I hope this is NOT how the members of the Bellevue hospital staff will greet their new patient

[pnwmom]

since one of them has a significant amount of skin exposed, and that is how the nurses in Texas may have become infected.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ebola-patient-york-city-hospital/story?id=26406430

Members of Bellevue Hospital staff wear protective clothing as they demonstrate how they would receive a suspected Ebola patient on Oct. 8, 2014 in New York City.

[Demit]

1. The photo is 2 weeks old.

Do you have a reason to believe that's what the staff is wearing now?

[pnwmom]

2. Do you know what the word "hope" means?

I hope every single hospital that has to deal with an Ebola patient will fully comply with the new protocols -- but doctors and nurses are human and capable of making mistakes.

[Demit]

8. No, tell me. I hope your answer is as substantive as your OP.

[morningfog]

3. It doesn't sound like he is terribly ill.

It certainly does sound as though he is having severe vomiting or diarrhea.

If he is in fact infected, it is early in his symptoms and while full protections will be needed, there is very little risk to the health care workers at this point.

[pnwmom]

4. There is a risk to the workers if they have skin exposed, as the nurses did during the period

of September 28 - 30, when Dr. Freiden has said he thinks they were most likely infected.

This is why the CDC changed their original guidelines, based on WHO protocols, to the stronger guidelines followed by the Doctors without Borders.

Of course, if this doctor IS infected, he became infected despite following the stronger Doctors without Borders guidelines.

So there's that.

[morningfog]

5. We've been through this.

First of all, Duncan was much MUCH more ill, had a much higher viral load when he was admitted.

Second, no one knows when the nurse were infected. They had skin showing the days just before he died.

They will get proper protection, but his risk to them today was very low.

[pnwmom]

6. You can't say truthfully that because we don't know what this doctor's viral load is,

or even if he actually has Ebola.

Assuming he has Ebola, his risk to his current caregivers IS probably low IF they are wearing proper protection (not as pictured) and IF he is not exposing them to fluids, and IF his current viral load is low.

But we don't know what the facts are yet. It's all just speculation.

I just hope these Bellevue doctors have learned from the mistakes of the Dallas ones and are following the new guidelines to the letter.

Though if he has Ebola, the question remains as to how he became infected, since he was using the DWB protocols.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/nyregion/craig-spencer-is-tested-for-ebola-virus-at-bellevue-hospital-in-new-york-city.html

The man was working with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea treating Ebola patients before returning to New York City on Oct. 14, according to a city official.

He told the authorities that he did not believe the protective gear he wore while working with Ebola patients had been breached.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Crap - symptomatic on Tuesday,

and still apparently went out bowling on Wednesday.

There have been quite a few DWB doctors infected recently.

[pnwmom]

9. And on public transportation, I heard. Denial is strong.

Hopefully it's something like malaria, not Ebola.

[Ms. Toad]

11. The public transportation reported is not very public

It is essentially a ride sharing service coordinated through a central website, with money changing hands. Private cars, for the most part, being used as pseudo-taxis.

[LisaL]

15. NYT article says he used Subway to get to the bowling alley.

This is as public as it gets.

[Ms. Toad]

17. The subway was not mentioned in the earlier article -

and I agree about the subway being public.

Also not mentioned was that he experienced nausea, fatigue, pain, and fever on Wednesday - the day he was out bowling.

[pnwmom]

16. He used a subway and an Uber taxi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/nyregion/craig-spencer-is-tested-for-ebola-virus-at-bellevue-hospital-in-new-york-city.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[Ms. Toad]

18. I was reporting what was known at the time -

which did not include the subway. Nor did it include nausea, pain, and a fever on Wednesday night.

I really don't understand people with medical training, exposed to Ebola, within the incubation period, not treating anything that feels like the flu as Ebola - and keeping themselves at home (or going to the ER under controlled circumstances).

So far, we're 1 for 3.

Of course, someone will be along shortly to tell us that he was doing as he was told, and that there his actions posed absolutely no risk to anyone, and we should stop spreading panic.

Aside from anything else, the monitoring costs of the 160+ people in Ohio, and now probably an equivalent number in NY,C, alone ought to be reason even for those who believe that risk magically appear at some magic temperature or symptom (rather than being on a sliding scale from pretty low to pretty high) to support doing whatever it takes to share a little common sense with certain medical personnel who seem to have lost theirs, of late.

[pnwmom]

19. Those costs should be a reason,

but they won't be. We'll still be getting plenty of posts, I'm sure, from people who want to convince us that influenza is the bigger threat.

As to Dr. Spencer, I think the problem is that the same person who could bravely go to Africa to fight Ebola, convinced that he would be okay, was still in that mindset when he came home and started feeling under the weather . . . he was invincible.

Except he wasn't.

[onenote]

10. My understanding is that a number of staff who work with DWB have been infected

but that the number of infected doctors is minimal. Will look for a link.

[Ms. Toad]

12. Here's what I've seen

http://www.jems.com/article/news/16-members-doctors-without-borders-infec

It is not specific as to doctor/non-doctor status.

[Wella]

13. There's a great article in Time magazine about the 12 years of prep that Emory did

Most hospitals can't afford that kind of preparation for Ebola.

[LisaL]

14. This was under old CDC guidelines.

New CDC guidelines call for no exposed skin.