Amtrak, Ebola and You

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VentureForth

Engineer
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
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6,430
Location
West Melbourne, FL
Just a word of caution out there. As word gets out regarding ebola patients flying around on commercial aircraft, air traffic is plummeting. Stocks are crashing and I can only assume ridership is down.

This could mean that folks rely more on Amtrak.

Just as easy for an ebola patient to get on Dallas' DART train at Presbyterian Hospital, ride to Dallas, and hop aboard Amtrak.

Not trying to panic anyone, but sensible precautions are probably in order.

Don't think THIS is necessary, though.
 
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Thanks for the reminder! The CDC and the Government needs to get s handle on this before it becomes an epidemic!!

Ill be in Dallas in a couple of hours

on #21! Time for the Bee Keeper Suit!

Dallas has a Large African Population and DFW is a hub for International Flights, much opportunity for contact with carriers and those exposed to this dreaded disease!

Be careful out there no matter how you travel!
 
I'd like to see statistics that air traffic is plummeting. Dropping a bit, perhaps. Plummeting? Sounds extreme.

I did cancel a Points run to DAL last Monday out of caution.
Well then you should cancel every trip every day, because something like flu is much more common.
Flu doesn't have a 90% mortality rate. Fortunately, for now, the contraction rate is very low.

Listen. I didn't start this thread to cause hysteria or chicken little bewilderment. I had a feeling that it would devolve into this, though. So I included a perposterous photo of a woman in an airport in full hazmat gear to sorta show the silly side.

Ebola ain't the flu. It is spreading. It's real. Our president even cancelled TWO fundraisers to talk to someone about it.

The point is, due caution is always valid. Some may not have put the pieces together on how easily this could get from ground zero into the Amtrak system. Fact is that any of those nurses could have boarded DART. Someone on DART could board Amtrak in Dallas.

Cancelling a points run is no big deal. Why actually run into a burning building if you don't have to?
Fact is anyone can board DART, or Amtak. Terrorists, people with mental problems and violent tendencies, ex wives, etc. I don't want to deal with any of them, but I am simply not living in fear!

Canceling trips to Dallas out of fear of Ebola is irrational panic. Unless you are going to the isolation room at Presbyterian.
 
Just left Dallas and Ft Worth on #21 and lots of people are walking around wearing face masks! This isn't China or some third world hellhole!

People need to get a clue!!
At least most of China has HSR and some cities even have Maglevs. Reminds me of the SARS days.
 
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All the non-Amtrak discussion has been moved to Random Discussions. Please keep this thread for Amtrak discussion only.

Thanks!!
 
All the non-Amtrak discussion has been moved to Random Discussions. Please keep this thread for Amtrak discussion only.

Thanks!!
Perhaps you should remove the Amtrak from the title and move this to Random too. Or simply just move it there.
After all would you put a thread titled "Amtrak and the Big Bang" in Amtrak anything? ;) Sheesh!

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum
 
Fact is anyone can board DART, or Amtak. Terrorists, people with mental problems and violent tendencies, ex wives, etc. I don't want to deal with any of them, but I am simply not living in fear!Canceling trips to Dallas out of fear of Ebola is irrational panic. Unless you are going to the isolation room at Presbyterian.
Right on. Ebola isn't anywhere near the threat as irrational panic. Someone will cough and half the passengers will jump off the train.
 
All the non-Amtrak discussion has been moved to Random Discussions. Please keep this thread for Amtrak discussion only.

Thanks!!
Perhaps you should remove the Amtrak from the title and move this to Random too. Or simply just move it there.
After all would you put a thread titled "Amtrak and the Big Bang" in Amtrak anything? ;) Sheesh!

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum
Agreed.

There is no intersection between Ebola and Amtrak.
Yes there is! Amtrak is a Common Carrier and there is big concern about Ebola being spread via common carriers. Get with the Program!
Are there reports of anyone that might actually have had contact with the virus even going near an Amtrak train?

Didn't think so.
 
