Kaci Hickox, Nurse in Ebola Quarantine Standoff, Goes for a Bike Ride

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Look at the double exclamation mark here. It is you who are getting all bent out of shape while being so condescending towards others. Talk about hypocrisy. The person whose eyes are bugging out and veins popping out on their neck rhetorically is telling the rest of us to stop panicking.

More than ten percent of Ebola victims show no elevated temperature and this one had a fever of 101. She claims it was from being angry, but fever isn't even a guaranteed symptom in the first place. It is long established history all the way back to the Black Death that quarantine is the most effective and sensible procedure to contain it.

That isn't hysteria. Being cautious is not hysteria. Screeching about not panicking - now THAT is hysteria.

I think this is a case of someone taking 2+2 and coming up with 5. There is currently no mass epidemic of ebola cases in the USA. It just hasn't happened. There have been some lapses in containment and a few isolated cases - that doesn't mean that ebola is going to spread out of control. It's a disease that has flourished in West Africa due to the poor conditions and sub-standard health infrastructure. The US doesn't have that problem. Moreover, the idea that the government has handled the outbreak badly is motivated by the usual partisan mouthpieces in the media.

I have to wonder if the folks stirring the pot about ebola were similarly concerned about SARS and bird and swine flu. Perhaps you can answer that from your own experience?

Edited October 30, 2014 by Hail Ming!

[rlogan 2,036]

Where was that widely reported? What hotsheets carried that news?

Your fingers incapable of google? You obviously aren't interested in trying to look. Otherwise you would have.

Googlre "Kaci Hickox 101 fever" returned 13,300 hits, including New York Times five days ago. She disputes what the cause of the fever was - saying it was because she was angry. But fever isn't even a necessary symptom.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Look how our so-called "heros" go so far out of their way to help non-citizens on the other side of the planet, but with their own countrymen give us the big F-U.

The doctor who treated Ebola patients LIED about going out all over NYC and the only reason we know is because a POLICE subpoena on his credit cards and subway passes proved he was lying. Zero concern for his own countrymen.

This nurse had a 101 FEVER recorded by a forehead scan, widely reported all over the news upon her return. She disputes the reading, but so what? A fever of 101 after returning from treating Ebola patients is a no-brainer for quarantine and it is incredible a person wouldn't expect quarantine after treating a deadly disease for which there is no available vaccine and is now reported to be perfectly capable of transmission through the air by sneeze or cough and remaining on a surface like a doorknob for possibly a day or more.

11% of people with Ebola had no fever. We can't say that zero fever means safe to mingle with others. Saying a person has no fever is no guarantee at all they aren't carrying Ebola:

http://news.yahoo.com/why-survive-ebola-sierra-leone-study-offers-clues-070129976.html

What he said to the 10th power

I am sick of ditto-heads chirping "fear", and "hysteria" to perfectly normal and sensible procedures. First of all, we aren't supposed to fear something that kills more than half the people it infects? If you have no fear of that, then you are like the Liberians who handle the bodies of dead infected people. The absence of fear is WRONG when it is the rational response to deadly infectious diseases.

The government has ordered more than a million haz mat suits. Should we sneer at this and mock them for their fear? Mock them for hysteria? Why are they ordering a MILLION haz-mat suits and then telling us we're hysterical for just TALKING about it?

Drunk driving laws. Fear-based, but rational. Arming yourself in bear country. Fear based but rational. Keeping guns locked up in safes instead of available to your children to play with: fear-based but rational.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Your fingers incapable of google? You obviously aren't interested in trying to look. Otherwise you would have.

Googlre "Kaci Hickox 101 fever" returned 13,300 hits, including New York Times five days ago. She disputes what the cause of the fever was - saying it was because she was angry. But fever isn't even a necessary symptom.

Maybe you need to dig a little deeper than just counting "hits on google". For someone professing to be so smart, you certainly should know better.

On arrival at Newark, Hickox said, an initial forehead scanner recorded a normal 98.6 degree reading, but that she was then left unattended for several hours.

"Four hours after I landed at the airport, an official approached me with a forehead scanner," she told The Dallas Morning News. "My cheeks were flushed, I was upset at being held with no explanation. The scanner recorded my temperature as 101."

She was then rushed to a hospital where an oral thermometer recorded a normal 98.6 degree reading while the forehead scanner -- at the same time -- continued to show 101 degrees.

