Losing Patients (with Ebola-Like Symptoms)

A word of caution regarding the title of this post:  Today's post title includes use of a 'Homophone'.  If you are easily offended by several words which sound the same but are spelled differently, please read the following at your own risk.  - Thank you!

No, I am not losing 'patience' with people with Ebola-like symptoms, rather, the Department of Homeland Security apparently IS losing potential 'patients' with Ebola-like symptoms.  As with all things literary, the difference in the usage of the two homophones used in the prior sentence is HUGE 

(i.e.:  I may be losing 'patience' regarding the ineptitude of the CDC, Federal Government, and Homeland Security's handling of the whole 'Ebola-Thing', but I'm not the one who is losing PATIENTS who are flying into the US with Ebola-like symptoms.  When it comes to health care, it takes steady hand of highly skilled government professionals to lose the aforementioned patients...  But hay (another Homophone!), don't take my word for it, check out the following excerpt from folks at the Washington Post!)  

The Washington Post - Ashley Halsey III October 21, 9:30 PM
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Four passengers who flew into Dulles International Airport recently were taken to a local hospital after enhanced airport screening alarmed the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.
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The agency and the CDC provided no details on the hospital visits or whether the passengers were admitted to the hospital. Spokespeople for the two Northern Virginia hospitals closest to the airport said they did not receive the passengers.
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“We have no patients,” said Reston Hospital Center nursing supervisor Kim Wilfred.
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“I’m not aware of anything like that, and I would be aware,” said Tony Raker at Inova Fairfax Hospital.
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The CDC and DHS could not explain the discrepancy.
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 ...
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A person familiar with the screening at Dulles said that a 13-year-old boy and his mother were taken to a hospital last Thursday after the CDC became concerned about their symptoms. The source, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity surrounding Ebola fears, said two other passengers also were taken to a hospital over the weekend. 
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The person was unable to name the hospital, and said that all four passengers apparently were released after further testing at the hospital.
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 "All four passengers were released after further testing at the hospital..."  

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This would be the hospital where no one knew they were taken two (yikes - yet another homophone!), right?  
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I'm not the brightest light on the Christmas Tree string of Merry Midgets, but didn't they just say that they didn't know which hospital these people were taken to?  And yet, even though they don't know where they went, they know for a fact that they have been released following 'further testing'?  
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For the record, I have no confidence that the Federal Government can put together a coherent plan to manage this crisis any better than they have any of endless wave of the other ones we've been through over the past six to eight years.  

This crisis won't make you poor (their's (homophone - sorry) always SNAP benefits at http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/apply!), hurt your feelings (www.stopbullying.gov), or interject itself into your personal communications (www.nsa.gov) - this one will punch your clock following a week or two of unimaginable internal intestinal distress and conclude with obligatory period of 'bleeding out' through most major orifices of your body - through no fault of your own...  Simply because we wanted to be 'nice' and keep our airports open to everyone.
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Mr. Obama, Build Up Those Walls.
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It's getting weird out here.

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Barry - Bar the Door

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I woke yesterday morning to the news that a nurse caring for the "Index Patient" has tested positive for the Ebola Virus.  I guess when CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, can't even call the "Index Patient" by name should have been a pretty good indication of elusive comments to follow in yesterday morning's Press Briefing in Atlanta.
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Excerpts from that briefing follow, along with a few questions I would have liked to ask if given the opportunity:
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Honest to Goodness Actual Press Briefing Excerpts:
.CDC update on Dallas Ebola Response, 10-12-2014
.TOM FRIEDEN: Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us. We're deeply concerned by the news that a health care worker in Texas has tested preliminarily positive for infection with Ebola virus. Confirmatory testing is under way at CDC and will be completed later today. 
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We don't know what occurred in the care of the index patient, the original patient in Dallas, but at some point there was a breach in protocol and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection.  [MoosNote:  My wife flew off the couch upon hearing this comment by Dr. Frieden - "So he's saying she was being unsafe because she 'WANTED' to get sick?!?!?"  By way of background, my wife is a Nurse Practitioner and has thirty-plus years of health care experience.  The uncomfortable thing banging around in the back of my head since hearing this comment is that maybe she DID everything she was told to do and she was still exposed and the Ebola virus is simply more aggressive and versatile than we are lead to believe by Dr. Frieden, President Obama, and others?"]


