Yesterday we heard that chief NBC medical correspondent, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, had issued a non-apology for violating her voluntary Ebola quarantine and was subsequently put under mandatory quarantine. A freelance photographer who had worked with Snyderman in Liberia contracted the deadly virus nearly two weeks ago. Snyderman and members of her crew, who had pledged to stay away from the public for the virus’ 21 day incubation period, were spotted getting takeout soup a few days ago in Princeton, New Jersey. As a result, they were placed under mandatory quarantine by New Jersey officials until October 22.
Snyderman issued a statement basically saying she’s sorry we were worried but that she and her crew were never a threat to the public. “As a health professional I know that we have no symptoms and pose no risk to the public, but I am deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused.” Many people noted that Snyderman also blamed her crew for violating quarantine, stating “members of our group violated those guidelines.” She never said I violated quarantine although it’s clear that she did.
There’s plenty of valid criticism for Snyderman’s arrogance. My favorite is this editorial in the Chicago Tribune which calls her Dr. Soups Snyderman and sums up her statement as this: “sitting in the house waiting for symptoms can really drive you crazy. And I really wanted a bowl of soup. So I went and got the (bleeping) soup, OK? My bad. But hey, I’m a doctor and know what’s best, so stay tuned for my next Ebola special.”
People are calling for Snyderman to be fired by NBC News, although that’s not likely to happen. Matt Lauer has a lot of say over who is employed by The Today Show and he seems to think her apology was enough. Lauer told TMZ that Snyderman “admitted she was wrong,” that “she knows she made a mistake” and is “back in quarantine which is where she should be.”
Meanwhile the director of the CDC, Tom Frieden, has stated that Snyderman and her crew were never a risk to the public. In an appearance on CNN, Frieden said that “if [Snyderman] was not sick, she was not putting others at risk.” This is because Ebola only spreads when people are exhibiting symptoms. It’s still very worrying to the people of Princeton, NJ. A city council meeting open to the public was held in Princeton on Monday, and was presided over by their local Health Officer. He explained that Snyderman and their crew were deemed “low risk” for Ebola in that they were within three feet of a victim. What’s more is that Princeton police are patrolling Snyderman’s neighborhood every hour. A police administrator explained “It’s really just to make sure that there’s no chaos out there. We can keep an eye on the house, if cars are leaving.” Snyderman’s husband is not under mandatory quarantine. If she tries to leave again in the next week you can bet the local cops will catch her.
NBC won’t fire her now that she has the CDC to back her up.
I don’t watch the first and I don’t have confidence in the second.
The whole story is very sketchy to me, especially after Mat publicly shamed her her actions. Who ever is watching Snyderman back it must be somebody from NBC. I wonder if she is going to loose her job over this?
The CDC has lost my confidence with the debacle in Texas. Instead of the CDC wasting its time validating Nancy Synderman they should be at hospitals training staff on how to deal with infectious disease, especially ebola.
They want to quell a panic.
Understood Kiddo but a second nurse from Texas has tested positive for Ebola. It doesn’t make me feel good that medical staff haven’t been properly trained. It also doesn’t make me feel good that the CDC is making up protocol that is stupid. Why was she put on quarantine if they knew she didn’t need it?
The CDC doesn’t have it together that is what will/is causing panic.
They’re actually doing both right now. The CDC employs a lot of people and can do more than one thing at a time.
ITA@denisemich.
Common misconception that this is the purview of the CDC. It’s not. State health board is in charge here. And Texas is definitely a big ole advocate of states’ rights…
If you’ve got to blame someone (not v productive anyway), blame Texas. And feel exasperated that we’re all as safe as the weakest link….
Yeah CDC doesn’t give me a lot of hope these days.
@ Celia. I believe you are wrong. The mission of the CDC is to detect, respond and train medical staff on emerging diseases.
Ebola has never been in America before and it is not possible that without the CDC’s help any US state would know how to respond.
It’s not like the CDC put everything on hold to deal with this. They can multitask. And this statement isn’t so muuch rallying up a defense for Snyderman. It’s calming the publics fear that she did not increase the risk of ebola in the states.
What they said needed to be said.
All that aside by Snyderman’s logic I can walk into an exam room and refuse to wash my hands. I can justify this by telling the patient I know i’m not sick and can’t spread anything they wouldn’t get from a door handle.
