Breaking News: New York City patient tests positive for Ebola

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Doctor who visited Africa tested for Ebola in NYC
By JONATHAN LEMIRE - The Associated Press


http://i.imgur.com/GjXSGyK.jpg

NEW YORK (AP) — A Doctors Without Borders physician who recently returned to the city after treating Ebola patients in West Africa was being tested Thursday for the virus.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said results could come late Thursday.

The doctor, who returned from Guinea more than a week ago and was monitoring his own health, was rushed by ambulance to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola center, after reporting he had a 103-degree fever and diarrhea, city officials said.

"We can safely say that it is a very brief period of time that patient has had symptoms," the mayor said in a news conference. "Our understanding is that very few people were in direct contact with him."

Ebola, which is spread through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids, has killed thousands of people in Africa. Only three people have been diagnosed in the U.S., and one has died: a Liberian man in Dallas.

De Blasio said the doctor was in good shape and has described in great detail where he was in the last few days and with whom he had contact.

The doctor acknowledged riding the subway and taking a cab to a Brooklyn bowling alley in the past week before he started showing symptoms, according to a senior city official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to the discuss the details publicly.

According to a rough timeline provided by the official, the doctor's symptoms developed Wednesday, prompting him to isolate himself in his Harlem apartment. When he felt worse Thursday, he and his fiance made a joint call to authorities to detail his symptoms and his travels. EMTs in full Ebola gear arrived and took him to Bellevue in an ambulance surrounded by police squad cars.

"As per the specific guidelines that Doctors Without Borders provides its staff on their return from Ebola assignments, the individual engaged in regular health monitoring and reported this development immediately," the international humanitarian organization said in a statement.

As of Oct. 14, the organization said 16 staff members have been infected and nine have died.

NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center said the doctor was on its staff but had not been to work there since returning from Africa.

"He is a committed and responsible physician who always puts his patients first," it said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with him, and we wish him all the best at this time."

Health officials say the chances of the average New Yorker contracting Ebola are slim. Someone can't be infected just by being near someone who's sick with Ebola.

Bellevue Hospital has been designated the city's main venue for handling Ebola cases. It has dozens of staff members at the ready and four isolation rooms that can quickly expand to 20 if needed.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Ellen Wulfhorst


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A physician with Doctors Without Borders who returned to New York City from West Africa has tested positive for Ebola, the New York Times said on Thursday.

The doctor was identified as Craig Spencer, who was working for the humanitarian organization in Guinea, one of three West African nations hardest hit by Ebola.

Spencer, 33, developed a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms and notified Doctors Without Borders on Thursday morning, the organization said in a statement.

Spencer was transported to Bellevue Hospital from his Manhattan apartment by a specially trained team wearing protective gear, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.

He tested positive for Ebola, the Times said, making him the city's first diagnosed case.

Spencer's Facebook page, which included a photo of him clad in protective gear, said he went to Guinea around Sept. 18 and then flew to Brussels on Oct. 16.

He has specialized in international emergency medicine at Columbia University-New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City since 2011, according to his profile on the LinkedIn career website.

Columbia in a statement said he has not been to work nor seen any patients since his return.

[Muddy]

Wonderful.

[Muddy]

We need to quarantine these mother fuckers for 21 days before they are allowed back over here..

[deebakes]

:rip:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

A cab, a subway and a bowling alley in NY. I'm sure were fine

[RBP]

A cab, a subway and a bowling alley in NY. I'm sure were fine

Infected people aren't contagious until after they become symptomatic.

I would assume that's why the mayor said it this way:
"We can safely say that it is a very brief period of time that patient has had symptoms," the mayor said in a news conference. "Our understanding is that very few people were in direct contact with him."

