Americans - Happy in Our Ignorance

h/t Jean

Mr. Obama directed his aides to monitor the spread of Ebola in the United States “in a much more aggressive way,” but said Americans should remain confident of the government’s ability to prevent a widespread outbreak. He promised that a review of the Ebola cases in Dallas would discover what allowed the two hospital workers to be infected, but he said that he himself had come into close contact with the nurses who treated Ebola patients at the Emory University hospital, and that he had felt safe doing so.

  NYT

And that is supposed to make people feel safe? Really. He’s expected to be safe. He’s superman. The rest of us are mortals. Or did he just think we would be worried about him?

Now, let me clarify:  Emory University Hospital is not in Dallas.  Emory University Hospital is in Atlanta - the hospital fully prepared and trained to treat Ebola patients.  He also doesn't tell us what protective gear he might have had on.  [Where are the pictures?]  I'm sure he didn't touch them or anything they touched.  "Close contact" in the case of EBV as defined by the CDC can be within three feet of the patient.

But this article makes it seem like he might have been in close contact with the nurses from Dallas who actually contracted Ebola.  No, my dears.  Only the nurses at Emory who treat Ebola patients.

"I want to use myself as an example just so people have a sense of the science here. I shook hands with, hugged, and kissed, not the doctors, but a couple of the nurses at Emory because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients," Obama said. "They followed the protocols, they knew what they were doing, and I felt perfectly safe doing so.

  Bretibart

Oh, you’re so brave, dear leader.

Readers, if you are in another hospital like the one in Dallas where there is no protocol for dealing with EBV, and there has been a known incidence of EBV in said hospital, please do not try this yourself. Your risk is greater than Mr. Superman’s was at Emory. No doubt the nurses at Emory who are trained and prepared are also regularly monitored for presence of the virus.

“I want people to understand that the dangers of you contracting Ebola, the dangers of a serious outbreak, are extraordinarily low, but we are taking this very seriously at the highest levels of government,” Mr. Obama said.

  NYT

Gotta love the conflicting messages. It would be better if he just said, “Let us do the worrying for you.”

Still, there was widespread unease.

Imagine that.

The Frontier jet that carried Ms. Vinson on Monday made five flights the next day, according to Flightaware.com. Frontier, which is based in Denver, said it grounded the plane as soon as it was notified, about 1 a.m. Wednesday, about the Ebola patient.

Let’s see…how many passengers were there in five more flights?

Sweat is a body fluid. We already know the virus appears on skin at a certain point after infection, and it can live on skin – even dry skin and surfaces – for “several hours.” Did Vinson have any virus on her skin? Who sat next to her? Do airliners disinfect arm rests, belt buckles, table tops, etc. after each flight? I think we know the answer to that last question at least.

Ms. Vinson was ill but stable as she was transferred Wednesday to Emory, one of four hospitals in the United States that have special containment units for isolating patients with dangerous infectious diseases.

Four. Only four. How soon can those units fill up?

Aside from the CDC who told Ms. Vinson, who knew she had been exposed to Ebola – in fact, “had extensive contact with Mr. Duncan” and “interacted with him while he was producing a large amount of fluids from vomiting and diarrhea” - to go ahead and fly commercial because she had not yet reached a temperature of 100.4, Ms. Vinson herself is a ninny. She is not competent to hold a nursing license. What was she thinking?

Tara Mosley-Samples, a longtime friend of Ms. Vinson’s mother and a city councilwoman in Akron, Ohio, said Ms. Vinson studied nursing at Kent State and moved to Texas about a year ago. “They’re just good people,” Ms. Mosley-Samples said. “Her daughter, Amber, is the sweetest little girl in the world.”

Awww. That’s great.

[Vinson] had recently become engaged. She flew home to plan for her wedding with her mother, said Toinette Parrilla, director of the Cleveland Department of Public Health. “They were doing their bridal shopping and going to the bridal stores,” she said.

Heads up bridal shops! Perhaps a list of the stores they were in would be a public service to Cleveland.

P.S.  According to a video embedded in that Breitbart article, nother patient from West Africa is being flown in to Emory tomorrow morning.  Apparently another US medical worker.