The ebola patient in New York City seems to be improving: New York Ebola Patient’s Condition Improves. This means that of the nine ebola patients treated in the US, one has died, one is still hospitalized but seems to be recovering, and seven have recovered and been released. For some time, medical people have been saying that the high rate of fatality for ebola patients in W Africa was due at least in part to the poor levels of care they received there. Nine patients is still a very small sample size, but the experience in the US seems to suggest that with advanced treatment, the death rate from ebola will be much lower than has been reported from Africa.

Dr Spencer seems to be a very cool guy, and a highly capable physician, with a strong background in wilderness medicine. See a profile of him in Wilderness Medicine Magazine.

"Dr Spencer seems to be a very cool guy, and a highly capable physician, with a strong background in wilderness medicine. See a profile of him in Wilderness Medicine Magazine."

and gutsy, to boot. What a contrast to the irrational fear and panic displayed by some of our alleged "leaders."

An article in Yahoo! News indicates that it costs an average of $215,00 to fly each Ebola patient from Africa to the US.

Moreover, there is currently only *one* airplane that can do this, and that it can only handle one patient.

That is the method for evacuating anyone in the 4,000 person military contingent, as well as CDC personnel all NGO aid groups. If two people get sick, one waits while the other goes.

This aircraft is the same one to transport Ebola patients within the US.

The military is working on a system that can transport as many as 15 patients at a time in a larger cargo airplane. But that can't be ready for a couple of months at least, and there's a question in my mind if one large flight or three smaller is needed:

The turnaround of one large aircraft might mean a minimum of 3 days betweens flights out of Africa, and that might be too slow, especially if the aircraft needs maintenance or is lost.

Can't blame this on the government alone since even the NGO's didn't have evacuation plans in place before sending people. Nonetheless it in a policy problem that the CDC ought to lead on exploring and coordinating.

Breaking news. Spencer is declared ebola free and in a press conference asked for better, more rational treatment of health care workers volunteering in Africa.

Nurse Hickox also finished her 21-day observation period yesterday. The criticism and stigma she and her boyfriend continue to endure has made them decide to move away from Maine.

Well, technically Phoenix Air has two specially-equipped jets, but one is always used to back up the other one, so only one is available at any given time.

The lack of air transport is given as the primary reason why countries like Canada and Australia have declined to send any healthcare workers to West Africa to help deal with this latest outbreak. Cuba has, and now China will, send a lot of help to West Africa, but I don't think either of them have any proper medical transport capability similar to Phoenix Air.

If suspected Ebola cases are transported soon after symptoms first appear, experience seems to have shown the danger of infecting others appears very low, so if a situation arises where multiple people need evacuation at once, that might come into play. Some special negative-pressure, HEPA-filtered isolation "pod" may not be necessary to safely evacuate those cases.

Of course, the further into the disease a person gets, the higher the risk goes as they become more infectious, so at some point, a pod becomes necessary.

Not correct on the Canadian participation. Canada has not sent any military aid however there are a large number of Canadian medical personnel in West Africa under the auspices of the Red Cross, Unicef, Doctors without Borders and other NGO's.

Also, Canada has 2 (non-military) mobile detection labs along with the requisite staff in Sierra Leone and the last I heard, were ready send more labs and people if called upon. As of about 3 weeks ago, the Canadian government also pledged a further 30 million dollars in direct Ebola aid.

To clarify, yes, Canadians are volunteering as individuals with various aid organizations like MSF, but there are no Canadians sent by Ottawa to West Africa for direct patient care.

To be fair, even the large American military contingent sent over are not there to provide direct patient care, but to provide logistical support for civilian workers. And like Canada, the US military is providing laboratory services but they will have no direct patient contact. However, about 70 volunteers from the uniformed members of the US Public Health Service are there to staff a center in Monrovia built by the US military and reserved for infected healthcare workers (which I'm not sure is up and running yet).

To the best of my knowledge, Canada has ALWAYS contributed to humanitarian endeavors. They have ALWAYS been beside us, when they weren't in front of us, in military expeditions as well.