Not Going Viral

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90359264 90359265

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Berkeley Road, Dublin 7.

Ludicrous and unnecessarily scary Dramatic Scenes following the transport of a woman from her home in Tyrrelstown, Dublin to the Mater Hospital with symptoms apparently consistent with ebola.

Leon writes:

“Gardai and ambulance crews shut down Berkeley Road in a suspected Ebola case. The HSE has since confirmed the lady was tested for the deadly virus, though was given the all-clear. Witnesses reported that ambulance crew, and other staff wore protective gear throughout the investigation. Large areas surrounding the hospital were shut-down in accordance with procedures outlined by Health Minister…”

Previously: Everyone Stay Cool

(Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

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48 thoughts on “Not Going Viral

  1. Mark Dennehy

    Oh for Desmond’s sake, it’s got an R-value of 2. HIV has an R-value of 4. It’s literally twice as hard to catch Ebola as it is to catch HIV. Why the hell are we panicing? Did someone let a TD watch Outbreak or Contagion or something?

    1. Mark Dennehy

      And seriously – why are the ambulance crew wearing shoe protectors? Facemasks, gloves, these make sense if you’re physically in contact with someone, sure; the full noddy suit is a bit silly, but okay; but shoe protectors? How were they planning on swapping bodily fluids via their shoes? Were they planning on kicking the poor woman up the backside and were worried about split uppers?

      1. Spud

        May make sense if they were to walk on any bodily fluid that could be contaminated… they just dispose of the covers and not the shoes / boots.

        1. Mark Dennehy

          Spud, if you step in dogshit do you burn your shoes or do you wash them with a hose and a brush?

          Feck it, even if it was Ebola (which it wasn’t), it’s a germ, not an unkillable alien creature from a bad sci-fi flick…

          1. Celticon

            Since it wasn’t Ebola it may well have been an unkillable alien creature from a bad sci-fi flick.

          2. Mark Dennehy

            Spartacus, a virus is a type of germ, along with bacteria and fungi and something else I can’t remember (I’ve obviously drunk too much fluoride and my brain has the lurgy).

          3. Major Thrill

            It’s a minor precaution that lowers a one-in-a-million risk to one-in-a-billion and there’s no particular harm in doing it.

          4. Meredith

            If you knew there was a high chance of stepping in dog poo, would you wear shoe covers if they were available to you?

      2. jess

        You of all people should understand the importance of routine safety procedures and not deviating from them because they’re not needed “this time”.

        You always treat a gun like it’s loaded.
        You always treat suspected ebola like it’s going to kill you.

        Sure you know there’s no bullet in the chamber and that the person vomiting has a 99% chance of not having ebola but you want to build an immensely strong habit of following the routine exactly so you never deviate from it. That way you don’t make a mistake when it actually is important.

        1. Mark Dennehy

          A very strong point Jess, with just one small flaw – if the person with ebola throws up on your shoes, you won’t catch ebola. You have vomit on your shoes, not acid. It won’t eat through the leather and your skin hunting for a blood vessel to infect you through. So shoe protectors? Not needed.

          And the full-on noddy suit? Do they wear those while dealing with every junkie they treat who might have anything from HepC to HIV to fecking TB?

          Yes, treat every gun as though it was loaded. But don’t go treating every broom handle, chair leg, cucumber and loofah as though they also had a bullet in the chamber, because that’s just plain silly.

          1. medieval knievel

            what a godawful analogy.
            if someone is puking and has recently returned from africa, and has symptoms not inconsistent with ebola, your chair leg analogy makes absolutely no sense.

            your chair leg analogy only makes sense if the person clearly does not and can not have ebola.

            either way, if someone is a potential ebola victim and vomiting, i really would prefer that they did not puke on my shoes. and i’d be idiotic not to take a simple precautionary step.

