If she is in denial about her symptoms, she would very likely die. It is in her best interest to not be self-deluding.
I could make that claim about any sort of self-deception. In general self-deception is not in an individual's best interest.
In this specific case addressing (again) specifically health care workers returning to the US from their 4 to 6 weeks assignment in Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone, is there any belief here that they would dismiss via "self deception" the reality they have directly observed while treating Ebola infected and infectious patients? Again, that reality being their direct observation and knowledge that an early intervention based on the earliest detectable symptom being a temperature of 100.4 or 38C increases the chances of a successful supportive care/treatment, full recovery and curability? Why would such designated health care workers dismiss such reality when they know it is in their best interest to avoid a fatal outcome?
It's widely recognized that ego-preserving self-deception is a common problem, but it's also widely recognized that this sort of judgmental bias is something which affects other people.
"Ego-preserving self deception" would somehow be a "common problem" among those designated health care workers who have had DIRECT observation of the manner in which Ebola infected patients will die? Again, is there a belief here that such designated health care workers carry a suffering/agonizing death wish on their person?
I don't think there's anything particularly onerous with having a dispassionate third party validate her self-assessment of symptoms - certainly nothing to the level of a 21 day quarantine.
I do not have any issue with such designated health care workers being monitored under CDC guidelines/mandate. My issue is the belief that they should be subjected to a quarantine for the sole reason they have treated Ebola infected patients.
We know, though further observation showed it to not be enduring, that she had rationalized her initial high temperature with a number of causes that were unrelated to infection.
The actual cause she gave to her running a mild fever while being tested at the airport with a forehead scanner was that she was flushed due to being stressed and the kind of stress anyone arriving on an international flight (which I have experienced several times) is familiar with. You hustle through lines of folks going through customs and immigration. You are tired and jet lagged and guess what...your vitals will be affected. My temperature fluctuates on daily basis several times during the day. Usually higher late afternoon than early a.m. Because by late afternoon, I have been very active physically during the day. To mention that when her vitals were checked after she was transported to the hospital, her vitals were then back to normal. She tested negative twice for Ebola.
I will detail this a bit and sorry If I sound too "clinical " but it is necessary : Ebola symptoms starting with the earliest detectable symptom (fever grade of 100.4 or 38C) will increase as a confirmation of a fever prompted by the immune system response to an infectious agent. Increasing symptoms would include a constantly increasing fever grade (rather than return to normal grade), head ache, aches and pains in joints/articulations (result of higher increasing fever grade), extreme fatigue, to then progress to gastro intestinal related symptoms (diarrhea, vomiting) and final stage of hemorrhaging (internal and exterior). That rapid onset of increasing symptoms is proportional to the viral load. The higher the viral load, the more increasing symptoms will be.
For an individual whose fever grade returns to its expected normalcy and develops NONE of the subsequent symptoms cited above, it should be concluded that the initial elevated fever reading was not the product of or caused by an infectious agent such as the Ebola virus. If Ebola infected, the viral load will increase and certainly not cause the initial fever grade to return to expected normalcy.Instead, the viral load will increase in the blood stream while triggering added symptoms (cited above).
Both Mr Boyko and Ms Hickox have been placed under quarantine mandates DESPITE of the reality that they have developed no added symptoms and their temperature having returned to its expected normalcy. To add both with negative Ebola testing results.
Further, I do not recall the same political morons ordering a quarantine order on health workers returning from nations where they would have been treating active TB patients or exercising their profession in areas where TB is epidemic. Yet, TB is far MORE infectious than Ebola. Transmission of active TB will occur just by speaking, singing, sneezing etc... No panic in the US. No drastic measures imposed on those health care workers.And considering that some strains of TB are NOT responsive to pharma protocols, meaning no curability factor. Adding to that the reality that the US population is not BCG vaccinated. IOW none of you, good folks, have any immunity to TB.
