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Archive for 2014
October 3, 2014
EBOLA TRANSMISSION: What Does “Direct Contact” Mean?
Ebola is not spread by water or directly by food, nor is it transmitted by air like respiratory illnesses such as measles and chickenpox. Coughing and sneezing aren’t common symptoms of Ebola, but if a symptomatic patient coughs or sneezes, and the saliva or mucous comes in contact with another person’s eyes, nose or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease.
Medical workers pictured in hoods and respirators are wearing those items for precautionary purposes and not out of necessity, Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, chief of communicable disease epidemiology & immunization of public health in Seattle and King County, Wash., told FoxNews.com. Face masks are part of infectious disease control protocols, to avoid splashes and droplets, but masks that filter air are necessary for airborne illnesses, which Ebola is not.
When someone recovers from Ebola, they can no longer spread that specific species of the virus, according to the CDC. People who recover from Ebola develop antibodies that last for at least 10 years, research shows.
Nonetheless, Ebola has been found in semen for up to three months after the person recovers. The CDC advises that those who become infected abstain from sex or use condoms for three months after they recover.
Ebola can live outside of the body — on surfaces like countertops or doorknobs, for example — for several hours. In bodily fluids like blood, on the other hand, the virus can survive outside of the body for several days at room temperature.
So “direct contact” can mean direct contact with something that an Ebola patient had direct contact with a few days ago.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: In-N-Out Doesn’t Want to Be McDonald’s.
MOCKING THE JIHADIS: New Iraqi Comedy Show Lampoons Islamic Extremists.
IT’S COME TO THIS: British Media Tries To Get Help For Quarantined Ebola Family. “Later Friday afternoon, the UK Daily Mail reported the woman, Youngor Jallah, and her family are starting to show signs of illness but have not received instructions from the CDC on what to do. The family was waiting to hear back from the CDC from a phone call for help placed Thursday. . . . The family is living in filth and darkness as the CDC has not given them instructions on how to safely dispose of waste including soiled diapers. Their apartment lost power and phone service in a storm Thursday night. The family said no one from CDC had come to check on them after having checked on them in previous days.”
UPDATE: A followup: Hazmat crews clean up, quarantined quartet move out due to Ebola case.
A Dallas apartment where the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States had stayed is finally getting a thorough cleaning, days after the diagnosis left four people quarantined there with soiled towels and sweat-stained sheets from the Ebola patient.
After some delays, the first of three phases in cleaning the apartment began Friday afternoon. By around 5:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m. ET), the effort was continuing but at least the sheets and towels had been moved out. Crews also worked to remove three mattresses, each of which the Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan slept on, city of Dallas spokeswoman Sana Syed said.
And so, too, had the four people — the partner of the Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, her 13-year-old son and her two 20-something nephews.
They had been ordered to stay inside the apartment until October 19. By that point, enough time should have passed to determine if any of them contracted Ebola or if they’re in the clear.
Judge Clay Jenkins, director of the county’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Friday that Duncan’s partner slept last night on a couch pillow on the living room floor. But now she and the others have a new place to call home in the meantime: a private 4-bedroom residence in Dallas, which was arranged with the help of someone in the local faith-based community.
So it’s not just in Africa that it’s mostly “faith-based” people doing the actual work of Ebola relief. It’s in America, too.
Plus: U.S. Health Official On Ebola Response: “It Was Rocky.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Unlike Virginia, North Carolina Does Not Hire Its Own Law Grads, Resulting in Rankings Decline.
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: The Case For Panic: Incompetent government + corrupt elite = disaster. “Not only do I disagree with the constant stream of soothing and complacent rhetoric from Dr. Zeke’s friends in government and media. I also believe it is entirely rational to fear the possibility of a major Ebola outbreak, of a threat to the president and his family, of jihadists crossing the border, of a large-scale European or Asian war, of nuclear proliferation, of terrorists detonating a weapon of mass destruction. These dangers are real, and pressing, and though the probability of their occurrence is not high, it is amplified by the staggering incompetence and failure and misplaced priorities of the U.S. government. It is not Ebola I am afraid of. It is our government’s ability to deal with Ebola.”
HAVE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS BECOME CESSPITS OF FEMALE-ON-MALE RAPE CULTURE? Stamford Principal Charged With Failing To Report Teacher’s Sexual Relationship With Student.
The principal and assistant principal of Stamford High School were charged Thursday with failing to report an inappropriate relationship between an English teacher and an 18-year-old student, police said.
Donna Valentine, the 62-year-old school principal, and Roth Nordin, the 59-year-old assistant principal, were charged with failure to report. Police said an investigation revealed that the allegations of the sexual relation between the teacher and student were made known to the school’s administration by several sources as early as December of last year – months before the alleged relationship came to an end.
