Ebola confirmed in Glasgow, via Heathrow, Casablanca and Sierra leone

[sandbender]

Ebola, very infectious but not very contagious.

No one will infect you if they are not displaying symptoms.

The metropolitan areas of the affected countries in Africa have very poor infrastructure, access to clean hot water and the ability to quickly get rid of dirty water doesn't exist. That contributes to the high mortality rate there.

In Western Europe we are more than capable of treating someone and having a successful outcome.

You are fifty times more likely to die of flu this year than Ebola. Unless you make a habit of handling other peoples bodily fluids, just forget it.

Based on some of the comments from folks here we should be sticking grannies in hasmat suits and carting them away to isolation facilities, the flu is much more dangerous to us here than Ebola ever will be.

Fox News and the Daily Mail may not be the best places to inform yourselves about this virus.

 

[nettles150390]

And you know this how?

Sorry that should say american not british. And i remember reading it. Im on my phone but ill find the link in a bit

 

[andybysea]

However miniscule the risk of infection spreading is its still a risk so putting peoples lives at risk here b your actions is unfair quarantne needs to happen over there and here if a nurse can catch it in protective gear she can certainly spread it wearing none, strikes me bit odd she showed symptoms a few hrs after returning yet it takes up to 3 weeks to develope so they very well may have been contagious on the plane,airport and everywhere else they went, probs sat in a@e for hrs to if my experiance of the health service is anything to go by.Now theres another possible case in Aberdean i really think the ability to travel so easy to infected countries is wro g and irrisponsable.

 

[mountainm]

However miniscule the risk of infection spreading is its still a risk so putting peoples lives at risk here b your actions is unfair quarantne needs to happen over there and here if a nurse can catch it in protective gear she can certainly spread it wearing none, strikes me bit odd she showed symptoms a few hrs after returning yet it takes up to 3 weeks to develope so they very well may have been contagious on the plane,airport and everywhere else they went, probs sat in a@e for hrs to if my experiance of the health service is anything to go by.Now theres another possible case in Aberdean i really think the ability to travel so easy to infected countries is wro g and irrisponsable.

No. She will have followed procedure and taken her temperature regularly. Once showing symptoms she would have phoned in and followed the correct channels. Nowhere have I read otherwise.

She returned on the 28th of dec. what's this about 3 weeks?

Is anyone actually bothering to check facts or is the sky actually falling in?

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ebola-virus/pages/ebola-virus.aspx

 

[santaman2000]

Ah ok.

So she was never positively diagnosed and she didn't break quarantine until she knew she was safe. However the politicians tried to assuage the ignorant masses by enforcing an unenforceable quarantine on someone who didn't need one.

Unless you have a link?

Diagnosed? No. Tested positive? Yes. Broke quarantine before or after she knew she was safe? Unknown and irrelevant: what she says she knows is not definitive proof.

Did she need the quarantine? Again, irrelevant what she needed, it was for the safety of the public. Unenforceable? Apparently so.

A link? No, just memory of the debates.

 

[santaman2000]

.....Based on some of the comments from folks here we should be sticking grannies in hasmat suits and carting them away to isolation facilities, the flu is much more dangerous to us here than Ebola ever will be.....

Probably very true. And yet people resist the notion of getting a Flu vaccine also.

 

[boatman]

Anybody believe that the British Government wouldn't find the powers to enforce quarantine if they thought it necessary? This is not a political comment but I believe is a fact, see Duncan Campbell's War Plan UK, not for the polemic but for the indication of the essential practicality of our leaders and the legal powers they have.

 

[mountainm]

Diagnosed? No. Tested positive? Yes. Broke quarantine before or after she knew she was safe? Unknown and irrelevant: what she says she knows is not definitive proof.

Did she need the quarantine? Again, irrelevant what she needed, it was for the safety of the public. Unenforceable? Apparently so.

A link? No, just memory of the debates.

She was tested negative. You have no proof otherwise, at least I have a link.

But let's extrapolate your argument.

It's ok to remove someone's freedoms on the off chance the general public may be harmed?

 

[santaman2000]

Despite the strident protests of a nurse in America I do not see why a period of quarantine is unreasonable for returning health workers.

