Flashback: CDC Identifies Ten Individuals as Being At "High Risk" of Infection from Thomas Eric Duncan; Those Individual Were Told Not to Travel Outside of Dallas

Despite this nurse obviously being a "High Risk" case -- I assume she was, anyway; if she was not on the High Risk list, that opens up a huge Pandora's box of questions -- she was not, apparently, restrained from flying (despite being within the 21 days when ebola is present but not symptomatic), nor were any special precautions before boarding (taking her temperature), nor did the CDC tell Frontier Air to decontaminate its planes.

But hey man -- she was being "closely monitored" out of "an abundance of caution."

Silly me, I thought the High Risk Cases would be confined to their apartments during their 21 days of possible asymptomatic infection.

Not the full 100 who were allegedly monitored -- but at least the 10 cases identified as being "High Risk."

As the CDC continues to track down the people who had contact with Thomas Duncan, America's first diagnosed case of Ebola, the health agency has identified 10 people as "high risk."

The CDC has made contact with about 100 people that had possible contact with Duncan, and has now whittled down the list of people it needs to monitor daily to 50. Of those, 10 individuals who had the closest contact with Duncan have been classified as "high risk."

The CDC says none of the people under observation is sick at this time. But the agency will continue to monitor all 50 of them for the full 21-day incubation period of the virus. Daily monitoring includes a temperature reading twice a day. A public health worker will also offer education about the virus and ask about symptoms.
“We have cast a wide net, and we have decided on a group of people that we have a very low bar for deciding to follow,” said Dr. Beth Bell from the CDC, during the agency’s daily conference call about the Ebola situation in Dallas. She says the agency has a very "low level of concern about the vast majority of these people."
On the list are people within the community and health care workers who came into contact with Duncan or any of his bodily fluids.

While no one is currently showing any symptoms of the disease, Bell cautioned the close monitoring is important because, "there certainly is a possibility that some of the people who have already been in very close contact with the patient might develop Ebola."

Texas Commissioner of Health, Dr. David Lakey, would not release a specific numeric breakdown of the individuals, other than saying three of the 50 individuals are EMT workers. Some of the individuals are those who didn’t have face to face contact with Duncan, but handled his blood for lab work at the hospital. The others are people who had contact with Duncan in the community.

And look at this:

The health care workers classified as "high risk" have been furloughed from work with pay. They are not allowed to travel outside the city, and will be visited once a day by a health care official. Those who are not high risk have no travel restrictions and must check in once a day by phone.

On October 12th -- before this nurse made her return voyage via airplane from Cleveland to Fort Worth -- Fox News reported she'd had the ebola-like symptom of a "low-grade fever."

The CDC did not stop her from traveling. The CDC, as far as we know, did not apparently advise the airline to check her temperature before flying, because if she had, how the hell would she have been allowed on the plane?

She was a high-risk case now showing ebola symptoms getting on a plane full of 132 people.

Oh, and you'll be happy to know that plane then flew around without being thoroughly cleaned and without being decontaminated a whole bunch more trips.

The CDC

Reassuring you to death.

posted by Ace at 02:01 PM

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