In terms of relative probabilities, this is how I see it:

My travel on Amtrak being affected by it in the next six months - close to zero

My domestic travel by air being affected by it in the next six months - slightly higher but still very close to zero

My travel to India this winter being effected by it, significantly higher, but still relatively unlikely. I really have very significantly greater chance of coming down with Falciparum Malaria and dying from it. Somewhere between half a million and a million people in the world die from it each year. And that is also relatively unlikely.

I used a similar informed analysis to decide to travel through SARS affected countries taking appropriate precautions, at the height of the SARS panic, when almost everyone was walking around wearing a mask in Hong Kong, and Singapore was scanning all incoming passengers remotely for elevated temp. Prudent steps were taken and the epidemic was contained.

Until Amtrak inaugurates its much awaited service to Freetown Liberia I wouldn't worry about it. The number of people who transfer from incoming international flights to Amtrak is very minimal anyway, nowhere near where I am likely to ride any Amtrak.
 
There is no intersection between Ebola and Amtrak.
Correct.
Unfortunately, there is a correlation with "any form of transport" and "ebola in the USA"

And the ripoff politicos will make the most of it, and not do reasonable things, no they will grandstand and -- yeah.

If nobody coming from west Africa pukes on you, don't fear.

Its that simple.
 
To which this thread is totally relevant to Amtrak. As I stated in the OP, air travelers may be looking for an alternative mode of transport. Dallas, being the location of arguably the most potentially non quarantined patients, is a great place for someone who otherwise would fly to get on Amtrak.

I don't think any of us can truly say with authority how easily it's transmitted. Surely more difficult than SARS or bird or swine flu, but way more deadly. Protected (however poorly) nurse gets it, but someone who was intimate with the deceased hasn't?

They are destroying the entire interior of that Frontier jet. Partly out of an abundance of caution, but mostly for PR.

Does Amtrak have a protocol? Do they have a plan? Honestly, it would be a lot easier to transmit on a two day train ride than on a two hour flight.

Again, I'm not being a chicken little here. Just having the discussion...
 
To which this thread is totally relevant to Amtrak. As I stated in the OP, air travelers may be looking for an alternative mode of transport. Dallas, being the location of arguably the most potentially non quarantined patients, is a great place for someone who otherwise would fly to get on Amtrak.

I don't think any of us can truly say with authority how easily it's transmitted. Surely more difficult than SARS or bird or swine flu, but way more deadly. Protected (however poorly) nurse gets it, but someone who was intimate with the deceased hasn't?

They are destroying the entire interior of that Frontier jet. Partly out of an abundance of caution, but mostly for PR.

Does Amtrak have a protocol? Do they have a plan? Honestly, it would be a lot easier to transmit on a two day train ride than on a two hour flight.

Again, I'm not being a chicken little here. Just having the discussion...
Nope, you are not being "chicken little"

Yeah, the ebola is very deadly if you catch it, but really not very contagious.

As for Amtrak needing a plan to isolate -- who?

Wherever I might be, I won't worry -- unless some fellow public transit rider (plane,train,bus,immigration holding pen) actually vomits on me
 
Any form of transportation has the ability to spread disease. Just think of what the medieval plague might have been like with modern transportation. To me the one thing we have going for us is we understand the process and rather than walking the country side flagellating ourselves we can concentrate our efforts on controlling the outbreak. I think it is absolutely awesome that we are using our military prowess for good, building treatment centers and supporting healthcare workers.

One of the great lessons my late father taught me came from FDR - we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Fear makes us do stupid stuff like create the TSA and try to fight an enemy that is willing to kill itself.

Focused action will help resolve this, and demonstrating caution in travel is just one of those. In Ohio it is big news that they are scouring the countryside looking not only for those who went to the Bridal Shoppe with the infected nurse but those she traveled with her albeit it was the friendly skies not the holy rails. Knowledge is power, ignorance is bliss.
 
