7 people quarantined, being monitored for Ebola in Ohio

[peace13]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/10/16/ebola-quarantine.html


7 people quarantined, being monitored for Ebola in Ohio

At least seven people in northeast Ohio are under voluntary quarantine and being monitored because they had contact with a Texas nurse who was diagnosed with Ebola shortly after visiting the area last weekend, health officials said Thursday. Five of those are in Summit County, said Dr. Marguerite Erme, medical director for the county’s public health agency. The other two are in Cuyahoga County.

Lots more at the link but I have used all of my free visits and can't get back in. Sorry.

[upaloopa]

1. Call us when anyone in Ohio has Ebola

[peace13]

2. I hope I don't have to do that.

If you read the article it spells out the quarantine information and guidelines in case you get exposed. It also talks about paid leave for health care providers during the quarantine. All of this is useful knowledge for folks here.

For instance, did you know that if you have sat in close proximity to a person with Ebola for more that three hours you should report to CDC? I didn't know that.

It doesn't hurt to educate yourself.

[amandabeech]

7. Some of the persons under voluntary monitoring are probably members of her wedding party.

She and her bridesmaids made a trip to a bridal salon in northern Ohio, and may have spent that much time together. I certainly hope that none of them become ill. One of the bridal party was a 10 year old jr. bridesmaid. All as per CNN TV at about 4:00 pm 10/16.

[still_one]

3. In what manner was the contact?

[kestrel91316]

4. They did not have contact with an Ebola patient per se. They had contact with a person

who developed Ebola symptoms after leaving. This is being done out of an abundance of caution and in case she has not been entirely truthful about when her symptoms began.

[Ms. Toad]

6. She was running a fever before she left.

It is out of an abundance of caution, because the likelihood of infection from the exposure in the early stages of Ebola is very slight. But the contact (for those on the last day) WAS with someone with Ebola.

[kestrel91316]

8. Ok, my bad, I though her fever showed up AT the airport.

[Ms. Toad]

21. Not only that -

But apparently the CDC now believes she was symptomatic as early as Friday (before she left Dallas).

(Reuters) - An Ebola-infected Texas nurse who traveled to Ohio over the weekend to plan for her wedding may have been ill as early as Friday, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

Dr. Christopher Braden told a news conference in Ohio that the CDC may include people who were on a flight Amber Joy Vinson, 29, took to Cleveland from Dallas on Friday in its investigation of possible contacts.

Vinson went to a bridal shop in Akron on Saturday but otherwise spent the weekend mainly with family before taking a return flight to Dallas on Monday, the day before she was diagnosed with Ebola, according to county health officials.

"We had started to look at the possibility that she had symptoms going back as far as Saturday," Braden said.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/16/us-health-ebola-usa-cleveland-idINKCN0I52T720141016

[kestrel91316]

22. jesus jumped up christ in a sidecar

[Ms. Toad]

23. That might explain why my impression is that her symptoms

were dramatically worse than the first nurse quickly after diagnosis- perhaps they didn't just start.

[kestrel91316]

25. I hate to say it. She may in fact be an idiot. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt for now, but

if it turns out she lied about when her symptoms began and somebody in Ohio told CDC they began days earlier, she will have me calling her even worse than that.

Those nurses weren't kidding when they said they had no training about Ebola. Were they even told it was infectious??

[RiffRandell]

30. I don't hate to say it.

Bottom line: She should not have flown.

I care what the CDC told her but she still shouldn't have fucking flown.

Jeepers, umm, I was taking care of an Ebola patient that died, one of my co-workers got it, I was around him and have a slight fever....oh well?

Fuck that. I wouldn't have wanted to chance it for the fear if I came down with it I need to get to a hospital ASAP.

Zero common sense.

[Ms. Toad]

5. It varied.

One was household (presumably the stepfather who is still in Ohio). The others were not specified - but she visited a few friends and a retail store. It seems likely those are the remaining folks who are quarantined. Her mother is quarantined in Texas. Three family members who work at Kent State are going to stay home for 21 days - I don't know if they are counted among the quarantined.

In addition, the Cleveland Clinic & Metro Health hospitals put a dozen-ish nurses who were on the flight from Dallas to Cleveland with her on paid leave for 21 days (during the period when she was not even running a low grade fever).

[Ms. Toad]

11. I assumed that -

but I had not seen an official announcement.

My Health Department contact decided to flee the county - so I don't have the inside scoop at the moment. (Just coincidental timing.)

[Avalux]

12. Who is to blame? We really need to stop with the blame game.

It's driving me nuts that cooler heads are NOT prevailing, blame is being flung every which way. It doesn't do anyone any good to stay mired in blame. We have a problem the likes of which we've never seen before, we need to remain rational and cooperate to solve it.

