To be honest, I haven't read any of this thread. But after reading in the paper the other day that approx. 13,000 West Africans currently have Visas if they want to come to the USA, I am very concerned. WE aren't locking our country down. If you were a person from West Africa, possibly exposed to someone who has Ebola, or even possibly may have it, what better place to come than the USA where you can get much better health care if needed free of charge. Now you always have to take even the things you read in the paper with a grain of salt, but even considering that, it is enough to concern me.

I agree with you. He was put in place for his organizational/coordination and communication skills so that the experts can be brought together effectively. Doctors are not necessarily known for their communication skills.

Airborne Ebola
 

I was wondering how comments were being made on this thread that Ebola could be transmitted via air. Every expert to this point has said that is NOT airborne. Tonight I found out how this happened.... it seems George Will on Fox News is the person spreading this misinformation...

University of Minnesota officials are knocking down a tweet claiming its researchers say Ebola is airborne.

University spokeswoman Caroline Marin told the Star Tribune in Minneapolis that the university never made such a claim.

In fact, the tweet refers to a commentary posted a month ago on a university website that was written by Chicago-based researchers who were debating Ebola's "potential to be transmitted" to health workers by aerosolized virus particles, and thus what protective gear they should wear.

World health authorities have been clear that Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, and that blood, vomit and feces carry the most virus. Health workers are at particular risk because in the course of caring for patients, they draw blood and clean up diarrhea when the patients are most infectious. Likewise in the epidemic zone in West Africa, people involved with burials of highly infectious bodies are at high risk.

What if a sick person's wet sneeze hits your hand and then you absentmindedly rub your eyes? Asked about such scenarios recently, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, allowed that, theoretically, "it would not be impossible" to catch the virus that way. But it's considered highly unlikely. No such case has been documented.

"Should you be worried you might have gotten it by sitting next to someone?" he said Wednesday. "The answer to that is no."

Frieden said "what actually happens in the real world" — and he cited four decades of dealing with Ebola in Africa — is that the disease is spread through much more direct contact with a sick person.

The World Health Organization says the same thing and notes that few studies have found Ebola in an infected person's saliva, generally in patients who were severely ill

Hopefully this information will begin to calm the fears.

The only problem is who the heck believes anything Frieden says at this point? His plan changes daily which indicates he doesn't really have a clue or he would have had it right from the beginning.

Cologal, You have been a long time poster on this forum, and so I hope you won't be annoyed if I ask you if you have a medical background. Your very confident answers make me think so.

I almost always agree with anything you say, C. And you well may be right on this one. I think the frustration for ME comes from a number of things here. I had no clue we didn't have a surgeon general and I had no clue who the old one was and really thought she was underqualified when I read her Curriculum Vitae.. Do you remember that guy from a previous administration with the beard telling us to stop smoking? I remember him, and I seem to remember that he was a very respected person in the medical community.

I know this. That some people do not know body parts even. They cannot tell their posterior from an excavation.

But...whoever is in charge is moving toooooooo slowly for me.

I was a Medical Technologist in Hospital Labs for 40 years, so yes I do. In addition my family includes, 2 nurses, 1 pharmacist and 4 doctors currently. I forgot 1 make that 5 doctors.

Thanks for asking

Just read this...and this is sort of how I am thinking.

Ebola scare: We need a surgeon general (opinion) - CNN.com

If you don't believe him then find 1 case of Ebola which was transmitted through the air.

Would you rather the CDC keep using a protocol that puts medical personnel in danger or change the protocol to reduce risk?

Here is what I want. Too much, too early,but the too early part is slipping away.

Here is the dilemma for me. At the critical time, WHEN a person begins shedding viruses, when he becomes contagious, when he may put his hand to his mouth and carry the saliva to a towel dispenser or a theatre seat, I want to have SOMEONE who completely understands when that happens and how that happens and protects all of us from it.

I know I am not the only mom who TRIED to keep one kid from infecting another. For me, I had one kid who was born with congenital heart malformations and when she was little the risk factor for surgery had not dropped to a level to be safe yet. We had to keep her alive until it did. When she got a cold, it became pneumonia and she was hospitalized and terrified, because that was BEFORE parents were allowed to stay with their hospitalized kids 24/7.

SO I used all of my intelligence in keeping Helene safe from her sister, Typhoid Mary, and it didn't work.

So I am have panic programmed into me about this whole issue, and I don't want a lawyer telling me how to feel.

You are too funny! You should have been a journalist.

And I really, deep down inside, agree with you too. I'm very torn on this. But my poly-sci major husband informs me on such issues, and while he thinks it certainly would be better for this "Czar" to have a medical background, his communication and organizational skills are what's needed the most.

Does he have such skills? I don't know. But I do know from volunteer experience with SCORE and my SIL's job as private personal accountant that doctors have some of the worst management skills in terms of their personal lives and finances and are not necessarily qualified to be administrators.

One West African country is now free of Ebola. It's been 42 days. I am hopeful we can help wipe this out at the source. I prefer to look forward and not backward and keep my posterior off of a plane till it's over.:wave:

Is Ebola Airborne? Aerial Transmission Of The Virus Cannot Be

Monkey transmission in research 25 yrs ago...
Pigs, bats transmit.
And our baby soldiers in the guard are out there without hazmats.
Outrageous.

That is the very nature of an airborne disease Gracie. But from all that I have read any patients with active Ebola are very very sick not likely to be out and about. Just think about Duncan's family who were with them him once he was rejected by the hospital, none of them came down with Ebola and cleared the 21 day waiting period. Now I hear that some are calling for doubling the waiting period to 42 days.

Wasn't referring to transmission through air - am much more concerned about how he is making it up as he goes along. And I would rather he had enough sense to advise medical personnel before they were even exposed to an Ebola patient to suit up as he did when he visited Africa. One minute he says the initial protection was enough and then he says maybe not. Glad he came to that conclusion, but believe in his position he should have had foresight not hindsight.

Differing reasons to choose surgeons general.
 

I just wish they were the cream of the crop MEDICALLY, and not picked to make a political statement.

C. Everett Koop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/about/...obenjamin.html