This woman only showed she puts her comfort 1st. How horrible it must have been to entertain the thought of her soup being delivered.
Exactly! They are so busy protecting their own, i.e. a fellow doctor, that they can’t be bothered to train or monitor the NURSES actually risking their lives and doing the really dangerous work!
Frieden needs to resign today over this total debacle. Over the last six years through his incompetence and arrogance he has destroyed the CDC, and now we are seeing the results of his mismanagement.
“Why was she put on quarantine if they knew she didn’t need it? ”
They (the CDC) didn’t put her on quarantine. It was NBC who worked with “local New Jersey authorities” and put her on a “voluntary” quarantine. IMO, it seems the original voluntary q was a PR measure taken by NBC to prevent public panic.
If you want to really read what the locals are thinking and feeling, google
WFAA facebook
WFAA is the local ABC station, and they post just about every story, and people comment.
I live south of the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex, and have friends and family that live there.
PennyLane wrote, “They are so busy protecting their own, i.e. a fellow doctor, that they can’t be bothered to train or monitor the NURSES actually risking their lives and doing the really dangerous work!”
The nurses that have Ebola were in contact with the patient BEFORE he was diagnosed with Ebola, but when he was vomiting. I think the hospital itself has failed their nurses, not the CDC. The hospital should not have sent the patient home after he came in with symptoms and told them he had just returned from a high risk African country.
@Tiffany -Over at the other article about Snyderman and in reply to you there, I posted two links which showed that the CDC, the NJ Dept of Health, and the Princeton Dept of Health were the agencies she made an agreement with to do a voluntary quarantine.
So her quarantine wasn’t an agreement she made just among the NBC corporation,
Anne, I read yesterday that the president of NBC said that they made the agreement with local authorities in New Jersey, not the CDC. Regardless, (I am going to assume you are correct that the CDC was involved) I am very curious as to why they put them under “voluntary” quarantine instead of mandatory. Voluntary quarantines are suggestions that people not go out into the world, but they aren’t enforceable like the mandatory (which comes with fines and imprisonment for breaking them).
If they thought she was a risk, why did they do a voluntary? Was it more to ease the public’s mind, or did they sincerely think she posed a threat? If she was a threat, why wasn’t it a mandatory quarantine?
I (finally) found the appropriate CDC document. “At this time, CDC is NOT recommending that asymptomatic contacts of EVD patients be quarantined, either in facilities or at home.” http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/monitoring-and-movement-of-persons-with-exposure.html
What they do recommend is “conditional release” – you take your temp 2x daily, report if you have a fever; and “controlled movement” – tell health officials about intended travel, ask permission to use public transport (bus or taxi) and definitely do not use commercial conveyance (plane, ship, long-distance bus or train).
So, if it were just the CDC, Nancy’d be in trouble for not telling health officials she was going out for a drive, but they’d actually have okay’d it if they’d been asked. But it’s not just the CDC, it also depends on what the NJ/Princeton guys think. There’s a pretty good chance the mandatory quarantine is simply a reaction to her causing a public panic … in other words, don’t get caught!
If she wasn’t a risk, she wouldn’t be on mandatory quarantine.
She wasn’t a risk AT THE TIME SHE LEFT QUARANTINE. She is LOW risk, not NO risk, and that’s why she’s being quarantined. What is so hard for people here to comprehend…
The CDC said that both nurses who have now been diagnosed with ebola were both low risk as well. They let the second nurse fly to another state and go on a campus, for goodness’ sake! The CDC doesn’t know what it’s doing, and the W.H.O. says that the CDC is wrong on its protocols because ebola can be spread by sneezing and coughing – things that the CDC says are impossible.
While I understand that Ebola is only contagious once you’ve developed symptoms, I also would have hoped that a freaking DOCTOR would understand the need to maintain quarantine. Even if she was 100% certain that she hadn’t contracted it, if she voluntarily quarantined herself / her crew then they should have respected it.
Yes. By breaking her own quarantine she was sending terrible mixed signals.
Is it that hard for her to just obey the quarantine and, I don’t know… Set a good example??
Exactly, how do they expect other people to maintain their quarantine if a freaking doctor wont. Just because she thinks she isn’t in danger doesn’t mean she isn’t… and she needs to set an example for other people ..
