It’s always fascinating — and disconcerting — to watch prominent people take actions and/or support positions that you just know will fall on the wrong side of history.
So, on Election Day 2014, allow me to add to this ignoble list all of our nation’s state-level elected officials — especially those in New York, New Jersey and Maine! — who have unilaterally enacted measures to quarantine returning American healthcare workers who have treated Ebola patients in West Africa.
Rather than laud as heroes the physicians and nurses who volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, the public authorities who implement this kind of heavy-handed treatment — most prominently on display last week when symptom-free Maine nurse Kaci Hickox was isolated in a spartan hospital tent in New Jersey for four days — turn selfless, courageous humanitarians into temporary pariahs.
What’s more, their justification for mandatory quarantine of fever-free, asymptomatic, Ebola-exposed nurses and doctors — “to safeguard the public’s health” — accomplishes two things: increasing public fears; and demonstration of their (perhaps willful) ignorance about the disease.
Years from now, when we recall the U.S. Ebola “panic” of 2014, the cynical, over-reactive policy-making of, among others, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maine Gov. Paul LePage will not be looked upon favorably.
However, on the off chance that these, and other, elected officials are merely misguided, let’s review why such measures are unnecessary.
Highly infectious — but not highly contagious
The most important thing to understand about Ebola is the difference between the terms “highly infectious” and “highly contagious.”
The disease is highly infectious in that exposure to a microscopic amount can result in contraction.
But it’s not highly contagious because the virus can be transmitted only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected, symptomatic patient.
That’s why Ebola-exposed healthcare workers are considered at risk — but you and I, and the rest of the general public who may have inadvertent “casual” contact with an Ebola-exposed person, are not.
Or at least shouldn’t be.
Want more reassurance of how unlikely it is to contract Ebola?
Consider that Thomas Eric Duncan — the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola — lived for several weeks with his Dallas relatives before his Oct. 8 death.
Yet none contracted the virus.
And, while subsequent media coverage (rightly) focused on the two Dallas nurses — Nina Pham and Amber Vinson — who tested positive for Ebola after treating Duncan (both have since recovered), one vital fact was lost: More than 70 Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital doctors and nurses caring for Duncan were exposed to — but didn’t contract — the virus during the late Liberian’s 11-day hospitalization.
But, employing the logic of Govs. Christie, Cuomo and LePage, all 70-plus THPH doctors and nurses should have submitted to 21 days of self-quarantine — rather than simply monitoring their temperatures and acting at the first warning signs (fever and flu-like symptoms).
Maintaining perspective
The latest Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone speaks far more to that region’s lack of medical infrastructure, technology and expertise than it does to any significant threat the disease poses to the U.S.
Of course, that’s what makes the work Doctors Without Borders does so vital — and why we should not only be lauding Americans who volunteer, but also refrain from imposing overarching restrictions on them upon their return.
These folks have seen firsthand the ravages of Ebola — which is why I’d like to think we can trust people like Maine nurse Hickox to act responsibly at the first hint of their own symptoms.
So, on Election Day 2014, allow me to add to this ignoble list all of our nation’s state-level elected officials — especially those in New York, New Jersey and Maine! — who have unilaterally enacted measures to quarantine returning American healthcare workers who have treated Ebola patients in West Africa.
Rather than laud as heroes the physicians and nurses who volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, the public authorities who implement this kind of heavy-handed treatment — most prominently on display last week when symptom-free Maine nurse Kaci Hickox was isolated in a spartan hospital tent in New Jersey for four days — turn selfless, courageous humanitarians into temporary pariahs.
What’s more, their justification for mandatory quarantine of fever-free, asymptomatic, Ebola-exposed nurses and doctors — “to safeguard the public’s health” — accomplishes two things: increasing public fears; and demonstration of their (perhaps willful) ignorance about the disease.
Years from now, when we recall the U.S. Ebola “panic” of 2014, the cynical, over-reactive policy-making of, among others, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maine Gov. Paul LePage will not be looked upon favorably.
However, on the off chance that these, and other, elected officials are merely misguided, let’s review why such measures are unnecessary.
Highly infectious — but not highly contagious
The most important thing to understand about Ebola is the difference between the terms “highly infectious” and “highly contagious.”
The disease is highly infectious in that exposure to a microscopic amount can result in contraction.
But it’s not highly contagious because the virus can be transmitted only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected, symptomatic patient.
That’s why Ebola-exposed healthcare workers are considered at risk — but you and I, and the rest of the general public who may have inadvertent “casual” contact with an Ebola-exposed person, are not.
Or at least shouldn’t be.
Want more reassurance of how unlikely it is to contract Ebola?
Consider that Thomas Eric Duncan — the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola — lived for several weeks with his Dallas relatives before his Oct. 8 death.
Yet none contracted the virus.
And, while subsequent media coverage (rightly) focused on the two Dallas nurses — Nina Pham and Amber Vinson — who tested positive for Ebola after treating Duncan (both have since recovered), one vital fact was lost: More than 70 Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital doctors and nurses caring for Duncan were exposed to — but didn’t contract — the virus during the late Liberian’s 11-day hospitalization.
But, employing the logic of Govs. Christie, Cuomo and LePage, all 70-plus THPH doctors and nurses should have submitted to 21 days of self-quarantine — rather than simply monitoring their temperatures and acting at the first warning signs (fever and flu-like symptoms).
Maintaining perspective
The latest Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone speaks far more to that region’s lack of medical infrastructure, technology and expertise than it does to any significant threat the disease poses to the U.S.
Of course, that’s what makes the work Doctors Without Borders does so vital — and why we should not only be lauding Americans who volunteer, but also refrain from imposing overarching restrictions on them upon their return.
These folks have seen firsthand the ravages of Ebola — which is why I’d like to think we can trust people like Maine nurse Hickox to act responsibly at the first hint of their own symptoms.
via Smart Health Shop Forum http://ift.tt/1x6Wran
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