"There's no way you have a fever," she said the doctor told her. "Your face is just flushed."

No fever, no symptoms. Forcing her into quarantine is a violation of her constitutional rights. And it's the wrong message to send after she has served in the vital effort to contain this outbreak. I applaud her for fighting back against this hysterical nonsense.

[rlogan 2,036]

I think this is a case of someone taking 2+2 and coming up with 5. There is currently no mass epidemic of ebola cases in the USA. It just hasn't happened. There have been some lapses in containment and a few isolated cases - that doesn't mean that ebola is going to spread out of control. It's a disease that has flourished in West Africa due to the poor conditions and sub-standard health infrastructure. The US doesn't have that problem. Moreover, the idea that the government has handled the outbreak badly is motivated by the usual partisan mouthpieces in the media.

I have to wonder if the folks stirring the pot about ebola were similarly concerned about SARS and bird and swine flu. Perhaps you can answer that from your own experience?

Talk about irrational. It isn't spreading here because we quarantine. So to attack quarantine is ridiculous.

The main reason Ebola spread in Africa is because instead of quarantine, they were following cultural traditions of handling not just sick people but dead bodies too. In a country that practices quarantine, that doesn't happen.

The lapses? The first case of Ebola recorded in the USA infected two other health care workers. That was a great start: Twice as many infected people as entered. Why did it stop infecting others? Because we quarantined them.

The second one was a Doctor who lied about all of his travels around NYC. In that case he was exhibiting symptoms yet still went out all over the city, potentially exposing others and the only reason we found out is by police subpoena of his credit cards and subway pass.

Stirring the pot? What kind of silly allegory is that supposed to be? Discussing Ebola is a pretty rational thing to do given that it has killed upwards of 70% of the people it has infected in places. This is the meme now: personal attacks levied at people rationally discussing a deadly disease.

Edited October 30, 2014 by rlogan

[LiliBurd 85]

and with no symptoms, she is not contagious of anything! So going out into public with no fever or other signs is not dangerous!

So you would have no issues or concerns whatsoever if your child was bowling in the lane right beside her? Or interacted with her at a super market? And what if she developed a fever 1 hour after this interaction? Yes there is hysteria and paranoia, and people may be blowing this out of proportion, but the bottom line is why risk it?

In my opinion she is an attention seeker, with no regards for people around her. The fact she is a nurse only makes this worst.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

She is an attention seeker? Did she seek to be robbed of her freedom? Or was that forced onto her? Believe it was the latter.

[Teddy B 17,252]

She is an attention seeker? Did she seek to be robbed of her freedom? Or was that forced onto her? Believe it was the latter.

I don't think freedom plays a role in this case. I think the quarantine comes a long with being exposed to the virus. She knew what she was facing when she chose to treat Ebola patients.

[rlogan 2,036]

Maybe you need to dig a little deeper than just counting "hits on google". For someone professing to be so smart, you certainly should know better.

No fever, no symptoms. Forcing her into quarantine is a violation of her constitutional rights. And it's the wrong message to send after she has served in the vital effort to contain this outbreak. I applaud her for fighting back against this hysterical nonsense.

Your own article says she had a 101 fever. What is in dispute is what caused it.

In 11% of the cases studied in Africa, no fever was present. No it isn't a violation of her constitutional rights. Go ahead and prove that. lol. In the meantime, here is one of many articles on it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/10/27/constitutional-challenge-to-quarantine-unlikely-to-succeed/

While the Supreme Court has long held quarantines to be constitutional, it has not ruled directly on the scope of permissible quarantines. However, in the famous case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Court did uphold a blanket mandatory vaccination law, under which resisters were put in jail. The principle here is the same as with quarantine – that one’s normal rights to bodily integrity are suspended by a general and serious public need, especially of an epidemiological variety.

What is so ghastly about a quarantine? She's actually stated it is worse than Ebola itself. That is extreme rhetoric, and very hypocritical to use this extreme and obviously false rhetoric to assail rational quarantine procedures.

Edited October 30, 2014 by rlogan

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Talk about irrational. It isn't spreading here because we quarantine. So to attack quarantine is ridiculous.

The main reason Ebola spread in Africa is because instead of quarantine, they were following cultural traditions of handling not just sick people but dead bodies too. In a country that practices quarantine, that doesn't happen.

