Liz Szabo, of USA TODAY writes
Family of Dallas Ebola patient quarantined
Texas health officials have placed the Dallas family of a Liberian national infected with Ebola under quarantine and ordered them not to leave their home or have any contact with outsiders for 21 days without approval of the local or state health department.
The "control order" also requires the family of Thomas Eric Duncan to be available to provide blood samples and agree to any testing required by public health officials.
Officials said Thursday that the four or five family members could face criminal charges for violating the order, which was delivered to them in writing Wednesday evening.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reports 7,178 people have been infected and 3,338 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and Nigeria. The epidemic has been contained in Nigeria and Senegal which have not reported any recent cases.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said health officials have identified up to 100 possible contacts through contact tracing, which has been set with the widest possible "net" in order to be overly cautious rather than underly cautious.
I have clips from several other articles I will had to updates.
10:39 AM PT: This story just broke 13 minutes ago. ABC News is reporting that Liberia is going to arrest U.S. Ebola patient" for lying on a health questionaire saying he had not contact with anyone having Ebola.
10:48 AM PT: Here's a link to the NBC breaking story on Liberia's announced intention of prosecuting Duncan.
Liberia to Prosecute Man Who Brought Ebola to United States
MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberian authorities say they plan to prosecute the man infected with Ebola who brought the disease to the United States, saying he lied on his airport health questionnaire.
With an Ebola crisis raging in West Africa, passengers leaving Liberia are being screened for fever and are asked if they have had contact with anyone infected. On the questionnaire obtained by The Associated Press, Thomas Eric Duncan answered 'no' to those questions. Neighbors say Duncan had helped a sick pregnant woman who later died of the disease. Her illness at the time was believed to be pregnancy-related.
Liberia plans to make an arrest when Duncan returns.
10:56 AM PT: U.S. troops are on their way to Liberia
Military Goes to Africa on Ebola Mission
About 1,400 soldiers will head to Liberia this month to help support the fight against the Ebola virus that is spreading across West Africa, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.
The Army's 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., will provide about 700 of those soldiers, while the other 700 will be mostly combat engineers culled from Army units across the force, Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said.
The soldiers will be among the total 3,000 U.S. troops whom the Pentagon plans to send into West Africa this fall.
About 300 of the troops from the 101st Airborne will come from the division headquarters, and as the Joint Force Command for the mission. They are expected to arrive by the end of October.
CNN seems to be devoting most of its recent coverage to Ebola stories. Anderson Cooper just reported that Duncan's partner, Louise says he was sweating and had diarrhea. She has been ordered to stay in her apartment where she says the sheets they slept on, and towels where she mopped up his diarrhea still reside.
She is also concerned how she and her family will get food, although Cooper reports that she says representatives from the CDC brought her sandwiches last night.
I don't know if her employment situation has any insurance to cover her wages while she is ordered to confinement.
And, why hasn't the CDC swarmed in and obtained these sheets? And sterilized the apartment. Shouldn't they get the family out of that place?
11:40 AM PT: CNN just reported that Duncan's partner, Louise says the sheets they slept on, and he had been profusely sweating on, are still on the bed, as are towels he used.
When asked by CNN, the CDC says an infectious waste contractor is on their way to the apartment to collect any infectious material.
Why have they not moved the family out of the apartment where he had diarrhea? And, perhaps has left Ebola virus all over the apartment? Is it just a matter that they do not have a budget for hotel cost?
How long does the Ebola virus live on surface. Sanjay Gupta says it can live for surfaces for days. Although sunlight would kill it.
11:41 AM PT: Sanjay added that infection from viruses on surface seems possible in theory, however, the belief among experts seems to be that it less probable, or perhaps even "improbable."
12:00 PM PT: The New York Times has interviewed parents and students at the school the children attended.
In Dallas Schools, Fear of Possible Ebola Exposure
Students outside the Sam Tasby Middle School in Dallas, ...
For the thousands of parents and schoolchildren in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it is a concern that they wrestled with on Thursday morning after learning that five school-age children had had contact with a man who is ill with the disease.
“My mom, she recommended that I not touch a lot of kids at school,” said Royale Hollis, 15, a freshman at Emmett J. Conrad High School, which at least one of the children attended. “I haven’t been shaking hands, just bumping elbows. People just keep their distance. Girls don’t give boys hugs. We’re all cool with each other but we just don’t want to catch anything.”
The school is just around the corner from an apartment complex where the Ebola patient, Thomas E. Duncan, was staying before he was rushed to the hospital and given the diagnosis.
Mr. Duncan, who is in isolation at a Dallas hospital, came into contact with five children who went to four different schools — a high school, a middle school and two elementary schools.
