Photo Credit: AFPAfter hearing the news shortly after midnight early Sunday morning that a second Ebola case had been diagnosed in a Texas Presbyterian Hospital nurse, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings stayed up through the night putting together an action plan.
In contrast, President Barack Obama’s response is being criticized as not adequately prioritizing the crisis. As Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren tweeted, Obama made a phone call to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and then “headed out to play golf.” CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller had posted that the press corps had been escorted to vans in the presidential motorcade to go to the golf course, but then were led back to the White House for a photo opp of Obama on the phone with Burwell that “lasted only 40 seconds.” Knoller tweeted several photos of Obama wearing a casual windbreaker, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office while speaking on the phone.
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Photo Credit: Louis DeLuca / The Dallas Morning NewsHealth care worker at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas tests positive for Ebola
By MELISSA REPKO and SHERRY JACOBSON.
A Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital health care worker in Dallas who had “extensive contact” with the first Ebola patient to die in the United States has contracted the disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed the news Sunday afternoon after an official test.
The infected person detected a fever Friday night and drove herself to the Presbyterian emergency room, where she was placed in isolation 90 minutes later. A blood sample sent to the state health lab in Austin confirmed Saturday night that she had Ebola — the first person to contract the disease in the United States.
The director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday that the infection in the health care worker, who was not on the organization’s watch list for people who had contact with Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, resulted from a “breach in protocol.”
“We have spoken with the health care worker,” who cannot “identify the specific breach” that allowed the infection to spread, said CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden. The CDC has sent additional staff members to Dallas to “assist with the response,” he said.
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Photo Credit: David Tulis U.S. lacks a single standard for Ebola response
By Larry Copeland.
As Thomas Eric Duncan’s family mourns the USA’s first Ebola death in Dallas, one question reverberates over a series of apparent missteps in the case: Who is in charge of the response to Ebola?
The answer seems to be — there really isn’t one person or agency. There is not a single national response.
The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has emerged as the standard-bearer — and sometimes the scapegoat — on Ebola.
Public health is the purview of the states, and as the nation anticipates more Ebola cases, some experts say the way the United States handles public health is not up to the challenge.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: AP / Brandon WadeCDC: PROTOCOL BREACH IN TREATING EBOLA PATIENT
BY CAROLE FELDMAN.
As Thomas Eric Duncan’s family mourns the USA’s first Ebola death in Dallas, one question reverberates over a series of apparent missteps in the case: Who is in charge of the response to Ebola?
The answer seems to be — there really isn’t one person or agency. There is not a single national response.
The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has emerged as the standard-bearer — and sometimes the scapegoat — on Ebola.
Public health is the purview of the states, and as the nation anticipates more Ebola cases, some experts say the way the United States handles public health is not up to the challenge.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Harrison McClaryU.S. military faces new kind of threat with Ebola
By Phil Stewart.
At Fort Campbell in Kentucky, spouses of U.S. soldiers headed to Liberia seem to be lingering just a bit longer than usual after pre-deployment briefings, hungry for information about Ebola.
For these families, the virus is raising a different kind of anxiety than the one they have weathered during 13 years of ground war in Afghanistan and Iraq. They want to know how the military can keep soldiers safe from the epidemic, a new addition to the Army’s long list of threats.
“Ebola is a different problem set that the division hasn’t (faced) before,” said Major General Gary Volesky, who will soon head to Liberia along with soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division.
There are already more than 350 U.S. troops on the ground in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, including a handful from the 101st. That number is set to grow exponentially in the coming weeks as the military races to expand Liberia’s infrastructure so it can battle Ebola.
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