KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A patient with a high fever and other serious symptoms contacted and then entered The University of Kansas Hospital on Monday morning.
The hospital says that the patient recently worked on a medical boat off the west coast of Africa and has a low-to-moderate risk of Ebola.
According to a news release, the patient is being kept in strict isolation and tests are being done to determine a diagnosis. Dr. Lee Norman, chief medical officer of the hospital, says that there are many other diseases that fit the patient’s symptoms, but the hospital is following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control to determine whether the patient has Ebola or not. (more…)

UPDATE: On the nightly broadcast of NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams read the following statement from Dr. Snyderman:

“While under voluntary quarantine guidelines, which called for our team to avoid public contact for 21 days, members of our group violated those guidelines and understand that our quarantine is now mandatory until 21 days have passed. We remain healthy and our temperatures are normal.
“As a health professional I know that we have no symptoms and pose no risk to the public, but I am deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused. We are thrilled that Ashoka is getting better and our thoughts continue to be with the thousands affected by Ebola whose stories we all went to cover.”  (Video HERE)

I doubt there’s a more apropos example of pontificating elitism on display.  Only this one comes with the potential for severe consequences.

An NBC news cameraman was diagnosed with Ebola during a trip to West Africa as part of team NBC’s coverage of the crisis.
As a result, and out of an abundance of caution, the entire production crew and staff agreed to self-isolate, quarantine, for a period of 21 days – until they could be cleared and no longer considered a risk of carrying the deadly disease.
Apparently NBC’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, didn’t like the plan. She took her potentially infected self to a restaurant in New Jersey. Exhibiting a level of selfishness, consistently seen within the professional elitist class of rabid liberals, Dr Snyderman violated the quarantine and exposed hundreds of people to the risk of infection. (more…)

The aspect of interest is her being exceptionally well trained (TCU) and having a full four years experience prior to the encounter with patient ZERO.

DALLAS — A Dallas nurse diagnosed with the Ebola virus over the weekend is a former Texas Christian University student identified by a family member as 26-year-old Nina Pham.
The family reached out to News 8 Monday morning and shared an image of the nurse who grew up in Fort Worth.

A health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, Pham became infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who died from the virus days before the nurse’s diagnosis.
Pham graduated from TCU’s nursing program in 2010 and is the first person to contract the disease while in the Unites States. (more…)

Australia’s Prime Minister has refused to commit personnel to battle ebola directly inside Africa, although the country has committed $18 million in financial resources to assist West Africa contain the outbreak.
The Australian news agency reports that “growth is out of control” and cases in Liberia are doubling every 15 – 20 days.
It is important to be aware that these models are based on known or reported cases – however, all medical personnel have affirmed that no one truly knows the number of actual cases, because many rural areas are refusing to cooperate with investigators.

Dark blue shows the number of actual cases while light blue is projections for the next four weeks.

IT’S the deadliest Ebola outbreak the world has seen — claiming more than 4033 lives and infecting double that as it rampages around the world. (link)
(more…)

https://twitter.com/DRUDGE_REPORT/status/521462911001055233
We can’t begin to say how infuriating this is. Friday the first U.S. troops arrived in Monrovia to begin setting up aid for Liberian healthcare workers within the Ebola “Hot Zone”. Today those same healthcare workers go on strike.

“Beginning tomorrow we will be on a nationwide strike in every hospital and every health centre including ETUs (Ebola Treatment Units),” said Joseph Tamba, chairman of the health workers’ union.

There is NO DOUBT they have taken the opportunity of our U.S. arrival to remove themselves from the risk inherent in the care of Ebola patients. This will put additional pressure on our military to fill the caregiver void.
Insufferable !

It has been a challenging pill to swallow to see 4,000 of our servicemen and women dispatched into a dangerous region on a humanitarian effort when little to no support is coming from Western “allies”. Add to that the pure selfishness of the Liberian opportunists which further endangers our troops, and the entire situation is beyond insufferable. (more…)

(Reuters) – At Fort Campbell in Kentucky, spouses of U.S. soldiers headed to Liberia seem to be lingering just a bit longer than usual after pre-deployment briefings, hungry for information about Ebola.
For these families, the virus is raising a different kind of anxiety than the one they have weathered during 13 years of ground war in Afghanistan and Iraq. They want to know how the military can keep soldiers safe from the epidemic, a new addition to the Army’s long list of threats.