I get that they want to calm the public. But to assert that they were positively low risk, as a crew, is a tad silly since a member of their crew already came down with the virus. I understand he had been washing down a vehicle carrying bodies, or at least that’s what I read, so he was probably splashed, and not actually rolling on top of Ebola victims either.
I really shouldn’t laugh, but um, well you started it.
The funny thing is, not funny haha, but we decided to leave the noise, city and people, and take a trip to the country. Guess where we ended up? Hopewell, NJ. Two days after her venture. In a different restaurant, but still.
Oh dear, Kiddo. I will come visit you in your bubble & bring you those Rourke leggings you are so fond of, and gently okay the bongos to the beat of OMG I MISSED YOU.
@mimif, But what about THAT wig? The synthetics will create an unpenetrable barrier for protection.
That member of the crew that got sick had been living in Liberia for the past 7 years as a freelance cameraman. He was hired on a Monday and started showing symptoms on Wednesday. I’m willing to bet he was exposed before he was even hired.
True, but they were, or were not, in his presence with the start of the symptoms, they aren’t sure. Your risk is increased with longer contact to the source of the infection, but that doesn’t mean there was zero risk because they only spent a few days with an infected person. It’s not as if his virus is less virulent than other Ebola victims.
This. CDC at this point is so focused on covering their own butts and ‘preventing panic’ (too late!) that they are now stretching the truth left and right.
For them, they’re fudging the truth and telling themselves that that’s okay because they’re 95% certain it’s true, and the American public is too stupid to understand the concept of 95%, so they’ll just say it’s 100%. Plus Snyderman is a fellow MD so they will go out of their way for her – notice nothing like this was said for the nurse who risked her life caring for that Ebola patient, followed the CDC protocols, and got infected anyways.
The nurses who have been infected were NOT following CDC protocols, but it wasn’t their fault, IMO. It was the hospital’s. They were in contact with the patient BEFORE he was diagnosed but while he was vomiting. The hospital chose not to test him and sent him back home, even though he said that he had just returned from Liberia.
I live right where this happened. There is so much fall out. The restaurant is most likely going to go out of business. They are a great family owned and run place with delicious food, sourced local etc. No one is going to want to eat there now. The local farmers who grew especially for them are going to be hurting. Downtown hopewell and Princeton are having major issues now. All because one selfish arrogant woman decided that her needs and wants were more important than public safety and starting a panic. She needs to lose her license and be fired. I also hope the restaurant and downtown shops that are losing business at a peak time of year bring a suit against her and NBC.
That’s terrible! Selfish, arrogant woman.
how unfortunate for this business and the others affected by one person’s arrogance and disregard.
her arrogance and inconsideration for others is inexcusable.
she is a health care professional who should HONOR protocols to protect others and to set an example required by her oath…
and that “apology”?
matt lauer says that she apologized and admitted wrongdoing?
where???
i think she should, at a minimum, be fired from her nbc post.
and if she is sued…she brought it on herself.
no shame…reprehensible.
Lawsuit, baby.
Wow. That is horrible. I am sure Nancy never gave a thought about anyone but herself.
Tell the restaurant owners to very publicly have their place cleaned by a special hazmat team. No, really. That way, they can be reinspected and get a clean bill of health and people can still go there. I hope they don’t go out of business due to that doctor’s selfishness; if they do, they should sue her.
They should do that, and then send the bill to Snyderman and NBC.
Definitely a lawsuit. And an interview with ABC…
Since you live locally, why not grab a bunch of friends and go there for dinner? (If you can afford it). Give them some support.
Honestly, there’s zero risk. But let’s say I’m wrong, and you can catch ebola from going somewhere that a non-symptomatic person spent 10 minutes … 6 days ago. In that scenario, we’re all dead anyway, so you might as well have a good meal before the apocalypse.
She needs to lose her license for breaking a voluntary quarantine when she knew she posed zero risk? It’s not her fault uneducated people are freaking out and overreacting for no reason.
If she isn’t taking Ebola seriously, who will? She’s supposed to be the example for everyone else. The only way to control it is for the people that have been exposed to not spread it around. What a selfish woman.
I know. How did her cameraman contract Ebola if he like her were low risk?
