"If you catch the flu, your chances for survival (barring any other complications like weak immune system) is 99%"
If you have Ebola in the US, right now your survival rate is about 90%. If you aren't named Duncan, your rate is 100%.
If Duncan caught the flu, chances are his family would have been infected. He had Ebola, and none of them were.
" administration abysmal response to Ebola" is in the eye of the beholder. I think they've done rather well, both here and abroad, but I never had any expectations that not even one little bug would make it here. There are places like NYC who used CDC guidelines to prepare a response for when it happened, and there are places like Dallas that didn't. Prolly shudda responded sooner in Africa.
Drills gave NYC jump-start on Ebola
Here’s a look at differences between the two cases.
New York health officials are known for holdings drills on handling emergencies, and Ebola is no exception. Bellevue, the country’s oldest public hospital, had been preparing in earnest for an Ebola patient since August.
The patient registration staff and triage nurses were trained to ask people with certain symptoms about international travel. Actors posed as patients to be sure that anyone who answered “ yes” was immediately put into one of the ER’s nine isolation rooms. Along the way came some false alarms, sick patients who turned out not to have Ebola.
Beyond hospitals, the city’s fire department trained an ambulance crew to transport suspected Ebola patients, and 911 dispatchers now ask people calling for an ambulance if they’ve traveled to western Africa recently.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has apologized for initially misdiagnosing Duncan.
dispatch.com |
