In an interview with reporters yesterday, Maine Gov. Paul LePage told reporters:
13% of the people who have Ebola, and who've died of Ebola, showed no symptoms, until a few hours before they died.
Sorry Sir - you need to do some homework.
Watch beginning at 1:35:
Matt Byrne of the Portland Press Herald did some fact checking and found:
Fever is the single most common early indicator of the illness. Fever was present in 88 percent of fatal cases and 84 percent of nonfatal cases, the study found. The assertion that 13 percent of people who died of Ebola showed no symptoms at all “until a few hours before they died” is false. Ebola does not sneak up on its victims like a heart attack, but builds over time until the patient is overcome with the virus. Once inside the body, the virus travels through the bloodstream until it attaches to a cell. The virus replicates itself to the point that it disrupts cell function and kills the cell. The process repeats in countless cells, with the virus attacking many types of tissue at once. After fever, the next most common symptoms are fatigue and vomiting. Patients who die of the disease often suffer uncontrollable diarrhea, and in the final stages, massive organ failure. (Emphasis mine)
This comes at a time when LePage's efforts to force a quarantine on Kaci Hickox were rebuffed by a local judge. Hickox is the nurse that returned from west Africa last month after working with Ebola patients, originally detained by authorities in New Jersey upon her arrival there.
The statement above joins a long list of such comments from LePage that have been shown to be untrue.
In three days time Mainers can end this four year long nightmare and elect Rep. Mike Michaud.
