While that’s a concern, and like MEBuckner, I’m within a few short miles of Emory & the CDC, the transport is not going to be that long. I do not expect these patients to land at Hartsfield-Jackson and have to wind their way through the city, but at Peachtree-Dekalb, which is within, maybe 2 miles of the facility, so a much shorter transfer.
I’m not going to say that it doesn’t freak out my lizard brain a bit, but that is in strong conflict with the logical part of my brain, which knows that things will likely be fine.
They won’t even land there. They are transferring to a helicopter and being flown to Emory. There will be no land transport.
ETA: technically, that’s landing. But no land transport. I think the transfer will happen on Cartersville, which is where the transport plane originated.
What do you think is going to happen in transit? Ebola is spread by bodily fluids. When was the last time you exchanged bodily fluids with someone passing by in a car?
Is this directed at me? I’m not saying this because I’m worried about ground transport. I’m saying it because it’s what will actually happen. The SOP for this system is air transport to the Emory helipad.
I agree that Ebola is easily contained in a modern hospital with sufficient PPE. This isn’t presenting a risk to the general population, but part of the reason for that is the extreme level of precaution taken at every step. They’ve been training for just this event for years.
The total risk can’t possibly be zero. People are fallible, machines break, protocols get skipped, unforeseeable external factors come into play. Anyone saying the risk is zero is automatically wrong.
However, the risk here must have been assessed as acceptably low. It sure doesn’t look that way from my armchair, but I don’t have access to all the facts, or in some parts, the skills to properly evaluate them.
If ebola is too hard to contain here in the US under such controlled conditions after something possibly goes wrong the that means sooner or later its gonna get here anyway.
I am pretty sure the CDC already has samples of all the known Ebola strains as well as several other really deadly diseases, so the idea that Ebola wasn’t already here is misplaced. Given scientists routing deal with samples of things like small pox and virulent strains of the flu, I think we can be reasonable certain they will not be able to maintain safety protocols.
I agree that transporting them may introduce small, unnecessary risks, but it may also provide greater insight as to how to treat Ebola in a first world country with modern medical practices. Ultimately, you often need to take such risks in order to advance the science. The added benefit is that these American citizens can at least be given the best chance to survive.
First of all Marburg is actually less hazardous than ebola. Marburg typically kills around 30-40% of those infected, Ebola kills 50-90%. Zaire ebolavirus is the most lethal of the human-infecting ebola varieties.
Second, Marburg is not an “ebola virus”. Marburg and ebola are both members of the family filoviridae. The five varieties in the ebola genus are Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Reston ebolavirus (named for the Reston, Virginia outbreak and apparently does not cause illness humans, only certain species of monkeys, thank Og), Sudan ebolavirus, Tai forest ebolavirus, and Zaire ebolavirus. The Marburg virus is a separate genus with the filovirus family, and the species is Marburg marburgvirus.
Depends on how you define “happy ending”. A disease such as this might well cause permanent organ damage. I certainly hope these people have a full recovery but they may have long-term problems from this disease.
Not to mention that they are likely going to be pin-cushions for the CDC for the rest of their lives, however long or short it may be.
The cynic in me sees this playing out similar to the scene in Aliens when the Corporation Bad Guy is explaining to Ripley that the easiest and best way to study the organism is to bring back someone infected with it.
I picked Yes based on the following criteria -reproduction number Ro and Case Fatality Rates.
Here’s a number of diseases with their Ro and CFR values - I simply multiplied the Ro and CFR numbers to get a feel for a danger level of the disease. I’ll admit right now that the metric may be useless but I’m not pretending to be a immunologist.
So using the Ro * CFR values in descending order, Smallpox is the most dangerous followed by HIV then Ebola and Polio.
So while it’s dangerous we’ve dealt with nastier things before and those tended to be kicked off in the wild and not in the form of a planned evacuation/treatment plan.
I accidentally clicked “No”. I meant “Yes”. The risk of the virus spreading in the United States due to these patients is negligible. Here’s a word from the scientist who helped to discover the virus:
“Hi! I have Ebola, but there’s nothing to worry about.” was recently voted the #2 thing bus passengers didn’t want to hear, edged out only by “Hmm, I’m stumped. What do you think, blue wire or red wire?”
Considering how close Patrick Sawyer got to coming home through regular channels carrying the virus, I don’t have too much worry about these two highly-contained patients. It seems inevitable that someone will get to these shores with the virus. Unless we refuse all passengers who have been to Africa in the last month, it will eventually come. Protocols need to be in place for that eventuality.
