(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…)

 …F.D.R. in Hell (@FDRinHell)

Gov. Dannel Malloy has signed an executive order effectively enabling the indefinite suspension of civil rights in the state of Connecticut.  He’s given his Commissioner of the Department of public Health the ability to quarantine, or otherwise detain, any person or group suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus. 

Note…all this has been done “preemptively”, because no specific case has yet to be identified.

Checks  = None

Balances = None

All done for your own good… without due process…. on behalf of the State.

(more…)

Does anyone else notice how China and Russia appear completely ambivalent to the “crisis” and potential threat that is Ebola ?

(Sharyl Attkisson) Public health and policy officials believe a big part of their job is preventing panic: Panic breeds behavior that can spread infectious disease. So when some of these health professionals begin speaking in alarming terms, there is reason to stand up and take note.

“We have to work now so this is not the world’s next AIDS,” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden today at a Washington D.C. meeting of officials from the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
“Failures in leadership have allowed a preventable disease to spin out of control,” write Lawrence Gostin and Eric Friedman in the current issue of the medical journal Lancet. Gostin, a Georgetown Law professor, is Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights. Friedman is Project Leader for the Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health. (more…)

Please join us in prayer…

Father, we could never thank our military men and women enough for their courageous service and sacrifice to our country and its people.  Admitting our selfish flaws, today we lift up our voices to express gratefulness and honor to these military troops both from the past and present. Show us ways in our communities, churches, and families to thank and love them better.

Keep and protect these heroes and their families; keep our servicemen and women physically safe and in good health;  guard them from evil, be a Shield around them, and reflect grace upon them as the apple of Your eye.

Father, we are aware moms and dads, wives, husbands and their children are worried as their loved ones are re-deploying into a zone of terror and disease as a consequence of their commitment to duty. God of all comfort, please comfort their hearts, our hearts. Wrap Your infinite love around us like a warm quilt, and reinforce us to know that all can come to Your throne of grace any time, day or night, to pray for our soldier, Your soldier.

Father, please send Your angels around every one of our servicemen and women, and protect them with Your guiding hand upon them; Your strength within them; Your shield afore them; and Your love around them.

In Christ’s name, Amen

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Six U.S. military planes arrived in the Ebola hot zone Thursday with more Marines, as West Africa’s leaders pleaded for the world’s help in dealing with a crisis that one called “a tragedy unforeseen in modern times.” (more…)

EV-D68 More Dangerous Than Ebola

PHILADELPHIA – Infectious diseases caregivers and public health professionals are gathered in Philadelphia through the weekend for the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), more commonly known as IDWeek 2014. (You can also follow attendees in real-time on Twitter at the hashtag, #IDweek.)
The Society organized the press conference because of the very timely news about Ebola here, Europe, and West Africa, as well as children with respiratory disease caused by enterovirus D68.
The vast majority of today’s panel discussion focused on enterovirus D68, or EV-D68 for short, a virus that’s causing particularly severe respiratory illness in children nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported yesterday that EV-D68 infections have been confirmed in 45 states. Five children with the virus have died thus far and some children, especially in the Denver area, are experiencing muscle paralysis.
[…] The virus was first discovered in 1962 but not seen again in the U.S. for 36 years. Over 100 types of enterovirus are known, but they are distinct from polioviruses, stressed Aaron M. Milstone, MD, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
In the current outbreak, Jackson said that EV-D68 is primarily affecting children. No cases have been identified in adults, suggesting that some previous exposure to EV-D68 conferred immunity to the currently-circulating virus. (more…)

2-J’s is trying to refill his invisible credibility container; he stumbled in Ferguson and embarrassed himself as the rioting youths laughed in his face while his figments emptied on the sidewalk.   He left Ferguson last month with an empty tin cup, because nobody gave him any money.   He’s getting desperate, and so today Jackson writes:
TEXAS (Huffington Post)  […] there are also questions of giving the drug only to those whose cases will bring media attention — like the two white missionaries. Use in such high-profile cases could increase the number of investors and the amount of government money for further research into the drug cocktail.

The use of ZMapp raises the question of privilege. Is it only those with better connections to positions of power who will get a fighting chance to receive this experimental drug?
When Thomas Eric Duncan first became sick and went to the hospital, he was treated with antibiotics and sent home. (more…)