EBOLA HCW If you get Ebola your WHOLE family loses EVERYTHING in house,ALL Clothes, Car, etc.

[Gitche Gumee Kid]

Medical equipment such as instruments ,( hemostats, retractors,scalpels,etc) used in surgery,even on infected patient, have been reused many times after autoclaving. (steam under high pressure).

There are other sterilization method too. Dry heat, radioactive bombardment.ultra violet light and others.

Incineration of personal property is a bit much.

GGK

 

[ainitfunny]

Medical equipment such as instruments ,( hemostats, retractors,scalpels,etc) used in surgery,even on infected patient, have been reused many times after autoclaving. (steam under high pressure).

There are other sterilization method too. Dry heat, radioactive bombardment.ultra violet light and others.

Incineration of personal property is a bit much.

GGK

I AGREE, BUT IT IS UNWISE TO DO What you recommend...
The costs NOW to just wholesale gather and destroy all potentially infectious possessions IS ALREADY ASTRONOMICAL and would be PROHIBITIVELY MORE COSTLY AND TIME CONSUMING for those charged with protecting public health and the health department potential liability for items improperly or inadequately disinfected if they tried that, is unacceptable.

It IS a tragic injustice that I see no practical, workable way to avoid occurring, unless we provide emergency housing for medical workers and they elect NOT TO GO HOME after working with or around a potential Ebola patient.

 

[FREEBIRD]

If they can't come up with enough autoclave equipment to handle more than three patients in the "10-bed" isolation unit at the Nebraska Medical Center,

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ly-Handle-quot-2-or-3-quot-Patients-At-A-Time

then how are there going to be enough autoclave units to decontaminate private possessions?

 

[BertaBurtonLake]

I AGREE, BUT IT IS UNWISE TO DO What you recommend...
The costs NOW to just wholesale gather and destroy all potentially infectious possessions IS ALREADY ASTRONOMICAL and would be PROHIBITIVELY MORE COSTLY AND TIME CONSUMING for those charged with protecting public health and the health department potential liability for items improperly or inadequately disinfected if they tried that, is unacceptable.

It IS a tragic injustice that I see no practical, workable way to avoid occurring, unless we provide emergency housing for medical workers and they elect NOT TO GO HOME after working with or around a potential Ebola patient.

"Medical" and "possessions" do not belong in the same sentence.


As GGK pointed out, sterilization of hardware is not the problem. The problem is getting that hardware to the means of sterilization that is problematic.

I understand what you are saying and I understand what GGK is saying. The real problem is "software": decon of proper PPE and proper disposal of 'disposables'. It is not "unwise" not is it prohibitively expensive to autoclave hardware. The problem arises when there is very little hardware, as in taking care of level IV patients.

 

[MinnesotaSmith]

Medical equipment such as instruments ,( hemostats, retractors,scalpels,etc) used in surgery,even on infected patient, have been reused many times after autoclaving. (steam under high pressure).

There are other sterilization method too. Dry heat, radioactive bombardment.ultra violet light and others.


GGK

Autoclaving is NOT sufficient on prions (Mad Cow Disease/CJT, anyone?). Just about nothing short of resmelting will work to make scalpels, hemostats, and other medical equipment composed of metal guaranteed sterile again. Cloth, paper, most plastics -- incineration/hazardous waste landfilling are the only realistic options.

 

[BertaBurtonLake]

Autoclaving is NOT sufficient on prions (Mad Cow Disease/CJT, anyone?). Just about nothing short of resmelting will work to make scalpels, hemostats, and other medical equipment composed of metal guaranteed sterile again. Cloth, paper, most plastics -- incineration/hazardous waste landfilling are the only realistic options.

It is a good thing that Ebola is not a prion, isn't it?

 

[biere]

I don't see how they will have a landfill for this stuff and keep using it longterm. X number of days and then someone is going to wonder about dumping more stuff on bad stuff and wonder about using equipment to cover over bad stuff with a layer of dirt to let more be dumper.

As far as your stuff goes.

Many baskets just became really important and even for just clothes and your information in your wallet and your information on the computer and what not.

Gonna work on having a couple spots set up where I could walk in whatever clothes they give me and I have sets of clothes waiting on me there that fit me, are what I like to wear, gun for ccw, copies of important information like drivers license and carry permit and what not, and broken in pair of boots and everything else.

It is hard to just have a credit card and walk into someplace and buy what you need all at once, it is not cheap to do plus they probably took that credit card away.

I can't afford to keep a spare vehicle here or there but I could see the extended family getting a spare vehicle perhaps and hopefully that house is not the one that gets nuked from orbit just to be safe.

 

[BertaBurtonLake]

I don't see how they will have a landfill for this stuff and keep using it longterm. X number of days and then someone is going to wonder about dumping more stuff on bad stuff and wonder about using equipment to cover over bad stuff with a layer of dirt to let more be dumper.

As far as your stuff goes.

Many baskets just became really important and even for just clothes and your information in your wallet and your information on the computer and what not.

