Combating an outbreak, whether Ebola or coronavirus, is about fighting more than just disease
As the virus spreads to Texas, Jenkins acknowledged that the xenophobia Dallas experienced during the Ebola scare has surfaced again, this time against members of Asian and Asian American communities. He said he has tried to emphasize, as he did during the Ebola outbreak, that while the disease may have arrived from overseas, community members needs to work together to prevent it from spreading locally.
He noted that in the past week, Dallas and other Texas cities reported their first cases of coronavirus spread through the community, not via travelers from overseas. “Xenophobia about people who look a certain way or have traveled to a certain country is no longer relevant when you have community spread,” Jenkins said. So far, 51 people have been confirmed to have coronavirus in Texas, 11 in Dallas, all of whom are being monitored at home, Jenkins said. In hindsight, he said, that would have been better than quarantining Troh and her family.Jenkins held a late-night briefing Thursday — just as he had daily during the Ebola outbreak — to reassure the public before declaring an emergency and banning meetings of 500 people or more people. Prior to the announcement, he met with leaders of local cities, houses of worship and businesses to allay their fears. Former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings recalled that during the prior crisis he and Jenkins were careful to offer as many facts as they could — and to also admit what they didn’t know. “The public can’t be tricked,” said Rawlings, a former Pizza Hut chief executive. “The way I dealt with it was giving them more information versus less, and that worked.” “I’m concerned [that] with this there’s going to be a lot of pain and deaths,” said Rawlings, emphasizing that expanded testing is critical. “The key is to keep this as short as we can and keep the infections as low as we can,” Rawlings said. Rawlings never declared a health emergency or limited public gatherings during the Ebola outbreak as Jenkins and the current mayor did this week for the coronavirus, and it was ultimately contained. But the U.S. is beyond containing the coronavirus, Rawlings said, and such drastic steps are worth the risk to mitigate the virus’ impact. “What’s happened in the last 24 hours has scared a lot of people, but it’s probably the right thing to do,” he said. Dr. Daniel Varga, former chief clinical officer of Texas Health Resources, which includes the hospital where the Ebola crisis unfolded, has since moved to New Jersey, where he serves as chief physician executive at Hackensack Meridian Health. He is now responding there to the coronavirus. In both outbreaks, Varga said, “Healthcare providers are on the front line and they’re at risk. If you’re going to treat it and stem the tide, people have to step into the breach. It takes really brave people to do that.” He said hospitals have to not only provide training and protective equipment to ease concerns among those on the front lines, but also add staffing and support. He said public fears are also stoked by the lack of testing and accurate measures of how fast the virus in spreading. “We have to be honest right now, we’ve been living in a world of [coronavirus] testing deficits,” he said. “We’ve had folks who wanted to get tested and we’ve let them know we have a queue of people in the ER in isolation rooms who we still don’t have tests for.” During the Ebola outbreak, the hospital Varga oversaw was criticized first misdiagnosing Duncan, which delayed his care and placed others at risk, and later for safety failures that led the two nurses to become infected. It became, he acknowledged, “the Ebola hospital.”Youngor Jallah also tired of living with the Ebola stigma in Dallas. She had stayed because her husband didn’t want to move. But last year, she found a job in Iowa and moved with her children, leaving their father behind.Jallah works at a nursing home, and didn’t tell coworkers about her Ebola ordeal until after they noticed her becoming preoccupied with news of the coronavirus. “We are doing all precautions, using hand sanitizer, hand washing. We’re just very careful,” she said of her family. She tries not to worry. But each day when she reports to work, her temperature is taken, along with those of her coworkers, as a precaution against the disease.Get all the day's most vital news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning.
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