CDC Chief: Oops...do over..enhanced airport screening announced October 8 - Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More American

[franzpick]

Those CDC officials who ignore history, to wit, the 1918 "Spanish" (Ft. Riley KS) Flu", that killed over 50 MIL people worldwide, are bound to repeat it:

"Worst affected was Western Samoa, a territory then under New Zealand military administration. A crippling 90% of the population was infected; 30% of adult men, 22% of adult women and 10% of children died.

By contrast, the flu was kept away from American Samoa when Governor John Martin Poyer imposed a blockade.[59 - WIKIPEDIA

Come in CDC. Do you copy?

 

[GardenSpider]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

I was listening to NPR and this was being discussed. The reasoning behind allowing flights to continue is: If people in a nation are isolated, cut off and not allowed to leave, they will scatter in greater numbers and take the virus with them, potentially opening up new chains of infection. Ebola has and will continue to leave west Africa, but at a much slower pace if the inhabitants have the perception they can leave whenever they want. Seems counter intuitive, but this is why the powers that be have decided it's best to leave the boarders open.

Also, it was mentioned the only method to control whether Ebola came into the USA would be to impose a mandatory 21 day quarantine on all travelers from affected regions. It was acknowledged this action is extremely unlikely and impractical since we have no mechanisms whatsoever to organize or enforce this sort of protocol.

 

[Emily]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Just a 7 day quarantine in Liberia would reduce the chances of cases getting to the US.

I think Lisa Monaco said at the press conference today they have stopped dozens of cases or potential cases already from leaving for the US from Liberia at that end with current screening. That is good, but just because the system worked from March until now, it does not mean we'll continue to see this level of success given that ebola is much more prevalent in West Africa now. The current entry of an infected person may not just be a rare outlier event.

 

[Dani]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Cross-posting from another thread:
From the Politico article, above http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/ebola-travel-bobby-jindal-comments-111592.html#ixzz3F6pfWWtl

White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Friday afternoon that the White House is not currently considering a travel ban, according to a pool report. The spokesman praised the ?sophisticated multi-layer screening system? at airports in West Africa and said that on-board personnel have also been trained to identify potential symptoms.​

But then there's this, from a virologist based at Rocky Mountain Labs who just got back from Liberia:

I actually think passing through the airport on my way out was the highest risk. They are bringing hundreds of people into a very confined space with a lot of direct contact, so if you get a patient into that environment, you are going to have exposures. It is a ridiculous situation. Also, they are checking your temperature three times before you get into the airport, but if you look at the people that do this kind of work, they don't really know how to use the devices. They are writing down temperatures of 32?C, which everybody should know is impossible for a living person. All the checks they do are completely useless because they are done by people who are not well trained or overwhelmed by the number of passengers. It is just a disaster, and it needs to be fixed.​

http://news.sciencemag.org/africa/20...erias-hot-zone

I don't have any idea if a travel ban is even possible. It seems to me that the US would have to deny entry to anyone from the three highly affected countries, or allow entry with a 21 day quarantine as they did back in the day. But these two conflicting statements do not instill confidence that the government knows what's going on.

Hundreds of thousands of people from affected countries hold visas to the US. I do think that there will be many more cases of ill people leaving West Africa, perhaps unaware that they are infected, but perhaps they will leave deliberately, like Mr. Duncan. After all, we have a 100% survival rate at this point. Who wouldn't want to come? Is there a plan for that eventuality?

 

[GardenSpider]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Great points! The situation is simply exasperating! I wondered about whether or not people understood how to read temperatures after seeing several videos of how people are being monitored. I've been in those airports and it's always very crowded and chaotic. No doubt as mentioned, now also a place for possible exposure.

We've all read how anyone can tank up on fever reducers to get through any sort of screening. And agreed: Who wouldn't want to come to the US or Europe if they held a visa? No doubt untold numbers of people are planning their escape. They've seen friends and family die. Or like the Texas case, sought to leave days after having direct contact with an Ebola patient, but before he had any symptoms.

Will there be any way to prevent this from spreading across the world? Do we just have to live the notion that Ebola is out there now and will be endemic to West Africa into perpetuity? Gosh?

 

[GardenSpider]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

A Ban On Air Travel From Ebola-Stricken Countries Would Backfire, Experts Say
By Ismat Sarah Mangla

http://www.ibtimes.com/ban-air-travel-ebola-stricken-countries-would-backfire-experts-say-1699307

snip…
“The widespread opinion among public health officials is that cutting off flights is not a good idea at all,” said Dirk Brockmann, who studies epidemiological modeling of infectious diseases at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.

