Sana Syed had a baptism by fire. Just after she took the city of Dallas' public information officer job, Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola. Syed did an admirable job filtering and distributing the torrent of information that would come out over the succeeding weeks. She would also show th ... More >>
Of the just more than $155,000 the city of Dallas spent responding to Ebola, almost $27,000 -- just more than 17 percent of the total -- went to caring for Bentley, Nina Pham's King Charles Spaniel. The majority of the Bentley cash, $17,057.46, was spent on getting Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve ... More >>
It was something that was inevitable once Thomas Eric Duncan was sent home from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital with antibiotics on September 26. There would be legal action against the hospital for its treatment of Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States. Wed ... More >>
Amber Vinson, the second nurse from Thomas Eric Duncan's treatment team to contract the Ebola virus, had her engagement ring incinerated along with many of her other belongings. In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, Vinson revealed her struggles to figure out how she got the disease despite followi ... More >>
As of Tuesday, Amber Vinson and Nina Pham, the two Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurses to get Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, are Ebola-free. It's remarkable, inspiring news. Seeing the two speak at their post-release press conference was, in a way, like seeing someone back from the d ... More >>
Amber Vinson, the second Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital to contract Ebola during treatment of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, is being released from Emory University Hospital near Atlanta. "I'm so grateful to be well," she said. "While this is a d ... More >>
Nina Pham is Ebola free. The National Institutes of Health announced Friday morning that Pham, the first of Thomas Eric Duncan's treatment team to be diagnosed with Ebola, has successfully fought off the disease and will able to return to Dallas later Friday. "She has no virus in her, she feels wel ... More >>
Counting down the days (15) until our fair city is, officially, Ebola-free. Here's what's happening: The condition of the patients Late yesterday afternoon, Amber Vinson's family announced that she was Ebola-free, meaning that the there was no detectable viral load in her blood. She remains at Emor ... More >>
On Monday, Governor Rick Perry announced that UT Southwestern Medical Center, Methodist Health System and Parkland Hospital System would be partnering to open a dedicated Ebola treatment center at the Methodist Campus for Continuing Care in Richardson. With Wednesday's opening, we spoke to residents ... More >>
As hysteria fades, people's lives are still being affected. Here's what's happening: The conditions of the patients Late Tuesday afternoon, Nina Pham was upgraded from fair to good condition by her treatment team at the National Institutes of Health. Amber Vinson is still stable at Emory University ... More >>
On Monday afternoon, dozens of nurses, doctors and other healthcare employees convened at the front entrance of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital to discuss the recent controversy about how the hospital handled the Ebola outbreak. Despite definitive comments in support of the hospital, Presby's nur ... More >>
Here's a roundup of the (mostly good) Ebola news from over the weekend: The condition of the patients: Amber Vinson is still being treated at Emory University hospital in Atlanta. Se remains in stable condition. Over the weekend, her family issued a statement asking for privacy and disputing claims ... More >>
The rhetoric from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurses in the last several days has been vehement. Nurses are anonymously alleging that the hospital did not take proper steps to prevent contamination and infection, which ultimately led to nurses Amber Vinson and Nina Pham contracting Ebola from ... More >>
Heading into a much needed weekend, here's the latest Ebola news of note: The condition of the patients. Nina Pham is now being treated at a National Institutes of Health facility in Maryland. She is listed as being in fair condition. While she was listed in good condition at Presbyterian, doctors ... More >>
On Thursday, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, Mayor Mike Rawlings, and members of city health authorities convened for an emergency commissioners court meeting to officially declare disaster in Dallas. But after a private debate, and a significantly tamer public discussion, the court agreed that wh ... More >>
The last few days have been filled with dark news: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Sunday that Nina Pham is Dallas' second Ebola patient, having been one of the nurses to Thomas Eric Duncan. And the World Health Organization announced Tuesday that the fatality rate for Eb ... More >>
Update 12:15 p.m.:Amber Joy Vinson, the second Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse diagnosed with Ebola after helping treat Thomas Eric Duncan, is being moved to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced at a news conference late this morning ... More >>