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Or did the mayor say it that way to prevent 20 million people in NYC from freaking out?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By JONATHAN LEMIRE and COLLEEN LONG - The Associated Press


NEW YORK (AP) — A doctor who became New York City's first Ebola patient was praised for getting treatment immediately upon showing symptoms, and health officials stressed that the nation's most populous city need not fear his wide-ranging travel in the days before his illness began.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged residents not to be alarmed by the doctor's diagnosis Thursday, even as they described him riding the subway, taking a cab and bowling since returning to New York from Guinea a week ago. De Blasio said all city officials followed "clear and strong" protocols in their handling and treatment of him.

"We want to state at the outset that New Yorkers have no reason to be alarmed," de Blasio said. "New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk."

The doctor, Craig Spencer, a member of Doctors Without Borders, reported Thursday morning coming down with a 103-degree fever and diarrhea. He was being treated in an isolation ward at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola center.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will do a further test to confirm the initial results, has dispatched an Ebola response team to New York. President Barack Obama spoke to Cuomo and de Blasio on Thursday night and offered the federal government's support. He asked them to stay in close touch with Ron Klain, his "Ebola czar," and public health officials in Washington.

Health officials have been tracing Spencer's contacts to identify anyone who may be at risk. The city's health commissioner, Mary Bassett, said Spencer's fiancee and two friends had been quarantined but showed no symptoms.

Health officials say the chances of the average New Yorker contracting Ebola, which is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, are slim. Someone can't be infected just by being near someone who is sick with Ebola. Someone isn't contagious unless he is sick.

Bassett said the probability was "close to nil" that Spencer's subway rides would pose a risk. Still, the bowling alley was closed as a precaution, and Spencer's Harlem apartment was cordoned off. The Department of Health was on site across the street from the apartment building Thursday night, giving out information to area residents.

Still, the news rankled some New Yorkers. "Oh my gosh!" said Charles Kerr, 60, as his friends gathered on a Harlem sidewalk murmured. "This changes the situation. The guy must be coughing, sitting against people. Now you've got to think."

Kerr said he wasn't afraid, but he wants a stricter approach to anyone coming from the Ebola-affected countries.

"Stay in their apartment," he said. "Especially now, when it's so rampant. Especially if they know they've been in contact."

Other neighbors expressed concern for the doctor's health.

"I feel sorry. I just hope they can nip this in the butt and find something to cure it because this is terrible," said Joyce Harrison.

Juan Sanchez said he wasn't concerned for himself, but would be worried if it spread.

"The first time I've seen him (Spencer) is on T.V. I barely see that guy around here," he said.

Another neighbor, Jose Gomez, said the congregation at his nearby Meeting With God Church was praying for Ebola as a world issue. He said he did not personally feel vulnerable.

"I think that God will cover this community. But other people, psychologically it will create a big problem for them," he said.

The epidemic in West Africa has killed about 4,800 people. In the United States, the first person diagnosed with the disease was a Liberian man, who fell ill days after arriving in Dallas and later died, becoming the only fatality. None of his relatives who had contact with him got sick. Two nurses who treated him were infected and are hospitalized. The family of one nurse said doctors no longer could detect Ebola in her as of Tuesday evening.

According to a rough timeline provided by city officials, in the days before Spencer fell ill, he went on a 3-mile jog, went to the High Line park, rode the subway and, on Wednesday night, got a taxi to a Brooklyn bowling alley. He felt tired starting Tuesday, and felt worse on Thursday when he and his fiancee made a joint call to authorities to detail his symptoms and his travels. EMTs in full Ebola gear arrived and took him to Bellevue in an ambulance surrounded by police squad cars.

Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian organization, said per the guidelines it provides its staff members on their return from Ebola assignments, "the individual engaged in regular health monitoring and reported this development immediately." Travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone must report in with health officials daily and take their temperature twice a day, as Spencer did. He also limited his direct contact with people, health officials said.

Spencer, 33, works at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. He had not seen any patients or been to the hospital since his return, the hospital said in a statement, calling him a "dedicated humanitarian" who "went to an area of medical crisis to help a desperately underserved population."