He’d lived in Liberia for 3 years, working freelance. He was hired to join the NBC crew on Sept 30. On Oct 1, he came down with ebola symptoms. So he obviously contracted the disease before he was hired. I assume the NBC crew had some contact with him (interview and suchlike) before he was hired, but it’s unlikely they were exposed to whatever infected him in the first place (he thinks he caught it helping decontaminate a car). They are considered low-risk because they were around him when he first came down with the fever, but they weren’t in close contact.
@Lucrezia –
If he was hired on 9/30 and on 10/1 started displaying symptoms, doesn’t this mean Snyderman and the crew were with him during the time symptoms showed up?
From what I read, it’s when the symptoms are noticeable that the affected person is infectious.
Uh, yep. I did say that – maybe you missed the last sentence? Or was I not clear? I didn’t mean to imply they had zero risk, I was just explaining to Stephanie that they don’t have equal risk as the cameraman because they were almost certainly not exposed to whatever made HIM sick.
You get more and more infectious as you get sicker and sicker, and there’s different levels of contact with someone. So, early stages of disease, plus minimal contact = risk, but low-risk. Casual contact with someone seriously ill (or the body of a victim) or intense contact (sex, or cleaning up their blood, or waste) with someone mildly ill would be considered high-risk.
So they are low risk (casual contact, victim was mildly ill – not spreading fluids everywhere), while he did something that was high-risk (spray-washing a car in which someone had died). He thought he’d be safe because he was wearing protective gear, but as we’re seeing with the nurses in Texas and Spain, it’s really easy to get infected while removing your gear.
Lucrezia, the nurses in Texas were in contact with the patient before he was diagnosed, therefore they wouldn’t have been wearing gear at that time.
They were? All the initial reports drew a clear line between the 1st nurse (Pham) and the 48 “high-risk” people who’d been in contact with Duncan between symptoms and diagnosis: family, staff from the initial hospital visit, ambulance crew etc.
*googles*
You’re right, latest reports are saying both nurses treated him in the window between hospital admission (28th) and confirmation of the diagnosis (30th) … and that workers didn’t wear PPE until after it was confirmed. That’s horrifying on so many levels. Why weren’t they wearing PPE with a suspected ebola case? Why weren’t they automatically considered high-risk and quarantined, like the ambulance crew?
The one tiny bright side is that all 76 healthcare workers who had contact surely couldn’t have seen him on those 2 days, so maybe some of them are low risk. (I’m already side-eyeing the fact that he had contact with 76 staff in 10 days. If he had 76 contacts within two days, then it’s horrifying on another level: were they treating him as a carnival exhibit?)
What a selfish, foolish, and irresponsible woman.
Pretty much sums it up. Snyderman seriously needs to check her privilege on this one.
Also, what was she even complaining about? Personally speaking, I would love a 3-week staycation. 🙂
Exactly, why not charge food, have it delivered to your doorstep and relax for three weeks with Netflix and online shopping. What a douche.
Doesn’t matter that they were at low risk to have ebola, they were still at risk. She should realize that she should be putting a good example out there for all to see. If we are going to contain this then EVERYONE who is at risk should do what they need to do. BooHoo that it is hard to be quaranteed for 21 days.
I’m a TODAY show loyalist and never miss it (not a popular view here, I know)…but Nancy Snyderman needs to be FIRED, no ifs, ands, or buts. If she’s not, I will be switching over to Georgey.
She needs to lose her medical license as well. It she was of no risk, she would not have been under quarantine!
Totally agree.
GET EDUCATED. it was voluntary quarantine because she was so low risk. Why should she lose her license for leaving her house when she posed ZERO risk to the public, which has been confirmed. People are going nuts for no reason. It’s absurd.
You need to GET EDUCATED. She was put in MANDATORY QUARANTINE for violating the voluntary quarantine.
It’s the cover up that’s going to take her down, not her stupidity concerning the welfare of others. That’s unfortunate. As a physician she’s violated her oath -“Do No Harm”. And Lauer backing her up just makes me angrier.
New marketing champaign for the restaurant “so good it’s worth risking the start of an Ebola pandemic”.
Because – not gonna lie- the food is reasonably priced and PHENOMENAL. So good.
LOL!!
If it’s that good, do a viral campaign to get people to eat there. Don’t let them go out of business!
delete
How selfish. And what was the cdc supposed to say? I’ll willing to bet there was at least a low risk involved but saying that would have created a bigger panic than anything. And i think she should be fired still.