"but someone who was intimate with the deceased hasn't?" - I'm not sure what you mean by this phrase. (Do I want to?) The guy that died in Dallas, Thomas Duncan, was said to have helped transport an African Ebola patient who was near death. I have also heard that the virus can persist for days in a deceased host, and for weeks in semen. Being a virus, it is capable of mutation, and the Ebola strain that was discovered in Reston VA several decades ago became airborne (although that strain did not cross species to humans). I agree that we're nowhere near the panic stage - yet - but handled wrong we can get there.

On my recent CZ trip, which was just before the Dallas incident, I saw some Clorox disinfecting wipes in the restroom. Since Clorox kills Ebolavirus, that would seem a good thing to have handy.
 
I don't think any of us can truly say with authority how easily it's transmitted. Surely more difficult than SARS or bird or swine flu, but way more deadly. Protected (however poorly) nurse gets it, but someone who was intimate with the deceased hasn't?
Sure we can. It gets transmitted when you come into contact with bodily fluids from someone who is exhibiting symptoms.

Given that the symptoms are expressing bloody mess from literally every orifice in your body, it's completely unsurprising that nurses who were treating him got infected. You're not really going to be intimate with a person exhibiting the utterly disgusting symptoms that come with the disease.

Until there's any mention of a a person suspected of exposure hopping on a train, I maintain that Amtrak has nothing to do with this. Like Frontier, if they find out that someone with the virus has been on a train, I'm sure they'll work to contact everyone that was on the train and pull the consist out of service for decontamination.
 
So far, the only people who have gotten infected in the US were both involved in extensively handling body fluids of a symptomatic patient. We also know that many who were in his and the nurse's proximity before they were quarantined, but did not handle bodily fluids have yet to come down with anything. Just an observation of cat, and with no speculation derived from it.

The only question that arises from this is the quality of the protocol and the quality of adherence to the protocol by medical staff. Not much else appears to be in question so far.

Of course, in science you can only verify hypothesis experimentally and make predictions with some ascribed level of confidence. There are never any certainties, including on whether the Sun will rise tomorrow or not.
 
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I've been in Dallas this week and, while I'm not *scared* I'll be exercising a little more caution than usual (slight germaphobe) after a wake up call in Chicago.

I'll be taking the Red Line (stops at Dallas Prebsty) to DAL and will board 22 today with no fear.

My wake up call...

When I boarded 21 on Sunday, a guy was in the lower level and totally stressed because he didn't know where his room was.

I offered to help and told him to let me see his ticket.

When he handed me his ticket, his totally soaked, wet, sweaty hand touched mine.

Normal procedure, of course, is to wash up immediately and not to touch my face but I realized how easy it would be to become infected - especially someone like me, someone who always seems to have a scratch or two (cats) on their hands.

Personally, I think this discussion is relevant to traveling on Amtrak - close quarters, shared bathroom facilities, etc.
 
Any form of transportation has the ability to spread disease. Just think of what the medieval plague might have been like with modern transportation.
Plague is still around. I thought the problem was rats carrying the fleas. We still have rats too but probably they are found in less proximity to where humans sleep than previously.

Dan
 
Any form of transportation has the ability to spread disease. Just think of what the medieval plague might have been like with modern transportation.
Plague is still around. I thought the problem was rats carrying the fleas. We still have rats too but probably they are found in less proximity to where humans sleep than previously.

Dan
Also early detection and good medical care plays a role in reducing the number of cases even where it is endemic.

There is some evidence that good medical care together with early detection makes even Ebola more survivable than otherwise, and certainly has the potential of reducing transmission drastically.
 
One of the best written books of all time is the ultimate on the plague - "Rats, Lice & History" by Hanz Zinsser. Read it for the elegance of the writing or the content, both work.
 
I'm sort of hoping people start avoiding airplanes, if only so I can pay those rock bottom prices like I did when everyone was freaking out after 9/11. It would be nice to be on a flight with a bunch of people who aren't going to wave torches and pitchforks just because someone gets airsick.
 
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