I am watching the Congressional Hearings on Ebola now. The CDC is looking really bad and in my opinion is not currently up for the task of protecting this country. Dr. Frieden, head of the CDC, was asked if he knew of any hospitals in Ohio that have practiced procedures for handling an Ebola patient. (Ohio is where Vinson flew to.) Dr. Frieden did not know if this has been done. If I was him, that would’ve been one of the first things I did after learning about Ms. Vinson’s travel.
Someone mentioned that Pham’s dog is being quarantined, and that old CDC reports noted that transmission to/from dogs is unknown, but suspect. This congressman then asked if we shouldn’t be imposing travel restrictions on animals – yet still no mention of actually imposing travel restrictions on people. And when I say restrictions – I don’t just mean preventing airplane travel.
School districts in Texas and Ohio have now closed some schools due to the risk of exposure. I heard that Frontier Airlines has grounded their exposed employees – finally someone with a brain. Hopefully they are going to decontaminate the plane – though that is just one of the places Vinson exposed to the virus.
A nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas stated that she had questioned the protective apparel at the time. She also said if she got sick, she would NOT go to the hospital she works for. Apparently, quite a few people are refraining from visiting that hospital – thank goodness.
And one last thing that keeps going through my mind – what exactly is meant by “monitoring” of the exposed people. (They may have asked that during the hearing, but if so I missed it.) And why are so many being allowed to “self-monitor?”
Just something I was thinking about . . .
Just something I was thinking about . . . 
One of my bosses when I was trucking used to use that all the time : “We’ll keep an eye on it.” What the hell does that mean? If there was a loose wheel that he didn’t want to take the time to fix (a serious problem whose next step would be coming off when driving) he would say “We’ll keep an eye on it.” Or if I went to him and said “I don’t have the log hours to deliver this load tomorrow.” his reply would be: “We’ll keep an eye on it.” What the hell does that mean? There is a fixed outcome – no possible way to change it – keeping an eye on it means nothing – fix it now or there will be a failure absolutely and for sure.
Same thing for “monitoring” – it just means they do not want to take the time and money to do what is reasonable to stop the problem from spreading – hoping like a child that the problem will go away. That’s nuts. it is a perfect example of the lack of accountability. If they were told that when their decisions resulted in the death of a human they would be charged with murder and could be sentenced to death – you can be assured that their reaction wouldn’t be “Monitor it.”
Idiots.
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Hey Paul! Sorry it’s taken so long for me to reply – focusing on the job hunt these days, and getting ready for NaNoWriMo 🙂 Yeah – whenever someone says, “We’ll keep an eye on it,” I know there’s a 98% chance they don’t give a shit . . .
I agree with you, if there were real consequences for THEM (not others), the decisions they make would be different! Accountability – I tend to think many of those “in charge” have no idea what the word means . . .
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It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out in the weeks and months ahead. Ebola has an incubation period of 2 to 21 days, in 22 days well know about the people on the flight, the other people she came in contact with and then we can see how it is all going to s**t or under control… I cannot see it being the later.
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Hi Moi! Sorry for the delayed response. So far, seems to be under control, time will definitely tell! I tend to hope for best & expect the worst . . . 😉
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hmmm looks like the world isn’t coming to an end then.
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