Do you think this Ebola nurse should go to jail if she won't comply?

What would putting her in jail accomplish? And why is jail pretty much our first and only solution to anyone who doesn’t comply with any and every little decree?

What incredible idiocy of the government (writ large) to jail someone for not following their reactionary and overblown quarantine.

[note that I mentioned this might happen in a Fluther question I asked a few weeks ago.]

The ACLU will sue the crap out of the state (on behalf of Hickok). And they will win.

But just the other day we were all agreeing that high risk people, such as herself, should voluntarily quarantine themselves!

I don’t care about this woman anymore. I think someone should tell her that her 15 min of “fame” is officially over. She really does love the camera.

It came out officially today that the New York doctor who is now in the hospital in serious condition lied about his where abouts when he admitted himself to the hospital with a fever. apparently he told authorities that since he returned from Africa he has been in his apartment. when they check out his cell phone use they discovered he ran three miles, rode three trains, went out to eat in a restaurant, took uber car service and actually went bowling. The very next day after bowling he started to run a temperature and went to the hospital.

He only admitted to these things after he was confronted with the facts.The doctor lied. It has been talked about all day today in the New York Media.

I don’t trust that nurse for one second. She creeps me out.

I’m tired of this nurse also. I agree with @BeenThereSaidThat that the nurse is enjoying the attention. Or, possibly she has a real phobia of being confined. I saw her lawyer talking about her rights. Screw that, the needs of the many outweigh the one. However, I do think her quarantine was more extreme than necessary

I would have been fine with confining her to her own home, putting an ankle bracelet so she can’t leave, and posting quarantines on her door. Also, spot checks from a nurse for temp and other vitals. It’s worth it to be extreme with those in direct contact with sick people, because if several people do walk around infected and sick the numbers can grow exponentially. If ebola actually “got out” in America it would be crippling for America and the world. It is not just about illness, it is about the economy, and many other serious matters. Nothing is a serious as health of course, but unfortunately the economy and wealth of country relates to health also.

Ebola…all kinds of meh!

@JLeslie she is confined in Maine. she chose to be confined in her boyfriends house. I don’t know what more they could have done for this woman. I think New York was just happy to get rid of her and ship her home to Maine. Let them deal with her. Even under self quarantine she managed to get herself on the morning News programs.

I found out the other day there are a few people/families who have flown into my city from high risk areas in Africa and prior to arrival they were advised they would need to go into temporary isolation for (I think) 21 days. I’m not sure of the details but a health department person said there were a few people in this position on the radio the other day. I had no idea they were isolating people. Someone from the health department calls them each day and checks on how they’re going. One young woman developed a fever and went to hospital and she has tested negative for ebola.

Nobody has complained. I’ve not read one word or heard anyone complaining about this. It’s just quietly happening in the background and people are getting on with their lives and work. This nurse sounds like a drama queen. She needs to just suck it up. It’s not a lifetime quarantine, it’s a few weeks.

She may wind up being confined, but it certainly won’t be in a jail, at least prior to a determination of her status. But consider the dilemma: If she does turn out to be contagious, she can’t be allowed near a jail, and if she’s correct and ebola free, has she committed a crime?

@stanleybmanly I wonder if defying a government order to quarantine is a crime? I would guess it is. I really don’t know for sure though.

She’s the current Maine attraction.

She sounds like a spoiled brat deserving of a good spanking!

@JLeslie

Meanwhile the flu kills thousands each year, but no one gets flustered when someone shows up to work exhibiting all the signs of the flu. Indeed, such person is usually encouraged to take some Dayquil, suck it up and get to work.

Jail?

Why expose the non inmates there?

Quarantine is the answer.

Well, if they’re going after this woman then they should do the same with Dr. Nancy Snyderman who violated her supposed “self imposed” quarantine.

NBC has kept her off the air and is crossing their fingers hoping for anything else to dominate the news cycle and take the focus off of her and her arrogant display of piss poor judgement.

She’s an MD (who should certainly know better) who is supposed to be educating people about medical matters.

It’s interesting to watch and see who gets a pass and who doesn’t ~~

@Darth_Algar Bullshit! Do you want me to link the many many times I have written on fluther how pissed off I am that people are proud of how they drag themselves into work sick? That I am not extremely germaphobic in general (although more than average) but if you are sick stay the hell home, stay away from me, don’t shake my hand, don’t kiss me hello. In fact, I wish, and I have said this before, that we were more like the Japanese and bowed as a greeting rather than shake hands. Unfortunately cold and flu and other illnesses are contagious before we know we are sick.

When my husband has the first sign of coming down with something I take my toiletries out of our master bathroom and move them into the guest room and sleep there for a few days, only visiting him to tend to him and then wash my hands well and get the hell out. When I get sick I also move into the guest room.

