The following is Donald Trump's needlessly-fear-mongering tweet about the Ebola patients coming back home to the United States for treatment to, you know, save their lives:
Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days - now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2014
This confirms for the umpteenth time what an utter ignoramus and needy attention-seeker Trump is.
I have been critical of Alex Witt in the past, but she outdid herself today. She conducted a thorough, crystal clear, and ultra-informative interview with infectious disease specialist Dr. William Schaffner from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine about the Ebola virus and how it spreads. Unfortunately, MSNBC only provided part of the excellent segment that extended into a second interview with their medical correspondent, Nancy Snyderman. I'm including an earlier conversation that she and Snyderman had instead.
Donald Trump could learn a thing or two about a thing or two. Whipping up fear inside the U.S. is reckless and stupid, two things at which Trump excels. One thing at which he miserably fails: Telling the truth.
Dr. Schaffner's obvious sub-specialty is spreading the truth and dispelling rumors about this "terribly serious infection, but one that's not readily transmissible." Presenting Ebola for Dummeez:
The fears are unfounded, Alex. I'm going to tell you honestly that we in public health and infectious diseases are a little surprised at how much anxiety there is about this, because we know about this infection, we know it's very serious, we know how it's transmitted, and we're very confident that we can take care of such patients safely...
They're going to take very good care of this patient absolutely safely, no hazard to folks in the street...
You can imagine that the resources [in Africa] are not as elaborate as those that we have here. .. It's the supportive care [that we have here] that's going to help these people surmount this infection...
Being able to send specimens immediately off to the laboratory and get the results back quickly, and then assessing organ function... we can monitor the heart very carefully, and then if something goes wrong, we can call in the specialists to attend to it, we have the drugs available, and we can monitor their impact very, very carefully...
We have [resources] available in this country and virtually in every large community hospital. It's very reassuring...
In Africa [Ebola] strikes most people who are adults, because they exchange body fluids... One of the ways it's spread in Africa has to do with funeral practices and cultural activities that are deeply embedded. When someone dies, out of respect to the person who's passed, the body is washed very, very carefully, including all the body orifices, and that's done by family and dear friends. And it's in that actual activity that they're exposed to the virus and transmission can occur to those family and friends... That's part of the reason it's spreading...
Airborne transmission has not been demonstrated... is very unlikely. So there's no good evidence of that at present [In a later part of the segment that wasn't included in the clip, this is confirmed and expanded upon by Snyderman]. And in any event, these patients that are being brought here are being protected from airborne transmission. Our healthcare workers are taking the appropriate precautions...
[Re: The protective gear]: They know how to put it on and in what sequence to take it off so that they don't contaminate themselves. They're very rigorously trained, and when you do it, you're observed doing it correctly...
It's not the amount of oxygen [in the room, levels, ventilation], it's that the room is balanced so that air goes into the room, it doesn't leak out. It is then filtered and exhausted after it's cleansed, so it's very rigorously controlled.
There was so much more information that we could all appreciate. MSNBC did us a disservice by editing down the segment.
Here is the clip of Alex Witt with Nancy Snyderman:
Alex Witt:
What are the chances that the virus could spread here in the U.S.?
Snyderman:
Zero to none.
Got that, Trump?
The post Ebola for Dummeez, att: Donald Trump appeared first on The Political Carnival.
