Why isn't state revealing identities, locations of people monitored for Ebola in Pa?

[Ms. Toad]

28. Two of the health care workers failed to do it properly.

Both of them experienced fatigue for 3 days prior to running a fever. Both should have self-quarantined at that point - as being diagnosed with Ebola 3 days later confirms. Neither did. Nurse Vinson's errors were even more severe - she boarded a plane with a fever. 13% of people with Ebola do not run a fever, so the magic cut-off point of 100.4 is not a good predictor of when someone is contagious.

Although peer reviewed studies are clear that patients are contagious when they have fevers, diarrhea, and are vomiting. They are far less absolute about the risks of transmission in the early stages of Ebola or transmission via contact with items touched by people with Ebola than people on DU or popular media. They speak in terms of low risk, not zero risk. Ebola has been found on surfaces which are not visibly contaminated with fluids - and the study confirming that suggested that in places other than isolation wards (where the research was conducted) it was likely that more virus would be found. Not much research has been done yet, but there are also a few more than a dozen people who have contracted Ebola without any identifiable contacts with someone with Ebola - suggesting that at least in a small number of cases someone like Vinson or Spencer, without obvious signs of Ebola, passed it on to them.

When my brother was little, he repeatedly stuck a rock in his ear for the fun of it. It always came out, so he kept doing it. Until one time it didn't. The fact that no one has gotten Ebola in the US until now, or that none of the health care workers or returning travelers resulted in ANY infections is not convincing, especially since we now have 4 cases. One from a traveler to this country, one from a returning health care worker, and two infections passed on from the traveler to this country (your assertions to the contrary notwithstanding). As the number of people with Ebola in Africa continues to increase, the odds that we will see more and more cases like the 4 in the last month - up from zero prior to that. Unless we get better at implementing the precautions necessary, we will see an increasing number of except, except, except cases - until people wake up and realize that we are not invincible.

Demanding that anyone with known contact with an Ebola patient treat even vague symptoms as if it was Ebola is the surest way to continue to beat the odds, and 2 of the 3 health care workers failed to do so. That needs to change.