<p>WIll this Czar have resources to pay flor losses due to quarantines? What are the divisions of responsibility between this new appointee and existing agencies? Who will fix any problems with the current protocol for known patients and folks who are supposed to be in quarantine? What authority and resources will this individual have? A title with no resources or authority can just add more layers and confusion.</p>
<p>“Would Ebola Czar help? The prez is appointing an Ebola czar.”</p>
<p>Good. Imagine an army without a general. There has to be one person in charge who has the power to give an ass kick when needed. </p>
<p>Interesting article form a bioethicist (head of the bioethics department at NYU’s medical center)</p>
<p><a href=“Bioethicist: 10 Things America Needs to Do About Ebola”>http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/bioethicist-10-things-america-needs-do-about-ebola-n226771</a></p>
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<p>Yes, but a proper verification check would have caught that, as well. And would have caught it rather quickly too. </p>
<p>Why? Because a private company that has such protocols in other places would use and double-check against known successful protocols elsewhere. No company spends additional time and energy making up new protocols, when it knows effective ones already exists. That would be a waste of money.</p>
<p>Therefore, a competent quality control director would have noticed immediately before issuing the protocols to Dallas that what the CDC was going to send was completely different than what is used in the places that are most successful in protecting healthcare workers. </p>
<p>The fundamental issue is no one at the CDC has any real business knowledge of how to control the cascading of accuracy down “supply” and “decision” chains. That is what is required here. </p>
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<p>Not if he is clueless about the above though. All you will get is a better mouthpiece for a bad process. Unless the process is changed internally from a bureaucracy to one of direct responsibility, any Czar would still be hindered by how the system works. </p>
<p>From what I gather the position will coordinate efforts. Take care of inter agency stuff. Make sure CDC issues correct protocols, see to it that hospitals execute, permits are issued, qurantines are maintained. I don’t know if reimbursing losses is in the book.</p>
<p>terwitt, thank you for the link. It states 70% fatality. that’s high.</p>
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<p>Well, that is where they will have a problem if they asked for that. Because the logical question is, if you have a policy that essentially imports a disease with minimal attempt to stop it from coming in, why should taxpayers pay for a situation you are making because of your bad policy? And the same entity would also ask why they are not doing what the military is going to do, i.e., 21-day quarantine of people from the hot zone?</p>
<p>And then even the dumbest accountant in the world would point out that a 21-day quarantine of each person from a hot zone is thousands of times cheaper than the economic issues and losses created by just one infection in a town.</p>
<p>Only someone who has no concept of costs and money would even think that the current policy makes sense. The other possibility is they know and do not care. </p>
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<p>That’s may be but it shouldn’t have gone into practice in the first. I don’t think anyone including CDC thought Ebola was coming here. They just wrote up not expecting it will be ever used.</p>
<p>I don’t normally get sick, no flu shots or anything in the last 10 years, but I thought I off Ebola when I felt hot today. It affects our psych.</p>
<p>Funny you mention flu shots. We don’t get sick much and normally don’t get flu shots. This year I told my D to go ahead get it to simplify her life. </p>
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<p>Excuse me if I were not clear - the quality control manager would have caught it BEFORE it went into practice because quality assurances are the last step before allowing something out of the door to be put into practice. Part of a competent company-wide verification process also includes verification BEFORE leaving the company. </p>
<p>In my earlier posts, I probably should have noted that the verification check at the hospital level is AFTER the quality control manager has signed off on the protocols at the company level. The discrepancy in protocols would have been caught before it got out the company door. And a company has incentive to do this because it would be sued big-time if it erred and most likely be out of business.</p>
<p>So are you saying the quality control manager in this case would be someone from CDC looking it over? That makes sense. I am hoping this first case of Ebola shook up everyone and they will approach the issue with more urgency.</p>
<p>On another note, they decided not to declare state of emergency in Dallas.</p>
<p>frugaldoctor, the other day the President chided countries which are not stepping up to the crisis in West Africa. I assume he meant developed countries which could be contributing money, personnel and other resources. Do you know which countries he may have been talking about, and what they could be doing but are not? </p>
<p>Thanks again for your posts; they are fascinating and really valuable. Off to make another donation to DWB.</p>
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<p>Exactly. And you need a person on the inside because they know the entire chain intimately. Anything less would create another string of different errors. </p>
<p>The current problem is there was no checking against known effective, already-in-use protocols in the first place. You are not going to find something if you are not looking for it. </p>
<p>My QA execs are employees. That is good because it makes them responsible to follow the process of the company. The problem here is the CDC does not have business-level verification checks and processes, so it is not even looking for such inconsistencies on the detail level. So, inconsistent details gets out the door on a regular basis, as we have seen.</p>
<p>As a practical matter, how does ANYONE determine whether a person has been in a “hot zone,” and how recently? As with Duncan, self-reporting is not known to be effective, especially if someone is trying to fly out. Countries are NOT stamping passports. Also as a practical matter, where are these people supposed to be held for the 21 days, as was mentioned upthread? At airports? At some “neutral” “non-hot” country? Who is paying for this? Logistically, I honestly am trying to understand this and see the big problems in trying to get it implemented.</p>
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<p>Except they were supposed to be scientists. You’d think they have self regulation. Inconsistency should bother them. </p>
<p>Sometimes in bureaucracies, the important thing is to get along and not make waves. If things bother you, you can try to change it and if folks don’t want to hear you, you either look the other way or get out. </p>
<p>You can look up the congressional hearing this afternoon. That should point to the right direction. For one thing, they can make them stamp from now on. That can’t be so hard. Didn’t someone say there are empty military installations in the hot zones that can be used to quarantine? They could tie issuing visas to voluntary quarantine. Not easy but if multiple cases make its way here, what do you suggest?</p>
<p>Iglooo, amost every expert that I’ve seen has said that a travel ban would be useless at best. What I suggest, and what every expert suggests, as that as long as the virus rages in West Africa, we will all be at risk. We need to be urgently addressing the problem of stopping the outbreak there. That is the only thing that will stop the risk to us.</p>