Ebola

Wow, this article about how Texas Health Presbyterian dealt with the Ebola patient is horrifying, and explains who it's no surprise that a second nurse has gotten infected.

From the first article:

DALLAS (AP) — A Liberian Ebola patient was left in an open area of a Dallas emergency room for hours, and the nurses treating him worked for days without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols, according to a statement released late Tuesday by the largest U.S. nurses' union. Nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments, worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for a patient with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting, said Deborah Burger of National Nurses United. 

Burger convened a conference call with reporters to relay what she said were concerns of nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Thomas Eric Duncan — the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. — died last week. RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of Nurses United, said the statement came from "several" and "a few" nurses, but she refused repeated inquiries to state how many. She said the organization had vetted the claims, and that the nurses cited were in a position to know what had occurred at the hospital. She refused to elaborate. 

Among the nurses' allegations was that the Ebola patient's lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital's pneumatic tubes, opening the possibility of contaminating the specimen delivery system. The nurses also alleged that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling.

The fact that she flew on a commercial flight just two days ago is fucking ridiculous.

As to whether there is a larger conspiracy at work here, is still unclear to me. Of course, there is a lot of stuff out there about the outbreak being a hoax and a scam and a ruse to get US troops into Africa. and a ruse to institute mass vaccination of Americans (or possibly worse).

As of now, I really really doubt that the whole Ebola pandemic is fraudulent. The powers that be however, no doubt, have some twisted plans for how to use this outbreak to suit their ends, and of course there is money to be made in anti-Ebola drugs and vaccines and it seems as if the PTB always enjoys poisoning the population.

One oddity to me is that the authorities are ruling out a ban on accepting air travel from west Africa-- I don't quite get the logic for that.  They say they can trace potential patients and their contacts more easily that way, and that a travel ban only creates more fear and confusion. But I'm not sure I buy that.

Right now, I am really hoping that the public health authorities just screwed up big time, particularly in fucked up Texas (where a sick uninsured black guy was clearly not taken seriously at the hospital), and they will limit this outbreak to the first patient (Duncan) and the people he infected.

I still am of the view that Ebola is not very easy to catch, at this point, and one can see why nurses could get infected from this very sick patient. It's harder to see ordinary people on the street getting infected. According to the standard view, an Ebola outbreak can be contained with rigorous but fairly standard procedures; apparently Nigeria was able to do it. Let's hope Texas is up to Nigerian standards.

Bottom line, is my fingers are crossed that the Ebola panic is typical overblown conspiracy prediction crap, and that it will be contained in a reasonable manner.