<p>Glad to hear that he doesn’t have it. Thank goodness!!</p>
<p>@donnaleighg No one was suggesting extremes. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>BTW…when my son was a frosh and he presented with meningitis symptoms, it was taken very seriously. I’m glad that they did. No one wants anyone to get that…people die within hours.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids my point was that I think people are WAY over-reacting. On many levels. </p>
<p>^yup.</p>
<p>"oh sad…and another plane-full of people likely exposed. "</p>
<p>I don’t think people are over reacting. I think they are concerned. I applaud those who ponder if they have been exposed, and chose to be cautious. I think they are being unselfish (in the best of ways).</p>
<p>I think that “spectacular” diseases get way more play. More people are going to die from the flu, from measles and from pertussis, this year, than from Ebola. Not to mention not wearing a seat belt or gun accidents in the home. JMHO.</p>
<p>So does this mean they already got the CDC test results? I heard at 6:15 that the student had tested negative for Ebola, but that they were waiting for the results from the CDC.</p>
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<p>The mortality rate for ebola is 70%. The number of people being infected and dying is exponential.</p>
<p>Influenza (the common flu) is more easily transmitted so probably the <em>infection</em> rate is exponential, but the number of deaths does not rise exponentially because the vast majority of people recover from it. Plus, I’m not sure what you meant about being more worried about your kid getting the flu than Ebola, but the people who are actually at risk for dying are babies less than 6 months old and the elderly. Vaccine or not, your kid was never in any danger of anything more than a bad weekend from the common flu. </p>
<p>I have heard all sorts of contradictory things about how ebola can be transmitted. On the one hand, people say it can be caught from bodily fluids including sweat. On the other hand, people say that you can’t catch it from someone coughing. It doesn’t make any sense to me. When people cough, there emit a ton of tiny water droplets that are generally invisible to the naked eye. Maybe the viral load is too small in saliva/mucus to matter, but if that’s the case, it seems like a big judgement call because that sort of thing can vary. Also, even if it doesn’t pass through unbroken skin, people touch their eyes extremely frequently. I read one article mocking the so-called overreaction to ebola which said that you are only likely to get it on a plane if an ebola victim bleeds into another person’s open sore, vomits into your mouth, or if you eat an infected animal. So if this is the case, what are people doing in Liberia? Is everyone projectile vomiting at each other? How did the nurse who treated the ebola victim get infected despite all their precautions? It has come out that there was a gap in the neck area in the hazmat suit they were wearing; if she got infected that way, then it is a lot easier to get infected than is being communicated by the authorities. There is a veritable campaign to downplay the dangers of ebola.</p>
<p>The last I heard people were still flying in and out of Liberia without any quarantining. I seriously do not understand this at all. </p>
<p>Did the student just have basic flu-like symptoms? If so, why did they suspect it was ebola? </p>
<p>There’s a scarier outbreak in the U.S. of enterovirus 68 virus with polio-like symptoms that’s sickened hundreds of people, mostly children, and killed more than ebola has here. Yet I don’t see media hysteria or multiple CC threads on that.</p>
<p>katlia, stop using logic. We’re not allowed to use that in the US nowadays. Sheesh! 
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<p>Mom2, the student was part of a research team from Yale who had been in Liberia.</p>
<p>^^
I realize that. But we all know that people often have some cold/flu symptoms after a long flight…did they only think it might be Ebola because of where he came from?</p>
<p>Yes, because if where he was, and because of what he was doing while there.</p>
<p>In all likelihood, no one actually thought he had Ebola (at least, no one working with the student).</p>
<p>This is one of those “abundance of caution” things and I fear it’s going to get much worse before it gets better. </p>
<p>According to Yale President Salovey, despite testing negative, this student and the other student who traveled to Liberia will be quarantined for 21 days per CT state law.</p>
<p>Yes, even tho he doesn’t have the condition NOW, he could still develop it and test positive for it once it develops, according to what I’ve read. Before symptoms develop, any person would test negative. Once symptoms develop is when they start testing positive. They are working on testing that can be more predictive but that’s all we have for now.</p>
<p>"Or perhaps they are applying their best estimates of reasonable precautions, rather than bowing to pressure from scaremongers? "</p>
<p>The nurse who boarded the airplane had a fever. I don’t run 99.5 unless I’m sick or perhaps been exercising, and my kids don’t either. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had fevers go up a degree or more over the course of one hour many times during many different illnesses. In fact, I’ve had an apparently well kid board a plane, develop a fever, and vomit on an airplane ride even shorter than the one the nurse took. (That was when I discovered that airplanes no longer routinely provide airsickness bags. I’ll leave the rest of the story to your imagination). How long had it been from the time she took her temperature and was cleared to travel to the time she arrived at her home? She was already at 99.5, had been caring for that ebola patient and by all reports was not issued adequate protective clothing. Who in their right mind would think she was not an exposure risk to the people on that plane? What was her temperature during the flight? When she landed? Where are the published medical studies detailing the exact fever cut-off when Ebola becomes contagious? What would have happened if she’d become more ill on the plane or even just airsick? </p>
<p>My understanding is that this student did NOT have any contact with any ebola patients or caregivers with ebola:</p>
<p>“[The doctoral students] have reported that they were not in contact with Ebola patients or caregivers in Liberia, that they carefully followed recommended travel and hygiene precautions during their stay in the country and that they have continued to do so since their return,” Salovey said in the first email.</p>
<p>Thus, no real reason for Yale to believe these students were at all likely to have become infected. It looks like later (as in comment above) someone they may have had contact with did develop the disease. But if the person was asymptomatic when they were with him, infection is unlikely. </p>
<p>Let’s also remember that the people that were LIVING with Mr. Duncan have not developed the virus. They were with him when he was very symptomatic. I believe they would be at the end of the quarantine period in the next day or so and will hopefully continue to be negative. </p>
<p>It is also not clear if the nurse that traveled called the CDC to ask if she could/should travel by plane OR if she simply called to ask the definition of a fever. She may have been told that 99.5 is not considered a fever and not discussed her case in particular. </p>
<p>There have been a lot of mistakes by the Texas hospital in isolation protocol and likely by the CDC in not sending experience personnel to Texas while Mr. Duncan was being treated. Hopefully, both of these nurses will survive and nobody else will be infected. </p>
<p>Latest news from the Dean of Yale College - student tested negative for Ebola. However, is staying in isolation for the recommended 21 days. That is definitely a relief. My D is there as a freshman.</p>
<p>My daughter, a Yale student, is coming home for break in a car driven by another student. I am WAY more worried about that than I am about the minute risk that she will get Ebola on the Yale campus.</p>