Hellobee Boards

Oh no...

@loveisstrange: I think the standard procedure is to check for a fever. This person didn't have a fever when they came to the US, so he slipped by. Still, yeah, no method is entirely foolproof.

Pretty terrifying. And yes, I wish they would restrict non-essential travel.

@IRunForFun: yeah restriction of most travel there would be ideal. I actually have close friend who have been missionaries in Liberia for the past 30 years and they were helping with the Ebola crisis before coming here for their daughters wedding and now they can't go back. I don't know if it was personal decision to stay for now or if they were told they couldn't go back yet.

So scary

Scary!

@tororojo: Hey, I'm local too! People on my Facebook are FREAKING out. I am not really too panicked, but who knows how many more cases might show up.

Scary!

@Boopers: Oh cool, it's always fun to find local bees! I haven't encountered all that much paranoia on facebook, hopefully this is truly an isolated case and doesn't turn into anything bigger. I'm due in 5 weeks and can't help thinking how freaky it would be to deliver in the midst of an ebola crisis...Presby isn't my hospital but it's pretty central to all of Dallas ya know?

It's not airborne, though, so someone sneezing across the room from you wouldn't give it to you. Someone would have to sneeze literally on you and from what I read it sounds like you'd need them to sneeze on a break in your skin. Also people must already be exhibiting symptoms to transmit it. I thought this was helpful: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/30/health/how-ebola-spreads/index.html

@Mrs. Blue: I think it's normal to be nervous, that was my first reaction as well. But one quote I read from a doctor that helped me put it in perspective was, "We all worry about the serial killer coming and killing us, but in actuality the real risks in our lives are the trampolines in our backyards, swimming, sports, driving a car drunk." Basically Ebola is a very scary unknown, but rationally, the likelihood it'll become an issue for me personally is way lower than the danger from things in my daily life that I don't even think about, if that makes sense.

@FliegepilzHut: Definitely, if it did start spreading similarly to how it has in Africa I would be a LOT more freaked out! At this point it seems like medical experts don't expect that to happen so that is comforting to me and hopefully they're right.

@Mrs. Blue: Technically there could be virus in saliva but as someone else pointed out, it isn't airborne like the flu. Someone would have to sneeze directly into a break in your skin. And sneezing and coughing aren't symptoms associated with Ebola because the infection in a sick person's body isn't respiratory.

Honestly, as someone who works in an immunology research lab and reads non-fiction virology and public health books for fun, I am not at all concerned about Ebola. The media has been doing a lot of unnecessary fear-mongering.

ETA: and my lab looks out at the hospital in Atlanta where the first 2 patients were brought. So it isn't like the virus hasn't been in semi-close proximity to me (as compared to the vast majority of the country).

@bluestriped bee: I totally agree that he should not have lied and put others at risk. It was a selfish thing to do. But at the same time, I feel like this raises some important issues. He contracted it while helping a pregnant woman with Ebola. That woman died a couple hours later. Others who helped her contracted the disease as well, and a few of them have also died. So it just makes me think how desperate this man must have been -- he knew the woman he helped had died, along with thousands of others. He knew it was likely that he would soon develop symptoms, as others who helped her did. He probably had seen that several Americans have been flown back here and survived. While I don't think what he did was right, I can sympathize. It's hard to see us airlifting our own citizens out of there and seeing them get well, while thousands of Africans are suffering and dying without wishing and wondering whether we could do more.

@mrbee: hmm, I can believe he thought it was pregnancy related when he helped her, but given that all the other helpers got sick and/or died after, I feel like he just have known it was something more when he got on the plane. Although I don't know how far along the others were in their sickness at that time. Plus, like you said, he didn't lie about having been in Liberia at the hospital, which he easily could have. The hospital really dropped the ball at that point.

I think the paranoia about Ebola spreading in the US is kind of extreme. If Nigeria, a country with not the best healthcare system was able to successfully contain and prevent the spread of Ebola then the US surely can too.

Uh oh, Texas patient has died! http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/08/health/ebola-us/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

I thought being treated in this country would help him live. Though there are probably many reasons why he couldn't be saved, if he had a weaken immune system, if he was too severe, if he didn't respond to meds, if he developed other complications and probably other reasons.

Sad that he died. Guess this is the reality that Ebola can kill even in a developed country like ours. Then again something like the common flu can be deadly, too.

@bluestriped bee: Just saw that - that's scary! I wonder if the fact he got sent home originally is part of the reason he died? Maybe if he was treated for it immediately upon his first trip to the ER, he might've lived? So scary to know Ebola's killed someone here.