Survey Update......Survey is now closed. Please go to Survey Results to see the response from the allnurses community.
Once again, it is a nurse who has taken the Ebola media spotlight this week. Kaci Hickox, a nurse who cared for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone found herself quarantined against her will in New Jersey upon her return to the US, in spite of the fact that she tested negative for the virus. After a 3 day isolation in less than desirable accommodations, she was transported home where she was supposed to remain under home quarantine but is now declaring that the quarantine is unnecessary and counterproductive, and is openly defying the order by going out in public.
Additional breaches in voluntary quarantine from those returning from Ebola-plagued Africa occurred when NBC medical correspondent, Dr. Nancy Snyderman in New Jersey and Dr. Craig Spencer in New York left their homes and ventured out into public spaces.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called for voluntary home quarantine for workers with the highest risk for Ebola infection. It also specified that most medical personnel returning from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea would not need to be kept in isolation.
In spite of this, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, mandated a 21-day mandatory quarantine policy for all healthcare workers exposed to Ebola. Although this move has received much criticism, it did get the support of Dr. Bruce Beutler, an American doctor and researcher and Nobel Prize winner for Medicine and Physiology for his work researching the the body’s overall immune system. He is currently the Director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Center in Dallas. He favors Christie’s quarantine policy “because it’s not entirely clear that they can’t transmit the disease,” referring to asymptomatic healthcare workers like Kaci Hickox.
New York and Illinois have also have followed suit and mandated mandatory 21-day home quarantine policies. Although there is plenty of scientific evidence indicating there’s very little chance that a random person will contract Ebola unless they touch bodily fluids of an infected person, the thought is that the authorities need to do something to calm Americans’ fears. As Mike Osterholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, says, "You want to try to eliminate not just real risk, but perceived risk."
There are thoughts on both sides of this issue which has led to heated discussions at times. There are concerns about the potential impact with both pathways of re-entry requirements for Ebola healthcare workers. What are your thoughts about this? Please take our survey to share your opinions. Let your voice be heard.
There is some reputable research that supports the possibility that the virus can be spread during the incubation period. My personal belief is that quarantine is necessary.
Cite a source that demonstrates any significant risk of viral transmission during incubation (prior to onset of symptoms).
I think Kaci is looking for her 15 minutes of fame. As nurses, we have to follow protocol! As an employer of other healthcare professionals and as a Risk Manager, I would NOT hire this nurse. Obviously, if she doesn't agree with protocol, specifically an Infection Control Protocol, she is not going to follow it, thus posing a risk for patients, peers and visitors to any healthcare institution. Until the CDC figures out this disease process with complete accuracy, what is 21 days to possibly protect the health of an entire community or at the least, to ease the mind of your community?
There is some reputable research that supports the possibility that the virus can be spread during the incubation period. My personal belief is that quarantine is necessary.
Then please post the research so we can all see it, and have fun debating it.
This still doesn't change the fact the we are quarantining people coming back from Africa and not all ebola healthcare providers.
I think Kaci is looking for her 15 minutes of fame. As nurses, we have to follow protocol! As an employer of other healthcare professionals and as a Risk Manager, I would NOT hire this nurse. Obviously, if she doesn't agree with protocol, specifically an Infection Control Protocol, she is not going to follow it, thus posing a risk for patients, peers and visitors to any healthcare institution. Until the CDC figures out this disease process with complete accuracy, what is 21 days to possibly protect the health of an entire community or at the least, to ease the mind of your community?
Yes, so many ebola volunteers are publicity seekers... She did follow protocol. The protocols set up by medical evidence not politicians.
What exactly doesn't the CDC know about ebola that you think is pertinent. I hear this over and over that we don't know everything, but what exactly do you think is missing? Mode of transmission is known, accurate method of testing is known and utilized, incubation periods of ebola is known, so what exactly at the clinical level do we need to know about ebola.
People can vilify Kaci all the want, but it still doesn't change the fact if you are saying she needs to quarantined for the safety of the public then all ebola healthcare workers should be given the exact same treatment no matter if that was in the U.S. or Africa.
I'm a huge supporter of Kaci, but I do believe she is having a negative impact on public perception of nurses. I think the media needs to do a better job of explaining her rationale.
The way the question was asked implies that I (or you or any of us) actually knows how the public's perception of nurses is affected by her words (not, I hasten to add, the B.S. from Faux News and their ilk). Of course, unless you are actually polling the public on this, you have no way of knowing that either.
I would love to see, when this is all over, the huge recognition of her nursing service come out-- she is doing what we are all tasked c doing, public health education. She has two masters degrees, one in nursing and one in (I think) epidemiology, and a diploma from the internationally-famous London School for Tropical Diseases. She knows what she's talking about. She is calmly, classily spreading scientific facts about this disease in the face of unreasonable media-driven antiscience hysteria. As all nurses should do. She makes me proud.
See the thread on AIDS in the 80s if you want to get a real deja vu moment.
And remember: More people have been married to Kim Kardashian than have contracted Ebola in the US.
That's just it. At this time she isn't a danger but who's to say down the road she doesn't start having symptoms. Then the authorities will have to track down all the people she came into contact. Seems to me that a 21 day self quarantine is not much to ask in the big picture. She's an arrogant and self entitled woman.
No, actually not. Because even if she got symptoms on Day 21, the only people they would have to "track down" would be the ones who had close physical contact with her ON DAY 21. Because she's not contagious unless she has symptoms.
My answer to you is the same as my answer to Bostonfnp above.
Those research studies were already commented on. The conditions that you produce in a lab often do not correlate to real world situations.
The commentary that all these asymptomatic ebola caretakers should be quarantined is nonsense.
We have an average 3k-49K people die from influenza or influenza related infections every year in the United States, but people all over the U.S. complain about mandatory flu shots for healthcare workers. Then we get one patient that comes to U.S. with ebola who does not transmit the disease to anyone outside of healthcare workers directly taking care or him who those nurses in turn transmit it to no one else and the whole entire country freaks out.
By the rationale that ebola is deadly we should quarantine everyone. Then why not line up the whole U.S. population for mandatory flu vaccines and quarantine all those with the flu since it is 3K-49K times more deadly to the U.S. population than ebola.
She is being selfish and self righteous! Let's not forget that upon her second assessment at the airport she had a temp of 101F.
Discredited misinformation. She had a skin temp of 102 when she was flushed and angry. it magically went away when she calmed down and she has never been febrile since. Also misinformation: Her roommate in Ebola-land (reported to have Ebola) does not have Ebola either.
Clearly, you are so potentially infectious you shouldn't even be posting here. You never know...those bugs could be transmitted via the internet. It's not that much of a stretch...computers can get viruses, right?
OMG. Spraying my monitor with Lysol right now. I mean, I use earphones for my music...
BostonFNP, APRN
2 Articles; 5,584 Posts
Cite a source that demonstrates any significant risk of viral transmission during incubation (prior to onset of symptoms).
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