After listening the the CYA exercise at the Dallas hospital this morning I decided to investigate a little more deeply some of the claims being made.
The only way you can guarantee that you do not have Ebola is if there has been the passage of 30 days between your last contact with ANY PERSON or object not currently in your home. Why?The CDC describes the received wisdom as to how Ebola is spread.
They are
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/
1) contact with bodily fluids
2) contact with objects contaminated with bodily fluids
3) bodily fluids from infected animalsThey make a point of claiming that Ebola is not spread through the air or by water, or in general, by food, mosquitoes or other insects, except for bush meat or bat bites,
Basically, the claim is that until a person with Ebola begins exhibiting symptoms uninfected people are not at risk during contact with infected people. That is based on their claim that Ebola is only transmitted by contact with bodily fluids (sweat, sputum, blood, vomit and bowel ejections).
The big number tossed around for the incubation period is 21 days. So, the claim most often made (causes the least concern) is that a person who contracts Ebola won't be infective until they exhibit symptoms, or for about 21 days.
Is that the same as claiming that the Ebola virus won't migrate to the sweat glands until after 21 days, or that contact with blood from a wound on an infected person won't be infective until after 21 days? What about feminine hygiene products discarded by an infected woman during a menstrual period occurring before the 21 days has elapsed? Or sex between an infected partner and an uninfected partner before the 21st day? Obviously that involves the exchange of bodily fluids. In today's promiscuous atmosphere where people have multiple sex partners even on the same day or within 21 days, that becomes a severe transmission vector.
Equally obvious is that from the day of infection until the 21st day, or when symptoms began to appear, the viral load of Ebola in an infected person increases exponentially, increasing the risk of transmission of Ebola by bodily fluids or discarded sanitary products. And, many normal activities like shaking hands (sweat), kissing (saliva) or sex cause the exchange of bodily fluids.
To make matters worse, WHO states that:The incubation period, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms is 2 to 21 days. Not the most often claimed "21 days".
Therefore, NO expert on Ebola transmission can guarantee that a transmission of Ebola from an infected person to an uninfected person cannot occur prior to the 21st day.The news conference is Dallas today during which they announced that a second nurse was infected with Ebola was mainly an exercise in CYA by the people in charge because they supplied no other information except to cover their own rears. As one news reporter pointed out, the L5 hospital in Omaha, Nebraska treated 5 Ebola patients without a single staff member contracting the disease. The Texas hospital has treated only one Ebola patient and two nurses have been infected. NO amount of CYA can cover that gross example of managerial incompetence. Yet, they blame the nurses.
IF infected people who do not show symptoms can leave bodily fluids of one form or another in the environment, or on, or in other people, then the claim of 21 days is bogus. If a person can began showing symptoms 2 days after infection, as some cases have reported, then there is no such thing as a "safe" period of contact with an infected individual.
I suspect that if the general public learns about this information the result will be a massive negative affect on political and social gatherings, shopping, theater business, eating out, and even school attendance. Who knows what else? It is also obvious that the FIVE L5 containment hospitals around the US, of which one is in Omaha, does NOT have the facilities to treat a flood of infected people. Those facilities will be reserved for the "elite". Where will the rest be put for treatment, if there is enough medical supplies to treat them?
[tin foil hat on]FEMA camps?[/tin foil hat off]
