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Tuesday, October 07, 2014

disaster training is a disaster and ebola is the tip of the iceberg

We still don't get it in this country about ebola .

 We are starting to get some guidelines as to how to handle people coming into the hospital with symptoms of ebola. Gown, gloves, mask, goggles.  Put them in an isolation room. Call infection control.  Nothing goes outside the room. Keep a list of people who have contact with the patient.

This is the kind of stuff that is scary as shit.  On the one hand, we are being told the above.  On the other hand we are seeing how this is handled in other places.  People are in hazmat suits with respirators wearing 3 pairs of gloves. Hazmat teams are cleaning the apartment  where the guy stayed.  The patients coming back with known ebola (the 2 doctors and the cameraman) are being put in specialized biocontainment units.

This country is so woefully unprepared for this kind of event or any kind of terrorist biological or chemical event, it is unbelieveable. Do they really think that this kind of disease can be individually treated across the United States in the event of an epidemic? Do they really think that hospital staffs in small little town hospitals with limited resources are going to be able to handle this kind of patient coming in their door? Do they really think that every hospital in this country has the supplies and training that is going to prevent spread of this to other people?

I think that there should be teams of people across the country who are specially trained to deal with things like ebola, biological, chemical or any other specialized event who are immediately deployed in situations like this.  They KNOW what to do.  They have been trained.  They help the staff deal with the situation.

Every area of the country should have supplies stockpiled for these events.  There should be  supplies to set up a tent city type thing where people can be treated in a special area perhaps away from main population centers.

Guess who has the ability to do all of this? The military.  The military can be deployed and in place it seems like from what I've seen, within 24 hours.  They have this equipment.  They have the training. Every military member has extensive training on how to deal with chemical, biological and nuclear warfare. That is why they are now being deployed to Africa to set up temporary ebola wards.  They have the organization structure in place.

I've seen the military set up a tent city with all the components that go with it from scratch. I would trust them a lot more than our government who despite millions and millions of dollars spent doesn't seem to be able to handle one patient, let alone an epidemic.

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