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[MoosNote:  I only wish there were a couple of things to do - oh look here they come now, courtesy of Dr. Frieden]
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There are four things that we're doing at this point. 
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• First, to make sure we do everything possible to care safely and effectively for this individual. 
• Second, assessing her possible contacts from the moment she developed symptoms. And the CDC team lead has investigated her. It appears at this time there's only one contact that may have had contact with her while she may have been infectious. That individual is under active monitoring. 
• Third, we are evaluating other potential health care worker exposures because if this individual was exposed, which they were, it is possible that other individuals were exposed. We know that this individual did provide care to the index patient on multiple occasions and that care included extensive contact. 
• Fourth, we will undertake a complete investigation of how this may have occurred. That's so important so we can understand it better and intervene to prevent this happening in the future.

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...
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I want to go into a little bit more detail first on what we are doing to promote safe and effective care and then on the investigation. In terms of safe and effective care, we had already begun several days ago [MoosNote:  So 'safe care' training BEGAN after the 'Index Patient' died?  That's like training the Fire Department how to use the pumper trucks after a building burns down and is already spreading to the local orphanage next door...] to ramp up the education and training of health care workers at this facility [MoosNote:  Um, how about all the OTHER facilities which will see Ebola patients coming in?].  
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• The care of Ebola can be done safely, but it is hard to do it safely. It requires meticulous and scrupulous attention to infection control, and even a single inadvertent innocent slip can result in contamination.   [MoosNote:  But a week ago Dr. Frieden said you could sit on a bus next to someone with Ebola and be safe???  Yes, he actually DID say this]
• Second, we are recommending to the facility that the number of workers who care for anyone with suspected Ebola be kept to an absolute minimum.   [MoosNote:  Later in this briefing he went on to say that they are now monitoring 48 OTHER health care providers who had access to this patient - 48 providers is the absolute MINIMUM required to keep one person alive???  Or not, in the case of the 'Index Patient'.]
• Third, we recommend that the procedures that are undertaken to support the care of that individual be limited solely to essential procedures.  [MoosNote:  Would I be too cruel to whittle down the list of 'essential procedures' to a list of a single item? This being, of course, Taxpayer-funded transportation to the Crematorium.]
• Fourth, we're looking at personal protective equipment, understanding that there is a balance and putting more on isn't always safer, it may make it harder to provide effective care. So all aspects of personal protective equipment.   [MoosNote:  Roughly translated, this means that the CDC needs more money from Congress to continue their 'Good Work' protecting all of us from deadly diseases before they get to the United States, um, never mind, they're already here...]
• And fifth, we are recommending there be a full time individual who is responsible only for the oversight, supervision and monitoring of effective infection control while an Ebola patient is cared for. CDC has sent additional staff to Texas to assist with this response and we will continue to work closely with them.  [MoosNote:  Once again, the image a fully-involved orphanage in the midst of a fire should spring to mind here...]

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There were many, many other words inarticulately spoken by Dr. Frienden, but the bottom line is this:  Ebola is here and we are doing very little to prevent other 'Clusters of Infection' from occurring in Texas, or any other State of the Union.  One patient with Ebola shut down the Dallas health care system, what about other cases which will occur across the country?
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Why won't we try to prevent potentially-infected travelers from coming here?  I honestly don't know.  Maybe because he feels that cutting off travel from Africa is 'Racist'?  While Dr. Frieden was the head of the New York City DOHMH from 2002–2009 he had NO problem whatsoever for the elimination of trans-fats in food preparation, the limitations on the size of 'sugary' drinks you can buy, and he even introduced the "NYC Condom" (it's the official condom of the Big Apple!) - he has no problems with putting restrictions on anyone else's lifestyle, yet he has NOT called for the restriction of flights from infected areas originating in West Africa to the United States?  
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Yes, Dr. Frieden, will save you from Sugary Drinks in New York City but when it comes to potentially-fatal infectious diseases, you're pretty much on your own.  AND when asked why you can't shut down travel between 'infected places' and HERE, well, the folks at Politico.com covered it this way...

