The story starts with the Affordable Health Care Act of 2009 when the Obama administration made changes to lift travel bans on people coming into the United States with HIV/AIDs apparently as part of the push to get votes and support for the legislation. Then in 2010 The Obama administration updated quarantine regulations in the Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel 73 FR 27614, May 13, 2008, as modified by: Correction Notice of 74 FR 11469, March 18, 2009 in particular 14 CFR Part 382 was issued. Which took out the quarantine option.
From the CDC website on October 3, 2014 the Guidelines for Ebola handling for Airlines outlines the procedures for passengers as updated on October 2, 2014 with the following …
Purpose: To give information to airlines on stopping ill travelers from boarding, managing and reporting on board sick travelers, protecting crew and passengers from infection, and cleaning the plane and disinfecting contaminated areas.
Since there is no quarantine on travel from any country with active Ebola and Thomas Eric Duncan did not have any symptoms of Ebola or anything else at the time he entered the terminal it would be illegal to deny him access to a US airline under the guidelines of 14 CFR Part 382. The October 2, 2014 CDC update to access to travel Only allows Denial for boarding for someone with obvious symptoms of Ebola and the 382 procedure is for what to do if they develop symptoms after bordering.
The bottom line to this is there is nothing in place today that would prevent a second Thomas Duncan to enter the country and we have not discussed the open southern border which makes it even easier for someone to get in.
Further in reviewing the CDC hospital procedures I could find nothing that would prevent what happened in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas from happening again since the initial symptoms are common to many other diseases. Generally according to the CDC symptoms appear on average between 8 to 10 days but could be earlier or longer 2 to 21 days is the given range.
The situation in Dallas is bad since Mr. Duncan was showing signs of Ebola from September 24 when he went to the hospital for the first time, but probably earlier since he went there after he got sick. Assuming he didn’t go to the hospital at the first sign of illness we can assume he probably had symptoms as early as September 23 and since he was admitted on September 28 there are at least five days where he could have infected someone and probably did.
Current estimates are the as many as 100 people could have been infected by Mr. Duncan. There are only four Level 4 hospitals in the US qualified to handle Ebola which are: St Patrics in Missoula Montana, Bethesda in Bethesda Maryland, Emory in Atlanta Georgia and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha Nebraska.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas is not one of them.
Centinel2012 