Arrogant b@tch. Why lie and say you will be under voluntary quarantine and then violate it because there’s a “low risk?” I don’t care if there’s a 1 in a million chance. Will it kill you to stay in your house for 21 days? This is not a joke. People could die. Do I think they will as a result of her actions? No. But a second Texas health worker has tested positive for Ebola, after all the precautions taken. This is serious.
Arrogant b@tch is exactly what she is. This infuriates me.
Exactly. Even if she didn’t pose a “real threat,” at this point, everybody should be going above and BEYOND. I’m not in hysteria over Ebola spreading, but this is obviously not as easily contained as CDC has been advertising. That condescending “apology” she gave just put me over the edge in my opinion of her.
Right. I’m not trying to be hysterical, I just think it’s a serious enough situation that 21 days in your own home is not too much to ask.
Good names, just to clarify so no one gets overly panicked: all precautions weren’t exactly taken in the Texas cases. The big news is that none of these nurses feel prepared or feel like they’ve had accurate instructions on how to deal with this virus and protect themselves. Mistakes were obviously made in the handling of hazardous material or the removal of protective gear. That’s the biggest problem right now: unpreparedness.
Oh, interesting. That’s awful, but sort of good to know.
Did any of the infected nurses interact with the patient in Texas during the 1st time he came into the hospital showing symptoms and was sent home?
Rare instances and also some further contemplation for avoiding infections:
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/27/world/people-carrying-ebola-in-some-cases-may-be-free-of-symptoms.html
There are reports now saying the healthcare workers that cared for Mr. Duncan went without any protective gear for 2 DAYS while waiting for the Ebola test results. If true, it is mindblowing, and we should probably expect more nurses to test positively for it.
Yes, MrsB, that is what I am hearing too. That they were in contact with him BEFORE diagnosis.
This is not exactly comforting now that the WHO (which is an international organization monitoring ebola, as opposed to the national CDC) has now issued a statement that the 21-day inoculation period may be insufficient because WHO is documenting cases that seem to have an innoculation period of up to 48 days: http://twitchy.com/2014/10/15/whoa-if-true-world-health-organization-says-ebola-can-incubate-for-more-than-21-days/
I get that the doctor wasn’t exactly hacking in anyone’s soup, but that isn’t really the point. The point was that she voluntarily agreed to a quarantine just to be sure (since by her own admission, she “did not think” the infected cameraman has symptoms when she had contact with him, but couldn’t be totally sure). Then she went back on the agreement, which serves to confuse and scare people.
No one knows how Ebola is going to act. It’s a virus. It’s constantly mutating and changing. She’s a fool for what she did. How selfish.
Great, on-point comment, Tessa, and “selfish” is the perfect word to describe her actions.
Actually, the WHO has said that the CDC protocols aren’t enough to protect health workers because ebola can be transmitted by sneezing and coughing. The CDC still says this isn’t possible.
And “a report released report released by the World Health Organization on October 14, 2014 reveals that 1 in 20 Ebola infections has an incubation period longer than the 21 days which has been repeatedly claimed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.”
The CDC is lying, and I don’t know why. Based on the WHO’s information, that doctor can show no symptoms for the entire 21 days and come down with full-blown ebola on day 35. Please everyone, do your research, especially if you’re a health worker. The CDC isn’t giving correct information, and is endangering those who work with ebola patients and their loved ones.
I think anybody who has been paying attention to the news, realizes it is spread easier than the CDC is letting on. Maybe they are downplaying it to prevent mass hysteria, but really it is so irresponsible.
Yes, it’s quite obvious and quite irresponsible.
There is something extremely odd about that WHO report. I went to the source, and yes it does say 98% have an incubation period between 1 and 42 days, but it also says – extremely clearly – that 42 days is twice the maximum incubation period.
So – major typo of some sort? Honestly, I’d take the 42 day incubation idea with a grain of salt until it’s repeated/confirmed by another source. I can’t find any recorded case that had an incubation period longer than 20 days, let alone 40+. There’s no way 2% of cases take 42 days or longer to incubate – MSF etc would’ve been all over that months ago, it would’ve been obvious when they were doing contact tracing that they had the wrong time-frame.
I get it that you’re not contagious if you don’t have symptoms. But that’s why you’re on quarantine…..to see of any develop. Sit your arrogant a$$ at home and deal with it.