“If you start cutting off flights from these countries, people will just go somewhere else to find ways out, and the situation will become even more unpredictable. The only way this outbreak can be solved is for us to go there and help contain it. We need transportation to these countries," he said.

Because Ebola is not airborne and can be transmitted only by direct contact with body fluids of a person who is sick and exhibiting symptoms of the disease, most experts agree that the risk of transmission on airplanes is low.

Passengers departing from airports in West Africa must undergo several screening protocols, including testing them for signs of fever, an early indicator of the disease. In September, around a dozen people were prevented from boarding planes in West Africa because they had a fever, reports the CDC. Most of them did not have Ebola, but transit authorities have been trained to be extra cautious.

But Duncan was not exhibiting any signs of the disease when he left Liberia on Sept. 19, says the CDC. Mark Gendreau, an emergency physician who specializes in aviation medicine, said that Ebola is only contagious once a person is exhibiting active symptoms. Duncan could not have spread the disease to fellow passengers at that time. As such, the CDC was not tracking passengers who were on the same flights as Duncan. United Airlines, which carried Duncan on two legs of his flight, is voluntarily contacting fellow passengers anyway.

Most experts who create mathematical models to study the way diseases like Ebola travel around the world agree it was a matter of time before an asymptomatic passenger carrying the disease would board a flight and carry the virus to another part of the world.

“This is something we were expecting to occur. The fact that we have had one importation is not that surprising,” said Gerardo Chowell-Puente, associate professor of mathematical epidemiology at Arizona State University. “The odds for the U.S. were low, but higher for other countries closer to the affected ones.”

Allesandro Vespignani, a Northwestern University professor who runs a model projecting Ebola’s spread, told the Washington Post on Sept. 24 -- just one day before Duncan first sought treatment at a Dallas hospital -- that there was a 10 percent chance of the disease getting imported to the U.S. within the next week.

snip...

 

[FrenchieGirl]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Just a 7 day quarantine in Liberia would reduce the chances of cases getting to the US.

I think Lisa Monaco said at the press conference today they have stopped dozens of cases or potential cases already from leaving for the US from Liberia at that end with current screening. That is good, but just because the system worked from March until now, it does not mean we'll continue to see this level of success given that ebola is much more prevalent in West Africa now. The current entry of an infected person may not just be a rare outlier event.

So how do you set up such a quarantine in affected countries?

Do you build quarantine hotels near the airports? Detainment camps? Do you provide food and water? Medical service? Ebola testing? Waste disposal? Armed guards to prevent anyone from coming out or to stop anyone coming in from an affected area?

Or do you send them back home in a disease-infested area with a strong warning not to leave for 7 days, or 10 days or more? Do you set up guards around their house? Have a medical team ready in case of fever? Telephones to report their state of health? Food? Water? New latrines?

This is just not feasible in my opinion.

Besides, considering how lethal the Ebola risk, who wouldn't chance swallowing boxes of fever-reducing drugs and lying on forms, even at the risk of being prosecuted?

Only the very less knowledgeable would be caught with fever at the airport, and once caught will get information on how not to get caught again. People do learn all sorts of tricks, especially if they think their lives or that of their families is at risk.

Frankly, apart from the elite, any other person from such poor countries who has managed to put together enough money to pay for a plane ticket to a developed country is unlikely to be a complete moron.

Screening is probably useful to a small degree but not sufficient. Even a total ban per affected country of origin would not be enough.

Borders are very porous in Africa, administrative authorities are corruptible, common languages and ethnicity overlap various borders. Regional solidarity between individuals on each side of the border can be called in.

It's all well and good to call for morality, but if one or one's family life is at stake, a human being will use survival modes, regardless of morals. For a person concerned with his/her life, or that of his/her family's, and having managed to scrounge a little bit of money, it would simply entail a trip to an unaffected neighbouring country, getting new papers there and flying off to wherever it is deemed that life would be better protected.

 

[Dani]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

A Ban On Air Travel From Ebola-Stricken Countries Would Backfire, Experts Say
By Ismat Sarah Mangla

http://www.ibtimes.com/ban-air-travel-ebola-stricken-countries-would-backfire-experts-say-1699307

snip…
“The widespread opinion among public health officials is that cutting off flights is not a good idea at all,” said Dirk Brockmann, who studies epidemiological modeling of infectious diseases at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.

