A quarantine of returning healthcare workers really worries me - even only for those at high risk if there is every reason to believe they are going to get sick but the fact is, most don't. Doctors Without Borders have been working with Ebola for years with what - now two cases? The trouble with quarantining all returning health care workers is now even less people will want to go to West Africa to try to solve the world's Ebola crisis. It would be hard enough to want to go over there - takes a special sort of hero - but just imagine if the moment you get back, NY and NJ put you in quarantine in the unlikely event you might become ill. I'm so scared this might be the last little straw that broke the camel's back to discourage some workers from going there and they need a massive deployment of workers, not less!

Hopefully, this won't stunt the truly dedicated from going but wow, it sure could cut out some that figure they could offer themselves for two weeks, a month but a month plus a quarantine - not everybody can take that much time off their regular jobs. This step is worrisome for getting the disease stopped over there anytime soon.

Look at the history of ebola outbreaks: List of Ebola outbreaks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Previous high number was 425 cases in Uganda in 2000-2001. Now we have 10,000 cases from 2013 to the present.

The potential for more health care workers to be infected is much higher.

How long do Doctors without Borders and others usually spend in Africa and elsewhere when they go there to work? Asking them to be quarantined for another 21 days, how would this compare to a typical military deployment time?

Seems like we should be able to find health care workers willing to make the sacrifice for something this important. We find people who go undercover for long lengths of time, people who enter the NASA space program and who are essentially quarantined for long lengths of time, people who go on reality shows like Survivor and who are out of touch with the world for a long length of time. :D

Not all volunteers are doctors and certainly not all volunteers can work for longer than a month or two at best - few can commit for six months to one year, unlike the space program/military where the personnel are full-time employees with full salary, full employee/family benefits, vacations and life insurance. And West Africa needs massive amounts of medical workers now.

I heard a doctor on CNN just said USAID has funded future clinics requiring about 5,000 more workers - what is going to happen when the Americans return and get quarantined? Where will NJ and NY put them all?

After this panicky move by the NJ and NY governors to try to quell public fears, I imagine fewer lab workers, nurses, orderlies, etc. and highly respected doctors will want to go for not being able to take off most of an extra month on top of their volunteer time, loss of their regular salary/benefits and now they surely fear the US will one day soon totally close its borders and they will be stuck in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea for the duration if two states quarantine returning medical workers after so few cases here?

And for what? Despite the experts hedging their facts, we still have one doctor not yet leaking any bodily fluids when out and about in public plus the very few cases diagnosed in America, two contracted here at one bad hospital, and all but one recovered. We have no where near a 50% death rate for Ebola treated here. I firmly believe Duncan might well have lived had he had better medical care from the day he first got sick and sought treatment.

If we don't stop this disease in West Africa with a huge influx of qualified, very well-trained healthcare workers - who don't take any chances no matter how hot and tired they are and who won't roam around the villages in their spare time - and loads of supplies, clinics, isolation wards, I fear America will have many, many more cases.

They quarantined some nurse that landed overnight in NY I think is was NY....she was not aware she was going to be quarantined and she was supposedly rather indignant about not being able to "self monitor"....(we know how well that has worked for all these "self monitors"!) She was plaqced in quarantine, and lo and behold, imagine this!! She has now developed a fever!!!! Got the fever WHILE in quarantine! Thank GOD!! Now, they dont have to run all over the city, the transportation facilities, entertainment venues, sidewalks, restaurants, etc, closing down businesses, trying to find EVERYONE she may have exposed! This is what should have been in place from the beginning!!!

She landed in New Jersery. This was from last night. She has been tested, and she did test Negative !!

Is she still quarantined for the 21 days? Hopefully, she is. With the examples of false negative testings because they were done too early, etc....hopefully they will not "backslide" and not have her finish the 21 days. Lets see if those "suites" that all talked such a big game, stick to their guns, walk the walk they talk, or if, as usual, they are "all hat and no cattle"!!!

Just got the answer....she will remain in quarantine.

Just read that nurses called in sick today, to avoid taking care of the doctor that was admitted with ebola. Article states that the nurses say they are absolutely terrified of taking care of this patient. Now, these are union nurses that we have all been told are thoroughly prepared and educated and trained and confident and more than ready to assume this task of taking care of ebola patients under the strict isolation guidelines....."the hospital, the staff, the city.... all are prepared to assume the necessary isolation precautions to keep staff, patients, and the public safe"....