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"No.  No We Can't Keep it Out"

Politico.com, October 3, 2014:  CDC Chief On Ebola, We Can't Shut the Border
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Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Friday said restricting travel between the U.S. and West Africa would likely “backfire” and put Americans more at risk of contracting Ebola.
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.Appearing on MSNBC, Frieden was asked about potentially prohibiting air travel between the U.S. and West Africa, where the Ebola outbreak is most widespread. He said that such a restriction would likely be ineffective and would make it harder for health officials to root out the virus.
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Yup, you read this correctly, keeping Ebola out of the United States would put Americans at a greater risk of getting Ebola.  I'm sure a guy as smart as Tom Frieden COULD explain this given enough time and a squad of wordsmiths putting his thoughts together for him to repeat in public, but frankly I don't care.   If he sounds like a moron, he most likely is. 
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What I DO care about is that (once again) this Administration takes such great pains to NOT OFFEND ANYONE.  
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The do not want to tell ANYONE that they are not welcome here (except, of course, God-fearing heterosexual couples with kids - THOSE people must be punished).  
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The northern and southern borders are wide open, airports are open for business, and people just like me are going online to order pre-packaged food with a 25 year shelf life because, well, I'd like to be alive 25 years from now to eat the freeze-dried pasta and chicken a-la-trine (well, that's what we called it in Boy Scouts).  
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 I placed my order last night with Wise Food Company, as my wife helped me select the perfect 'stay-at-home-cause-the-stores-will-be-empty-except-for-zombies-with-Ebola-carriers' food storage options for our family!  If you get a moment, you might want to check it out yourself, you know, just in case I'm right and the Administration is wrong - come to think of it, this has happened a LOT in the past six years.  Maybe I should order more food?   

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Rahm Emanuel, working for the Obama Administration once said that, "You do not want to let a crisis go to waste."  Hey, maybe we can dodge just ONE crisis by avoiding it this time?  Puh-lease???  
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What do you say Dr. Frieden?  Any chance we can avoid 'screwing the pooch' just ONE TIME during this Administration?
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Oh.  No.  I didn't think so.  
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And for all you folks who want to leave the airports and borders as porous to Ebola contagion as my old gym socks - I only have one thing to say to you...
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     Oh yeah, I hate cats too, but I thought this was kind of funny.  It's the only thing I've seen funny in a long while.
 

Fifty Two Ways to Pause Your Warming

 FIFTY-TWO WAYS TO PAUSE YOUR WARMING

"The Earth will soon be dead" the Media said to me
"The answer is easy if you take it logically
We'd like to help you in your struggle to breathe free
There are fifty-two ways to pause your warming"
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Gore said "It's pretty much my habit to intrude
No doubt my solutions will add cost and will be crude
But I'll repeat myself at the risk of being rude,
There must be fifty-two ways to pause your warming
Fifty-two ways to pause your warming"
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You just fudge a chart, Hart
Start a new scam, Fran
You don't need to be right, Dwight
Just listen to me,
Hop on the global warming bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Only listen to me, Lee
Save yourself a tree
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Ooo fire up my jet, Chet
Fly me to my Malibu house, Klaus,
You don't need to be right, Dwight
Just listen to me
Hop on the global warming bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Only listen to me, Lee
Save yourself a tree
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A tip of the horn to Paul Simon for providing the musical inspiration for the post which follows...
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I came across an article that I meant to comment on a few weeks ago, but as luck would have it, I was kidnapped by space aliens and spent several days 'off-planet' getting my inner-parts 'probed' in inappropriate, but nonetheless, memorable ways.  
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Actually, I made up the abduction 'thing' to get out of climbing ladders and painting the shutters on the second story of my home.  My wife didn't buy this veracity-challenged excuse (feel free to use the word 'lie' here) and she offered to check out my most 'darkest cavity' workings with metal 'things and lights' to see if they left any alien probes lying about whilst exploring my innards.  Knowing that she has a medical background with access to shiny, sharp and terribly frightening 'instruments' led me to my prompt response to her offer... 
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Two weeks later, I can honestly say, "Gosh those hunter green shutters really 'pop' now, especially when viewed from the street!  They look GREAT!!!"
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Back in August I wrote a post called "Hot, Deep, and Wet" which explored one of the this year's reasons explaining the lack of measurable Global Warming on the planet (HINT:  Because all that heat moved into the Ocean for a multi-year vacation - and apparently it's not opposed to migrating from the Pacific to the Atlantic from time to time).  Someone over at the Daily Caller must have been paying attention because not only did they find this singular reason for Global Warming's Pause...  
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They found Fifty-One ADDITIONAL reasons which enlightened minds have expounded since January 1, 2014.  Yes, Fifty-Two Ways to Pause Your Warming.  
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Sing with me now...


