Air Canada refused to fly a blood specimen from a patient suspected of Ebola from Edmonton to Winnipeg last weekend, CBC News has learned.
Officials are blaming poor communication and unclear protocols for the delay of more than 24 hours between when the sample was collected in Edmonton and when it finally arrived in Winnipeg's National Microbiology Lab.
This seems like a non-story, but I would think if they made enough calls to get somebody higher up at AC, they'd be willing to waive their policy since lives are potentially at stake?
This seems like a non-story, but I would think if they made enough calls to get somebody higher up at AC, they'd be willing to waive their policy since lives are potentially at stake?
Obligatory "have you seen how Air Canada deals with baggage?" joke.
There are strict controls on how you can ship biohazardous materials. We have to send ours in sealed container within a special biocontainment sealed container. Labels everywhere and shipment declarations. Maybe something wasn't filled out properly.
I didn't even know Air Canada could carry them. Ours always go FedEx. Granted we don't send Ebola. If anything is missing on our paperwork they won't even pick it up.
NYC doc who was treating Ebola patients in West Africa tests positive.
Quote:
A Doctors Without Borders physician who recently returned from West Africa is at a New York hospital for isolation and testing for the Ebola virus, authorities said.
Maybe so, but seeing that 100,000,000 figure up on the board does not give one comfort about the potential impact of ANY serious outbreak. Look at the way Canadian media reacted to SARS and it's impact barely registered on the chart. Are the Rolling Stones going to have a benefit concert in Toronto for Ebola? I don't know, it still sounds serious enough to engage global resources against containing it and treating those effected. Why be lazy about threats like this?
Maybe so, but seeing that 100,000,000 figure up on the board does not give one comfort about the potential impact of ANY serious outbreak. Look at the way Canadian media reacted to SARS and it's impact barely registered on the chart. Are the Rolling Stones going to have a benefit concert in Toronto for Ebola? I don't know, it still sounds serious enough to engage global resources against containing it and treating those effected. Why be lazy about threats like this?
A 5-year-old boy who just returned from West Africa was transported to Bellevue Hospital Sunday with possible Ebola symptoms, according to law-enforcement sources.
How are people still being allowed to travel?
(I know it would be pretty difficult to enforce)
Maybe they should be quarantined before travel, not after?
"Hi traveler/dirty toddler, you're leaving an infected area and flying to one of the most populated places in North American, sure, here's a comfy seat. Please be sure to spit/drool, pick your nose and run amok around the plane touching things."
Hope the kids okay - but this is getting silly. Sure, we'll let you here after a damn quarantine.
I'm not sure the departing city would have the quarantine capabilities nor the thoroughness, also if you're wanting to quarantine people coming from there you have to quarantine everyone on the plane (assuming they weren't from there originally), although they would have to be from there wouldn't they?
Easier to just ban travel, although that might not be reasonable either.
I dunno - not really sure I can think of any solution other than ban travel. But then you might get people travelling by vehicle to fly out of elsewhere. If you can drive somewhere in less than 21 days it's kind of moot.
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Maybe so, but seeing that 100,000,000 figure up on the board does not give one comfort about the potential impact of ANY serious outbreak. Look at the way Canadian media reacted to SARS and it's impact barely registered on the chart. Are the Rolling Stones going to have a benefit concert in Toronto for Ebola? I don't know, it still sounds serious enough to engage global resources against containing it and treating those effected. Why be lazy about threats like this?
The Canadian media wasn't even the worst during that whole situation. The foreign media, and especially the American media were making it sound like SARS was the dawn of the apocalypse. If anything, we were trying to downplay it to avoid the tourism hit.
The benefit concert was more to show people that Toronto was still a safe place to travel to.
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"Hi traveler/dirty toddler, you're leaving an infected area and flying to one of the most populated places in North American, sure, here's a comfy seat. Please be sure to spit/drool, pick your nose and run amok around the plane touching things."
Hope the kids okay - but this is getting silly. Sure, we'll let you here after a damn quarantine.
I'm not sure the departing city would have the quarantine capabilities nor the thoroughness, also if you're wanting to quarantine people coming from there you have to quarantine everyone on the plane (assuming they weren't from there originally), although they would have to be from there wouldn't they?
Easier to just ban travel, although that might not be reasonable either.
I dunno - not really sure I can think of any solution other than ban travel. But then you might get people travelling by vehicle to fly out of elsewhere. If you can drive somewhere in less than 21 days it's kind of moot.
If someone travels into the US via airplane instead of by ship/car--it is a whole lot easier to trace who they are and who they may have been around. If they enter the country in other ways, it's much harder to track them.
The last thing West Africa needs is for doctors and other healthcare professionals to refuse to go there because they might not be able to return easily, and those countries where they're coming from have much bigger issues than ensuring a proper isolation area for any and everyone flying out.
A nurse who was quarantined against her will in New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in West Africa will not obey officials' instructions to seclude herself at home in Maine, she and her lawyers said on the "Today" show and to the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday.
"I don't plan on sticking to the guidelines," she said. "I remain appalled by these home quarantine policies that have been forced upon me."
"I want to be sure everyone understands what quarantine means in this case," Mayhew said. "Stating it plainly, what we are asking for is that individuals who had direct contact with Ebola patients stay in their home and avoid public contact until the 21 days for potential incubation has passed."
"The conditions that the state of Maine is now requiring Kaci to comply with are unconstitutional and illegal and there is no justification for the state of Maine to infringe on her liberty," Siegel told the Daily News.
The nurse said that she thinks it would be "reasonable," in circumstances like hers, to self-monitor for symptoms but not be quarantined.
Selfish think-for-her-self-er. She could put countless people in harms way. How can a person think like that. What if she gets a child sick? How is she going to live with herself....