I said from the start I would believe all that gibberish from the suits if and when the NURSES stepped up and showed no concern taking care of patients with ebola, that they and their hospital were indeed prepared and ready to assume this task. Well, the nurses are calling in sick to avoid taking care of the patient. One poor soul even faked she was having a stroke to avoid having to take that assignment.....they cleared her in ER and sent her back to her unit. I hope these nurses remember access to "Safe Harbor" policy.....that, along with support from their Union, should keep their licenses safe at least....

At our local satellite ER last night, the regular security guard was stationed at a lectern in the entry vestibule with a sign:

"If you have traveled outside the country in the last three weeks and have a fever, please tell the staff immediately."

Attachment 402340

Guess this is the learning curve.......

Anyone in Illinois who had direct contact with a person infected with the Ebola virus while in three African countries will be required to undergo a mandatory 21-day quarantine, according to an order signed by Gov. Pat Quinn.

The order, which was signed Friday, affects "high-risk" individuals who have come in contact with patients in Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone, the three nations hardest hit by the disease.

The mandatory order also includes medical personnel who have treated people infected with the Ebola virus, officials said.


The order will be implemented by local health departments throughout Illinois. Previously, high-risk people were subject to a voluntary quarantine, according to the governor's office.

"This protective measure is too important to be voluntary," Quinn said in a statement. "While we have no confirmed cases of the Ebola virus in Illinois, we will continue to take every safeguard necessary to protect first responders, health care workers and the people of Illinois."

cComments
@PeterBella The guy with the horn? It's in the bowling alley that is closed due to the sick doctor. I guess he can put his lips together and blow some bad notes, as it thePC popular thing to do for horn players and know-it-all mopes who want some liberal love and more hits and media...
JAKEBRAEKES
AT 9:16 AM OCTOBER 26, 2014
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19

Quinn issued the directive in a statement dated Friday after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made the same rule for travelers landing at New York City-area airports. The rule exceeds federal guidelines.

Five U.S. airports are designated for passengers returning from the West African countries, including O'Hare International Airport, John F. Kennedy in New York, and Newark Liberty in New Jersey. The others are Hart in Atlanta and Washington Dulles in Virginia.


Illinois Ebola quarantine - Chicago Tribune

Well...... DUH!!! Thank Goodness it dawned on somebody that decided to act on it!! This has been a glaringly clear method of containment since this started!! I understand why those particular airports have been chosen (because they are the "gateway airports of entry" for the majority of international travel)....but I have to say I am concerned about HIA (Houston International) and LAX on the west coast.....International flights do come into those ports of entry but not in the volume of the five already designated.

Even if they know absolutely everything about ebola, and no one is in fact in danger of infected people walking all over our cities, think of the enormous amounts of money, time and effort it takes to track down every single person that has been exposed to a patient that may have the disease.....someone that has walked/traveled all over these cities, places of business that have to close and decontaminate, etc. It can be a staggering amount, and it should not be a questionable move for authorities to prevent closing down businesses and chasing down hundreds of citizens that one person exposed themselves to. Quarantine that ONE person, and after 21 days, they are no longer considered "hot" and can be allowed to return home. Actually the very best, most effective method would be to quarantine them over there before they ever leave that area.....then they can go all over Europe and Asia and any place they want, and everyone would be safer. But I am thankful for the small baby steps we have taken in this country!

Will Pham, Vinson, Spencer's doctors and nurses all need to be quarantined in tents, too, should they show a fever while out and about, like Kaci Hickox temporarily did when she was upset, her face flushing? Will the Dr. Fauci of the NIH himself be quarantined by Maryland's governor soon in a tent like Hickox should he decide to fly and show a 100.3 fever? Aren't patients in America just as infectious as those in West Africa?

Doctors Without Borders doctors, nurses and aids usually can volunteer for a weeks to a month, no more, for no to a small amount of money, but if each of them has to look forward to going into mandatory quarantine while American workers are not required to do it, I imagine there will be a cancellation of plans for many workers who just can't afford the extra time away from their regular medical practices, jobs, families and salaries and see the quarantining of healthy, non-contagious people as scientifically nonsensical.

