Mistakes in US Causing Panic and EBOLA to Spread >>>No Proper Training or Treatment
='Who's This Idiot With The Clipboard?' Disbelief and Panic as Mystery Man WITHOUT a Hazmat Suit Helps Second Ebola Nurse Board Her Plane to Atlanta, Disposes Waste and Then Climbs Aboard - Man casually dressed in shirt and pants seen on TV walking with Ebola patient Amber Vinson
- The man with the clipboard walked alongside healthcare workers and Miss Vinson who were ALL dressed in hazmat suits
- The nurse walked on to a plane in Dallas and the man without protection also boarded the plane, flying with her to Atlanta, Georgia
- Social media has dubbed him the 'Clipboard Man' - expressing shock that he came so close to an infected patient and unprotected
- As of Thursday morning, he remained unidentified. The ambulance service and Emory University Hospital said he was not with them
- He may be with the CDC, which organized the flight from Dallas to Atlanta
As news helicopters swarmed over Dallas' Love Field this evening to watch the second U.S. nurse to contract Ebola board a private plane bound for Atlanta, one lone man stood out from the pack. Holding a clipboard and directing the transfer, the unidentified man seemed to be the only person on the tarmac without protective clothing, wearing just a button down shirt and trousers. It's unclear if he joined the crew on the flight to Atlanta but he certainly boarded the plane. While Ebola is not an airborne disease, his presence so close to patient Amber Vinson's medical team sparked fears after he was seen grabbing a container and hazmat trash bag from one of the workers in full-protective gear.
Daily Mail UK, 16 October 2014
While Ebola is not an airborne disease, his presence so close to patient Amber Vinson's medical team sparked fears after he was seen grabbing a container and hazmat trash bag from one of the workers' in full-protective gear and later boarding the flight.
It is believed he flew with Vinson and the other hazmat-suited medical staff to Atlanta and local television crews spotted him with the stricken nurse as she disembarked at the airport in Georgia to be transferred to Emory University Hospital.
When the plane landed in Atlanta, the man had still not donned any protective clothing and was seen openly interacting with Vinson and the other medical professionals caring for the nurse.
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The man is seen boarding the flight, after exchanging several objects with the hazmat crew
Clipboard man appears to have flown on the same flight as infected Miss Vinson, as he is seen in footage of her getting into an ambulance at an airport in Atlanta
Members of the public watching were struck with disbelief at the man's decision to throw caution to the wind.
'He needs to be put on watch the second the plane lands so he does not infect anyone in Atlanta. This needs to be contained and I one will be ticked of I hear a report next week that he is the next victim!' Dean Pitts wrote on NBC Dallas' website.
American Medical Response, the ambulance company who transported Miss Vinson to the airport, say the man in plain clothes was most likely a member of the air crew transporting the patient to Atlanta, where she will be treated at Emory University Hospital.
Vinson landed in Atlanta, Georgia before 8pm Eastern Time to be treated at Emory University Hospital
Texas Health Presbyterian refused to comment on the incident. Meanwhile, representatives of the ambulance service said the man wasn't with their crew and Emory University Hospital said they didn't think any of their staff was on the flight. That means the man was most likely with the CDC, which organized the flight from Dallas to Atlanta.
While the CDC did not return MailOnline's calls for comment, a spokesman said that they didn't think anything was wrong with the interaction since he 'kept a safe distance'.
Miss Vinson's flight landed in Atlanta around 7:45pm Eastern Time.
Social media was as equally impressed as they were dumbfounded by the man who has quickly become known as 'clipboard man' online.
Dan Hevia said what many shocked viewers must have immediately thought when they saw the brave or foolhardy individual when he wrote, 'I'd like to know who the dude with the clipboard is so I can avoid him. C'mon!
Another incredulous witness was staggered, asking, 'My infectious disease training may be a bit limited but fairly sure that clipboard isn't Ebola proof.'
Others went straight to the heart of the matter, with Lib Media Exposed asking, 'Who's the idiot who thinks all the protection he needs from Ebola is a f******' clipboard?'
Another Twitter user, Luke Murray pointed out that 'clipboard man' might be the recipient of a dubious prize, should the worst come to the worst.
'So much for protocols,' wrote Lurray. 'Clipboard dude in the pic with nurse 2 is up for a Dawrin Award should something happen to him.'
The mystery man on the tarmac is just the latest questionable practice highlighted in the CDC's handling of the Ebola outbreak in America, which started when Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan was initially turned away from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital last month after reporting a high fever.
The man with the clipboard is seen grabbing various objects from the hazmat team, raising questions about whether he could have been contaminated
Mystery man walks with ebola victim WITHOUT hazmat suit:
A plane carrying Miss Vinson, who tested positive for Ebola, departs Love Field for Atlanta
Despite telling health care workers that he had recently returned from Liberia, he was not tested for Ebola, and was instead sent home with antibiotics. He returned home to his family's apartment and continued to get worse over the next several days. It was only when he was taken to the hospital a second time, that time by ambulance, that medics discovered he had Ebola.
And in the initial days of Duncan's treatment, nurses at the Dallas hospital revealed that they were given 'no protocols' on how to dress when caring for the Ebola patient.
That confusion led nurse Nina Pham, 26, to report to the hospital on Friday when she noticed a spike in her temperature. Just four days later, her co-worker Miss Vinson, became the second nurse at the hospital to contract the disease. The CDC is currently monitoring more than 75 health care workers at the hospital who came into contact with Duncan during his stay. He passed way from the disease last week.
