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PEOPLE, INCLUDING HEALTH workers, returning to the US from West Africa should undergo “active direct monitoring” but not be quarantined, according to authorities.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say ”active direct monitoring” means people in this high-risk category must be checked for fever daily for 21 days, and must restrict travel and public activities for the duration of the virus’s incubation period.
The CDC made the announcement in an update of previously issued guidelines.
Those at highest risk of having contracted Ebola include health care workers who experienced a needle stick or had fluids from an infected person splash in their eyes or on broken skin.
The high-risk category also includes those who handled bodily fluids without wearing personal protective equipment, those who touched the corpse of a person who died of Ebola, or family members who cared for an Ebola patient.
The monitoring means that someone accountable to the local or state health department observes the person’s temperature being taken, has a conversation with them daily including going over a checklist of potential Ebola symptoms, and reviews plans for their daily activities, CDC chief Tom Frieden said.
“That, we think, is good sound public health policy,” Frieden told reporters.
“We are concerned about some policies that we have seen in various places that might have the effect of increasing stigma or creating false impressions. You don’t catch Ebola from someone who is not sick.”
Frieden added that experts know Ebola is more infectious as the illness progresses.
“So those first few hours or days of the beginning of symptoms are far less likely to result in any infections than are the later courses of the disease, when people have much, much larger numbers of virus that they are excreting.”
The CDC does not have the power to enforce these rules, and said it would defer to local and state health authorities to decide how to proceed and execute the guidelines.
Medical exams recommended
People at some risk of Ebola include anyone who spent “a long time” in the presence of a symptomatic Ebola patient without wearing protective gear, or any healthcare worker who cared for Ebola in patients in West Africa even when wearing protective coverings.
These people should also under active direct monitoring, though travel restrictions can be decided on a case-by-case basis, the CDC said.
People at low risk of Ebola include those who were in a country stricken with the virus but who had no known exposure, or those who were in the same room as an Ebola patient but did not touch them.
All three categories are urged to have a medical examination to rule out the infection.
People at no risk of Ebola include those who came in contact with an Ebola patient before the person was showing symptoms — which include fever, aches, vomiting and diarrhea — and those who have gone three weeks since traveling to a country with Ebola.
The CDC guidelines were issued after a US nurse was quarantined in New Jersey on Friday after she returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa.
Kaci Hickox protested her conditions over the weekend and was released yesterday, a day after New York eased strict new quarantine orders under pressure from President Barack Obama’s administration.
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Well that’s what happens when you run a public health system on the brink of collapse for 9 years. Soon as there’s unforeseen extra load placed on it, you’re in trouble.
@Unconvertible Rebel: Get a grip. Government doing a fantastic job, look across the water both ways.
@Unconvertible Rebel: Bit of a difference between an extra load and a global pandemic. Health services all over the world are struggling to deal with this issue
@Unconvertible Rebel: Ah stop, I agree our public health service was under performing but nobody could have imagine a health emergency of these proportions.
@Unconvertible Rebel: no country in the world has been able to cope with it
@Unconvertible Rebel: a ridiculous comment. You can’t run a health service for a pandemic that might happen every hundred years. It’s not feasible and definitely not necessary.
@Unconvertible Rebel: oh ,just go away please -I am sick and tired of the same old BS being trotted out here every day – If you have nothing positive to say just keep quiet .
@Unconvertible Rebel: There’s no hospital system in the world that would have the capicity we’ll need in the coming weeks. By the way, our health system has been unslder resourced for much longer than 9 years, not sure where you’re getting that time frame from!
@Unconvertible Rebel: my sentiments exactly, as much as they appear to be doing all they can, there has been fundamental problems that have gone unsolved in the HSE for years which has then caused this enormous pressure on the service. I wonder statistically speaking if you contract serious complications with covid-19 in which areas of the country are you most likely to die, such as it is with heart attacks etc due to lack of services and resources? Morbid but true.
@Unconvertible Rebel: Look if you’re going to use this epidemic to score political points the *least* you could do is actually expand on the topic in some kind of meaningful or useful way.
For example, as a country we are in the Top 10 worldwide in terms of spending per capita on health. As such we don’t have a spending (ie political) issue, we have a management (ie civil-service) issue. So the reality is it doesn’t really matter who gets elected in terms of our health service since our civil service is entrenched in their position like it’s the Somme and the year is 1916.
And if you ask a politician what they think they can do about this they will just stare at you as if you just asked them to fly. So not only does the actual problem get almost no recognition, it’s further compounded by the fact that our health service is treated like a political football come election time. Unless we solve these structural blockers actual reform is borderline impossible. You might as well be trying to learn how to fly.
@Breda Kelly: Ablab alamas Canadian eh?
@Tony Lyons: much like the Who and its Chinese masters you seem to overlook Taiwan
@Unconvertible Rebel: Sit down in a dark room you fool.
@Breda Kelly: me ass doing a great job
@Unconvertible Rebel: clown
@Breda Kelly: another North-South polist among us. Shameful.
@Breda Kelly: I’m don’t seem to be buying into this government doing a great job.. the government are simple taking orders from the health professionals. And why is Leo Varadkar posing for photos. Seems every opportunity is a photo shoot for them..
@Unconvertible Rebel: Sinn Fein troll. You are doing more damage to the party with your rubbish on herd than their elected members singing IRA songs drunk in bars.
