Is Ebola covered by Obamacare?

[Guest wasabi]

Now that we have 2 documented cases right here in the USofA (for the first time), I think Ebola should be! Both patients being treated right near the CDC in Atlanta so they can study this new phenomenon.

And the CDC has such a good record, What weren't they telling us earlier this month?

http://online.wsj.com/articles/cdc-reports-flu-lab-accident-1405097111

[RA1]

As you know, they did not contract Ebola in the US but while acting as medical missionaries in Africa. No doubt they were partly brought back so the CDC could have ready access to them and their treatment, records, etc.

Ebola seems serious enough. The current thought is that it will take years to develop a vaccine. In the meantime, it is spreading like wildfire.

Amazing how we can never really get ahead of disease, isn't it? As soon as we think we have one conquered, another shows up.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Worth reminding ourselves also that transmission is via contact with body fluids of an infected person. It is not an airborne disease like SARS.

[RA1]

As a pilot, I hate airborne diseases. As a result, my Mile High membership may have expired. Oh, I hope not.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

One somehow hopes you did not earn your Mile High membership as a pilot, strictly speaking.

[RA1]

Perhaps we are having a misunderstanding. A Mile High membership does not involve recreation drugs but simply the act or an act of sex when flying at 5,280 feet above the ground or higher.

There are plenty of thrills extant herein and being short of breath because of the altitude is just one of them.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Yes, right. I was envisioning a condition of, ahem, divided attention on the part of the pilot.

That part of the pilot.

[Guest StevenDraker]

Yesterday I saw this on CNN:

Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Ebola Myths

[RA1]

AS-

You disregard the autopilot.

Best regards,

RA1

[MsAnn]

If in fact this new strain of the Ebola Virus is not airborne, and can not even be passed person to person if you are sitting next to someone who is infected, then why is everyone in 'space suits'?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/usanow/2014/08/02/us-ebola-africa-atlanta-hospital/13504503/

[Guest wasabi]

When so-called "experts" use terms such as "in principle" or "in theory," they are acknowledging their inability to state what happens "in reality." Bringing a deadly, communicable disease to the United States seems foolish, despite the admirable work that was being done by the two Americans who contracted Ebola. If experts in working with the disease cannot avoid contracting it, how will their health-care providers in Atlanta do so? And please don't bring up the expertise of the CDCP, whose "experts" exposed 80 of their employees to the anthrax virus.

[AdamSmith]

If in fact this new strain of the Ebola Virus is not airborne, and can not even be passed person to person if you are sitting next to someone who is infected, then why is everyone in 'space suits'?

Because that makes the most dramatic news copy.

What health care providers wear depends on their level of patient engagement. Here is what the CDC recommends for Ebola caregivers:

All persons entering the patient room should wear at least:

Gloves

Gown (fluid resistant or impermeable)

Eye protection (goggles or face shield)

Facemask

Additional PPE might be required in certain situations (e.g., copious amounts of blood, other body fluids, vomit, or feces present in the environment), including but not limited to:

Double gloving

Disposable shoe covers

Leg coverings

The latter especially when engaging in "AGP" -- "aerosol-generating procedures" -- on the patient.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/infection-prevention-and-control-recommendations.html?mobile=nocontent

[Guest wasabi]

As a pilot, I hate airborne diseases. As a result, my Mile High membership may have expired. Oh, I hope not.

Best regards,

RA1

"EVD is not naturally transmitted through the air.^[2] They are, however, infectious as breathable 0.8–1.2 micrometre laboratory generated droplets;^[22] because of this potential route of infection, these viruses have been classified as Category A biological weapons.^[23] Recently the virus has been shown to travel without contact from pigs to non-human primates.^[24]"

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease}

[RA1]

This "space suit" mentality started with, of all things, the Apollo program. When those astronauts returned to earth they were quarantined for days. I was not then and am not now quite aware of how "bugs" never seen before can live in outer space but I suppose they have to be somewhere.

