior. And that, is considered being contagious, isn’t it?</p>
<p>HE should have been “hysterical” and quarantine himself.</p>
<p>Its so sad if the bowling alley goes out of business. They should file suit against the doctor if they lose money as a result of this. He knew he should not have gone out and about during those 21 days.</p>
<p>Oh, give me a break.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Another take I just heard from a talk show medical professional is that the fact that this doctor, who was trained in Ebola treatment and safety, was so wrong about how safe he was, says a lot about the danger of the virus and our need to respect it.</p>
<p>I feel like the moment you start to feel at all questionable or not quite right you should completely shut it down if you know you may have been exposed and you are within that critical time frame. The window from a bit off to obviously sick seems to be quite short . . . just a couple days. If a few days go by and you feel better then maybe it was indigestion or stress or a cold. Adults just don’t run fevers like kids. I know I would have to be on my deathbed to run even a low grade temp. In this case and in Amber Vinson’s case the risk seems to so outweigh the reward of hoping that it’s nothing. He didn’t even have the financial investment of a plane ticket or cruise booked. </p>
<p>We talked about it with Duncan and again with Vinson. Can a society trust a system that relies on individual community mindedness or lack of self-motivation to contain Ebola? We now have three people who did their own personal cost benefit analysis and decided not to put their own plans on hold to the possible benefit of “the masses”. We see this day after day in workplaces where people think they should get a gold star for soldiering through when they are sick rather than staying home and not infection everyone else. If this is a fair sample of human nature then maybe that human shortcoming should be factored into the response plans.</p>
<p>It is sad that the doctor was not considerate of others. According to the 10 o’clock news tonight, his girlfriend is in quarantine because he had physical contact with her this morning.</p>
<p>Oh jeeze . . . really?</p>
<p>On the news they said his stomach didn’t feel well, so I am sure he went to the bathroom. I am wondering if we should be concerned with his waste.</p>