YES! We must prevent the spread of Ebola at all costs.
24%
NO! It will lead to nurses & doctors refusing to help.
76%
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Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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maybe. If we can get folks to relax and agree to whatever quarantine time is reallly necessary. Also, I think there is too much guessing going on. Work on it and adjust to free up the volunteers and protect them. The decision should not involve politicians.
No but they should follow some simple rules for 21 days. If you want to stay at home and ride your bike, no harm. Fear is such a cowards tool. The users are NOT the ones we want to "keep us safe" or make decissions.
There seems to be an assertion by some doctors and nurses that they, and they alone, are the only people qualified to make judgements about Ebola risk and infection, and that their conclusions and wishes should be followed by everyone in the United States.
They state that their conclusion is based on science, and that if they do not show a set of symptoms after contact with known Ebola patients, then they are not contagious, and that 21 days after contact, being symptom free, that there is no risk to anyone else.
Even if there had not been published research and CDC information that some infection is possible longer than 21 days,
http://www.kcdc-phrp.org/article/S2210-9099%2811%2900002-6/abstract?cc=y
that assertion and attitude is missing some important points. Time limits such as these are based on probability, not an absolute and unvarying number of 24 hour days.
1. RNA viruses have a high mutation/evolution rate, and facts about any particular Ebola strain causing outbreak or infection could change from month to month, even if the facts are solid, and the best-informed doctors or researchers may be simply be wrong at some point, but they won’t know it until there is new data to investigate.
2. Some doctors and nurses seem to believe that because they have better/more information about Ebola, instead of being expert advisors about the likely level of risk for any situation, they should be able to unilaterally determine other people’s unwitting exposure level. In my opinion, experts’ role in deadly situations is to provide information and expert advice - not to then cause any level of additional risk to other people based on their expert conclusions.
3. Many doctors and nurses, as documented in medical literature, refused to change their behavior in hospital situations for years, although their practices of wearing certain clothing, and neckties, and refusing to clean their hands with disinfectant between patients was known to spread disease to the great disadvantage and death of some patients.
http://www.anapsid.org/handwash1.html
Clearly, there is more than “scientific fact” influencing the behavior of doctors and other healthcare workers. If doctors and other healthcare workers are allowed not only to advise on risk and policy, but to set policy by themselves individually exposing people, and allowing or encouraging exposed people to be around other people who have not been warned of a potential (even though low) risk, they are taking over a role that should be allocated to elected leaders and to each person who is being forced to either take such a risk or live in isolation themselves. The behavior of individuals like the person with drug-resistant TB who flew on international flights, a 2014 doctor in NYC with Ebola, or documented instances of HIV-infected males who knowingly exposed other people, indicates why laws on public health and quarantine have been passed and may be needed in some cases to avert many infections or deaths.