Do people take Dayquil for flu? I have never taken it, but I thought it was a cold medicine? Most people with the flu cannot move out of bed once they become symptomatic, it is almost impossible to work the first few days. A cold is different, people go to work and run errands and spread their germs everywhere and it pisses me off. A lot of them even say they have allergies, like my MIL. Yeah, an allergy that lasted a week and her husband caught the allergy for a week also.

The other point I would like to make is if millions of people caught ebola, the death rate would be much much higher than when the same amount of people catch the flu. The comparison is ridiculous in my opinion.

I wish in our culture we did more to shame, or should I say discourage, people when they go out in public sick and take no care to protect others. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but the sick person can be the one to wash their hands more often to protect others. I wish employers did more to discourage sick workers from working and give them proper sick pay.

When I was a manager I sent my sick employees home if they were ok with it financially. Most of them preferred to be home.

I’m not hysterical about ebola, and I am not hysterical about the flu, but I prefer not to get sick. I am not in the group most likely to die from the flu, but I know stranger things have happened. The media is to blame for the hysteria regarding the flu, and also H1N1 back a few years ago. H1N1 was the most prevalenet flu last year and no one knows it and no one is hysterical about it., because the media is not still warning about it.

Typo: the last paragraph should read that the media is resposible for the hysteria about ebola, and also it was regarding H1N1.

When I saw her photo on the news, standing outside with her attorney, and headline banner reading “nurse defies quarantine order,” I wondered why she had to go the route of having an attorney and news cameras. Why not just go out, just go to a store or park without calling attention to oneself? Unless the news media is camped on her lawn 24/7 for 21 days, why make a scene about it? Just go out and do your thing. I’m sure if she wore a hat and scarf like 99% of people are doing up there right now with the cold weather, nobody would notice her.

@jca I think at first she wasn’t able to go out. She was under lock and key.

How did she get out now? The attorney had a court order?

Maybe I am confusing the case in NJ with the one in ME? I thought it was the same nurse.

This one was in NJ or NY, I think, and now back to her home in ME. I think she was quarantined when she got off the plane from Africa, and then released.

just heard on the News that she was out this morning biking with her boyfriend. she is looking for attention any way she can. From what I hear the people in her town are furious with her and have started speaking out to reporters.

If I were her, I’d be careful because in the woods of Maine, the townsfolk might be so mad they enact some kind of vigilante justice.

Ok, then it is the woman I was thinking of. NJ governor Chris Christie confined her to full out quarantine. He went beyond federal/CDC precautions at this time. She was kept in a place where she didn’t use regular plumbing, she had to go to the bathroom in a box basically (not use a regular toilet) and I am pretty sure she wasn’t allowed to leave the premises. Maybe she was actually guarded, I am not sure. Some of what I saw on facebook was people were upset she wasn’t allowed to see loved ones. Waiting three weeks to ensure I don’t infect my mother wouldn’t freak me out that badly. I guess if she is returning home to her children that mught seem like a long time, but wouldn’t a mother want to be extra careful with her kids?

I read somewhere that she was pissed because she was treated very rudely. I would probably be pissed too but she was very possibly nasty to them and then it’s just a vicious cycle.

@jca Sounds very possible. Why would be treated rudely warrant news coverage? She is over the top.

But the thing about this woman in Maine is that she has tested negative. So there’s no rational reason for the quarantine.

I think that this is another example of politics (again!). State governor (vastly right wing nut) doesn’t believe in science, so he’s not going to believe that her tests were negative for Ebola. HE knows better.

Politicians (mostly republican, but a few democrats) cherry pick the science that they’re going to believe.

@elbanditoroso Is their likelihood of false negative early in the disease? I don’t know, I’m just asking.

I wonder what the olds regs were for doctors returning to the US after treating Ebola patients? The regs over the last 30 years?

The PCR test for Ebola tends not to detect it in the blood until you show symptoms ie temperature, flu like symptoms etc. the reason is Ebola tends to infect organs like the liver and spleen before the virus makes it to the blood and its easier to test blood for Ebola than biopsying the liver. The test however is very sensitive and can detect a couple of viral particles in a vial of blood.
As for the quarantine issue Ebola is not contagious until the infected individual starts showing symptoms so it could be argued that quarantining someone who isn’t showing symptoms isn’t protecting anyone else but just being done so politicians can say they are doing something and keep people happy. The risk with having over zealous quarantine regulations is that it discourages people who know they may be at risk from declaring it thus increasing the risk to the population.

@JLeslie – I don’t either. Although everything I have read recently seems to be pretty confident of the tests.

Read the answer above @lightlyseated wrote.