Anybody believe that the British Government wouldn't find the powers to enforce quarantine if they thought it necessary? This is not a political comment but I believe is a fact, see Duncan Campbell's War Plan UK, not for the polemic but for the indication of the essential practicality of our leaders and the legal powers they have.

Is a quarantine necessary? I really don't know. But back to your original post; is one unreasonable? I think not.

 

[British Red]

Probably very true. And yet people resist the notion of getting a Flu vaccine also.

Which is a matter of personal choice. I am thankful to live in a country where people are not forcibly vaccinated against their will.

 

[santaman2000]

She was tested negative. You have no proof otherwise, at least I have a link.

But let's extrapolate your argument.

It's ok to remove someone's freedoms on the off chance the general public may be harmed?

Short answer to your question re removing liberty: it would depend on the risk level.


Re the point of whether she tested positive, you're correct, I have no link, only memory. That and of course the logic that she's the only returning worker to have been so quarantined. Why else would they single her out from all the other volunteers or military medical teams? Or do you have a knowledge of any others who were quarantined?

 

[mountainm]

Short answer to your question re removing liberty: it would depend on the risk level.


Re the point of whether she tested positive, you're correct, I have no link, only memory. Thast and of course the logic that she's the only returning worker to have been so quarantined. Why else would they single her out from all the other volunteers?

They quarantined her because she had a fever.

She only broke quarantine when she knew she was safe.

Please read my link.

I'm more at risk of being shot in the U.S. than catching Ebola. Check your guns in at the door please. The freedom to bare arms is just to darn risky.

 

[rik_uk3]

What are the odds this thread is closed before the same time tomorrow

 

[mountainm]

What are the odds this thread is closed before the same time tomorrow

Greater than those of catching Ebola. That's for sure.

 

[santaman2000]

Which is a matter of personal choice. I am thankful to live in a country where people are not forcibly vaccinated against their will.

Generally true here as well BR. The only "mandatory" innoculations are for the military and as a condition to enter public school. You don't have to have said innocculations; but you'll have to find an alternate education.

However that's not really he point. The point is: should an infected (or suspected infected) person be quarantined against their will in the case of a potentially deadly disease? The resistance of people to voluntarily get immunizations against a disease known to be both deadly and preventable is merely evidence of public..... apathy? ignorance? I really can't come up with an adequate word here.

 

[mountainm]

Generally true here as well BR. The only "mandatory" innoculations are for the military and as a condition to enter public school. You don't have to have said innocculations; but you'll have to find an alternate education.

However that's not really he point. The point is: should an infected (or suspected infected) person be quarantined against their will in the case of a potentially deadly disease? The resistance of people to voluntarily get immunizations against a disease known to be both deadly and preventable is merely evidence of public..... apathy? ignorance? I really can't come up with an adequate word here.

Quarantined until shown to be safe. I agree. But she was shown to be safe, however that was ignored to curry public favour.

 

[santaman2000]

.......I'm more at risk of being shot in the U.S. than catching Ebola. Check your guns in at the door please. The freedom to bare arms is just to darn risky.

Less risky than the alternative.

 

[mountainm]

Less risky than the alternative.

Yeah it's bedlam here in the UK.

 

[santaman2000]

Quarantined until shown to be safe. I agree. But she was shown to be safe, however that was ignored to curry public favour.

The problem was that she herself is the one who declared she was safe. Nothing was ignored, all sides of the argument did as they did to curry public favor.

On the one side they demonized anybody who would seek quarantines or evidence as uncaring for the patients she had been treating. On the other side they demonized the caregivers as uncaring for there neighbors and fellow citizens. The whole argument both ways was as you say a complete political thing.

That said, the truth remains, she was suspected (only her out of many) of being infected and a quarantine wasn't unreasonable. What was unreasonable was that she defied said quarantine on her own judgment rather than that of appointed or elected authorities and there wasn't (and still isn't) any enforceable recourse.

We could debate what is the proper length of and conditions of any quarantine or other precautions but that is a matter better discussed by medical professionals. The political battl was over the inability of the authorities to enforce precautions on a defiant worker who self-proclaimed she was safe.

 

[santaman2000]

Yeah it's bedlam here in the UK.

To the point where you actually have thread debating whether or not a chisel is a banned weapon. Imagine someone losing their liberty over that risk.