Oh, for the love of soup, Nancy…………
Here’s the thing, for me. A doctor should know that medical protocols are normally in place to provide protection from the known sick, but also from the maybe sick, so that the illness doesn’t spread FOR SURE. Double safety. Redundancy with reason. And me, sitting right here in my living room could make arrangements to pay someone else via email to go and pick up something for me and leave it on my doorstep so that I would never have to come into contact with anyone. Or you know, I have friends who would pick it up for me and I could pay them later.
It’s arrogance, plain and simple. We here in Canada saw nurses breaking quarantine during the SARS scare too. It isn’t a matter of whether one person is a risk or not. If the public sees a health official breaking their own protocols, how much more, far riskier, behaviour will happen by the general public.
Now, if I could get everyone I see in public washrooms to start washing their hands, that would help the spread of the common flu, which kills many more people every year. Along with any number of other illnesses.
OK, done venting now.
Matt Lauer has a lot of say? Well there is NBC’s first mistake. He should have been dismissed about 5 years ago. I don’t care that this time she and her crew are fine but if they go back again they may NOT be that lucky and it showed how arrogant and simply an ugly side of this so called Health professional. So if she isn’t fired she should at least get a good dressing down by the President of NBC and told that if it happens again she will be fired. Her actions reflects poorly on NBC in my opinion.
Low risk is still a risk. Bottom line, she should know better, or she does and just doesn’t care.
Right. She’s a fool. She clearly acknowledged there was a risk since she put herself under quarantine to begin with. To suddenly decide it would be OK to break it is selfish and irresponsible. What a jackass.
If I were Tom Frieden at the CDC, I’d be outraged at having to put out this extra fire.
I need to vent for a moment because I’m angry. I know the camera man contracting Ebola is a totally unrelated situation. But I feel very strongly that we wouldn’t even be in this Texas situation if it weren’t for some very poor judgment. Thomas Eric Duncan was an African man came to the hospital with Ebola like symptoms and said he had just traveled from west Africa. He should’ve been quarantined immediately, the first time he walked into the hospital, and transferred to Atlanta or another one of the hospitals that’s actually equipped to deal with this as soon as possible. Two doctors were treated for Ebola at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital, they have since recovered, and none of their healthcare workers have contracted Ebola. Because they are prepared for this. We would not even be here had some better judgment calls been made, and that makes me angry.
Well, it’s even deeper than that. I know that they pushed back on the notion, but originally, people were making accusations that he was released due to lack of insurance coverage.
Holy Cow. I hope that isn’t true, because that would be too awful for words.
I agree, Koala. I can’t believe they sent Mr. Duncan home, knowing he came from Liberia and had symptoms. I wonder who made that decision.
I am also hearing that the nurses who now have Ebola were working with him before he was diagnosed. I am wondering if they were there when he came in originally, or if they were exposed while waiting for test results (someone mentioned that possibility up thread).
Totally agree with you Koala!
Even had a sincere, on-point apology been issued, it would not have changed what was done or it’s fallout consequences. All eyes are on NBC now to see what they do with her. If status quo, it’s contemptible and will hurt NBC significantly.
Fire her immediately and send a loud, clear message that breaking quarantine is a very serious, and potentially deadly, action. Being quarantined means that you can’t leave for any reason, much less something as idiotic as being unable to wait for your soup delivery.
Whichever medical board holds her license should begin proceedings to insure that she loses it. This talking head fame whore hasn’t practiced medicine in at least 25 or 30 years. I remember her from her San Francisco Bay Area days. She is no loss to the medical profession.
Matt Lauer is loving this. He is no longer the biggest a**hole in the room. He probably called TMZ and ratted out Doc McSoup.
Ya I have no faith in the CDC. This is a debacle. If she wasn’t dangerous why make it mandatory that she stays home now? I don’t buy any of this.
From what I’ve read, if you’re with a person that is showing noticeable symptoms of Ebola, then you are at risk because that’s when the person is infectious to whatever degree.
76 medical staff working with/around Duncan were on voluntary quarantine and now at least a week past his death, two nurses have Ebola with the second nurse not showing symptoms until yesterday or today.
We don’t know exactly when they contacted this disease, whether it was before or after Duncan died. We just know that the symptoms showed up days to a week after his death.
