A Serious Sunday Morning Thought

This is important.

Ebola is only spread by contact with infected body fluids, infected needles, and syringes, Fruit Bats, and primates.

That's it.

The medical teams in the U.S. that are caring for those infected clinicians returning from West Africa are not required to be quarantined for 21 days after caring for those infected persons, however if that same team cared for that infected person 7000 miles to the east, in, let's say Sierra Leone, and returned to the U.S. they would be subject to quarantine for 21 days.

Why?  What is the difference?  Care is care, right?

No.  Apparently it is not in the eyes of some state governments. Some states have made it clear that the care given over there is not quite as good for the caregiver as it would be if had been performed over here.

Dallas proved otherwise.

In Dallas we proved that we can offer the same "here's a band aid, and a prayer" therapy, that many world governments have extended to third world countries for generations,  to our own people inside of America.

We were caught with our isolation gowns down, and were too proud to admit that we had no clue as how to proceed.  We thought our big modern hospitals with their modern isolation rooms, and trained staff would be immune from Ebola hurting our own.  We could have done way better.  Nebraska proved that.

I admire the nurse from Maine that was quarantined in a tent in a parking lot with a bucket toilet for three days.  After returning from Africa, where she cared for those stricken with Ebola,  she said  the right things, in the right way in order to put the attention on a system that was not up to speed, poorly thought out, and based on fear, not science.

This isn't over.  There will many more health care workers exposed to the disease.

Fear is a natural component, but only knowledge, training,  and proper equipment are what matters.  Given to the right people they are the only things that can stop the outbreak.