And if those people stop volunteering to go to West Africa, I fear we'll have far more Thomas Duncan's in every large city by Christmas.

Doctors without boarders pays the doctors for an additional 21 days, they recommend taking the time off work to recover.

Personally if I were at risk for ebola I'd rather be quarantined outside of my home so they wouldn't destroy all my stuff if I got sick. (Gofundme pages for the nurses say this is one of the things they're raising money for)
Makes you wonder, if it's such a weak virus outside of the body, why they feel that's necessary.

But the pay is negligible and nothing like the regular salaries they give up to go work there. Besides, their wives and families need them and if they are not sick, what is the point? Science didn't change because they worked in Africa vs. working at Emory or NIH or Bellevue. And to just quarantine those returning from Africa and let American Ebola patients' caregivers and doctors walk around freely is truly silly. Either the disease is a risky, highly infections disease no matter where it is or it's not. I don't get it.

Is Doctors without Borders the only group sending medical personnel to Africa?

I think a 21 day quarantine is a worthwhile sacrifice for something so important. Why send anyone if you are going to let potential carriers come back and drop directly into the public here?

The nurse who complained about being quarantined upon her return, I don't have much sympathy for her. She complained about a "grueling" 2 days of travel back from Africa. After what she witnessed in Africa, I don't see how traveling would register as 'grueling.'

Conditions in hospitals here are better than over in the African countries affected. Although I see your point about quarantine for all medical personal, either place.

The purpose of the quarantine is that a person can test negative initially, but later test positive as the illness progresses.

As for wives (and husbands? :)) and families needing them at home, once again I have to point to our military and people in other jobs that require them to be stationed away from home for long lengths of time. Jeanie, my brother is away from his young family 80% of the year for work. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

Our military, the non-commissioned, are not compensated so handsomely for their long deployments.

As for money, if someone can take a month off from their regular job, I'm sure they can swing 2 months. Sabbaticals in many professions are often longer than 2 months. I don't think quarantine is going to be a deal breaker for willingness to volunteer.

That nurse that is quarantined, while she is squeeling like a pig under a gate, she was asked if she would continue her work over there, knowing she will now face quarantine when she returns to the USA....her response? "ABSOLUTELY"......so this is something these people will get over and they will continue their work. As far as military service....I have a cousin that has gone through 5 tours of duty in Afganastan....he is gone for a year at a time....his family adjusts to the situation.

I bet she would feel completely different if the shoe was on the other foot. She may be much more understanding of why this is being done, one person's inconvenience to protect hundreds or thousands of people she could possibly expose....meanwhile, there are 3 labs here in the Houston area and many more all over the world, that are working on vaccines for ebola....this may very well be the last year people have to go down there and take care of these desperately ill/dying patients.....they can vaccinate them all and, like that precious little cancer patient in the St.Jude commercial says, "it will all be over".

But this nurse is totally symptom free and even if she is incubating the virus but it hasn't yet made her sick, she could not be contagious to anyone else. She's not contagious unless she's so sick that she is producing copious amounts of fluids and some of the fluid somehow gets into someone else's body and that's just not possible now.

What about Nina Pham, Amber Vinson and Dr. Spender's doctors and nurses who are at high risk every moment they were/are around them for hours every day? Are they riding subways/buses, going out to eat, to movies, dancing, bowling or into isolation tents once they leave the isolation ward? I think they are going out into the public. If not, what the heck is the difference, Gov. Christie, Gov. Cuomo and Gov. Quinn? I don't understand their science.

What about all the prior treating doctors/nurses for Brantly, Writebol, Duncan, Sacra, Mukpo, returning Doctors Without Borders, SIM, Samaritan's Purse and other NGO doctors, aids and nurses treating Ebola who are out walking among us now and have been since Ebola first flared up in West Africa earlier this year? They've been going and coming to/from West Africa since then. How is it we all stayed well from them all this time if they are so "risky" to us?

But, Judy, she's not contagious! She's at no more risk of giving anyone Ebola than is Dr. Anthony Fauci or Amber Vinson, Nina Pham's nurses - yet none of them are in an isolation tent.