Gonna work on having a couple spots set up where I could walk in whatever clothes they give me and I have sets of clothes waiting on me there that fit me, are what I like to wear, gun for ccw, copies of important information like drivers license and carry permit and what not, and broken in pair of boots and everything else.

It is hard to just have a credit card and walk into someplace and buy what you need all at once, it is not cheap to do plus they probably took that credit card away.

I can't afford to keep a spare vehicle here or there but I could see the extended family getting a spare vehicle perhaps and hopefully that house is not the one that gets nuked from orbit just to be safe.

Level 4 waste cannot be dumped in a landfill

 

[MinnesotaSmith]

Sigh...

It is a good thing that Ebola is not a prion, isn't it?

I was making the valid and relevant point that even when working perfectly and used correctly, autoclaves do NOT kill all pathogens. Having worked in several microbiology labs, I can assure you that the certainty of autoclaves's functionality and proper utilization is nowhere near perfect, even in a First World country.

 

[buff]

This thread, folks, is why we don't keep all of our eggs in one basket.

C'mon, this is a prepping board. Having remote sites should be second nature to most folks here.

I haven't commented much on this whole ebola thing..

What is striking to me is that things we discussed on this board 15 or so years ago is actually happening. As Mark said..

C'mon, this is a prepping board. Having remote sites should be second nature to most folks here.

none of us longtoothers here should be surprised.............bloody hell we've talked it to death for years...

 

[BertaBurtonLake]

I was making the valid and relevant point that even when working perfectly and used correctly, autoclaves do NOT kill all pathogens. Having worked in several microbiology labs, I can assure you that the certainty of autoclaves's functionality and proper utilization is nowhere near perfect, even in a First World country.

No, autoclaves, 'even when working perfectly and used correctly', do not kill ALL pathogens. Having said that, proper autocalving DOES kill Ebola even if it does not kill prions. If your experience was different WRT other than prions, I suggest user error.

 

[MinnesotaSmith]

No, autoclaves, 'even when working perfectly and used correctly', do not kill ALL pathogens. Having said that, proper autocalving DOES kill Ebola even if it does not kill prions. If your experience was different WRT other than prions, I suggest user error.

I have also seen an autoclave malfunction (heating cycle shortchanging the set time duration at temps high enough to be effective) and this malfunction not be immediately understood.

 

[BertaBurtonLake]

I have also seen an autoclave malfunction (heating cycle shortchanging the set time duration at temps high enough to be effective) and this malfunction not be immediately understood.

Then the people using the autoclave are stupid. If a malfunction of equipment cannot be immediately recognized and understood for what it is (and corrected), the operator is in error, not the equipment.

"One has to be smarter than the equipment they operate".

 

[MinnesotaSmith]

Then the people using the autoclave are stupid. If a malfunction of equipment cannot be immediately recognized and understood for what it is (and corrected), the operator is in error, not the equipment.

"One has to be smarter than the equipment they operate".

Everyone in that lab was a white (3 women, 2 men) with at least one science degree, and so far their bosses judged them competent at their jobs. The TIME DISPLAY as well as the timer on the autoclave was out of whack. While you are running around a large, busy, slightly noisy lab building with multiple rooms that you go in and out of (can easily go up to 80' and 3 rooms away in just one long autoclave run), the autoclave runs at 5 instead of 8 minutes (or whatever). There is no way you can expect busy labworkers to stand there and time each autoclave run with a watch, instead of relying upon the autoclave's timer. (Yes, independent calibrations ARE periodically done on autoclave timers, but not for every run.)

 

[BertaBurtonLake]

Everyone in that lab was a white (3 women, 2 men) with at least one science degree, and so far their bosses judged them competent at their jobs. The TIME DISPLAY as well as the timer on the autoclave was out of whack. While you are running around a large, busy, slightly noisy lab building with multiple rooms that you go in and out of (can easily go up to 80' and 3 rooms away in just one long autoclave run), the autoclave runs at 5 instead of 8 minutes (or whatever). There is no way you can expect busy labworkers to stand there and time each autoclave run with a watch, instead of relying upon the autoclave's timer. (Yes, independent calibrations ARE periodically done on autoclave timers, but not for every run.)

Yes 'you' can; it's called a job and if those labworkers are so busy, why are they 'stand[ing]' there?

 

[MinnesotaSmith]

Yes 'you' can; it's called a job and if those labworkers are so busy, why are they 'stand[ing]' there?

I take it you've never worked in a private commercial (as opposed to academic/government) laboratory. No one is "just standing around" as a rule during the workday, but is routinely juggling multiple tasks, commonly with close deadlines. Their daily "job" re the autoclave was to put a certain maximum quantity of the correct stuff in it arranged a certain way, hit the "sterilize" choice, and go do something else while it runs. They come back some time after the run is finished, to open it up to vent, and eventually to unload and store the contents. (Autoclaves are used for sterilizing some media after making it, too, BTW.)

 

[biere]

Level 4 waste cannot be dumped in a landfill

Good to know.

Some of this will probably make the nimby nuke stuff look small.

Glad I live and work rural right now but I expect major issues everywhere.