Danielle Watkins, 32, of Norwalk, had a sexual relationship with a student from September until June, according to police.
Women covering up for women in an old-girl culture that clearly exists because of the one-sided gender tilt in public schools. So now we not only need to teach women not to rape, we need to teach them not to cover up for other women who do. Maybe it’s time for an “It’s On Us” campaign aimed at teachers?
LUXO-TRAVEL: What It’s like to Fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class; The world’s best airline experience, from Singapore to New York. Hmm. I might enjoy booking one of those with the Insta-Wife, but otherwise I don’t think it would be worth it.
PROBABLY A FALSE ALARM, AS MOST OF THESE REPORTS WILL BE: Ebola: Two People In Kentucky May Also Have Contracted The Deadly Virus. “Two patients have been hospitalized with Ebola-like symptoms, according to Fayette County Health Department officials. The locals doctors have quarantined the possible Kentucky Ebola patients as a precaution, noting the potential public threat caused by the release of Texas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan.”
Related: Time to lock it down? Ebola fears spur calls for travel bans.
Also: Ebola Fears in U.S. Boost Sales of Emergency Supplies.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: San Diego District Attorney Issues Warning About Dangerous Spyware She Purchased & Distributed; But Still Stands By It.
Related: Cops Are Handing Out Spyware to Parents—With Zero Oversight.
AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Health Care.
Also in Vitamins & Dietary Supplements.
#1 ON THE AMAZON “MOVERS AND SHAKERS” LIST: 3M 1860 Health Care N95 Particulate Respirator, up 4,004%.
I THOUGHT THIS ARTICLE WAS GOING TO BE ABOUT TULLAMORE DEW: A Closer Look At The Perfect Fluid.
SOME GOOD NEWS ON PNEUMONIA. Being asplenic, I just got a prescription for the new vaccine. Other good news: Combination of low-carb diet and Rippetoe workouts has dropped my cholesterol 25 points.
ALSO, INCOMPETENCE: Battle against Ebola hampered by gaps in data, hidden cases.
Plus: Defeating Ebloa screening with ibuprofen. “People who contract Ebola in West Africa can get through airport screenings and onto a plane with a lie and a lot of ibuprofen, according to healthcare experts who believe more must be done to identify infected travelers.”
Related: Quickie How-to-Prepare-for-Ebola book now #70 on Amazon. Amazon doesn’t tell me who buys what, but it does tell me what people buy, and I notice that InstaPundit readers are buying a lot of disaster-prep supplies this week: Gloves, N95 respirators, food, etc. This is consistent with my own disaster-prep plan, which is to make sure that any post-Armageddon world is disproportionately populated by well-armed and well-equipped InstaPundit readers . . .
UPDATE: From the comments: “Hey Rick Perry. How about organizing a clean, safe place for people who need to be quarantined to be quarantined. And getting everyone there who needs to be there, that is everyone who has been exposed.”
Plus: “The 3m N95 Mask now has a sales rank of #3 on all of Amazon.”
WELL, YES: America’s Air Traffic Control System Is Alarmingly Vulnerable. “Nearly a week has passed since a pre-dawn act of arson took out a busy air traffic control facility outside Chicago, and the nation’s air transportation network still hasn’t completely recovered. That’s sparking some serious questions within the aviation industry—and in Congress—about whether the Federal Aviation Administration has truly modernized and secured air traffic control, seeing that this one incident caused so much havoc.” Privatize. It worked for Canada.
JOURNALISM: Washington Post hires Chris Mooney, author of ‘The Republican War on Science,’ to cover global warming.
Which reminds me of my old “Chris Mooney, Call Your Office” series.
LEON PANETTA AND RYAN CROCKER shoot down the phony Obama/Clinton Iraq narrative.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Lifting Weights Can Improve Memory. “A new Georgia Institute of Technology study shows that an intense workout of as little as 20 minutes can enhance episodic memory, also known as long-term memory for previous events, by about 10 percent in healthy young adults. The Georgia Tech research isn’t the first to find that exercise can improve memory. But the study, which was just published in the journal Acta Psychologica, took a few new approaches. While many existing studies have demonstrated that months of aerobic exercises such as running can improve memory, the current study had participants lift weights just once two days before testing them. The Georgia Tech researchers also had participants study events just before the exercise rather than after workout. They did this because of extensive animal research suggesting that the period after learning (or consolidation) is when the arousal or stress caused by exercise is most likely to benefit memory.”
HMM: Possible D.C. Ebola Patient Isolated in ‘An Abundance of Caution.’ Good chance it’s a false alarm, and a certainty that we’ll see more false alarms as people with flu think they have Ebola.
Related: Richard Fernandez: Ebola And The Trouble With Armor.