I am sorry but first of all, I do not believe enough is known about this disease to throw a blanket statement about who is contageous and who isnt, and when they "flip that switch" and suddenly they are now contageous.

I do not believe an entire city should have to be subjected to isolation and self monitoring, praying they do not spike a fever, just to accomodate ONE person coming back into the country. If people could be trusted to self isolate and self monitor themselves, and be truthful about their monitoring results....(I read that nurse that flew off to do wedding plans, was taking Tylenol to get her temp down so she COULD fly, and that she was feeling sick before she ever left Dallas, was feeling under the weather while in Ohio, took her Tylenol so she could get back to Dallas, then turned herself in!!) but they cant be trusted. All of these people "broke the rules" and exposed many, many people. I do not think they should be able to determine MY future....they should not be given the opportunity to even POSSIBLY make me or my family or my business suffer the consequences if there is even a remote chance they ARE contageous.

She is not sick....wonderful! Hope she stays that way. She says taking her temp like they did (the same way they are doing all temps at the airport and calling it "screening") is inaccurate...."skin temps are higher than core temps" ???? Dont know about that....if that was true, why do we add a degree to armpit temps we take with a thermometer? Seems to me her temp may actually have been higher than what they originally came up with....then it dropped for whatever reason.....we have always gone with the theory core temps are more accurate than skin temps, so we are back to the quandry about her skin temp being higher than core temp....that weird ebola virus maybe??? who really knows ???....

Err on the side of safety. I would MUCH rather hear, "Well she never got sick after 21 days, so she is free to go home", than, "OMG! she is in the ER, vomiting and spewing bloody diarrhea, and her temp is 103. She took care of ebola patients in Africa and has been State side for 6 days....lets start trying to find out the hundreds and hundreds of people, plus every business she has been in, everyplace she has strolled, etc, so these people can be watching out for themselves to see if THEY start getting sick, and all those business can close and decontaminate....". No, quarantine the single person until the incubation parameters are met. Which, oh by the way, are now beginning to perhaps change and move around...."maybe it is actually 28 days, or maybe 35 days, or it could possibly be 46 days....."????!!!

"Dr. Anthony Fauci or Amber Vinson, Nina Pham's nurses - yet none of them are in an isolation tent.[" Perhaps this should be the next step?

I'm with Judy. Look at the timeline of the doctor who tested positive in NYC.
Timeline for New York Doctor Who Has Ebola - ABC News

I don't understand the nurse who is complaining about quarantine (or anyone else) pinning everything on one temperature check at the airport upon returning to the US. One temperature check is not enough for clearance.

As for why medical personnel here are not being quarantined after treating cases here in the US -- probably should. However, Duncan's case aside, conditions in hospitals here are far better than in the countries afflicted in Africa. Personnel here are dealing with one case and not surrounded by hundreds.

I thought the 5 airports what were chosen were designated because they were only allowing travelers from those country to pass into the US through only those states?

The US Army is training a rapid response Ebola team. This is the U.S.A. :thumbup:

(Reuters) - As health officials were trying to manage a patient infected with Ebola in New York, U.S. military personnel in Texas were in the first stages of training a new rapid-response team that could head to hospitals the next time an outbreak occurs.

The 30-member U.S. Military Ebola Rapid Response Team assembled at the Army's San Antonio Military Medical Center on Wednesday and consists of five physicians, 20 nurses and five certified trainers.

The group will supervise treatment and help hospitals deal with the intricacies of treating Ebola.

"There is always a fear factor when you are dealing with this disease," Major Joseph Narvaez, a physician on the team, said on Friday when training was open to the media.

"The more we train the more confident we are."

Team members said they have not been requested to go to New York City, where the latest case of Ebola in the United States was confirmed on Thursday night. It will deploy on the request of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In the training, members practiced with military precision putting on and taking off the bulky personal protective equipment that is to be worn as part of the protocol for medical personnel treating an Ebola-infected patient.

In the next room, nurses dressed in the protective suits practiced taking vital signs on a dummy used for medical training.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new protocols for the protective suits after two hospital nurses in Dallas who had treated a man infected with Ebola became infected with the deadly virus this month.

Navy Commander James Lawler, a physician who has experience treating Ebola in West Africa, said a major effort will be made to make sure the team does not spread Ebola, or contract it themselves.