During this voluntary quarantine, the nurse flew from Dallas to Ohio. Then when she was showing symptoms, she flew back down again. So now the airplane and its passengers all have to be notified. They found her car in the hospital parking lot and that has to be cleaned by a hazmat crew. And then her mother has/will fly down to Dallas. So basically it’s just a tragic comedy of people going around anywhere they please including crowded areas, potentially spreading this virus when they should be holing themselves up trying to stay isolated from the public at large.
If Snyderman and her crew were with a person who had Ebola symptoms during their time together, then they are at risk, low or high. Just being in voluntary quarantine doesn’t mean there’s NO risk. The Dallas medical staff were under the same status and look what happened.
So Snyderman shouldn’t have acted so selfishly, arrogant, and impatient. She should have set a good example. Instead she issued an apology that makes it sound like other people broke the quarantine and didn’t notify the various health agencies they made an agreement with to stay isolated. And her statement never admitted that it was HER that was driving around town because she couldn’t practice self-control and care for the public.
Anne
Nailed it!
She couldn’t practice self control. She had to pick up her order and not have something delivered.
It just boggles my mind that Snyderman, as well as the second infected nurse (who flew when she was symptomatic) were so willing to potentially infect others by breaking quarantine. It’s just dumbfounding, the level of selfishness it takes to break a 3-week quarantine because you *need* soup or you *need* to fly out to plan your wedding. You can’t wait a few weeks, FFS?! It’s idiocy like this that could spread ebola to pandemic levels. Goddamn, think about the greater good, people.
What kills me about this is that while that person is waiting on test results while hospitalized, nurses, cleaning crew, food handlers passing trays, other doctors, interns, financial counselors are visiting this patient…just doing their jobs. They go to other rooms, have lunch with others, go home to families…all the while they’ve been in contact with the patient while he had symptoms. It’s bad when your immune system is ok, but what of you were in contact with him while you had a cold? Just saying.
LOW AND NO ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Part of the Hippocratic Oath:
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter.
If she didn’t mean it when she took the Hippocratic Oath, why would we believe she would mean it when she volunteered to stay home for 3 weeks? “Remembered with affection” is off the table. She had an ethical obligation as a health care professional to set a profoundly better example. By not keeping her word, she she has shown blatant disrespect for everyone.
CDC isn’t eliciting any respect these days either. What happened to “We are monitoring everyone that came in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan”? Everyone except the nurse flying around on commercial jets? At this point, them sticking up for anyone just sounds like more excuse making. How much “training in protocol” does it take to not put an airplane full of passengers at risk?
Through all of this, it seems the only medical voices of reason are the ones that don’t have any power to make necessary changes. Instead, the people in power apparently have only that.
No one has mentioned the poor owner of the restaurant where this arrogant b*tch went. Someone needs to cover this poor guy’s loss in business and death threats he’s been receiving. Yes, death threats. He had no way of knowing this would happen nor could he do anything to stop it. He should sue her but he can’t afford to do that. Totally unjust what she has done to this man and this town.
Snydermann’s credibility is shot and NBC should fire her immediately. Viewers will not trust her.
Here is some info about Ebola that we haven’t heard much of in the news and definitely not from the CDC or other health officials. I read in the front page of the La Times this past Sunday that the New England Journal of Medicine last month published an online study which is sponsored by the WHO and that highlights how little we know about Ebola. This study about the largest current outbreak of Ebola, found that in nearly 13% of confirmed and probable cases of Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and elsewhere, those affected DID NOT have any fever. This means that despite what health officials have been saying repeatedly, fever is not a reliable form of infectiousness. So in my opinion Mrs. Snyderman and others that been around Ebola patients, like nurses and so on, should stay in mandatory and enforced quarantine for up to 48 days. At this point I distrust anything that the American government says about this epidemic. I think they are willing to hide crucial information or lie to avoid mass panic and have the (airline) stocks fall even further.
I cannot believe these people, I am so angry, the nurse had symptoms and flew anyways because of a wedding? If she doesn’t die she should be brought to trial because she basically put peoples lives at risk. Her nursing license should be taken away along that stupid stupid doctor
Here’s the thing. Dr. Snyderman is a silly woman. I’ve never liked her, because she has an air/attitude about her that says she has absolutely NO consideration for others. For her to have a medical degree, and being intelligent enough (we can only hope) to know that the public is in an absolute panic about ebola, she should NEVER have allowed this situation to happen. I repeat, a silly woman.