@Paul O’Sullivan: oh look, another brand new faceless twitter account calling anyone who isnt singing leos praises SF trolls.
the spin unit is back
@Breda Kelly: per percentage of population, the UK are faring both better and worse than us in Ireland, so it’s a fairly uninformed argument that they are faring much worse than us. Better In UK: 0.0449% as of population who are infected as to Ireland’s 0.0714%. However, deaths in UK 0.00354% compared to Ireland’s 0.00176%. Median age in Ireland is 36.5years while in the UK it is 40years, so you should statistically see more deaths there than here as a % of population. What I’d love to compare are the number of beds and ICU beds, ventilators and testing kits
@John O Brien: the sign of a good leader is listening to the experts. Look at the 2 countries either side of us!
@Irene Mc Hugh: Irene it would be very boring here if people cannot say what they want. Be more open minded to a variety of comments & opinions. Adds variety.
If u can’t take it deactivate your account.
@Declan Edward: you haven’t taken into account that we had tested I’ve twice as many per head on the positive numbers
@johnny onion eye: didn’t take it into account! We’re pretty much on the same playing field so. I did expect UKs numbers to be much worse considering that 83% live in urban areas compared to Ireland’s 63%.
@Breda Kelly: delays in carrying out testing and test results government claim shortage of supply yes other countries dont have same problems.
Yes doing amazing job alright
@Unconvertible Rebel: shut up with your pander you can see the whole world is suffering. Please stop with wrongful propaganda. God bless
@Maria: Dustin would look good in comparison to those two as apes
@Declan Edward: I’m sorry Declan but you can’t draw meaningful comparisons with the U.K. in terms of the numbers of infected. They aren’t testing serious numbers of people. Proportionately, Ireland is testing far more people. The U.K. stats are internationally accepted as unreliable. Moreover, where deaths occur outside of the hospital environment due to Covid they are not included in the U.K. figures at the moment as I understand it.
@John O Brien: Another person who thinks, conveniently, that the Govt are taking orders from civil servants. The legal of ignorance amongst a cohort of certain Journal commentators about how democratic Government works is illuminating. The Govt takes advice from civil and public servants. Advice. All key decisions are taken by Government and nobody else. They are them accountable for those decisions. The Govt don’t follow “orders” from the unelected. They are not SF for goodness sake.
Harris telling us the HSE is under pressure! Yes Simon we’ve been telling you that for years now!
@Colette Kearns: I remember visiting hospitals be in the 1970s when religious orders were in charge. Everything was spotless. You could smell the antiseptic in the air. There wasn’t any huge waiting lists. A first world health service at time when we were economically poor. It seems like our liberal “progression” has regressed our health system to that of a 3rd world nation. Bring back the nuns!
@Colette Kearns: thanks Colette for your intelligent input to the unforeseen problem Ireland and the whole world are experiencing at this moment in time. When this is all over run for the elections and you can show us all the expert you are while running the health service in this country.
@John Devaney: Yeah, I used to live it when they beat the snot out of us when they ran the schools. But sure at least they were spotless schools
@Colette Kearns: maybe you should run the health service so?. We can all complain. Unfortunately the HSE isn’t a quick fix. Increase in funding has been allocated in the last few budgets, but it is once of those areas that every country find it hard to run effectively.
@John Devaney: no. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. My grandmothers used to say that you only go into hospital to die. Nuns or no nuns, we didn’t have a wonderful health system. There was a very recent modern push to reform it, by which I mean shake off the abusive practices that other countries had successfully reformed from 1964 onwards. You were far too young to realise how many women were literally crippled by an outdated system; nor how many men died before their time. Oh, and the clean smell of antiseptic was applied by enslaved pregnant women, conned into believing they deserved to work for a pittance, while their children were being starved in orphanages. Stop sniffing the air and support the health service staff working in this century.
@John Devaney: in the 1970s DOBwas bearly out of short pants
@John Devaney: Was that when you were out pulling women? Looking back is great, the good times ehhh…. except medicine has moved on quite a bit, costs a fortune and we can treat way more illnesses…..
@Steve O’Reilly: BS very few developed countries in Europe have a similar shambles of a health service as ours.
@John Devaney: that’s a common misconception. Hospitals nowadays are just as clean. Its the superbugs you can’t see due to decades of over prescribing which are the problem in controlling infections.
@John Devaney: leave them where they are. That was the time where u would be two weeks in hospital if u were having your appendix out.
@Colette Kearns: Very true. Its what happens when you initiative something to Death. The money can spread over far far too much and not enough Butter. Scale back protect the core services.
Will you all stop bashing Unconvertible Rebel..and look at the photo…Leo will want to practice what he preaches…He is NOT 2 metres away
@brian reid: I see that. It might be the camera angle, it’s hard to judge with foreshortening. They certainly don’t look as if they’re 2 metres apart. We can’t tell but let’s assume for the sake of thinking it through that they have both been tested recently and aren’t carriers, because they have essential roles.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: Silly statement..( they have been tested )does not stop them from catching it in the future…this virus does not distinguish what job you do..
@brian reid: no fear he wont go near her.
@Paul O’Sullivan: maybe she would just to let him see what he is missing
This has publicity stunt wrote all over it. How in the midst of the worse pandemic we have seen in our lifetime is he going round smiling in these pictures like its something to be proud of. I really dont understand this man at the best of times in the riddles and smoke screens but these pics are like a bloody advert!
@Christine Hanway: reminds me a bit of when he saw what way the wind was blowing & jumped on the Repeal bandwagon. Everything is calculated PR opportunity with him
@Christine Hanway: did he not advise us to NOT make any non essential journeys? Did he not advise us to stay at home where possible? Was this really an essential journey, did both himself and Harris really have to be there? Another photo opportunity and a chance for them to tell us how wonderful they are.
His ego is out of control!!!
Very hygienic, park your ar#e on the treatment couch. The hired help will deal with it.
Government doing a good job. We are lucky we are not in the UK or the US. EU overlords doing sod all for anyone.
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