“If you start cutting off flights from these countries, people will just go somewhere else to find ways out, and the situation will become even more unpredictable. The only way this outbreak can be solved is for us to go there and help contain it. We need transportation to these countries," he said.

I think there is a big difference between commercial flights and cargo or military flights. We are talking about the former, and it's either duplicitous or (more likely) an absence of thought & planning on the issue that this is never mentioned. Aid to the countries will not stop just because commercial flights end.

Secondly, and this is where it gets ethically dicey, people expect the CDC, the State Department, the White House and DHS to act in the best interest of America and her citizens. I'm sure the citizens of other countries feel the same. The person quoted above is not seeing it from that perspective, they are seeing it from the perspective of a person involved in global health. The fact that it is fairly difficult to get into the US because of geography has been useful in the past and, even in this interconnected world, it may be so in the future. If the government is not seen as taking care of Americans first, every other federal effort (especially regarding immigration and health care, both of which aren't going so well and which are personified in the form of Mr. Duncan) will be met with suspicion. Lack of trust in government could have deep and long-lasting ill effects. Well, it already has- just reading through these forums shows what lack of trust there already is and I feel it's a pretty educated bunch on this site who kind of know the score.

The Saudis have no such worries about global health. They are refusing admission from West Africa so that the Hajj doesn't become a stalking ground for Ebola, and they are right to do so.

Finally, is it really possible to say we know anything about what mass numbers of people will go or what they will do, and how that will affect the spread of the disease? The WHO was caught completely off-guard as they either didn't foresee Ebola getting into cities or didn't have a plan when it did. The countries neighboring the stricken areas have already shut down their borders and already caused far more people to use creative routes of transportation than stopping flights out ever could. Stopping the few remaining flights might prevent global spread without doing more harm than what's already been done.

I shudder to think what would happen if the virus got to India. And the only way it's likely to get there is by air.

 

[franzpick]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Imagine the time a month or 2 from now when EVD confirmed cases are 12,000 to 16,000 worldwide (infection growth continuing at the current 150 new cases/day rate) and confirmed American cases go from the current 1 in Dallas to say 5 cases or maybe 10 cases as 500 to 1000 inadequately screened and EVD exposed Africans fly into domestic U.S. airports every day.

Business and politically-motivated anti-flight-ban declarations by Obama, CDC's Frieden and corporate-funded congress can quickly become perceived as mistakes that must be corrected in order to stop the growing daily EVD infection coming to America.

 

[Dani]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Imagine the time a month or 2 from now when EVD confirmed cases are 12,000 to 16,000 worldwide (infection growth continuing at the current 150 new cases/day rate) and confirmed American cases go from the current 1 in Dallas to say 5 cases or maybe 10 cases as 500 to 1000 inadequately screened and EVD exposed Africans fly into domestic U.S. airports every day.

Business and politically-motivated anti-flight-ban declarations by Obama, CDC's Frieden and corporate-funded congress can quickly become perceived as mistakes that must be corrected in order to stop the growing daily EVD infection coming to America.

I believe the passenger airlines will quit flying to Africa before then, in order to preserve air travel in the rest of the world, and their share price. Most of them already have. It's kind of sad to think that a certain kind of corporate self-interest will do what the governments will not do.

 

[Chicagogal]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

The Saudis have no such worries about global health. They are refusing admission from West Africa so that the Hajj doesn't become a stalking ground for Ebola, and they are right to do so.

Beyond ironic, given MERS-CoV.

Still think that one has more pandemic potential than Ebola.

 

[Dani]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Beyond ironic, given MERS-CoV.

Still think that one has more pandemic potential than Ebola.

Yes, but it's already there. They'd have to give up the Hajj entirely, and I don't see much chance of that.

 

[Dani]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

This is what I mean- the damage to travel & transport in West Africa has already been done. I'm not sure how much negative impact further bans would have, but they might keep the virus from spreading out of Africa. I hope someone is at least thinking about it.

https://www.internationalsos.com/ebola/index.cfm?content_id=435&language_id=ENG

 

[franzpick]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

If 3-African-country EVD infection growth continues to outpace healthcare capacity and treatment, "Ebola flight" such as Duncan's escape to Dallas will render passenger screening useless:

