Amber
Vinson was hospitalized Tuesday, one day after she took a Frontier
flight from Cleveland to Dallas. Tests later found that Vinson -- who was among
those who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed
with Ebola in the United States, at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital
-- had Ebola.
Authorities
indicated Vinson had a slightly elevated temperature of 99.5 degrees
Fahrenheit, which was below the fever threshold for Ebola, but didn't show any
symptoms of the disease while on her Monday flight. This is significant because
a person isn't contagious with Ebola, which spreads through the transmission of
bodily fluids, until he or she has symptoms of the disease.
But
on Thursday, Dr. Chris Braden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
told reporters in Ohio that "we have started to look at the possibility
that she had symptoms going back as far as Saturday. ... We can't rule out
(that) she might have had the start of her illness on Friday."
"So
this new information now is saying we need to go back now to the flight that
she took on Friday the 10th and include them in our investigation of
contacts," said Braden.
The
CDC announced later Thursday that is "expanding its outreach to airline
passengers now to include those who flew from Dallas-Fort Worth to Cleveland on
Frontier flight 1142" last Friday -- which is how Vinson got to Ohio, from
Texas, originally.
The
medical director in Summit County, Ohio, where Vinson spent time before
returning to Texas, told CNN that two things have changed: what the CDC defines
as a "contact" of someone with Ebola and more information has been
gathered on how Vinson was feeling.
"What
the CDC has discovered, through interviews, is that she may not have been
feeling well earlier than we initially thought on (Monday)," said the
director, Dr. Marguerite Erme.
"...
It was nothing you could point your finger at and say, 'Ah, this is a
particular disease," Erme added. Nonetheless, the new information
"kind of signified that maybe she had the illness longer than what she had
when (hospitalized)."
Her
uncle, Lawrence Vinson, said Thursday night that his niece didn't feel sick
until Tuesday morning, when she went to the hospital with a temperature of
100.3 degrees (which is still below the CDC's Ebola threshold).
Yet
a federal official with direct knowledge of the case gave different information
to CNN's Elizabeth Cohen, relating that Vinson said she felt fatigue, muscle
ache and malaise while she was in Ohio. She did not have diarrhea or vomiting
while in that state or on the flight home.
The
fact health officials are working from this latter assumption -- that Vinson
may have been ill for longer than once thought -- could significantly expand
the number of people who might have been in contact with Vinson while she was
contagious.
Earlier,
CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden had said there's an "extremely low" risk
to anyone on Frontier's Cleveland-to-Dallas flight, though his agency was
reaching out to all 132 passengers as part of "extra margins of
safety." Frontier is also grounding its six crew members for 21 days --
the maximum time between when a person can contract Ebola and show symptoms --
out of what its CEO says is "an abundance of caution."
Frontier
now says it is notifying up to 800 passengers total, a figure that includes
those on last Friday's Dallas-to-Cleveland flight, the return flight four days
later, plus five subsequent trips taken by the plane used in that last flight.
And
now "12 confirmed contacts of Amber Vinson in Ohio ... are currently under
quarantine," according to Summit County's assistant health commissioner
Donna Skoda. They include at least two people who worked at a bridal store,
where the 29-year-old nurse went as part of her wedding planning.