@JLeslie

Yet I’m guessing you wouldn’t propose forcibly confining people with the flu, despite the health and economic impact (estimated to be as high as $87 billion per year, if this article is correct).

It’s the fact that Ebola is so much more horrific than the flu is what has people going. There is a 50% death rate, too.

Clearly at this point in time her attitude is one of defiance rather than cooperation and she’s rapidly dissipating whatever goodwill she accrued from volunteering to go over there to help out in the Ebola crisis in Africa.

However, considering the way she was treated the second she set foot on American soil (albeit in New Jersey) one wonders if this entire situation might have been avoided with a less heavy-handed and downright primitive method of dealing with her mandated by the Governor.

They had her in a 15 foot plastic tent with a bucket for toilet facilities set up in THE PARKING LOT. No sink, no shower, no toilet, nothing.

That’s ridiculous especially since she was asymptomatic. I’d be pissed off too.

I’m certainly not defending her current trucculent attitude, that’s what tends to happen once you get lawyers involved.

But I can’t help thinking that a bit more humane and compassionate treatment of her from the get go would have gone a long way.

I know that Chris Christie doesn’t give a damn what anybody thinks of him or his decisions (and sometimes that has a certain charm and appeal to it) but this bull in a china stop attitude and roughshod treatment of someone who was returning from a mission of helping others was way over the top.

They couldn’t even cordone off a room in the hospital but put her out in the parking lot??

Come on. We can certainly do better than that. She wasn’t vomiting or bleeding so this makes little sense.

I can’t do links now but there is a pretty graphic photo showing the “facilities” in which they kept her. Maybe someone can hunt it up and post it. I think it might help to explain some of her current attitude.

As @Lightlyseared has already pointed out, if this woman was treated with such Draconian measures, it certainly gives little incentive for anyone in the future to be honest about their degree of exposure to Ebola. That’s not a good thing.

@JLeslie while it may seem a bit silly to compare ebola with the flu the fact is that the flu is much more contagious. Going back to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 the estimated death toll in the US was about 18,000 with over 200,000 worldwide compared to the current ebola outbreak at 5,000. The 2004 flu season killed 46,000 Americans.

@Dutchess_III

A 50% death rate in countries without the medical infrastructure to deal with it. That’s what people seem to keep missing. Also, worldwide, the flu kills hundreds of thousands per year. I’m guessing the average death rate, likewise, depends on the state of available medical care.

Let’s see. They say 5–20 % of the US population gets the flu every year. Let’s call that 10% for an easy number. 300 million people x 10% (check my math, easy to screw up a decimal point) = 30 million people. Somewhere betwenn 5,000 and 36,000 people die from flu in a year (the number is likely overstated, but I’ll go with it) lets average high and say 30,000 people. 30,000 of the 30 million people. Would be .1%. That’s point one percent. One tenth of a percent.

@JLeslie

Your point being?

Yeah but how many people get the flu, stay home from work a few days and they’re done with it. People get ebola and they hemorrhage and die unless they’re given the best care.

@Darth_Algar my point is people with the flu aren’t quarantined because the chance the flu will kill someone is low. If a form of the flu cropped up that had a very high death rate the government would issue more precautions most likely. Just like if small pox had a come back.

@JLeslie

Yes, low with proper medical care. Just as the chance that ebola will kill someone is low with proper medical care. The biggest cause of death relating to ebola is dehydration. Dehydration can be managed. Proper medical care is the key. These countries in Africa where the death rate is 50% don’t have that. Not sure why people keep overlooking this.

Perhaps because in spite of their best efforts, Duncan died?

They even inttubated him and used Hemodialysis as a last measure to no avail.

So, it’s obviously more than just dehydration. I’m certain he received more than adequate hydration in Texas but obviously there’s much more to the picture. Perhaps that’s why people aren’t as focused on dehydration to the same extent as you express.

It’s just not that simple.

You’re overlooking the larger point, which I mentioned three times in that post – proper medical care. From what I’ve read Duncan’s treatment at Texas Presbyterian was not adequate (hemodialysis might sound impressive as a desperate throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks effort, but I’m not sure what they really expected it to do against a virus). Still, even the best treatment isn’t going to work in all cases.

Now we can freak out about Duncan, or we can consider the fact that thus far he’s been the only ebola fatality in the US, and out of 9 cases thus far 7 have been successfully treated (with 1 still ongoing).

Regardless of the death rate and the influence of proper medical care on that death rate, prevention is better than a cure. As such, keeping people who could potentially be infected with the virus makes more sense than letting them roam at will and trying to find everyone they’ve been in contact with if they do fall ill. While this nurse may be perfectly healthy and may remain healthy, the next nurse who comes back from working with the sick may not stay so well.