"The fever-screening instruments run low and aren't that accurate," he said. "And people can take ibuprofen to reduce their fever enough to pass screening, and why wouldn't they? If it will get them on a plane so they can come to the United States and get effective treatment after they're exposed to Ebola, wouldn't you do that to save your life?"
Travelers flying from Liberia also have to fill in a questionnaire at the airport, asking them whether they had contacts with those sick. A medical worker from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Tai Chen, described it in an interview with Reuters as ?process relying on an honor system.?
"Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, who brought Ebola to US from Liberia and was hospitalized September 28, lied in his questionnaire, it was revealed".

http://rt.com/news/192896-airport-ebola-screenings-ibuprofen/

 

[franzpick]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

And the arrival of "Ebola escape" passengers may soon be starting - see Treyfish:

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...Plane-Carrying-Sick-Passenger--278121131.html

 

[Dani]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

And the arrival of "Ebola escape" passengers may soon be starting - see Treyfish:

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...Plane-Carrying-Sick-Passenger--278121131.html

Holy cow. That's the route Mr. Duncan took , via Brussels.

 

[franzpick]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Watch the de-contamination efforts that will now ensue after EVD passengers have been sick inflight.

Or if like in Dallas: watch the decontamination that DOES NOT take place.

"Health officials were called to Newark Liberty International Airport to meet a plane on the runway Saturday, after a passenger began vomiting while en route from Brussels, officials said."
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local...278121131.html

 

[bwilde]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Ok so it isolating individuals with this disease is pretty much the only way of stopping it but somehow this does not translate into nations, because some people will try to get around the ban? Yet that clearly happens at the individual level as well, yet no denial of the quarantine as being the only way to go...

At the very least it seems that a ban on travel would buy more time to get vaccines and other treatments up to speed. Instead we just throw open our doors and lets see what happens?

Not happy with my govts supposed protection of our citizenry.

 

[Emily]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

So how do you set up such a quarantine in affected countries?

Do you build quarantine hotels near the airports? Detainment camps? Do you provide food and water? Medical service? Ebola testing? Waste disposal? Armed guards to prevent anyone from coming out or to stop anyone coming in from an affected area?

Or do you send them back home in a disease-infested area with a strong warning not to leave for 7 days, or 10 days or more? Do you set up guards around their house? Have a medical team ready in case of fever? Telephones to report their state of health? Food? Water? New latrines?

This is just not feasible in my opinion.

Besides, considering how lethal the Ebola risk, who wouldn't chance swallowing boxes of fever-reducing drugs and lying on forms, even at the risk of being prosecuted?

Only the very less knowledgeable would be caught with fever at the airport, and once caught will get information on how not to get caught again. People do learn all sorts of tricks, especially if they think their lives or that of their families is at risk.

Frankly, apart from the elite, any other person from such poor countries who has managed to put together enough money to pay for a plane ticket to a developed country is unlikely to be a complete moron.

Screening is probably useful to a small degree but not sufficient. Even a total ban per affected country of origin would not be enough.

Borders are very porous in Africa, administrative authorities are corruptible, common languages and ethnicity overlap various borders. Regional solidarity between individuals on each side of the border can be called in.

It's all well and good to call for morality, but if one or one's family life is at stake, a human being will use survival modes, regardless of morals. For a person concerned with his/her life, or that of his/her family's, and having managed to scrounge a little bit of money, it would simply entail a trip to an unaffected neighbouring country, getting new papers there and flying off to wherever it is deemed that life would be better protected.

And how will you pay the $65,000 bill just to clean up the Ivy Apartments in Dallas? That is just for starters. What US Medicaid/Medicare patient do you want to displace with an Ebola tourist?

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?p=448100
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=193671

It's a fallacious debate point to say that ratcheting up screening must be done to the point of perfection for it to be helpful to the interests of countries who do not currently have out of control Ebola epidemics.

Perhaps the use of the word 'quarantine' is confusing since my suggestion was voluntary enhanced screening of travelers believed to be healthy from superficial observation so obviously no guards would be needed to keep people from leaving such a facility. Common sense dictates that access would be controlled.

The only way that Americans will be in more danger of Ebola is if patients are criminalized. Then they will hide their illnesses.

 

[Dani]

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

Re: CDC Chief: Banning Flights from Ebola-Ridden African Nations Will Cause More Americans to Get Ebola

The only way that Americans will be in more danger of Ebola is if patients are criminalized. Then they will hide their illnesses.

Dallas DA Considers Charges Against Ebola Patient

I have mixed feelings about this, for the reasons that you state. But if someone came here to be treated for a fatal disease, they wouldn't hide their symptoms for long. So it's hard to say.
In general, I'd tend to think they'd been through enough punishment already.