Hitting Close To Home

Well, it was bound to happen. I'm just surprised it took this long. (By the time you read this it may be old news, but as I type this (Tuesday afternoon) it is breaking news.)

First Ebola Case Confirmed in Dallas - Dallas Fire-Rescue crew quarantined after transporting Ebola patient

A person who moved from Liberia to Dallas a week ago has tested positive for Ebola, becoming the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with the potentially deadly virus, the City of Dallas confirmed Tuesday.

I've said it before - anyone from or who has traveled in that part of the world should be quarantined before being allowed into this country. I realize that's harsh, but it's much easier to prevent (or at least minimize) an outbreak of Ebola here than to try and contain it after the fact.

The Dallas Fire-Rescue ambulance crew who transported the infected man to the hospital is being quarantined and monitored for Ebola symptoms, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings told NBC 5, and the ambulance used to transport the man has been pulled from service.

While I certainly hope the patient recovers, my real sympathy is for the unsuspecting ambulance crew and hospital staff who have been exposed. They now face a period of torturous uncertainty and a potential life-threatening illness.

Ebola is a severe, often fatal disease spread through close, direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids of a living or dead person who had contracted Ebola. The virus is only contagious when symptoms are present, and it is not spread through the air, through food or water.

Symptoms for Ebola virus involve a fever, severe headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and unexplained hemorrhage. Symptoms appear anywhere from two to 21 days after exposure but the average is eight to 10 days.

If someone exposed to Ebola has not shown symptoms for 21 days they are not expected to develop Ebola.

Like I said, put 'em in quarantine for 21 days. Maybe they can stay at all those facilities set up for the illegal immigrants, whose influx seems to be suspiciously correlated with the spread of the enterovirus.

... in 18-plus states, there are children infected with a respiratory virus that makes it hard to breathe.  Enterovirus DV-68, which is rare here but common in Latin America, (emphasis added) is causing some children to turn blue, requiring hospitalization and intubation.

And still the border remains open.

Adding insult to injury, there is now a disturbing report out of the border state of Texas that more than 700 infants and 40 employees in El Paso’s Providence Memorial Hospital have been exposed to tuberculosis.

Based on that news, I have little confidence in this statement.

The CDC said the United States is well-equipped to manage and treat Ebola and that the chances of an outbreak like the one in West Africa is extremely low.

Here's another reason I have little faith in the CDC. They tell the general public one thing ('chances of an outbreak are extremely low') while taking actions that seem to contradict that whole "don't worry" thing.

...the Centers for Disease Control has issued guidelines to U.S. funeral homes on how to handle the remains of Ebola patients.

The three-page list of recommendations include instructing funeral workers to wear protective equipment when dealing with the remains since Ebola can be transmitted in postmortem care. It also instructs to avoid autopsies and embalming.

Ebola in Dallas. TB in El Paso. Enterovirus in Dallas, and spreading.

I'm starting to feel surrounded...