“Ebola is a different problem set that the division hasn’t (faced) before,” said Major General Gary Volesky, who will soon head to Liberia along with soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division. (more…)

Update 3:45pm:  “Ebola Nurse has a pet”:
(CBS) […]  Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings reiterated this information, saying that the citizens of the city are safe. “We have a plan in place to send hazmat units into the patient’s apartment,” he said, noting that the individual’s car has already been decontaminated. There is also a pet at the home that needs to be removed.

The patient lives in the 5700 block of Marquita Avenue in Dallas. Rawlings has been walking around the neighborhood on Sunday morning to help ease fears and answer the questions of concerned residents.
Dallas officials knocked on doors, made automated phone calls and passed out fliers to notify people within a four-block radius of the health care worker’s apartment complex about the situation, though they said there was no reason for neighbors to be concerned.
Dallas police officers stood guard outside the complex Sunday and told people not to go inside. One said an industrial barrel outside contained hazardous waste taken from inside the building. Nearby residents periodically came out of their homes to ask about the commotion.  (link – CBS)
(more…)

(CNN) — [Breaking news update, posted at 11:32 a.m. ET]

“The (Ebola treatment) protocols work. … But we know that even a single lapse or breach can result in infection,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said Sunday.

According to CNN, the health care worker is a female nurse:(CNN) — [Breaking news update, posted at 10:32 a.m. ET]
(more…)

The True Story Of Enterovirus D68 is Not A Story of Surprise

Back in July of 2014 we outlined how the “surprise influx” of Unaccompanied Alien Children from Central America was not in actuality “a surprise”.  We knew it was not a surprise because the Obama Administration was specifically pre-planning for an influx a full seven months before the story began to reach the headlines:

On January 29th of this year, the federal government posted an advertisement seeking bids for a vendor contract to handle “Unaccompanied Alien Children“.
Not just any contract mind you, but a very specific contract – for a very specific number of unaccompanied minors: 65,000.

Obviously the key take-away was:  How could DHS and HHS claim a surprise when they were specifically looking for contractors to handle a very specific number of UAC’s seven month earlier?

Immediately we knew a few things.  First, we knew it wasn’t a surprise.  Second, we know this administration never lets a crisis go to waste.   The UAC crisis was soon framed as a ‘humanitarian crisis’ to position a more favorable outcome for comprehensive immigration reform.  It almost worked.
Almost. (more…)

Enterovirus D68, or EV-D68, is what should be called “The UAC Virus”.

The timing, specific strain and outbreak pockets coincide with the introduction of virus carrying Central American Immigrant children.

It might sound alarming to think that EV-D68 was introduced by President Obama and his policies for the distribution of virus carrying Central American UAC’s, Unaccompanied Alien Children, but research reflects the accuracy of such a hypothesis.
Actually, documentation to support that hypothesis is growing, not shrinking.  Our ongoing research on virus distribution follows these two articles on the latest victims.
DETROIT – A 21-month-old girl is the first person in Michigan to die from the virus that has caused severe respiratory illness across the country, state health officials said Saturday.
Madeline Reid died Friday afternoon from enterovirus D68, according to Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit. Its chief medical officer, Dr. Rudolph Valentini, said in a statement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the illness after the Clinton Township girl’s arrival, but did not specify which day she arrived. (link)
ALABAMA – Five-year-old Kinley Galbreath, from Hamilton [Alabama], has spent the past three weeks in intensive care at Children’s of Alabama, where she remains on a ventilator paralyzed from her arms to her legs
Speaking exclusively to ABC 3340, the mother said: ‘As she was getting ready to doze off, she said ‘mommy, my hands are going numb’ and by that point she started to lose movement in her neck.
‘On the third day is when she lost movement from her legs down,’ Ms Nichols added. ‘The only thing she’s had control of has been her toes. And that’s what she wiggles to let me know something’s wrong. And she’ll blink her eyes for yes, and won’t blink her eyes for no.’ (link)
(more…)