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I used to make faces like this - until I added Fiber to my Diet

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There are Now 52 Explanations to Explain the Pause in Global Warming
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It’s been a busy year for climate scientists, who have been trying to explain why there has been no global warming for nearly two decades.
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The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in February there were eight mainstream explanations for the pause, but there are now a whopping 52 explanations for why there has been no warming trend for the last 215 months.
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So what’s the latest explanation for why the Earth stopped warming? Europe’s Joint Research Center (JRC) says the hiatus in warming since 2001 is due to “a combination of a natural cooling phase, known as multidecadal variability (MDV), and a downturn of the secular warming trend.”
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European Union scientists don’t know the exact what caused the “downturn of the secular warming trend,” but say “ the Earth hasn’t warmed at the same pace during the 20th century.” JRC researchers analyzed surface temperature records going back to 1850 to “separate natural variations from secular” ones.
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Scientists discovered three hiatus periods in the temperature records — 1878 to 1907, 1945 to 1969 and 2001 to today — and concluded that these “hiatus periods coincide with natural cooling phases – the multidecadal variability (MDV), most likely caused by natural oceanic oscillations.”
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...
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“The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that, far from falling, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually increased last year at the fastest rate for nearly 30 years,” Jarraud warned. “We must reverse this trend by cutting emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases across the board. We are running out of time.”
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But Jarraud’s warning comes after reports that there has been no global warming for the past 215 months, according to satellite data. Furthermore, recent research suggests the “pause” in warming could last another decade.
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Some climate scientists who are skeptical of theories that man-made global warming will have catastrophic impacts, say increasing carbon dioxide levels should not be alarming.

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It's seems odd to me that when you ask the 'smartest people on the planet' to explain WHY Global Warming is missing in action, a few of their reasons include:
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• Deep-water heat absorption
• Low solar activity
• Pine Aerosols 
• Faster Pacific Trade Winds
• Slower Trade Winds 

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For these, and Forty-Seven additional, Global Climate Change Pause theories, check out the following link:  Fifty-Two Explanations

With so many theories for the 'PAUSE' of man-made Global Warming / Climate Change, I wonder if the fundamentally-undeniable one is that man-made Global Climate Change is not actually happening.  Because if man-made Global Climate Change IS a valid scientifically-significant event, wouldn't there be a fool-proof mechanism to explain why it is, or is not happening?
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Back when the World was young and I could run fast (without breathing heavily), I learned about something called THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.  This was a process by which people in white lab coats whom did, um, things called 'Scientific Studies following the Scientific Method'. 
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From a flow chart perspective, it looks something like this:
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Something tells me that the current crop of scientists supportive of theory of man-made Global Climate Change are jumping directly from the 'Propose Hypothesis' phase straight to the 'Develop Theory' conclusion in the process, and forgetting to loop back up to check their work.
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But I guess when you have so much invested in promoting the 'Theory of Climate Change' and you have staked your reputation on it, you do whatever you can to prove that yours is the ONLY plausible reason for what is going on with regard to our increasing (or maybe NOT so much increasing) temperatures.
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MY prediction for the upcoming weather pattern for the next six months?  Decreased temperatures, chance of cooling, shorter days, and increased chance of snow in Northern and Western parts of the Nation.  I say this not because I'm a scientist but rather because I've seen all this before.
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Kind of like when Time Magazine quoted scientists who predicted the Coming Ice Age waaaaay back in...   1977

      
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Like I said, you live long enough and you HAVE seen it all before.

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Oh, the other thing that ISN'T new is how people use the news to line their own pockets.

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You can call him Al. 
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