"Protecting our healthcare workers is our primary concern," he said.

Physician Narvaez said the team sees its mission as a deployment to face an enemy.

"We try to know our enemy and know its weaknesses," he said. "We absolutely know that we will defeat it."

U.S. military starts training its Ebola rapid-response team | Reuters

OMG!! I hope you are right about this!! That would be too much like the right thing to do though, so I am keeping my fingers crossed about that reasoning....how in the hail did they think of that!!! They are missing so many other common sense things....I was on another blog with nurses and professionals out in Ca and someone said what you said above...so we are all hoping this is correct!

60 Minutes is on and they are talking to nurses from Dallas hospital....it is really very interesting.....

Last paragraph of the article I posted:

I'm not aware of any scientific findings or even any theory that says if a nurse were exposed to the Ebola virus from working with 300 patients for a month in West Africa that when she reached America, she is more likely to get sick and infect than she would be if Nina Pham or Dr. Spencer exposed her to their bodily fluids after they began vomiting, having diarrhea.

And unless you have a heavy enough viral load to cause you to be very sick and producing fluids that get into someone else's body, you cannot spread the disease. And even then it's not 100% infectious if your viral load is low enough for another's immune system to overcome, aka Thomas Duncan's family, who all remain well, despite being around him for two days after he was sick, vomiting and having diarrhea, sweating on his partner in bed.

Otherwise, all of those medical doctors and workers who've been coming and going from West Africa and those 10,000 cases they've cared for there would have long ago infected many of us as they have all gone about America on their return.

Common sense monitoring for temperature and symptoms of those close contacts, including their nurses and doctors, of Ebola patients has worked perfectly so far, so what's changed? Oh, I forgot - NYC got a case - that's what! And panic ensued! :eek:

I wouldn't call it panic.

Read this article on the WHO website. They are referring to local medical personnel who have been infected and died (120 dead/240 infected), but some of what they are saying must apply to foreigners who are there to help treat ebola patients:
WHO | Unprecedented number of medical staff infected with Ebola

From the article:

"The loss of so many doctors and nurses has made it difficult for WHO to secure support from sufficient numbers of foreign medical staff."

The larger than ever outbreak in Africa is over a year in the making. Look how long it took for a case like Duncan to arrive in the US. Epidemics and pandemics start somewhere. I would rather error on the side of caution.

I'll bet she wouldn't feel differently. She's got a masters degree in nursing and public health from Johns Hopkins and a CDC-epidemiologist fellowship, has worked with and knows Ebola's properties far better than Governor Christie. And knows enough to know she's no threat unless she's sick.

How is a well woman, not sick OR leaking any bodily fluids with a high viral load in them, staying alone in a tent in NJ, keeping a single soul in New Jersey safe from Ebola? If she begins to spike a fever or vomit, that's a totally different thing but for goodness sake, Gov. Christie, allow her to go home and have her local health department follow up on her q 6 hours.

Liberia is a country of 4 million with 50 doctors when all this started, I heard an epidemiologist on CNN say, with no isolation facilities, few hospitals, clinics or even basic medical protective gear or cleaning supplies, proper waste disposal. Of course they are going to lose half or more of their healthcare workers to disease. But our American workers over there use strict protective measures and have for years when working with deadly epidemics. They are all monitored by their organizations once they return here and it's been working. Not one of of them has passed a case of Ebola to an American or died of Ebola.

But how in the world Gov. Cuomo, Christie and Quinn suddenly decided that American Ebola healthcare workers returning home to NY, NJ and Illinois to be more likely to infect Americans than Ebola workers here in America working at Emory, NIH or Bellevue, I can't fathom. Nothing about that WHO article even addresses that issue. If these returning American workers were so extra-infectious to require his sudden quarantine, why haven't many, many Americans gotten Ebola from them during this past 6 months, when all the NGO's were at maximum work level, coming and going on airline flights at will, while still monitoring the workers on their return?

Thankfully, Gov. Cuomo has now realized he went too far and has eased his quarantine to allow returning heroic Ebola workers flying into New York to be quarantined at home now. Will is he requiring Bellevue doctors and workers to home quarantine while they care for Dr. Spencer or continue to allow hem to eat at restaurants, go bowling and subways? If not, why not? That's what I don't understand.