29-year-old Amber Vinson flew on a commercial airline just a few hours of the time she self-diagnosed as a possible Ebola patient with a low grade fever actually below the 100.4 degree notification guideline. She had a 99.5 degree fever when she checked and it isn’t really clear yet whether this was before the return flight to Dallas, or after she was home.
Passengers on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth Oct. 13 are asked to immediately contact the CDC at 1 800 CDC-INFO.
It is considered extremely unlikely anyone on the airplane has been infected but they should contact specialists in order to have access to the latest information and treatment if they were exposed.
Close contact with bodily fluids of an infected person who is showing symptoms is still the only way to catch Ebola.
On Monday, nurse Vinson flew back to Dallas but she had already flown to Cleveland a few days before. That flight and other information about her visit to Cleveland have not been released because, according to the CDC, she was far outside the infectious period and there is no danger involved at the Ohio end.
CDC Guidelines for those who may have been exposed to Ebola should not fly on commercial airlines. They can travel in private cars, but not taxis or buses, trains, or other public transportation where they could expose others.
Unfortunately, the CDC has no police powers and no ability to enforce their guidelines so people are free to ignore them.
It isn’t even clear if the nurse was informed of this part of or any of the CDC guidelines. Apparently the Dallas hospital was extremely negligent in their handling of any infectious patient and it is certainly possible they failed to inform the nursing team of CDC rules.
Nurse Vinson is being flown again, this time isolated on a chartered flight, to Emory University Hospital for treatment.
Dallas nurses who refused to be identified for fear of retaliation told a nurses union conference call that the hospital had a number of major protocol violations.
- “No one to collect waste which was piled to the ceiling.”
- “There was cross contamination between patients.”
- “The staff had little or no training for dealing with infectious patients”
- “Some supervisors said N-95 masks weren’t necessary.”
For common sense information about Ebola, see my Kindle book, Ebola Protecting Your Family – What You Need to Know NOW!: The latest medical facts from WHO and CDC interpreted by a medical journalist, http://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/pd.html?r=399553903.71729386
It is important to recall that the only two people who have contracted Ebola in the U.S. were healthcare workers who were working directly with an Ebola patient and apparently did so before he was placed in isolation and therefore they had little or no protection.