On Tuesday, nurses at Presbyterian Hospital voiced their complaints for the first time -- in so many words. Fearful of ramifications in the workplace, nurses anonymously sent their allegations to National Nurses United, where their comments were read aloud by spokesperson Deborah Burger. The nurse ... More >>
Thomas R. Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, speaking on 7/31/2014: "It is not a potential of Ebola spreading widely in the U.S. That is not in the cards." "We have quarantine stations ... More >>
The news Sunday was disturbing. A Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse -- confirmed Monday to be 26-year-old Nina Pham -- had contracted Ebola. Pham was not one 10 people being monitored for close contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, nor wa ... More >>
According to reports from multiple news outlets and the Centers for Disease Control, a healthcare worker -- reportedly a nurse -- who was in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for the Ebola virus. The test was performed by the Texas Department of State Health Services and is being c ... More >>
Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., had a fever of 103 degrees during his first visit to Presbyterian Hospital, The Associated Press reports. The Centers for Disease Control lists a fever of greater than 101.5 degrees as one of the potential signs that someon ... More >>
Michael Monnig, the man taken from a Frisco Care Now clinic to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas after showing potential Ebola symptoms and indicating that he had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, has tested negative for the Ebola virus. According to conflicting reports yesterday, Monnig ... More >>
One great service Dallas could render to the rest of the country, should the dust ever settle on the local Ebola story, would be a thorough, no-holds-barred post mortem on information sharing. I am already hearing from people behind the scenes, speaking off the record, that there has been significan ... More >>
Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national being treated for Ebola at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital died this morning at 7:51 a.m.. Presbyterian issued the following statement: "It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric ... More >>
The death of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan on Wednesday morning comes as a shock, despite his infection with one of the most dangerous illnesses in the world. "When people get sick, we will recognize them. And the local health departments will go to action and do the same kind of thing as here," ... More >>
This week, Highland Park school district's "Nurses's Corner" is an attempt to assuage parents' fears about the Ebola risk at HPISD schools. There is no risk, the letter says, despite Armstrong Elementary parent Clay Jenkins being in close contact with members of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan's f ... More >>
How much does it cost to care for a single case of Ebola in the United States? Between specialized treatment, identifying and tracking down every possible contact, decontaminating every possible touched or vomited-upon surface, the cost of containing an Ebola outbreak is substantial, though perhaps ... More >>
As a rule, high school sucks. Now imagine going to high school thinking you could get infected with one of the most deadly viruses known to man. There are a few caveats to that, of course. One, ebola is not nearly as deadly as we like to think -- far more people are killed by, say, the common flu ... More >>
There has been much more talk in Dallas the last few days about the dangers of panic than about the dangers of Ebola. In the meantime if we are paying attention we must notice by now that our vaunted Western industrialized defenses against contagion are riddled with holes. We know that the Dallas ... More >>
For now, the occupants of the Vickery Meadow apartment where patient Thomas Eric Duncan was staying are hunkered down in their ebola-tainted quarters while a Hazmat team scrubs the unit and the rest of Dallas preps for the end times. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins told reporters in a conference c ... More >>
Newest updates will appear at the bottom of this post. September 20: Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan arrives in Dallas from Monrovia, Liberia via Brussels. Duncan made an intervening stop at Dulles International Airport near Washington D.C.. September 26: Duncan first visits Texas Health Pres ... More >>
For the most part it was business as usual at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Wednesday. Patients waited to be admitted, staffers walked briskly to their cars after their long, grueling shifts end. But there was an eerie quietness in the waiting rooms and admitting areas: Besides the ... More >>
A school bus parked in front of the Ivy Apartments yesterday afternoon and let out dozens of kids as reporters filmed B-roll and took photographs across the street. The news stations had already confirmed that this apartment complex in Vickery Meadows was where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed in Dallas be ... More >>
A major theme -- a very dangerous one -- in the reaction here to the arrival of Ebola is the notion that we are protected by our cultural and economic superiority from the kind of contagion now in Africa and that all we need to do is remain calm. I sincerely question whether calm is our most appropr ... More >>