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Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas officials announced this week that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the virus in the U.S., died Wednesday. Do you think public health officials are doing enough to stop the spread of Ebola in Dallas?
Paul LeBon, Highland Village: Yes. But the loonies calling talk radio who know more than the medical professionals are creating a panic.
Doug Fulmer, Flower Mound: Public health officials are doing the best they can to ward off an existential event. But it’s the first time they have faced this kind of problem and it is showing badly. They have made serious mistakes at almost every turn. In their attempts to maintain “patient privacy” and avoid “public panic,” they are not making public a lot of information that we should be seeing. For instance, hiding the names and locations of people who are the highest risk, when they have proven that they will not remain in isolation as required, is ludicrous.
Everyone is counting heavily on “science” to prevent a serious outbreak. But this “science” doesn’t understand the disease well enough to create a cure, so I’m not convinced that I believe the “science.” Public health officials can’t even get enough information to the people in the Ivy apartments to let the inhabitants know what is happening because of language barriers. Public health officials don’t take their own protocols seriously enough to have kept the patient in the hospital on his first visit, and as a result, two EMTs, a family of five and who knows how many others have been exposed.
I don’t believe for a minute that public health officials have a clue how dangerous this event is, when turned loose in a metroplex of a couple million people.
Frankly, I don’t think enough of us, the residents of the metroplex, are taking this event as seriously as we should. I hear way too many jokes and way too little concern from people I know.
I hope and pray that the containment in place works. We will know in a couple of weeks. I am hoping for the best and really want to be proved very wrong about my concerns.
I hope the current patient lives and nobody else comes down with Ebola. But I am not reassured by what has been done to date.
Gale David, Flower Mound: No. The delay in cleaning the apartment, securing the car, sending the bloodwork to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test for Ebola, and not putting the others in the apartment with him in isolation immediately were significant errors.
The hospital erred in not sharing the travel from Africa information among the ER staff and releasing him, giving him two unfettered days to infect others. But it is not just the health department and hospital who are putting the U.S. at risk. The State Department should immediately cease issuing visas for travel to the U.S. from countries with Ebola outbreaks and rescind existing visas.
All pre-issued visas should be provided to the Department of Homeland Security to be put on the watch list and those persons should be intercepted upon arrival seeking to enter the United States from countries with Ebola outbreaks and exclude them on public health grounds. We can be of much more assistance in taming the outbreak where it is than trying to contain it in numerous additional locales and at home due to poor administration and coordination of safeguards through all of our agencies.
Anyone traveling from the United States to countries with Ebola outbreaks should do so knowing they will be subjected to three weeks in isolation with monitoring when they return. And locations to accommodate said isolation holds should be established now. Insofar as one may be infected, but not show symptoms immediately is sufficient cause to take all preventative measures necessary to protect the United States from a major outbreak.
Charles Barrett, Flower Mound: Dallas is doing enough, but not U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The CDC should order customs and the FAA to quarantine all passengers, including returning relief workers, whose flights originated directly or indirectly from highly infected countries for at least three weeks in a secure hotel with armed enforcement, then have them checked for fever before being allowed through customs.
It will cost us a lot to do this, but will only cost the passengers three weeks of watching TV in a comfortable hotel.
If they refuse the quarantine, then send them back home on a slow boat to Africa.
Eric Edwards, Highland Village: No, I do not believe this is being handled correctly by the public health system. Why was Mr. Duncan’s family still in that apartment with the contaminated sheets and towels? They should have been evacuated and the apartment sterilized the minute Mr. Duncan’s infection was confirmed. Same with the ambulance, plane, taxi and every other vehicle and locale he passed through, despite the fact that Mr. Duncan did not present signs of the infection during his travels.
Unfortunately, I do not believe the complete details about the Ebola virus are being presented.
In spite of the financial woes this may bring to the affected area in West Africa, the area should be completely quarantined and all traffic in and out stopped immediately.
Anyone wishing to leave should be held in isolation for at least the 21-day window to be absolutely certain to be virus-free.
I cannot imagine the conditions these people live under in the best of times, but human rights and free will must take a back seat in such a hostile and dangerously contagious situation.
Lloyd Davis, Flower Mound: Our public health officials can only do so much. Our federal government, however, has done a terrible job. They refuse to limit flights from the area in order not to hurt the feelings of the Liberian population, and setting back our efforts to help them combat this virus.In order to spare someone else’s feelings, we endanger the entire population of the United States. It’s time for our government to represent the citizens of this country.
Ed Conrad, Lewisville: I think the health department and the hospitals have a very good plan in place. The fact that this is a disease no one has ever experienced; one should expect mistakes. As soon as the mistakes were discovered, they were addressed in a professional manner and quickly. We should let them do their job as they are the experts and go on with our lives.
Mike Aramanda, Denton: Considering there are possibly hundreds of people already contacted by the infected person, I would say no.
