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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.
How do we expect people to learn if they talk stuff out without being told off for being a knob
I think, if you claim to be healthcare professional you should have a basic understanding of physiology/immunology. Also, that you should actually utilize the internet to look up stuff before posting outrageous questions/claims on an internet forum. Someone took the time to post something that has no basis in physiology, but they couldn't take time to look up basic information, which would have probably taken less time than it did to post the original comment.
Apparently you've missed the mixed messages coming from the administration. An asymptomatic nurse flew from Dallas to Ohio. The CDC felt they needed to identify and check on everyone who was on that plane. No fever, not infectious right? There is no reason to worry about those sitting next to her much less someone 30 rows back.
The CDC uses full suits when dealing with Ebola in a test tube in a lab or when they transport or treat patients. However, they decided it was fine for staff at the Texas hospital to just wear standard contact/droplet protection. Great experiment that resulted in transmission to two care givers.
Now they've updated their recommendations to include no exposed skin. Test tubes don't sneeze, vomit or develop diarrhea. I'm glad we can now use the best protection when caring for patients that sometimes have those issues.
The President has said there is no scientific reason to quarantine the nurse in Maine. She cared for Ebola patients but she wore PPE and followed protocols. However, US troops who have had zero contact with Ebola victims are being quarantined. I would love to hear the science behind that.
The people that work in level 4 containment labs work with all sorts of highly concentrated pathogens utilizing a variety of instruments (needles and glass etc) that could easily break and transmit the pathogens. Those suits in level 4 containment aren't designed just for ebola they are designed to prevent exposure of any pathogen no matter what the mode of transmission is.
The conditions in those labs is completely different than working in a hospital where the pathogen is likely not to be as concentrated and they are dealing with only a single pathogen.
The CDC is a government organization and is under a lot of political pressure to do whatever it can to ease the fears of the public and to keep their bosses in the senate and congress, who ultimately determine their annual budget, happy. The CDC has a set of protocols and special training to utilize all their protective suits that has been in place for years.
The military troops are also being quarantined to ease public and other countries (the first troops were quarantined in Italy) fears of ebola spreading. This is all based on politics, since we have had military scientists going to these areas for years to study ebola.
Her arrogance is stunning. Quarantine should be mandatory.
That makes absolutely no sense. 1. She is asymptomatic. 2. She is unable to transmit ebola unless she is symptomatic. 3. Even if she were to develop a fever that doesn't mean she can automatically transmit ebola right then. Her viral count would still be very low, if she has been checking her temperature everyday. 4. She is no more dangerous to the public than every other healthcare worker that has worked with the ebola patients in the U.S.
We are stigmatizing people returning from Africa based on politics, and not common sense or scientific evidence.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
But in the eyes of the irrationally fearful she is flaunting her FREEDOM of movement and that scares them even more. They want her to shut up and stay indoors, because somehow she is "selfish" (thank Sean Hannity for that brilliant assessment).
Personally find it selfish for folks to require her unnecessary confinement because THEY are afraid and ignorant.
So, now that she has been granted her freedom, should she still stay indoors, shut away from the outside world, just because people are still afraid? Tell the truth: Would you confine yourself even though you didn't have to, just because of the ignorance of others? If yes, for how long? A month? Two months? What if people are still afraid of you? Six months of confinement? At what point do you tell people to just buck up and get on with their lives?
I would really love to know how many people who have this irrational fear of Kaci are the same people who say, "Bah! I'm not getting a flu shot! I never get sick, and besides, it's my right to refuse!"
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
OK, let's dissect my post. My initial post: "What happens if she goes to a crowded movie theater, feeling great, on day 19. A lot can happen in 2 hours. What if she leaves that theater with a high fever, feeling like crap? What if she feels so bad that she vomits in the lobby on the way out? This is not an impossible scenario, is it?"
Definition of a "declarative statement": A sentence in the form of a statement (in contrast to a command, a question, or an exclamation). I believe the above, which I posted, was in the form of a question, based upon the question mark at the end? (See, I did it again.)
This quote of mine, "However, you just don't know when, or if, those symptoms will arrive. To me, being extra cautious for 21 days isn't such a big deal, in the scope of things." Now this, indeed, is a declarative statement. But, it is just my opinion, and I would not jam it down anyone's throat, or get silly-nasty about it.
Oh, boy.
OK, one more time, for emphasis: You do not go from being asymptomatic to spewing vomit and shooting diarrhea out your tookus. Ebola doesn't work like that. If this is what you believe, then no amount of reasoning with you is worthwhile.
People believed the Earth was flat for generations. Science proved that belief was untrue, and now we know better. (Although there are still a few Flat Earthers out there.)
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
THIS!!
Notice this is a nurse. Not a doctor (or man!). There is a dr in my area who made news because he's going right back to work after being in Sierra Leone. Why isn't the media following him around and demanding his quarantine? If I hear one more person say, "If she'd only just do it...." Ugh
Yeah. Sit down, shut up, and just be a big girl.
The Maine Medical Assn. is behind her. How sad that the Maine Nursing Assn. isn't supporting her as well. (Apologies in advance if they have.)
What everybody seems to be missing is she wasn't quarantined originally because she had been to Africa. She was quarantined because she registered a fever at the airport.
What everybody seems to be missing is she wasn't quarantined originally because she had been to Africa. She was quarantined because she registered a fever at the airport.
Ms. Hickox disputed that she had had a fever. She wrote that at the airport, a forehead scanner showed her temperature to be 101, but that came after four hours during which she had not been allowed to leave.
“My cheeks were flushed, I was upset at being held with no explanation,” she wrote. “The female officer looked smug. ‘You have a fever now,’ she said.”
She was eventually escorted by eight police cars to University Hospital in Newark and taken to a tent outside the building. An oral thermometer showed her temperature to be 98, she wrote.
She added that the doctor felt her neck and rechecked the temperature. “ ‘There’s no way you have a fever,’ he said. ‘Your face is just flushed.’ ”
She appeared to have an elevated temperature once, with one of those ridiculously unreliable surface scanners, and had a normal temp when checked with a real thermometer. If she had continued to show any actual symptoms, NJ wouldn't have released her to return home. She continues to remain symptom-free, which means she is not infectious, and there is no reason for her to restrict her movements or contacts.
Look at her resume' and experience. She is much more knowledgeable about Ebola, specifically, and epidemiology, in general, than any of the yahoo bureaucrats and political posturers insisting she be quarantined. Do you really believe that, if she were showing any symptoms, she would voluntarily put others at risk? Why?? Are people here really that cynical about a fellow nurse??
What everybody seems to be missing is she wasn't quarantined originally because she had been to Africa. She was quarantined because she registered a fever at the airport.
Did she have a fever when checked accurately? And has she had a fever since?
Tenebrae, BSN, RN
2,021 Posts
Yea but how much of it would we be aware of, if she didnt have a bunch of leeches (aka media) hanging on her every move