          2. Meredith

            Shoe covers facilitate quick clean ups and are standard ppe for those who deal with live virus material (eg, me). To suggest that they are superfluous is really a bit thick. Why not use them? It’s far easier than taking a brush to your shoes, which would have the effect of splashing water around the place too. And have you considered what condition the apartment night have been in had the patient actually had the virus? Some puke on your shoes may have been the least of your worries

        2. munkifisht

          Having been a former employee of the lab that did the testing for this sample let me just say you don’t know why the fiddly f**k type talking about. It’s farcical the hysteria over this disease at the moment in the West. Let me say a) in a lab you treat everything as highly infectious, you do not wear these hazmat suits everyday, you wear a lab coat and gloves and you wash your hands and work area regularly and b) yes this is a potential disaster for Africa bit as had already been shown in Nigeria, with simple precautions the disease can be contained. The aim is to educate people on how to avoid getting infected by washing their hands, avoiding contact with late stage victims and if infected refraining from sex until the disease is completely gone.

          1. medieval knievel

            So working in a lab – a controlled environment with existing sterilisation procedures – can be used as an example of how to handle an ill patient in an uncontrolled environment which may be extensively contaminated with vomit or blood? Cool!

          2. munkifisht

            No, working in a lab exposes you daily to other far more contagious and dangerous diseases and it is typical not to over react in this way to them, and if you want an example of a disease that is far more likely to kill you, look at flu.

    2. Alfred E. Neumann

      I can’t see a TD watching Outbreak. Who needs monkeys with projectile diarrhoea when you have Joe Higgins speeches on tap?

      1. Kieran NYC

        All you sheeple watching the ground instead of looking up and seeing the TRUTH about chemtrails!

    1. Delacaravanio

      That NOBAMA has a lot to answer for. We should put a travel ban in and out of Moneygall immediately.

  2. Frilly Keane, Anyone?

    Glad to hear the patient got the all clear. And its worth noting the protocol on display there looks confident.

  3. Milk Teeth

    An R value =/= how transmissible it is. It is how likely you are to transmit it to people. You tend to die a lot quicker with Ebola than HIV so you have a lot less time to infect anyone else. The Spanish Flu that killed more people than WW1 had an R value of 2-3.

    1. Mark Dennehy

      Milk, the R0 value is exactly how transmissible it is.
      You’re thinking of how likely it is you’ll catch it from one exposure (which is not the same thing).

      Point is, everyone from the WHO and CDC on down is trying to point out that it’s not that easy to catch and this isn’t a (truly awful) Hollywood film involving monkeys and coughing in a cinema.

      Just don’t go swapping bodily fluids with someone who’s infected. Honestly, you’d swear that was a difficult task. They have senators in the US who are actually seriously proposing quarantining Africa over this (not Liberia, not Sierra Leone, not even West Africa, but the entire continent). Mad eejits everywhere…

      1. Milk Teeth

        How many times something gets transmitted is not exactly the same thing as how transmissible something is. As I say the reason HIV has such a high rate is because it’s often undetected and you can live for a long time with it.

        You are much much more likely to catch Ebola than HIV if you are in contact with someone with each of the viruses.

    2. scottser

      what’s all this about spanish flu and r ratings? what do aphrodisiacs have to do with how efficient my windows are?

  4. Mr. T.

    I’d more concerned with the number of idiots with their accessory dogs who leave crap behind on the footpaths.

  5. mike

    This sounds like a procedural test run to me. How were they able to disprove ebola so quickly?

    If not a test run, then perhaps the application of the all-out procedures for a possible but unlikely case.

    1. Mark Dennehy

      Because the ebola tests (there are at least two) don’t take that long to run. PCR testing takes less than six hours. Not sure about the other tests.

      And the “Miss, have you been in Liberia or Sierra Leone and are you now pooping out your liver?” medical history test takes even less time…

      1. Milk Teeth

        Also the symptoms you present with are very similar to malaria, which you can test for very very swiftly.

  6. moochaill

    A childhood without Zig and Zag is like people who tell you you’re beige when you’re really fawn: just wrong.

  7. The big fella

    I can bet your bottom dollar the family in outbreak what found the virus monkey in the garden wish that their govt was as prepared as our govt is for this. It’s the little things.

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