<p>scholame, That’s what makes it so hard to be vigilant! Habits take a while to change and culturally, we are not into any kind of rigor of dotting i’s crossing t’s.</p>
<p>"know that I would NOT want to stick that finger into the hole on the bowling ball that this doctor was using the other night. I can think of a couple of bodily fluids that he may have touched with his hand that could have transferred to that bowling ball. "</p>
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<p>I agree, but future situations are NOT unforeseen.</p>
<p>I never said that insurance companies REFUSED to cover CURRENT losses for business employees. However, with the addendum, it is not an unforeseen loss if one is in the high exposure risk group. And one can reduce possibility of infecting others with the steps the CDC recommends to mitigate the exposure risk of others and by not engaging in the high risk activity. </p>
<p>But, this is business losses re employees directly connected to the event because of business activity. The unfortunate thing is the individuals, in the wrong place at the wrong time, who miss work because of quarantines most likely will not be covered because the event happened as a result of an official government policy. Very few insurance policies cover events caused by following government policy, as that is what is expected to be followed. And in this case, part of government policy is trusting people to self-quarantine and self-monitor. If your employee was in the bowling alley next to the doctor, his 21-day quarantine would probably not be covered, so it would be lost pay or lost vacation time, which really are the same things.</p>
<p>The weird part of this quarantine thing is the employee is not actually sick and may never become sick, so health insurance does not apply. The real morbid aspect is the employe would be covered for lost pay, health insurance, and disability if he did develop the disease. And for life insurance, if he died. This disease has really created a gray area insurance-wise re quarantines and monitoring.</p>
<p>It’s the same about the bowling alley. Why go there when you can go to another bowling alley.</p>
<p>“Bloomberg news is reporting that Bellevue hospital is rather quiet for a Friday morning, not as many patients as usual. I don’t think people are hysterical necessarily not to go to Bellevue just they are thinking that why go there when there are other hospitals they can go.”</p>
<p>Bellevue is the hospital in NYC where one goes if they cannot pay for medical care. Bellevue is not going anywhere. </p>
<p>“As the flagship facility of New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation Bellevue is open to patients of all backgrounds irrespective of ability to pay. It handles nearly 670,000 non-ER outpatient clinic visits, over 99,000 emergency visits[3] and some 26,000 inpatients each year. More than 80 percent of Bellevue’s patients come from the city’s medically underserved populations.”</p>
<p><a href=“Bellevue Hospital - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellevue_Hospital_Center</a> </p>
<p>So the doctor’s girlfriend and two other friends are being quarantined because they were exposed to one Ebola patient. </p>
<p>But…the doctor who exposed himself to perhaps hundreds of Ebola patients in Guinea was not quarantined. </p>
<p>This makes no sense.</p>
<p>From the above article:</p>
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<p>From what I’ve seen on the internet, people REALLY focus on the concept of saliva and nasopharyngeal secretions being a primary source of infectious material early on. This notion has not been backed up by anything I have been able to find. People seem to have this image of an ebola patient in the initial stages as slinging snot around willy nilly. The fact that it is not an upper respiratory infection seems to be completely irrelevant to many people.</p>
<p>As an aside, it is unhelpful to use multiple superlatives to support one’s own opinion (brilliant, insightful, correctly,smarter, thoughtful, clarity, a “must-see”, commendable, consistent, respect, diplomatic, thinking, smarter, introspective, experts, confidence, etc) and derogatory, negative descriptors to slam what you disagree with (e.g. negligent, inadequate, reckless, careless, stupid, irrational, dumb, shameful, makes no sense, defective, etc). The opinion is clear. As you like to say, “a suggestion”: just discuss.</p>
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<p>I do understand your viewpoint. Spoken like the a person who can talk freely without having to ever write a check if you are wrong. I get that. </p>
<p>I am in the reverse situation and rather protect my checkbook and employees than be wrong. Wrong is just too darn expensive. When things become more clear, then I will scale / roll things back company-wise. As for now, better safe than sorry. </p>
<p>If a person has to stay home for 3 weeks, if they work for a large company, perhaps they can use FMLA or possibly short term disability (depends again on the policy’s definition of “disability”. ) When insurers use every excuse not to cover a claim, its makes one lose faith in them.</p>
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<p>There is no chance I’m wrong. Doc has not been exposed. Doc is not ill. Mom has not been exposed to illness. She is not ill. Ergo baby is not ill. </p>
<p>Your post is disingenuous in light of the facts given. But not at all surprising.</p>
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<p>And this is why insurance companies are rewriting some things. It becomes impossible to calculate risk and set prices for policies when there is zero consistency in practices. In such situations, the best default approach is the most restrictive one, until things settle down and become consistent.</p>
<p>If insurers do nothing by CYA to prevent paying out , then no one is going to volunteer their time and energy and take the risk solely. I am sure MSF has some pretty incredible insurance. Whoever is underwrtiting that gets kudos in my book.</p>
<p>Bay, who has gotten ebola from being in a public place with someone who is asymptomatic?</p>
<p>On the upside . . . maybe now Renee Zellweger can get back to doing whatever it was that she was doing before her face grabbed the top headlines. That has to count for something. ;)) </p>
<p>Is it really too much to ask health care workers who are directly working with ebola patients in Africa to observe a 21 day self-quarantine when they return home? </p>
<p>Researchers who routinely work with these deadly viruses do not have to quarantine for 21 days.</p>
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<p>I really hope one of these vaccines will be able to one day eradicate this disease. At minimum, if it reduces the virulence of the virus in vaccinated but infected individuals, that would certainly be huge as well.</p>
<p>Apologies if this has been already mentioned here, but when the doc fell ill on Thurs morning and called MSF, his temp was 100.3, NOT 103 (per a public health school prof who was just on CNN).</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/24/health/new-york-ebola-timeline/index.html?c=homepage-t”>http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/24/health/new-york-ebola-timeline/index.html?c=homepage-t</a></p>
<p>“The 33-year-old did not have any symptoms after his return, but he developed a fever, nausea, pain and fatigue Thursday morning, authorities said. He began feeling sluggish a couple of days ago, but his fever spiked to 100.3 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 Celsius) the day his symptoms appeared.”</p>
<p>I can see how someone who spent a lot of time in dire conditions in West Africa treating Ebola victims might just want to relax and get back to normal once he gets home. But still irresponsible behavior.</p>