<p>I no longer work in a hospital, so anything I say would probably fall into the “that’s easy to say when you know you won’t actually have to put your money where your mouth is” category. </p>
<p>Given that many nurses don’t feel they have the proper training to safely give care, I can understand a refusal. When I was working ICU, I’d occasionally get floated up to the open heart surgery ICU. If they had asked me to take a “fresh heart,” I would absolutely refuse, as it was not something I was very qualified to take on. They knew this and thankfully never asked. I was always given patients who were basically ready to go to the floor and just waiting on a bed. So I totally understand the reticence of nurses who don’t want to risk their lives when they don’t feel confident about their training.</p>
<p>You know, this is a highly infectious disease and it’s not necessarily a training issue although they should have more training. All of the training in the world can’t prevent a mishap. No protocol executed by humans is 100-percent effective,100-percent of the time. Did Dr. Brantly have enough training? There’s a national nurses association bashing the CDC for “scapegoating” the infected nurse.</p>
<p>Well, I disagree that saying a protocol was breached is scapegoating the nurse. A breach in protocol doesn’t necessarily mean the nurse was incompetent or should be blamed. We know that ebola doesn’t penetrate proper PPG. So of course that means that something went wrong, most likely when removing it.</p>
<p>The staff at Emory have repeatedly been touted as being “highly trained,” and none of them were infected. So either there is something they learned (training) that the Dallas nurses didn’t, or just by virtue of the practice and repeated drills they probably underwent (also training), they were far less likely to have a mishap while removing gear.</p>
<p>The Dallas situation has shown that if done relatively meticulously that spread can be contained. </p>
<p>The major problem is that there is but so much money. If town and cities start spending money on such training and equipment, and retrofitting hospitals for this one disease, that money has to come out of something else, e.g., road repair, schools, downtown development etc. This is not as simple as people are thinking and there a many ripple effects just waiting to happen. </p>
<p>“You don’t scapegoat and blame when you have a disease outbreak,” said Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse and a disaster relief expert at National Nurses United, which serves as both a union and a professional association for U.S. nurses. “We have a system failure. That is what we have to correct.” </p>
<p>Igloo, there are a number of reasons not to ban flights, but perhaps the most important one is this:</p>
<p>It does nothing to solve the problem. As long as Ebola is raging, it is going to get into the US. It’s inevitable. We cannot build an impermeable bubble around this country. </p>
<p>The problem has to be solved at the source, in West Africa. Anything we do to impede that effort, such as banning flights, makes the problem worse, not better. </p>
<p>In addition, banning flights will not prevent people from getting out of those West African countries. They will find other ways, which makes the problem even more unpredictable.</p>
<p>We are lucky to have an expert about this matter on our thread. frugaldoctor has said that banning flights would be counterproductive. NIH, CDC, and WHO all caution against a flight ban. </p>
<p>The impulse to cut ourselves off from what we perceive are dangerous people is understandable. But I’m going to assume that frugaldoctor, NIH, CDC, and WHO know more about this than I do.</p>
<p>Visitor Visas are denied due to communicable diseases. This is not new. So, what is the problem with requiring a health check up and waiting period before getting on a plane out of the hot zone?</p>
<p>Just because something is inevitable does not mean you also give it free reign. </p>
<p>The entire idea of restraint is to limit risk. This concept of either 100% stoppage or nothing is a new definition of calling oneself helpless. We are not helpless; we can reduce our risk. And for the few cases that may come through, it is understandable, but to purposely allow more than that residual infection would be our failing.</p>
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<p>It is not dangerous people; it is a dangerous disease that people are concerned about. It is the virus, not the people.</p>
<p>Getting weary of repeating myself. Sure there will be some getting around the rules in place. But it will stop the majority and that’s good enough. It’s a curious attitude people have; Since we can stop 100%, don’t try. It would have stopped Duncan.</p>
<p>Frugal doctor said it will be counter productive because we will hinder with medical supplies and personnel. That’s easy to remedy, a military plane, or a charter plane or give them special pass to travel.</p>
<p>The fastest way and the first step of eradicating Ebola is containing it. How’s the US going to help if they are preoccupied with random occurance of Ebols in the US itself?</p>
<p>Yes, but I’m not talking about banning all flights, although I still don’t see why 150 travelers a day are so important as to risk the spread of a modern day plague. Private planes and military flights could transport medical personnel and supplies. But, I still see no reason to approve tourist Visas at this time.</p>
<p>How does banning direct and connecting flights TO the US make the problem worse? </p>
<p>We are not talking about banning people from going to help the people there. We are saying once you have been there, you get quarantined for 21 days or tested before being allowed in. How does that impede helping the people in Africa and stopping it there? Answer - it does not. </p>
<p>^Exactly! Again, it would have stopped Duncan and could have delayed the outbreak here by a few months. That’s good enough to me. Who knows they may even have founded the cure by then.</p>
My understanding is that the 150 number refers to the number of air pax per day entering the US from hot zone countries, not 150 total pax per day.</p>
<p>^Do I even need to answer this? It depends what you mean by fail safe. If you mean by fail safe. If you mean 100%, no. If you mean 80-90% yes. To me 80-90% is more than good enough. I take on things with far less certainty.</p>
<p>Nothing is fail-safe, including the CDC protocols, unfortunately. But, that is not a reason not to try to keep deadly diseases from being brought into the US by sick tourists, imho. We already do this on paper, btw. We just don’t seem to want to really do it for some reason.</p>
<p>Something that occurred to me about the success of the first two cases (Brantly and Writbol) is that both patients were trained in Ebola protocol, which might mean they were able to self-administer some procedures that would be risky for others. Hopefully, the infected Texas nurse will benefit from her own training or at least her professional abilities. </p>