[Avalux]

15. Yes she did unfortunately, and that fact can't be changed.

Still, her behavior is not going to cause a pandemic, and it shouldn't be used by the media to promote hysteria. Blame is no good at this point.

[Ms. Toad]

19. There is a difference between blaming -

and getting off our invincibility pedestal to examine what happened here that shouldn't have - so it doesn't happen again.

As long as people keep insisting that her behavior was completely reasonable, the CDC's protocol's were perfect, she was not symptomatic (when she had the symptom of a fever), etc. we are doomed to repeat the mistakes - with more fatalities as a result and an ever expanding contact watch/quarantine.

Flying in the first place was a bad idea. People need to understand that. It was even worse because she flew a second time after she was clearly ill with something - and knew she had been exposed to Ebola. She should not have had to make either of those calls herself, though, and the CDC blew it by not giving her clear guidelines up front (frankly, because they were still in the invincible US mindset).

Prior to that, once it was clear that Ebola is increasing exponentially in Africa and arrival on our borders was only a matter of time, every hospital should have been trained in, and running drills in, donning and removing PPE gear. The CDC guidelines were woefully inadequate - as anyone who has ever spent any time working with universal precautions in messy situations should have known. You don't leave exposed skin - especially skin in places which everyone frequently touches (neck, forehead, cheeks). You don't implement a protocol to remove contaminated gear which requires touching dirty surfaces with clean hands (goggle straps, mask ties, gown ties). You don't leave it to chance that the person wrestling with awkward PPE gear will be aware when they have breached protocol. You use a buddy system. You don't have 70+ people traipsing in and out of the room where someone is being treated for Ebola.

The CDC is coming to this realization too late - and the time they spent avoiding introspection (aka pretending their protocols were perfect) has put two women (and potentially more) at risk of losing their lives. (Obviously, the mistakes the Dallas Hospital are in the mix, as well).

Yes Vinson's decisions (and the decisions of way too many others) were bad decisions. We need to know and acknowledge what should/should not have been done so that others don't repeat the mistakes Otherwise, we're just like the doctors who kept killing their patients via childbirth fever because they could not accept that their unclean hands might have been causing it.

[Tweedy]

31. Confused

Cdc did have a buddy system in their protocols. I think you may be confusing the 2 days when the hospital was not following protocols, with the protocols themselves. The protocols have worked you know. As for the training failure, that is the hospital and the state health department's responsibility. If we are going to excoriate the cdc for poor training, let us first give them the authority to provide and require it.

[Ms. Toad]

32. I believe you are the one who is confused.

CDC has just - Tuesday - added a buddy system.

Here is the protocol in place before Tuesday.

Note the incomplete coverage of the face & neck area; the use of clean hands to remove dirty goggle straps, mask straps, and untie the back of the gown; the near impossibility of actually removing the gloves without having the clean finger (after removal of the first glove) touch the dirty cuff of the gown in order to insert the clean finger between the dirty glove and the dirty cuff to sneak beneath the second glove to remove it; and the lack of instructions to wash the hands at any time before the end (except in the cases of known contamination) - or to wash the other exposed areas at all.

The new procedures are announced here - Tuesday

Federal health officials effectively acknowledged the problems with their procedures for protecting health care workers by abruptly changing them. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued stricter guidelines for American hospitals with Ebola patients.

They are now closer to the procedures of Doctors Without Borders, which has decades of experience in fighting Ebola in Africa. In issuing the new guidelines, the C.D.C. acknowledged that its experts had learned by working alongside that medical charity.

The agency’s new voluntary guidelines include full-body suits covering the head and neck, supervision of the risky process of taking off protective gear, and the use of hand disinfectant as each item is removed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/lax-us-guidelines-on-ebola-led-to-poor-hospital-training-experts-say.html

[morningfog]

17. Is self monitoring less effective in Cleveland than Dallas?

She was isolated very early. Her temp was low as was her viral load. She had no other symptoms.

[Cirque du So-What]

20. I was in a tavern at the same exact time

not even a block away from the bridal shop she visited. I'm not concerned in the least, but it's one heckuva coincidence on a personal level.

[KamaAina]

24. With a 50% mortality rate, we could easily have

four dead in O-hi-o.

Too soon?

[underpants]

26. You know what is more deadly?

Cortez the killer

Look out Momma there's ebola comin' up the river

[beam me up scottie]

27. Results of your Jury Service:

Just kidding!

[KamaAina]

28. ROFL!

[randys1]

29. Imagine this, Koch Bros agenda took hold in 1980 when one of them ran for President

and now in 2014 there is no such thing as anything close to national healthcare, the CDC doesnt exist.

There is NO infrastructure from a central government capable of administering any type of management of the disease.

This is what they want NOW...