Now, on to conspiracy theory. The "powers that be" and apparently BO is a minor player, are preparing to scare the US population into mass voluntary quarantine. According to this theory, there is a proven vaccine available but approval was "stopped" by the FDC. That is why the doc and his nurse were given experimental drugs. There are none approved. Eventually all those quarantined will be placed into one of many FEMA "camps" now spread all over the US. This may lead to an uprising but that is OK also. Every US office has stockpiled millions of rounds of ammunition. The ultimate goal is population control with the rich getting richer (and disease free) and the poor disappear.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest ButtWilde]

And then, when you throw into the mix what the stock for Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., did yesterday (although flattening back out afterwards) there's HUGE profit to be made here.

Shades of another mandatory Texas HPV vaccine?

[TotallyOz]

The Mapp company is owned by guess who?

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/04/3365612/drug-given-to-american-ebola-victims.html?sp=%2F99%2F322%2F&ihp=1

[Guest wasabi]

Transmission of Ebola virus from pigs to non-human primates

Tags:

• SCIENCE/HEALTH/CLIMATE/NATURE

In-contact transmission of Zaire-EBOV (ZEBOV) between pigs was demonstrated experimentally. Here we show ZEBOV transmission from pigs to cynomolgus macaques without direct contact. Interestingly, transmission between macaques in similar housing conditions was never observed. Piglets inoculated oro-nasally with ZEBOV were transferred to the room housing macaques in an open inaccessible cage system. All macaques became infected.

As of today the CDC has removed all references to airborne transmission form their web page on the current Ebola outbreak. Is it science, or is it politics?

[Guest StevenDraker]

My understanding is that they brought the American doctor back home to be cured.

According to official authorities the sanitary and hygiene conditions in the USA are not comparable with those in Africa and therefore there's no risk of Ebola outbreak in the USA.

[MsAnn]

Transmission of Ebola virus from pigs to non-human primates

Tags:

• SCIENCE/HEALTH/CLIMATE/NATURE

In-contact transmission of Zaire-EBOV (ZEBOV) between pigs was demonstrated experimentally. Here we show ZEBOV transmission from pigs to cynomolgus macaques without direct contact. Interestingly, transmission between macaques in similar housing conditions was never observed. Piglets inoculated oro-nasally with ZEBOV were transferred to the room housing macaques in an open inaccessible cage system. All macaques became infected.

As of today the CDC has removed all references to airborne transmission form their web page on the current Ebola outbreak. Is it science, or is it politics?

Interesting Wasabi, as I read this article yesterday also. It does make one wonder, how much they know definitively. My guess is, like many things, we are not being told everything. I did not see that the CDC removed information regarding airborne transmission. That for me is disconcerting. I would like to think that it is over caution on the part of doctors, but I don't think any of us can say for sure, at this early stage.

My thought is, I think you have to ask yourself, how many people have boarded planes for other parts of the world without knowing they were infected. Only now are officials beginning to monitor travels.

[Guest StevenDraker]

Only now are officials beginning to monitor travels.

In Asia, authorities have been using thermal scanners in airports, because of SARS and H1N1 in recent years.

A thermal camera system monitors passengers' body heat as they arrive at Incheon Airport in South Korea

[MsAnn]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/01/ebola-airlines-screening-world-health-organization/13434517/

But what I'm saying is that with an incubation period of 21 days, how would a thermal scanner detect someone who was carrying the virus in the early stages? In fact as yet, I have not heard of any fail safe system that airlines are using that could detect someone carrying the virus, and at least according to this article, the WHO does not recommend using them.

In reality, how could an airline possibly, in any effective way, screen a passenger?

[RA1]

As a non-doctor, my opinion is that many diseases cannot be detected or diagnosed without symptoms. A body scan for heat suggests they are trying to detect a fever. Airlines have no business doing any kind of body scans. According to me, neither does such as the TSA.

Pets have to have a certificate of good health from a vet within 10 days of initial travel. I consider that basically worthless and especially so when the return can be weeks later and use the same certificate. Humans could be subject to the same regulations for whatever benefit that might obtain and at what enormous cost and bother. Imagine the hue and cry. I can hear it now. We are driving, dear.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

In the best spirit of conspiracy mongering, I think it is well past time to point out this thread has the topic completely backwards.

