Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 302 posts

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#11

Post by sjm-lbm »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #5
ProAm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says they placed them in quarantine based on their symptoms and recent travel history.

Yes, but was this person intercepted at a point of entry into the United States, or did they go to a healthcare facility voluntarily once they started noticing symptoms, after they were already in the country? The former implies that there may be sufficient mechanisms in place to prevent a repeat incident. The latter does not.

FWIW, though DFW is a very big airport, there are no direct flights from Africa that land there. If they ended up in Dallas, they at least stopped somewhere outside Africa before they got there.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#12

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

idlewords wrote: post #9
comrh wrote: post #4

Am I correct in assuming that cultural differences concerning death and the dead along with our healthcare system mean Ebola in America would be relatively containable?

It depends in part on how willing you are to assume that the transmission mechanism won't evolve.

I vaguely remember reading recently that that had actually never happened to any virus that wasn't airborne transmitted to begin with.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#13

Post by Someone1234 »

idlewords wrote: post #9
comrh wrote: post #4

Am I correct in assuming that cultural differences concerning death and the dead along with our healthcare system mean Ebola in America would be relatively containable?

It depends in part on how willing you are to assume that the transmission mechanism won't evolve.

Or phasing that another way: It depends how willing you are to ignore the facts and invent unsupported "worst case scenario" scenarios.

There is no factual reason why we should expect the transmission mechanism to suddenly evolve before our eyes. That's raw fear mongering. While Ebola is more deadly than Bird Flu, that kind of wild unsupported speculation is why so many people thought Bird Flu was far more dangerous than it actually was.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#14

Post by ceejayoz »

georgemcbay wrote: post #10
comrh wrote: post #4

Am I correct in assuming that cultural differences concerning death and the dead along with our healthcare system mean Ebola in America would be relatively containable?

Yes. Theoretically this is correct. However (though I don't think this will be an issue for Ebola) before we get on any high cultural horse, let us stop to consider how many modern Americans have been perfectly willing to allow serious diseases like whooping cough to make a strong comeback because some Playboy model made lots of public claims which are demonstrably false.

Part of the problem there is the perception that those diseases aren't serious (and in cases like chicken pox, this can even be somewhat true). No such perception exists with Ebola, I'd say.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#15

Post by endersshadow »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #5
ProAm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says they placed them in quarantine based on their symptoms and recent travel history.

Yes, but was this person intercepted at a point of entry into the United States, or did they go to a healthcare facility voluntarily once they started noticing symptoms, after they were already in the country? The former implies that there may be sufficient mechanisms in place to prevent a repeat incident. The latter does not.

From the article:

"The patient developed symptoms days after returning to Texas from West Africa and was admitted into isolation on Sunday at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas."

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#17

Post by rogerbinns »

georgemcbay wrote: post #10
comrh wrote: post #4

Am I correct in assuming that cultural differences concerning death and the dead along with our healthcare system mean Ebola in America would be relatively containable?

Yes. Theoretically this is correct. However (though I don't think this will be an issue for Ebola) before we get on any high cultural horse, let us stop to consider how many modern Americans have been perfectly willing to allow serious diseases like whooping cough to make a strong comeback because some Playboy model made lots of public claims which are demonstrably false.

It is worse than that - even if her idiotic claims were true it would still be better to vaccinate. Penn & Teller ably explain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#20

Post by res0nat0r »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #5
ProAm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says they placed them in quarantine based on their symptoms and recent travel history.

Yes, but was this person intercepted at a point of entry into the United States, or did they go to a healthcare facility voluntarily once they started noticing symptoms, after they were already in the country? The former implies that there may be sufficient mechanisms in place to prevent a repeat incident. The latter does not.

The person left Liberia on 19 Sept and arrived here on 20 and had no symptoms when entering the country. On the 24th he developed symptoms, on the 26th he sought care and the 28th was admitted to the hospital.

This is from the CDC briefing happening now.

Post reply on HN