Originally published October 19 2014
US medical facilities can really only handle a few dozen Ebola patients
by Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) In the event of a large-scale Ebola outbreak in the U.S., the Nebraska Medical Center, where Ebola victim Dr. Rick Sacra was successfully treated, is fully equipped with a special biocontainment unit to treat infected patients and prevent further infection. But this unit, the largest of just four in the entire country, can only ideally handle about two patients -- and 10 at most!
This is hardly enough beds to deal with the onslaught of patients that would emerge during an actual outbreak, yet medical authorities continue to assure the public that everything will be fine. As you may recall, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Thomas Frieden told The Washington Post back on September 30 that the government was "stopping [Ebola] in its tracks in this country."
That was several days, of course, before Thomas Eric Duncan brought Ebola into the U.S. from Liberia, spreading it to his nurse and potentially dozens of others. So much for stopping Ebola in its tracks, huh, Dr. Frieden?
Now, authorities are trying to pull the "America has the best healthcare system in the world" card to reassure the public that an Ebola outbreak wouldn't really be that big of a deal -- except for that pesky lack of beds part. Yes, the U.S. has tens of thousands of hospital beds available at more than 5,700 hospitals throughout the country. But none of these facilities is equipped to contain Ebola, which seems to be spreading despite instituting high-level safety protocols.
"Our robust and sophisticated medical and public health infrastructure is supposed to be able to handle the situation. Like it did in Dallas?" wrote Dr. Jane M. Orient, M.D., for WND.com.
If Ebola spreads through air, treating patients at regular hospitals could spark pandemic
Dr. Orient is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and she understands full well how diseases spread. The fact that Ebola victim Duncan's nurse contracted Ebola, despite wearing full-body protective gear in accordance with CDC guidelines, suggests that Ebola has breached certain natural laws, if you will, that medical authorities claimed was impossible.
One of these is airborne transmission, which the CDC and Barack Obama vehemently deny as a possibility. But Ebola was already shown several decades ago to spread through the air, particularly across a room at a facility where infected monkeys were being housed for research.
Extrapolated to a hospital model with actual human patients, the potential for Ebola to spread through air vents, for instance, becomes more probable. Especially as the virus continues to mutate after each subsequent transmission -- a process that is known to make diseases more virulent -- the likelihood that Ebola will begin to transmit in new and unexpected ways increases.
"The CDC still insists that the virus is not 'airborne' -- at least not for more than three feet," added Dr. Orient. "Barack Obama has said that 'you cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.' But the CDC has told travelers who exhibit Ebola-like symptoms to avoid public transportation."
At this point, there are already many more potential Ebola cases in the U.S. than there are available beds at level-4 biocontainment units. And the unit at the University of Nebraska is technically the only one that is supposed to serve the public, which means that less than a dozen Ebola cases could completely overwhelm the healthcare system.
Learn all these details and more at the FREE online Pandemic Preparedness course at www.BioDefense.com
Sources:
http://www.wnd.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.breitbart.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://www.dallasnews.com
http://science.naturalnews.com
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