Nice People 12: Nice in Nice

lostinrates

GDB2222 wrote: »

Hygena Harriette Double Bed Frame - Black.

Who the dickens names these things?

I do not feel inspired to to sleep or anything else much in hygena harriette. Sounds like a prudish maiden aunts bed with plastic sheets for incontinence upon it.

GDB2222

lostinrates wrote: »

Who the dickens names these things?

I do not feel inspired to to sleep or anything else much in hygena harriette. Sounds like a prudish maiden aunts bed with plastic sheets for incontinence upon it.

Hygena used to be a kitchen cabinet brand, and the name makes sense for that. Stretching the brand into beds makes no sense at all, as you spotted.

vivatifosi

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Saw that.

I'm frankly a bit surprised the powers that be haven't exercised somewhat more dramatic quarantine options long before now.

This strain appears to have a c. 60% mortality rate, and an incubation period of around 3 weeks. It may already have spread much further.

I am hopeful that first world sanitation, lack of fruit bats, non-eating of bushmeat, different practices of burying the dead and the availability of barrier contraceptives, to name but a few, will be helpful if it ever reaches here.

Meanwhile I have no doubt that airlines are looking into flying to the countries and considering what precautions can be taken. Would the man have been allowed on to an airline with a fever if he wasn't a high-ranking official from said country of departure? Was it the national flag carrier?

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

Meanwhile I have no doubt that airlines are looking into flying to the countries and considering what precautions can be taken. Would the man have been allowed on to an airline with a fever if he wasn't a high-ranking official from said country of departure? Was it the national flag carrier?

But that is the problem with 'quarantine' - if you know the right people / pay enough you can normally 'get on the last flight out'....

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

vivatifosi wrote: »

Meanwhile I have no doubt that airlines are looking into flying to the countries and considering what precautions can be taken.

Agreed.

Ebola is a difficult one to deal with in many ways.

I mean, it's nowhere near as contagious as SARS or Flu in terms of not being airborne, and the initial symptoms are mild and easily confused with a myriad of other diseases.

But it goes downhill rapidly from there, and someone that initially leaves for the airport with mild flu like symptoms can be vomiting or haemorrhaging and exposing staff and other passengers to highly contagious bodily fluids 12 hours later on a flight.

Would the man have been allowed on to an airline with a fever if he wasn't a high-ranking official from said country of departure?

Probably.

Was it the national flag carrier?

Don't know.

vivatifosi

Tried to quote a part of your post Hamish, but quoting has gone a bit odd on MSE again. I doubt that anyone would get sanctioned to fly (on a European carrier) if they have any symptoms of anything, mild or otherwise. They'll get told they'll be rebooked for free once they are fit. They'll be watched like a hawk and even once on, they can be offloaded if cabin crew suspicious up until the plane leaving. Not based on first hand info in this instance I should say, I haven't asked.

vivatifosi

ETA: this is quite interesting, taken from: http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.full Taken together, our results support the conventional assumptions and field observations that most EBOV transmission comes from direct contact with blood or bodily fluids of an infected patient during the acute phase of illness. The risk of casual contacts with the skin, such as shaking hands, is likely to be low. Environmental contamination and fomites do not appear to pose a significant risk when currently recommended infection control guidelines for the viral hemorrhagic fevers are followed. Prospective studies with the collection of a greater number of clinical samples from patients at different stages of EHF, as well as environmental samples analyzed with an assay validated for EBOV detection in such samples, should be performed to confirm our results.

vivatifosi

Apologies. I appear to have been banned from doing paragraph breaks. Odd.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

At the present rate of progression of the Ebola, I reckon we have around four months left. The one saving grace is that I therefore don't have to complete my tax return, after all! :j:j:j

The downside is that you don't get one final Xmas Dinner

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

vivatifosi wrote: »

I doubt that anyone would get sanctioned to fly (on a European carrier) if they have any symptoms of anything, mild or otherwise. They'll get told they'll be rebooked for free once they are fit. They'll be watched like a hawk and even once on, they can be offloaded if cabin crew suspicious up until the plane leaving.

I think the issue is, at this point nobody is conducting the sort of widespread temperature or health screening at airports that we saw with previous pandemics like SARS.

Unless the passenger volunteered the information, the airline would have no way of knowing.

As I said, initial symptoms are mild, but it goes downhill rapidly.

AFAIK airlines don't carry the sort of biohazard kit required to stop ebola infection from exposure to bodily fluids..... A simple mask and gloves isn't enough. Which presents a real quandary for crew. Do you refuse to assist an ill passenger? Quarantine him in isolation at the rear of the A/C and move all the other pax away? Etc.

Then there's the testing issue. It can take days to get test results which confirms someone is ebola positive.... Do you quarantine all the pax and crew and aircraft in the meantime?

Difficult situation to manage....