The worsening Ebola problem led President Obama to abruptly cancel a planned campaign trip on Wednesday, deciding to meet with his Cabinet on the issue instead.
Obama's decision to nix the trip - just a few hours before Air Force One was scheduled to depart -
reflected the urgency facing the administration amid the American public's escalating concerns about potential spread of the virus.
Ebola patient Amber Vinson arrives by ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta yesterday
Miss Vinson's plane landed in Atlanta around 7:45pm Eastern Time. She was then seen being loaded into an ambulance (pictured) to be taken to Emory University Hospital
Press secretary Josh Earnest said on Wednesday that Obama still had confidence in CDC Director Tom Frieden.
However, the president admitted that Ebola needs to be fought in a 'much more aggressive way'.
'What we've been doing here is reviewing exactly what we know about what’s happened in Dallas,' Obama said Wednesday, 'and how we’re going to make sure that something like this is not repeated – and that we are monitoring, supervising, overseeing in a much more aggressive way exactly what has taken place in Dallas initially, and making sure that the lessons learned are then transmitted to hospitals and clinics all across the country.'
Emergency vehicles escort an ambulance carrying Miss Vinson on the tarmac at Love Field Airport
A maintenance woman wears a mask while working before the Protect Environmental Haz-Mat emergency response team arrived at the Bend East apartment complex where the Ebola-stricken nurse lives
Workers in hazmat suits begin to decontaminate the female Ebola patient's apartment, covering the door with plastic sheeting
Decontamination was in progress in the apartment building of the second health care worker with Ebola
This comes as President Barack Obama pledged on Wednesday to approach new cases of the Ebola virus in a 'much more aggressive way,' signaling that his administration hasn't already been doing all it can to slow the advance of the deadly contagion.
As pressure grows on the administration to explain how it has failed to contain the disease in Texas, the president said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would launch a 'rapid response SWAT team' within 24 hours whenever a new case is confirmed.
A Frontier Airlines jet carrying Dallas nurse Amber Jay Vinson crisscrossed America's skies
The CDC team, he said, will 'take local hospitals step by step through what needs to be done.'
Obama's comments to the press came after a hastily called all-hands-on-deck cabinet meeting that lasted two hours and pre-empted a pair of planned political campaign appearances in New Jersey and Connecticut.
The president's promise to get more serious about Ebola mirrors a vow on Monday from CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, who said his agency would 'double down' on disease surveillance and interventions.
The Frontier Airlines plane that Amber Vinson flew from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday, rests at a terminal at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on Wednesday
Dallas Police patrol the entrance to The Village Bend East apartments where a nurse, Amber Jay Vinson, tested positive for Ebola after caring for 'patient zero' Thomas Duncan
In harm's way: Obama said he had personally hugged and shook hands with nurses who had treated an Ebola patient at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta
Miss Winson is transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta where she is receiving treatment for Ebola
That comment, too, suggested that the US government hadn't yet put the pedal to the metal.
'What we've been doing here is reviewing exactly what we know about what’s happened in Dallas,' Obama said Wednesday, 'and how we’re going to make sure that something like this is not repeated – and that we are monitoring, supervising, overseeing in a much more aggressive way exactly what has taken place in Dallas initially, and making sure that the lessons learned are then transmitted to hospitals and clinics all across the country.'
Obama is struggling amid low approval ratings to show that he's in command of the world's most sophisticated public health infrastructure as Ebola threatens to claim tens of thousands of lives across the Atlantic Ocean.
'I am absolutely confident that we can prevent a serious outbreak of the disease here in the United States,' Obama said, 'but it becomes more difficult to do so if this epidemic of Ebola rages out of control in West Africa.'
Wrong guy? Thomas Frieden (on screen) is a doctor with years of experience in monitoring disease outbreaks, but his communication style and his all-is-well predictions rub some in Congress the wrong way
President Barack Obama called off a political trip on Wednesday to convene an Ebola brain-trust meeting at the White House, saying afterward that his administration would be 'much more aggressive' in the future
'If it does, then it will spread globally in an age of frequent travel and the kind of constant interactions that people have across borders.'
Citing the need to continue sending relief workers and aid shipments to western Africa, he insisted that 'the investment we make in helping Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea deal with this problem is an investment in our own public health.'
'This is not simply charity. ... It is also probably the single most important thing we can do to prevent a more serious Ebola outbreak in this country.'
In a bid to assure Americans that the risk of transmitting Ebola from person to person is low, Obama said that he personally 'shook hands with, hugged and kissed (not the doctors) but a couple of the nurses at Emory [University Hospital] because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients.'
'The followed the protocols, they knew what they were doing and I felt perfectly safe doing so,' he said. 'This is not a situation like the flu where the risks of a rapid spread of the disease are imminent.'
'I want to use myself as an example so people have a sense of the science here,' Obama declared.
But the president's confidence has been confounded by his choice of point-persons, which is under fierce attack on Capitol Hill as Republican members of Congress privately fret that the administration has put the wrong people out in front.
Frieden on Wednesday blamed the third confirmed U.S. Ebola patient for getting on a commercial aircraft on Monday following her close interaction with the first patient, when she had a slight fever before the aircraft began boarding.
However, later on Wednesday, the CDC admitted they gave Vinson permission to fly.
Mystery Man Walks With Ebola Victim WITHOUT Hazmat Suit