Four American aid workers, including three doctors, were infected with Ebola while working in Africa and were transferred to the U.S. for treatment in recent months. All recovered. Health care workers are vulnerable because of close contact with patients when they are their sickest and most contagious.

In West Africa this year, more than 440 health workers have contracted Ebola and about half have died. But the Ebola virus is not very hardy. The CDC says bleach and other hospital disinfectants kill it. Dried virus on surfaces survives only for several hours.

Spencer is from Michigan and attended Wayne State University School of Medicine and Columbia's University Mailman School of Public Health.

According to his Facebook page, he left for West Africa via Brussels last month. A photo shows him in full protective gear. He returned to Brussels Oct. 16.

"Off to Guinea with Doctors Without Borders," he wrote. "Please support organizations that are sending support or personnel to West Africa, and help combat one of the worst public health and humanitarian disasters in recent history."

[perrhaps]

Dear Doctor Dickhead Spencer:

While I'm sure you're the darling of your yuppy-trash circle of friends, I have to wonder where you obtained your medical degree. Was it, perchance, the University of Fucking Phoenix?

Riddle me this, you POS: If I have a pretty good idea I have the flu, what's my better course of action:

a) Lie on the sofa, take off from work, have fun overmedicating myself, and catch up with the episodes I haven't seen yet from the final year of Boardwalk Empire; or

b) Ride public transportation and, among other things, go fucking bowling?

Remember the portion of the Hippocratic Oath that says you shouldn't cause any harm to your patients? Did you ever think, even for one second in your oh-so-fucking-cool urban professional chic lifestyle that a logical extension of the Oath would be to expose any potential patients to goddamn Ebola?

They don't, but if Comrade DiBlasio's administration had any backbones, they would ship you off to a cot in the World health Center's headquarters, because, that organization's spokesmen say this Ebola piddling thing is nothing to worry about.

Then, if you survive the disease, you should be criminally prosecuted for Risking a catastrophe; Recklessly endangering and criminal idiocy. After your conviction, I hope you become the receiving partner in an interracial marriage at Sing Sing.

Any over/under in the gambling section as to how long it takes President Obama to declare this moron a "Hero"?

[deebakes]

doctors without borders will be the death of all of us :(

[Muddy]

Dear Doctor Dickhead Spencer:

While I'm sure you're the darling of your yuppy-trash circle of friends, I have to wonder where you obtained your medical degree. Was it, perchance, the University of Fucking Phoenix?

Riddle me this, you POS: If I have a pretty good idea I have the flu, what's my better course of action:

a) Lie on the sofa, take off from work, have fun overmedicating myself, and catch up with the episodes I haven't seen yet from the final year of Boardwalk Empire; or

b) Ride public transportation and, among other things, go fucking bowling?

Remember the portion of the Hippocratic Oath that says you shouldn't cause any harm to your patients? Did you ever think, even for one second in your oh-so-fucking-cool urban professional chic lifestyle that a logical extension of the Oath would be to expose any potential patients to goddamn Ebola?

They don't, but if Comrade DiBlasio's administration had any backbones, they would ship you off to a cot in the World health Center's headquarters, because, that organization's spokesmen say this Ebola piddling thing is nothing to worry about.

Then, if you survive the disease, you should be criminally prosecuted for Risking a catastrophe; Recklessly endangering and criminal idiocy. After your conviction, I hope you become the receiving partner in an interracial marriage at Sing Sing.

Any over/under in the gambling section as to how long it takes President Obama to declare this moron a "Hero"?

:yeehaw:

[FBD]

one tentacle to design them, another to distribute

and of course you havent seen what's his name doc saying with how many accidental exposures and breaches that go on that the public NEVER hears about, there is no fkn way this is not either an accidental...or purposeful....release from that bioweapons lab over there.

[Hugh_Janus]

:rip: :usa: