U.S. Ebola Cases ’May Exceed Two Dozen by November’

Ebola Outbreak: Katie Couric's Interview with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Couric's Interview/Story Link: https://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-interviews-liberian-president-ellen-johnson-sirleaf-181216307.html?mktg=ykatie-sem-ybn-generic&chan=sem&ptnr=ybn&prop=ykatie&cmp=generic&sid=sr3_11470480_ms

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Story below by Bloomberg
Written by Michelle Fay Cortez and Lorraine Woellert
Video by Yahoo News

There could be as many as two dozen people in the U.S. infected with Ebola by the end of the month, according to researchers tracking the virus with a computer model.

The actual number will probably be far smaller and limited to a couple of airline passengers who enter the country already infected without showing symptoms, and the health workers who care for them, said Alessandro Vespignani, a Northeastern University professor who runs computer simulations of infectious disease outbreaks. The two newly infected nurses in Dallas don’t change the numbers because they were identified quickly and it’s unlikely they infected other people, he said.

The projections only run through October because it’s too difficult to model what will occur if the pace of the outbreak changes in West Africa, where more than 8,900 people have been infected and 4,400 have died, he said. If the outbreak isn’t contained, the numbers could rise significantly.

“If by the end of the year the growth rate hasn’t changed, then the game will be different,” Vespignani said. “It will increase for many other countries.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-16/u-s-ebola-cases-may-exceed-two-dozen-by-november-.html

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Second infection case from the Ebola death of Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-15/second-ebola-worker-s-trip-raises-concerns-on-u-s-spread.html

Exerpts from above link:

...Infection Details

More details have been emerging about how the two health-care workers may have become infected. Frieden said both were in close contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, who flew from Liberia to visit family in Texas before showing symptoms and then dying at the Dallas hospital on Oct. 8.

Amber Vinson (left) graduated in 2003 from Firestone High School in Akron. (Photo Source: Akron Public Schools via Bloomberg)

National Nurses United, which has 185,000 members, said in a statement that workers who cared for Duncan were initially given safety suits with exposed necks, forcing them to use medical tape to cover their skin. Hospital managers also played down the need for more protective masks, and sent around lab specimens that weren’t specially sealed through the hospital’s tube system, the group said.

They also said Duncan initially was kept in a room with other patients before being isolated.