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Structural Adaptivity Facilitation Examples - Part III

Here are my last three Facilitation Examples, proposed activities by planners and others to influence the development of the built environment toward structural adaptivity and resilience as we progress into an ever more uncertain and unpredictable future. 

 

Rethinking Homeownership.  Conventional owner-occupied land and buildings in the US many times tie the owners into long-term tenures.  It makes moves, to other locations, overly cumbersome even when such moves are in the occupants’ best interests.  Adaptivity requires the ability to make quicker changes than in the past, including the self-initiated movement of people and businesses to other locations when beneficial.  Alternative types of ownership or tenure must be facilitated, types which are more adaptable to quick change.

 

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In wake of Dallas patient death, health providers across US are reinforcing and testing infection control procedures

Associated Press
New York                              Oc. 9, 2014

... There hasn’t been a single confirmed case of an Ebola infection happening on US soil; the case confirmed in Dallas involves a man who, like several health care workers treated in the US, contracted the virus in Liberia. But health care providers are worried enough to take a wide variety of precautions.

 

    It isn’t yet clear whether these preparations are overkill, or not nearly enough. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

It isn’t yet clear whether these preparations are overkill, or not nearly enough.

But health care experts say that at the very least, the scare is providing a chance to reinforce and test infection control procedures....

Read full story

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/09/us-expand-ebola-precautions-dallas-patient-death?CMP=twt_gu

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Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Airport Screenings for Ebola

UPDATED  With additional information  (Scroll below).

TIME

By Zeke J. Miller                              Oct. 6. 2014                5:24 PM

President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. is working on additional passenger screenings for airline passengers flying from Ebola-stricken West Africa, two weeks after a Liberian man infected with the disease entered the country.

Officials are “going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screenings both at the source and here in the United States,” Obama said, addressing reporters following a briefing on his administration’s response to the epidemic in Africa and efforts to keep the disease from spreading to the U.S. “All of these things make me confident that here in the United States at least the chances of an outbreak, of an epidemic here are extraordinarily low.”

The president did not give specifics on the new screening measures, and Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declined to elaborate further in an interview with CNN after the meeting.

 

 

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Man taken off flight from Belgium does not have Ebola

Phildalphie Inquirer    Last updated: Sunday, October 5, 2014, 7:33 AM

By Erin Arvedund 

Philadelphia --The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Saturday night that the sick passenger taken from United Flight 998 at Newark Liberty International Airport to be tested for Ebola did not have the virus in his system.

After The Boeing 777, which had arrived from Brussels, Belgium, with 253 passengers and 14 crew members, CDC officials in hazmat suits and officers from the Port Authority Police Department boarded the plane, said department spokeswoman Erica Dumas.

... the sick passenger - who had been vomiting - was taken to Newark's University Hospital to be checked out.

Several hours later, the CDC announced that the patient had been evaluated "in coordination with federal, state, and local public health officials" and the tests indicated he was not infected with the Ebola virus, said CDC spokeswoman Sharon Hoskins.

In fact, he had a "minor treatable condition unrelated to Ebola," the New Jersey Department of Health said. The nature of that condition was not disclosed.

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OUT OF CONTROL: How the world’s health organizations failed to stop the Ebola Disaster

WASHINGTON POST's  detailed front page account of how the Ebola epidemic got out of control in West Africa.  Oct. 5, 2014

     by Lena Sun, Bradly Dennis, Lenny Bernstein and Joel Achenbach

The glow from a crematorium lights the sky as the bodies of people who died from Ebola are cremated last month in Monrovia

---Michel Du Cille, THE WASHINGTON POST

.... "The virus easily outran the plodding response. The WHO, an arm of the United Nations, is responsible for coordinating international action in a crisis like this, but it has suffered budget cuts, has lost many of its brightest minds and was slow to sound a global alarm on Ebola. Not until Aug. 8, 4 1 ⁄ 2 months into the epidemic, did the organization declare a global emergency. Its Africa office, which oversees the region, initially did not welcome a robust role by the CDC in the response to the outbreak.

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Texas Ebola Watch Eyes 50 People, 10 at 'High Risk'

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Ebola Victim's Air Journey shows weak spots in screening.

NEW YORK TIMES              October 3, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — The arrival in the United States of a Liberian man infected with the Ebola virus shows how difficult it is to control or restrict the disease from spreading, and how porous current procedures are in a world of globalized air travel.

Liberian officials said on Thursday that they planned to prosecute the passenger, Thomas E. Duncan, for lying on an airport questionnaire about not having contact with a person infected with Ebola before his travel — a pivotal part of the country’s screening process.

Mr. Duncan took three planes as he flew from Monrovia, the Liberian capital, to Dallas last month, connecting in Brussels and Washington.

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USG expected to announce within days procedures for handling Ebola patents' medical waste

                                                    October 2, 2014

Reuters reports that the U.S.Government expects to settle within days the critical question of how hospitals should handle and dispose of medical waste from Ebola patients.

Experts have warned that conflicting U.S. regulations over how such waste should be transported could make it very difficult for U.S. hospitals to safely care for patients with Ebola, a messy disease that causes diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases, bleeding from the eyes and ears.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/02/us-health-ebola-waste-idUSKCN0HR07T20141002

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Man in U.S. With Ebola Had Been Screened to Fly, but System Is Spotty

NEW YORK TIMES   Oct. 2, 2014

By Matthew J. Wald and Jad Mouawad

As he was preparing to leave Liberia for Dallas two weeks ago, Thomas E. Duncan, the man confirmed to be the first Ebola case in the United States, was checked at the airport for signs of the disease. He was determined to have no fever and allowed to board his flight, American officials say. 

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Scrutiny in Texas to Detect Whether Ebola Spread

UPDATE

Officials: ‘About 100′ people may have had contact with the Texas Ebola patient

WASHINGTON  POST   OCTOBER 2, 2014  10:03 AM

Texas health officials said Thursday that there are "about 100" people who may have had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who is being treated in a Dallas-area hospital for Ebola.

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