This is the story of how Ebola has made its way to America.
In July, the number of people infected by the virus reaches 1,000, that’s the same
month two American health care workers bravely helping to battle the outbreak on the frontlines
in the hardest-hit countries become infected, a doctor named Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol,
a nurse--both in Liberia.
While there, they receive the first doses of an experimental drug called ZMapp.
In order to get the best care possible, the American government brings them back to the
United States for treatment in an aircraft equipped to transport infectious patients.
Both are flown to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, which has an isolation ward to
handle cases of infectious disease.
It’s one of four facilities like it in America.
Over the next several weeks, Brantly and Writebol successfully fight off the infection and survive.
In the month of September, two other American healthcare workers and a cameraman all working
in Liberia become infected with Ebola as well.
They’re brought back to the United States to receive treatment in isolation facilities
in Atlanta and Nebraska.
The two healthcare workers have survived and - as of the recording of this video - the
cameraman’s condition is improving by the day.
The health care professionals who handled their cases follow the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention protocols, preventing the spread of the disease to anyone else.
Which brings us to September 15, the day a Liberian named Thomas Eric Duncan contracts
Ebola when he helps carry a young woman dying from the disease in the last moments of her
life.
Four days later, the nightmare scenario for the west is realized when Duncan boards a
plane to Brussels, on his way to visit family in the American city of Dallas.
He’s allowed to take the flights because he doesn’t have a fever or any other Ebola
symptoms--and because he lies on a questionnaire asking if he had come in contact with anyone
who was infected.
On September 25, Duncan goes to a Dallas hospital with a fever above 103 degrees and other symptoms
of infection.
While he’s there, he tells a nurse that he’s from Liberia, but, astonishingly, he’s
sent home with only a prescription for antibiotics.
Of course, that doesn’t do anything for him , and three days later he begins vomiting
and is brought back to the same emergency room in an ambulance.
Despite his poor condition, he’s left in the waiting room for three hours.
When he’s finally admitted and isolated from other patients, he’s treated by nurses
who have received no training in how to properly protect themselves and who aren’t wearing
adequate protective equipment.
More than 70 of these medical workers care for Duncan, an unnecessarily high amount that
increases the risk of the disease spreading.
On the morning of October 8th, Duncan becomes the first person to die from Ebola within
the borders of the United States.
Four days later, Nina Pham, one of the nurses who cared for Duncan, tests positive for the
virus, becoming the first person to contract the disease on American soil.
Three days after that, another nurse who also cared for Duncan, named Amber Vinson, is diagnosed
with Ebola.
The day before, Vinson realized she had a slightly elevated 99.5 degree temperature,
so she contacted the CDC because she wanted to know if she should take her scheduled flight
from Ohio - where she was visiting - back to Dallas.
And for some reason, the CDC did not tell her not to fly, so she took the flight.
The next day she is confirmed as Ebola positive, which means the hundreds of people who were
on the plane during her flight - and the flights after - have to be tracked down and monitored
as a precaution, even though the chance that any of these people would get the disease
is extremely low.
Vinson is now being treated at the facility in Atlanta and Pham is at the National Institutes
of Health’s isolation ward in Maryland.
On October 17, a lab supervisor that handled samples from Duncan in the Dallas hospital
boards a Carnival Cruise ship with 5,000 other passengers and crew on it.
When Carnival finds out from the CDC that she’s onboard, they quarantine her in her
stateroom as a precaution, even though she doesn’t have any symptoms.
Floating in the waters of the Caribbean, Belize and Mexico deny the ship entry to their ports,
forcing it to go back to Texas.
The incident brings the total number of people directly who have been greatly inconvenienced
by the Ebola outbreak well above 6,000--a far greater number than it should have been
had the hospital in Dallas treated Duncan’s case with the right amount of caution it deserved.
So that’s the latest on how the 2014 Ebola outbreak is affecting the United States.
Besides Pham and Vinson’s contraction of the virus by coming in contact with the extremely
sick Duncan, no one else in the country has caught it and things seem to be well under
control.
It’s a different story in West Africa though, as you can learn by clicking on the screen
and watching our mini-documentary explaining the entire Ebola outbreak and how it’s threatening
to overwhelm that part of the world.
This week we’ll also release videos covering the mistakes made in containing the outbreak
from spreading to the United States and how Ebola’s spread compares to the deadliest
diseases of the last century.
And if you’re justifiably tired of all that death and disease, check out our video on
the 10 most-promising energy sources of the future.
Thanks for watching.
For TDC, I’m Bryce Plank.