School Closures, Capitol Hill Hearing Follow News of Second Ebola-Infected Nurse
As of Thursday, two nurses -- Amber Joy Vinson, 29, and Nina Pham, 26 -- who treated the first Ebola patient in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, had tested positive for the virus, and the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was catching heat on Capitol Hill.
The CDC's Dr. Thomas R. Frieden goes into crisis management mode on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Screen shot from The New York Times
As of Thursday, two nurses — Amber Joy Vinson, 29, and Nina Pham, 26 — who treated the first Ebola patient in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, had tested positive for the virus, and the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was catching heat on Capitol Hill.
Schools in Ohio and Texas were shuttered after news broke that Vinson had come down with the disease after visiting Akron from Dallas last weekend. Passengers who flew Monday with Vinson on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas were linked to the closed schools, and people who came in contact with Vinson during her trip were also being monitored, according to The New York Times.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden was grilled by members of Congress about the agency’s response to Duncan’s case (via The New York Times):
At the hearing on Capitol Hill, which placed the government’s halting response to the virus in the United States into the realm of politics, Representative Tim Murphy, Republican of Pennsylvania, opened with scathing criticism.
“Mistakes have been made,” he said. “Trust and credibility of the administration and government are waning. That trust must be restored.”
One sharp line of questioning from lawmakers dealt with travel. Mr. Duncan had flown to Dallas from Liberia, where Ebola has killed hundreds, and on Wednesday it was revealed that a second nurse infected at the Dallas hospital had traveled on a commercial flight from Cleveland to Dallas the day before she showed symptoms of the disease.
Representative Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan, reiterated calls for a full travel ban from affected countries; Dr. Frieden and other public health officials have said such measures would be counterproductive.
Mr. Upton asked how the second nurse, Amber Joy Vinson, was able to board a commercial flight even after she reported having a fever.
“On this issue, there is no time to wait,” he said. “People are scared. We need all hands on deck. We need a strategy.”
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Pham, the first nurse to show symptoms of Ebola, will be moved to a National Institutes of Health facility with a biocontainment unit in Bethesda, Md. Vinson was moved Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. An Associated Press report detailed both nurses’ contact with Duncan, who died Oct. 8 in Dallas.
–Posted by Kasia Anderson
Your support matters…Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.
You can help level the playing field. Become a member.
Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.
Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.
Cleveland police officials' disciplinary moves against the two officers aren't a direct result of the 2014 killing of the 12-year-old African-American boy. Rice's mother calls the latest actions "deeply disappointing."
The Democratic and Republican conventions showed the great divide between insiders and outsiders If what was happening inside a political convention could be merged with what was happening outside, perhaps such gatherings would be more representative of our country
.
Photojournalist Michael Nigro is in Philadelphia to provide Truthdig an on-the-ground perspective from the 2016 Democratic convention. Photojournalist Michael Nigro is in Philadelphia to provide Truthdig an on-the-ground perspective from the 2016 Democratic convention.
AP’s Fact Check found that the candidate’s statistics in his GOP acceptance speech are way beyond the "damned lies" level.
The great tragedy of the moment is not rooted in the Republican Party’s self-cannibalization It’s in a Democratic Party that "successfully" suffocated responsible answers to the crises consuming our world The great tragedy of the moment is not rooted in the Republican Party’s self-cannibalization.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.