Five US airports to screen for Ebola

[Bosonic]

Source: AFP

Washington (AFP) - Five US airports will begin screening the temperatures of passengers arriving from West Africa as the United States ramps up its response to a deadly Ebola outbreak, officials said Wednesday.

"The vast majority of people" coming from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the three countries hit hardest by the epidemic -- will be screened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The airports implementing the measures are John F. Kennedy International in New York, Washington Dulles International, Chicago O'Hare International, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.

Together, the five hubs are the destination for 94 percent of people traveling to the United States from the three most affected countries.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/five-us-airports-screen-ebola-173927889.html;_ylt=AwrBEiGYeDVUsxQAKf3QtDMD

[SheilaT]

1. Since there are no direct flights from

Africa to the U.S., I wonder just how they intend to implement this?

Yes, they will know if anyone on a given flight started in Africa, but are they going to screen every single person on the plane just because one person originated in Africa?

As a former airline employee, I can see right now what a nightmare this is going to be.

[uppityperson]

2. I think they will be pulling aside everyone with passports from those 3 countries,

and doing a special screening, talking to them, looking at them, taking temperatures.

Since there is an incubation period between exposure and becoming ill and contagious, maybe they figure if they find someone who was contagious on the plane, they still have a few days to contact everyone else who was on the plane to advise them to monitor themselves?

Flying long trans-Atlantic flights, most everyone though is bleary eyed and a bit out of it. I do not envy immigration control people having to determine who is fine, who is not and now even less envy for them.

[SheilaT]

4. How about people with passports

from any of the however many other countries there are out there who might have spent time in one of those countries? Like the doctors and the cameraman? The Spanish nurse.

Once again, unless people have actual symptoms of Ebola, they are not contagious. Certainly, someone could cross the line to being contagious while on a long flight, but the likelihood of that actually happening is vanishingly small. And despite what a lot of people keep on saying, there is still absolutely no indication that Ebola is passed other than by direct contact with bodily fluids. So even someone who is violently ill with Ebola while on the plane, who is vomiting and has bloody diarrhea, only those poor souls unfortunate enough to come in direct contact with said vomit and diarrhea are at risk.

[CTyankee]

12. I once got a milder flu from a fellow traveler on a Northern Italy tour, who threw up

next to me at dinner. Many of us at the same table also had the milder case. Nothing we could do but treat our symptoms, which is why I always carry Immodium with me wherever I go...

I'm glad that JFK is on the list. I'll be flying out of there and back on Air France next month. Just in time...I feel relieved...

[SheilaT]

15. Given how contagious flu actually is,

you'd probably have gotten it just by sitting next to the person. Without any vomiting.

When I was much younger, as in my 20's (I'm 66 now) and I flew a lot because I was an airline employee and took advantage of the travel benefits, I'd often get a cold immediately after flying. I never quite pinned down why, except that where colds are concerned, it's useful to know that there are over 200 different viruses associated with colds. That's according to Wikipedia anyway, which may not be the definitive source, but it's a good start. So basically, every time you come in contact with a new cold virus, you'll probably get a cold. That's why young persons often get frequent colds, and for most of us as we get older we almost never get them.

Influenza is similar in that there are three major strains (A, B, and C) all of which happily mutate all the time, which is why flu is pretty much a constant. But when you do get a flu, you then have a pretty strong immunity for quite a while. The reason so few old people got flu in the terrible epidemic at the end of WWI, was that there had been a similar bad flu some fifty years earlier, and most people who'd lived through it were now immune. It's also why the people creating each year's flu virus don't have to get it perfect. They make an educated guess about what will be popping up, formulate a vaccine that as I understand has two or three different flu formulations in it, and voila! A pretty good flu vaccine each year.

From what I saw on Rachel Maddow's show last night about treating patients with a transfusion of some sort from someone who survived Ebola, I suspect that may eventually be the route to a vaccine.

[CTyankee]

17. thanks for that information! Fascinating.

I've got plenty of hand sanitizer ready to go into my bag...

[SheilaT]

19. If you get a chance, read the book

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry. It's about the 1918-19 outbreak that was so deadly. Among other things it talks about the training of doctors in this country, and while we were improving medical education in the beginning of the 20th century, this medical crisis resulted in a complete change, getting rid of all the casual schools that taught almost nothing, and instituted medical schools as we pretty much know them now. We went in a very few years from having the world's worst an most poorly trained doctors, to having the the world's best.

Fascinating read. But then I've been fascinated by disease and epidemiology for as long as I can remember and read much of what has come out. I'm also fascinated by climate, from long before global warming popped up.

[hugo_from_TN]

18. The passports will have stamps showing a departure from those companies.

The passport control officers will likely be checking that and then pulling out people that have been in the impacted countries for screening.

[yellowcanine]

5. Delta has direct flights from South Africa to Atlanta.

Delta also has direct flights from Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria) and Dakar (Senegal) to Atlanta.

[SheilaT]

6. Thank you for the correction.

I foolishly repeated what I'd heard, without checking it myself. I should know better.

[yellowcanine]

3. Oh crap. I am flying into Atlanta from South Africa next month.

South Africa is nowhere near Liberia but I can just see how someone might decide it is necessary to screen everyone on that flight. If I happen to have a nosebleed or something they might sequester my scrawny ass for further testing.

[davidpdx]

10. Not to make you paranoid

But all it would take is one tourist who visited Liberia and then South Africa and was heading back to the US. The chances of that are slim of course on the one day you are flying. I'm not sure I'd want to be trapped in a tin can knowing that's a possibility.

[yellowcanine]

11. I am not actually worried about that too much given the way Ebola transmits.

Last edited Thu Oct 9, 2014, 09:46 AM - Edit history (1)

Someone who is actually symptomatic is unlikely to be physically able to fly to South Africa and board the Atlanta flight. Yes, they could become symptomatic during the flight. But that is an even more remote possibility. I am more concerned with someone who started in West Africa showing flu symptoms on the plane and thus causing the CDC folks in Atlanta to screen everyone on the plane and making me miss my connection for no good reason. Hopefully they don't do that. I have taken the precaution of getting my flu shot as part of my travel prep.

[CTyankee]

13. I just did that. I was told the flu shot should be given at least two weeks before

travel. I'm leaving for France Nov. 1.

[SheilaT]

16. More to the point,

even if you wind up sitting next to a person who becomes symptomatic during the flight, you still probably won't get Ebola. Unless the poor unfortunate vomits on you, you unfortunate person.

[Dopers_Greed]

7. This is going to to be a nightmare to enforce/track

Don't all International arrivals go through the same customs lines?

Are they just going to have extra questions for people coming from hotzone areas?

[Purveyor]

8. "Kennedy International in New York as early as this weekend"...

Kennedy International in New York as early as this weekend, as the United States races to respond to a deadly Ebola outbreak.

Travelers at the four other airports — Washington Dulles International, O’Hare International, Hartsfield-Jackson International and Newark Liberty International — will be screened starting next week, according to federal officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/us/us-to-begin-ebola-screenings-at-5-airports.html?_r=0

[Drayden]

9. Could a person take Motrin and mask a fever?

And they may not even do it deceitfully? If I get sick and have a fever and or headache I take Motrin, not to conceal a suspected case of ebola or some other contagious disease, but to feel better.

[potone]

14. Man, I feel sorry for these people.

Going through JFK airport after an international flight is a miserable experience at the best of times (I did it two weeks ago) and this is just going to make it worse. I understand the need for precautions, but I think this is going to be difficult to put into practice effectively.

[Sunlei]

20. TSA will spread disease because they do NOT change gloves between each person