CNN has just broken to a press conference being held by a Texas Public Health official who says he is setting up an "Incident Command Center," and that a infectious waste team is on the way to the apartment to collect the sheets and towels and that they have delivered several days of foot.
He is saying that one can only spread Ebola after one has symptoms, and the only one having symptoms is Mr. Duncan. So he has "a high degree of confidence" that we can control this.
I still think they ought to remove the family from the potential infectious site.
Chief Doug Bass will be the emergency manager of the incident command center.
12:14 PM PT: The Texas news conference is continuing. I missed the name of the man speaking. I believe he is from the Texas Department of Public Health.
David Tager (??) from the CDC has taken the podium and says the CDC has 10 folks in the area assigned to this case, and have 130 over in Western Africa.
They are dividing up into two teams. One will stay at the hospitals. The 100 possible contacts will be "culled" down to more likely possible infections for further monitoring.
12:15 PM PT: A representative of the City of Dallas has taken the podium and says his role is to make sure the City of Dallas provides a safe environment for these investigations to take place.
If citizens have any questions they need to call 311. If they feel sick they need to call 911.
12:18 PM PT: Police are now at the apartment complex to provide a safe environment there. He says it is disorganized and the press is causing some of the disorganization.
"if we have chaos out there" it creates a difficult situation. A city person is working with the apartment manager. So if the press has any questions they should go to him.
12:22 PM PT: A representative of the school says the safety of the children is their top priority. Attendance is down to 86% which is below normal. Surfaces are being disinfected.
Question: How were these 100 people identified?
Answer: Dr. Christapher Perkens is in charge of contact tracing. We start with members of the immediate family, then people the patient came in contact with. Extensive interviews identified any secondary contacts.
12:32 PM PT: Contacts will be divided into three categories: high risk, low risk, and no risk.
One reporter asks why the family are being kept in the family. The family was ordered to stay in the apartment and they are now "complaint" with the order to stay in the apartment. ..."It is important to balance a number of things, it is important for them to be at home so that the CDC teams can take their temperature"... He is not speaking in complete sentences, he said "when they send their kids to school when they were told not to send their kids to school ... but didn't finish.
He said it is important to balance concerns for the family's freedom, with the needs of public safety.
A reporter is asking about the cleaning company that is supposed to apartment. Answer, this companies has worked for the hospital before.
12:33 PM PT: The sheets and Mr. Duncan's belongings have been placed in a plastic bag.
12:35 PM PT: The answer that the family has to stay in the infected apartment so the C.D.C. can take their temperature seems to miss the possibility that the family could be placed in a non-infected hotel that the C.D.C. knows the address to.
CNN is not discussing the questions of whether Duncan lied on the exit questionairre or if this is only a suspicion.
12:50 PM PT: Thanks to DCClark for this link to an the New England Journal of Medicine
http://www.nejm.org/...
1:46 PM PT: Judge Clay Jenkins, the main speaker at the above press conference has been interviewed on CNN by Sanjay Gupta and apparently is now planning to move the family from the infected apartment after becoming aware of the issue by watching CNN. It's about time!
2:14 PM PT: The New York Times reports difficulties in finding workers to clean up infected sites, and that the sheets and towels used by the infected patient are still in the apartment.
Delay in Dallas Ebola Cleanup as Workers Balk at Task
DALLAS — More than a week after a Liberian man fell ill with Ebola and four days after he was placed in isolation at a hospital in Dallas, the apartment where he was staying with four other people had not been cleaned and the sheets and dirty towels he used while sick remained in the home, health officials acknowledged on Thursday afternoon.
The four family members who are living there are among a handful who have been directed by the authorities to remain in isolation, following what officials said was a failure to comply with an order to stay home. Texas health officials hand-delivered orders to residents of the apartment requiring them not to leave their home and not to allow any visitors inside until their roughly three-week incubation periods have passed.
The orders – known as communicable disease control orders – are permitted under the state’s health code. Violations could result in either criminal prosecution or civil court proceedings. ...
The woman who was hosting Mr. Duncan told CNN that she had been with him the first time he sought treatment at the hospital and that she had twice told workers there he had been in Liberia. Still they sent him back with only some antibiotics to the apartment, where the woman was staying with one of her children and two nephews.
Over the next two days, Mr. Duncan began sweating profusely and had diarrhea. His sweaty sheets were still on the bed on Thursday morning, the woman said. She put the towels he used in a bag but said she did not know what to do with them.
The Texas health commissioner, Dr. David Lakey, told reporters during an afternoon news conference that health workers should have moved more swiftly to clean the apartment but that they had had trouble finding an outside medical team to do the work. They encountered “a little bit of hesitancy,” he said.