Shortly after Bill O’Reilly bloviated that Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox should be “taken into custody” for refusing to be quarantined, a real Ebola physician who also happens to be a former Ebola patient shot down the Fox News fear mongering on The Kelly File.
You can’t say Megyn Kelly didn’t try her darnedest to undermine Dr. Rick Sacra’s contention that quarantines for health care workers like Hickox are, to pardon the expression, overkill.
First, Kelly interrupted Sacra as he explained about Hickox, “The science suggests that she’s really not a risk to anyone at this time.” But Kelly said, “Here’s why people are concerned… First of all, in 13% of Ebola cases, you have no fever.” Therefore, Kelly was suggesting, Hickox could be infected, walking around and spreading disease right that minute.
But, unfortunately for Kelly's meme, not really. Sacra explained that the statistic needs context. And then he gave the viewers some. “Sometimes people with Ebola at the end of their lives will no longer be able to mount a fever because they’re so weak,” he explained. But healthy people, Sacra continued, “like Ms. Hickox, when they develop Ebola, they will have a fever. I think you have to look behind those kind of statistics.”
“Understood,” Kelly said quickly. So she tried another tack. This time, she wanted to know “how could it be” that just hours before Dr. Craig Spencer was hospitalized for Ebola, with medical workers needing to wear protective gear, “it was fine to bowl next to him, eat next to him and ride next to him on the subway car.”
Sacra pointed out that Ebola is just not all that contagious. He cited the case of Ebola patient Thomas Duncan in Texas. “He lived in an apartment with multiple other family members for two and a half days, while he was ill, sharing the same furniture, being in an apartment together. None of those other people got sick,” Sacra noted.
So Kelly interrupted again to cite the nurses who got sick treating Duncan. Once again, Sacra shot down the fear mongering. “They were dealing with his blood and bodily fluids,” he explained. “I don’t think anyone was dealing with Dr. Spencer’s blood and bodily fluids. …Nobody was starting an IV on him, no one was drawing blood from him.”
Kelly interrupted again, this time to cite the infected NBC cameraman who, she said, “wasn’t dealing hand-to-hand with Ebola patients.”
But he was “directly filming and sometimes assisting people who were dealing with burials,” Sacra replied. As Kelly interrupted again, Sacra had to ask to be allowed to finish his answer. He continued, “At the end of life, when people are dying of Ebola, that is when they are most contagious. Mr. Mukpo (the NBC cameraman) was filming and documenting the activities of a burial team, was around them. So that’s the time when bodies are most contagious.”
Kelly interrupted again, this time to declare, “I’m not taking a position on this. I’m just telling you what our viewers tell me.”
The look on Sacra’s face was priceless.
Watch it below.
That about sums up another insightful interview/debate from Megyn.
Hundreds of employees come in and out of that hideous skyscraper, use the elevators, escalators, and stairs. All those sweaty hands touch the handrails and elevator buttons. They eat at the cafe and use the company gym.
A few may work at Fox “News” operating the equipment such as the dual lavalier microphones which is worn by the Barbie. The makeup gals putting on the Barbie’s face. Did they eat at the same restaurant as the doctor? Be afraid Megyn, be very afraid.
If an employee comes down with a fever..is it possible they might have Ebola? Would we have to quarantine all Fox “News” employees and their families? Be afraid Megyn, be very afraid.
My state of Vermont, I’m proud to say, sent a couple of public health workers and a couple of state troopers down to JFK to pick up a returning resident who’d apparently been wandering around West Africa trying unsuccessfully to volunteer to help treat Ebola victims.
After taking his temperature, they all drove back to Vermont together, sans any kind of protective gear, and the guy has voluntarily agreed to quarantine in a small home in a rural area, where he has no access to a vehicle. The only hitch for him is that he appears to be somewhat, uh, not quite all there, so they don’t entirely trust what he says about what kind of contacts he had there.
When asked by media if this meant the state now had a mandatory quarantine for travelers and health care workers (of which we have a number over there volunteering), our public health people said, “No, of course not. We’ll take each one on a case-by-case basis and figure out what to do depending on their exposure.”
How delightful to live in a sane state.