Note how cleverly the government and its henchmen the media have diverted us from the real question:

Is Obama covered by Ebolacare?

[RA1]

Of course.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest StevenDraker]

Airlines have no business doing any kind of body scans.

Who said airlines do body scans? Governments do.

Six years ago, when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome swept the world, governments bought thermal-image scanners and set them up at airports. The idea was to spot overheated travelers and check them for fever before they infected others. Now the machines are beingdeployed again, this time to catch swine flu.

The World Health Organization thinks this is folly. According to WHO officials, the virus has already spread too far, and anyway, "Fever monitoring doesn't work because you don't get the cases which are still in incubation." For these and other reasons, dozens of thermal imagers in Canada and Australia are sitting unused.

That's a shame. Heat scanners certainly can't handle the current flu threat by themselves. But they can help.

A recent report from the Canadian government explains how the devices work: They "determine the temperature of an object by measuring the amount of infrared radiation emitted by that object; the higher the temperature, the more infrared radiation that is emitted." You can watch scanners in operation here and here. To see what a machine operator sees, check out the photos here, here, here, and here.

Canada seems chastened by a four-year-old study that found its scanners weren't cost-effective against SARS. But most of the imagers now being deployed arealready paid for. They were bought during the SARS and bird flu outbreaks. Why not use them?

It's true that the current flu has already spread to four continents. But that's no reason to suspend vigilance. Air travel is the fastest, most effective way to transmit a contagious human-to-human disease. At any given time, half a million passengers are in the air. From Mexico alone, weekly air traffic is more than 1 million people. Every interception slows transmission and buys time to catch up with drugs and vaccines.

In fact, one reason why scanners didn't do more to stop SARS is that they were deployed too late. In Canada, they took weeks to acquire and set up. This time, countries already have them on hand and know how to use them. We have a head start. And we're wasting it.

The scanners have their flaws. As the Canadian report notes, they "measure the skin and not the core temperature." But they don't have to be perfect. They just have to spot the people worth pulling over for closer inspection. If you're flagged, the next step is a thermometer check, an exam for symptoms, and an interview about yourmedical history and where you've been traveling. (In Indonesia, you might be "sprayed with a 70 percent alcohol solution.") If you test positive for influenza A, you might be quarantined at a hospital till you recover. But in that case, your itinerary is the least of your worries.

It's also true that scanners don't catch non-feverish carriers. But alternative methods don't, either. Right now, U.S. airports are counting on Customs and Border Protection officers to spot visible symptoms. According to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano:

All persons entering the United States from a location of human infection of swine flu will be processed through all appropriate CBP protocols. Right now those are passive. That means that they're looking for people who—asking about, are you sick, have you been sick, and the like; and if so, then they can be referred over for further examination. Travelers who do present with symptoms, if and when encountered, will be isolated per established rules

Looking for symptoms? Asking people whether they're sick? Come on. At least a heat scanner measures something quantifiable and catches more than the eye can see.

Skeptics at the WHO say border screening is disruptive. But scanners are far more efficient and less disruptive than labor-intensive alternatives. Earlier this week, Japan reported that officials, doctors, and nurses in that country were boarding flights to examine arriving passengers for flu symptoms. By comparison, the latest generation of thermal imagers can instantly scan travelers as they pass by.

If you think heat is a bad proxy for flu infection, ask yourself whether it's worse than nationality. Travel companies are canceling flights to Mexico. Today, Japan begandenying visas to Mexicans on arrival. Governments and businesses want an easy way to identify, segregate, and scrutinize the people most likely to be carriers. Which group would you rather they target? People with excess body heat? Or Mexicans?

SARS and bird flu weren't the last plagues to spread across our planet. This flu won't be the last, either. Fortunately, all these viruses have one thing in common: fever. For now, late as it is, that heat signature is our best shot at catching them. Let's use it.