The lapses? The first case of Ebola recorded in the USA infected two other health care workers. That was a great start: Twice as many infected people as entered. Why did it stop infecting others? Because we quarantined them.

The second one was a Doctor who lied about all of his travels around NYC. In that case he was exhibiting symptoms yet still went out all over the city, potentially exposing others and the only reason we found out is by police subpoena of his credit cards and subway pass.

Stirring the pot? What kind of silly allegory is that supposed to be? Discussing Ebola is a pretty rational thing to do given that it has killed upwards of 70% of the people it has infected in places. This is the meme now: personal attacks levied at people rationally discussing a deadly disease.

Can i ask why you consider what you post to be rational? You literally attack any and everyone that responds to you. Literally everyone.

I am not worried about Ebola. Why are you? Its not like either of us can do anything about it.

Btw im not sure that 'stirring the pot' counts as an extended metaphor. But I could be wrong.

Anyway.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Maybe you need to dig a little deeper than just counting "hits on google". For someone professing to be so smart, you certainly should know better.

No fever, no symptoms. Forcing her into quarantine is a violation of her constitutional rights. And it's the wrong message to send after she has served in the vital effort to contain this outbreak. I applaud her for fighting back against this hysterical nonsense.

The most effective treatment is containment. I have never encountered anyone who is so painfully wrong with such gusto and Fervor as little yap yap. Sympathy to your painfully poor understanding of the issue, bravo for your zeal in blundering ahead in blind ignorance .

[LiliBurd 85]

She is an attention seeker? Did she seek to be robbed of her freedom? Or was that forced onto her? Believe it was the latter.

I think this is an unusual situation which evokes much fear, whether it is justified or not. Perhaps her right to freedom as you say was robbed. If she felt mistreated or violated in anyway my heart goes out to her for her suffering. But I don't see why she would make such a fuss about quarantine having seen how awful things are in West Africa. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

[JohnR! 5,495]

I think your post only indicates that the US is doing everything as it should and so far we have been successful in treating Ebola patients 100% of the time. The only death of Ebola in the US was a result of a man who sought treatment in Dallas and was denied it. He was only admitted two days later when it was too late, and yet, as you yourself say, despite being infected and contagious, the only people who got infected by him were the two nurses who care for him. They themselves ended up being treated successfully as soon as their symptoms appeared.

Ebola is serious - as is meningitis, TB, hepatitis, HIV - and it should be treated seriously and with respect, not partisan or uninformed histrionics. I am not saying you are doing it, so much as pointing out there seems to be a lot of it going around.

Talk about irrational. It isn't spreading here because we quarantine. So to attack quarantine is ridiculous.

The main reason Ebola spread in Africa is because instead of quarantine, they were following cultural traditions of handling not just sick people but dead bodies too. In a country that practices quarantine, that doesn't happen.

The lapses? The first case of Ebola recorded in the USA infected two other health care workers. That was a great start: Twice as many infected people as entered. Why did it stop infecting others? Because we quarantined them.

The second one was a Doctor who lied about all of his travels around NYC. In that case he was exhibiting symptoms yet still went out all over the city, potentially exposing others and the only reason we found out is by police subpoena of his credit cards and subway pass.

Stirring the pot? What kind of silly allegory is that supposed to be? Discussing Ebola is a pretty rational thing to do given that it has killed upwards of 70% of the people it has infected in places. This is the meme now: personal attacks levied at people rationally discussing a deadly disease.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I don't think freedom plays a role in this case. I think the quarantine comes a long with being exposed to the virus. She knew what she was facing when she chose to treat Ebola patients.

I don't agree with that at all. Due process doesn't get suspended just because some people get their panties in a wad. If the criteria was the exposure to the virus, then we'd have thousands of people in quarantine right now. But we don't. Because deep down those that want to force this nurse into quarantine know that it's uncalled for.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Your own article says she had a 101 fever. What is in dispute is what caused it.

In 11% of the cases studied in Africa, no fever was present. No it isn't a violation of her constitutional rights. Go ahead and prove that. lol. In the meantime, here is one of many articles on it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/10/27/constitutional-challenge-to-quarantine-unlikely-to-succeed/

No, it doesn't. It said that a forehead scan recorded 101 degrees and did so even as the oral measurement at the very same time showed a normal reading of 98.6 degrees. That means there is no fever. Which coincidentally is what the doctor at the hospital diagnosed.