The Ebola Scare:
Spice did a nice post on pandemics. I’ve never been in a pandemic, so I suspect Murphy has one planned for my future. However, we did have an Ebola scare a couple years back, from which I learned a few things.
Was I prepped?
Coming off my relative comfort through Hurricane Sandy, I thought I was in decent shape as a prepper.
The Ebola disease was out of control in West Africa and our government decided we needed it here. ☹ Like any good prepper, I decided I needed a plan, since it was clear TPTB planned to infect most of us. (Okay, I’ll limit the politics.)
In the event of Ebola progressing, my plan was that we would lock ourselves in the house until the disease burned out. That meant I needed food and water for about six months, longer would be better.
It’s all about the MAG
However, I wasn’t going to let my Mutual Assistance Group (MAG) of 20 extended family members show up late and infect everyone else. I needed a plan that said we lock up on date X, and you either get in by then, or you are on your own. This scenario was a contrast to all other scenarios I had considered.
My plan was when the first Ebola case showed up in the US, we would do a grocery store run, hit the ATM, gas up the cars, etc. This would get us somewhat geared up, beyond the preps already on hand, before the panic. We would also acquire some plastic sheeting, medical supplies, etc. over what was already on hand. I found that certain items, like Tyvek suits, were already unobtainable.
Then when a case showed up in NJ, we would do it again, announce to the 20 folks what we were doing and tell them to make store runs, etc. and get ready to join us, if that was their intent, by the set date. Finally, when the first case showed up in the county, or the date arrived, we would, get everyone inside, and lock the doors before anyone was exposed. I thought this was a really good plan. 😊
And then some bonehead came along… of course…
Sure enough, before long some bonehead decided to come to Texas, from West Africa, get sick, and check into the hospital without bothering to mention he might have been exposed to Ebola. There was the first case in the country, so we made our Costco run, and I felt like the plan was working.
Then two nurses treating the guy became sick. They weren’t in the plan. Did they count as new cases or just a consequence of the first case? The airplane one of them got on, possibly spreading the disease to people all over the country was also not in my plan. Was I supposed to make another grocery run? I decided they didn’t count because it wasn’t clear if they had passed the disease to anyone else and they weren’t in the People’s Republic of New Jersey.
Unlike the Federal government, which was encouraging all of us to accept Ebola into our homes, the People’s Republic of New Jersey went into high panic mode, and announced quarantine measures for anybody who might have been exposed to Ebola. Should I make another grocery run? I am not sure if what happened next was deliberate, or a byproduct of planning as good as mine, . . . or Murphy’s.
Murphy visits the Ebola hospital, and…
A nurse from Maine, who was not sick, was coming home from volunteer work in West Africa, and was changing planes at Newark Airport. She was arrested and slapped into quarantine, after disembarking from her plane ride from West Africa to catch her connecting flight to Maine. None of the other passengers were quarantined, despite having been exposed to her, just the nurse was quarantined. The quarantine was a tent in a hospital parking lot. She promptly sued the People’s Republic of New Jersey. How would you feel about being snatched while changing planes, held prisoner, and kept in a tent in a parking lot?
Living large in the PRNJ
Now did this count as the first Ebola case in the People’s Republic of New Jersey? She wasn’t sick, . . . yet. Do we make another Costco run? My plan was not working out at all, because I hadn’t anticipated all of these possibilities. Murphy kept doing things that weren’t clear. We finally decided to make another Costco run, picking up plastic sheeting, bleach, safety goggles and face masks, food, etc., but not announce a pending quarantine to the 20 family members until someone in the People’s Republic of New Jersey was actually sick.
The nurse in the hospital parking lot was hung up for about a week before her lawyer was able to spring her. She went home to Maine and caused panic there, bicycling around her home town, but I don’t think she’ll be back to the People’s Republic of New Jersey soon.
She did not have good things to say about the People’s Republic of New Jersey, but who does? The guy from West Africa died. The two nurses who treated him recovered, barely, and that was the end of it. The disease finally subsided in West Africa and most of the world forgot about it, albeit there are occasional news articles about vaccine tests or flare ups in West Africa.
So…
Meanwhile, Murphy owes me a Pandemic, so I can try out my revised procedures. ☹ My plan needs to include folks who have been exposed, but aren’t sick, or people who may have been exposed, as indicators of the progress of the disease.
A few dumb politicians thrown in the mix to hasten the spread should be part of the plan. The plan must recognize, what to do if pandemic exposures manage to get on airplanes, etc. This one requires some thought because it calls for being in place early and calls for separating folks in the MAG instead of bringing them together, at least after a certain date.
Murphy wins a round. I concluded I wasn’t as prepped as I thought.
Photos courtesy of the Center for Disease Control, a US government agency (thus, photos are in the public domain)
I can not imagine a worse way to go than Ebola.
I am reconsidering my medical preps. Thanks!
The key lesson I took from the whole experience was not that I needed more preps. I pretty much always need more preps. What really disturbed me was the realization that my plan failed. Go into quarantine too soon and you lose a job or suffer other ill consequences. Go into quarantine too late and you, or members of your family, get ill and die. Planning for this has to be effective and mine wasn’t.
Just my opinion, but I don’t think complete isolation as a first line approach to a pandemic is ever going to work if you need to work outside the home or intend to let family members in. Any plan like that strict enough to really protect would have too many incidents of ‘the boy who cried Wolf!’ Every pandemic I can think of started small and scattered, with the threat levels unclear. Also, what counts as ‘exposed’? For Ebola, (thankfully!) it requires exposure to body fluids. For Legionnaire’s disease, it means being in a building on the same HVAC system or even the sidewalk outside of it. For West Nile, it’s being in flying range of a mosquito. For new diseases, no one’s likely to be sure yet. The same is true for newly mutated versions of older diseases – the rascals often mutate during the course of an epidemic. And do you probably have to be showing symptoms before you can transmit it?
I think it’s more practical (and it’s my plan) to at first simply upgrade personal protections such as reducing exposure to public places and being more fastidious about hand-washing. We wouldn’t go into lockdown mode unless the need was pretty clear and immediate.
I’m not defending my response to Ebola. It failed. If we were talking about something like the 1918 flu, or the examples you cite, I’d be completely on board. Upgrading personal protection makes a lot of sense. With Ebola it seemed like the risk was just too high of becoming exposed, even when you thought you were taking appropriate precautions, hence my plan for total isolation. I also defined “clear and immediate” as in the county, expecting that by the time it got here it would be out of control. The fact that the Federal and State governments were at odds, and obviously had no clue, didn’t help decision making either.
Oh, goodness. Maybe I need to be a little more paranoid.
My daughter was born at that hospital just after patient zero died while the nurses were there being treated. Looking out our window we would see a long row of news satellite vans and the reporters all doing their daily on-the-scene updates. We were there for a week and it didn’t seem to be an issue – except for the news vans, reporters and protesters outside. Inside it seemed pretty normal.
Were you aware of the risk at the time? Hospitals tend to be pretty compartmentalized, and Obstetrics and Newborn facilities would be kept well segregated from Infectious diseases, but with Ebola there was an unusual degree of risk.