@Darth_Algar You are simply wrong. I never go to the doctor for the flu. Neither does my husband, neither did his dad when he had it. I’m the one on Fluther who us pissed people do go to the doctor for it, keep your germs at home! Now with the antivirals for flu people want to get their prescription. Before Tamiflu there really was not much of a reason at all to go to the doctor for the flu unless God forbid you were one if the few critical people who became deathly I’ll from the flu. Then you were likely an emergency, not a see your doctor tomorrow situation.

About $200,000 people wind up hospitalized from flu a year. Some of them still would have lived without hospitalization. The other 29,800,000 can suffer through with fever reducing meds at home and get through it. Maybe a few more would die from fever without the meds, but nothing like Ebola percentages.

In Africa a smaller percentage of people die from flu than die from Ebola. Probably Malaria is a bigger problem there than flu. I don’t know the malaria percentages.

Remember, I think the Ebola hype in the media is overblown and people’s reactions are overblown, but the fear if flu in the US is way overblown also.

Ebola isn’t contagious during the initial asymptomatic phase. There is no reason to force quarantine on people, as long as you can trust them to approach health care professionals when they start showing symptoms. And since exceedingly few people want to die by haemorrhaging blood from every orifice, I think that is a reasonably safe bet.

That said, I am due to undergo Ebola and highly infectious disease protocol training in my hospital in the coming week or so. I may change my opinion in the light of this training. I am unlikely to have real world exposure to Ebola, since there are still no confirmed cases in the country, but I’m looking forward to the training.

I don’t know if I would trust that nurse, but I would trust most people to comply.

Maybe I should add a clause to my answer excluding media whores.

@JLeslie

What exactly am I wrong about here? What, specifically, in my posts do you dispute as factually wrong? Or are you just bothered by the overall theme of my argument?

@Darth_Algar: I think you’re making it sound like Ebola is not that bad.

It IS bad, if you catch it. But the chances of you catching it are virtually 0, in this country.

I have no trouble with her violating the quarantine IF she agrees to pay for all medical charges, lost wages, and pain and suffering for anyone who comes in contact with her and later contracts the disease from that contact. This can be readily verified by typing the virus. If she cannot pay then she will lose all assets and must work in the medical field with 50% of her wages going to pay the debts. If she refuses, she will be jailed.
If she’s comfortable with that agreement, so am I.

But I don’t live in Maine.

@jca

No, my stance is that the threat has been seriously overblown by the media, which thrives on inciting fear, and a public which is gullible enough to fall for the media’s fear tactics. I prefer to look at things, including new scary diseases, rationally rather than being afraid to step out of my house, or violating the civic rights of people who have tested negative for, and show no signs of, the disease.

For interest
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR14-089.aspx

I agree with these recommendations.

Nice!

Nobody would dispute the media are sensationalising the Ebola issue. This is funny and relevant. I also support the protection of civic rights. However, going into isolation for three weeks to ensure you haven’t contracted a potentially deadly illness is a reasonable expectation to allow health authorities to manage broader public health including public fear. It’s admirable that people choose to go to Africa to help. It’s not unreasonable to expect that when they return to their home country, as far as possible, they minimise the risk of infecting people there. They aren’t being sent to Gitmo. They’re being asked to go into home isolation where they have phones, the internet, food, water, their own bed, and all their home comforts for three weeks.

@Darth_Algar You are wrong to make it sound like extreme illness and death caused by Ebola is statistically similar to extreme illness and even death caused by flu when good medical treatment is available. Ebola is still statistically much more dangerous once caught.

Ebola has been on the CDC list, or is it HHS list, for a long time as a disease that the government can quarantine for. I don’t think flu is on there, although I would guess if a very deadly flu came around they might add it on. Other diseases on the quarantine list are TB, cholera, smallpox. It’s an old list, but the point is Ebola is taken very seriously because of it’s death toll and severe illness.

Luckily, the Ebola virus isn’t very smart. The most effective viruses are those that are communicable while the current host still feels and appears healthy.

@JLeslie

Now compare, statistically, what your odds are of catching the flu (even a severe one) verses ebola.

We already agree on that, that hasn’t been my point during our disagreement. You are ignoring the statistics I am providing. There are two issues being discussed. The likelihood of catching ebola and the likelihood for severe symptoms once having caught ebola. You talked about how sick people get because they don’t have access to good medical care. Ebola still has a very high rate of really sucky symptoms or death even in good medical care conditions. Plus, it has long been argued flu death rates are overstated.

I haven’t ignored any statistics, though essentially saying “only X amount of people will get real bad, so the rest can just deal” isn’t really worth discussing in any depth.

“Ebola still has a very high rate of really sucky symptoms or death even in good medical care conditions.”

It does? What standard of “good medical care” are you going by here? Liberia or the US?