Posted on 10/05/2014 4:41:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’m writing this with Ebola-type symptoms. I don’t have Ebola;, I have food poisoning. But still. The world is not yet in panic mode over the latest outbreak, but it’s close. Is it justified?
Ebola isn’t an easy virus to contract, or at least it didn’t used to be. The only sure way to catch it is from the bodily fluids of people with it – and then only once they start to exhibit symptoms themselves. That’s why it’s been the near-exclusive domain of countries without proper sewage treatment, clean water and general hygiene amenities we in the West are fortunate enough to take for granted.
What makes this current outbreak so concerning is how many trained medical professionals have contracted it.
These doctors, nurses and other health care professionals are not being reckless; they know what they’re up against. They take all the precautions that have worked in the past. So how are they getting it? How are so many civilians who are taking all the prescribed precautions getting it? We don’t know.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization assure the public this is nothing to be concerned with, but what they can’t do is explain how people in protective gear catch it.
I don’t have the answer. No one does. I just hope the people whose job it is to come up with it do so soon.
Viruses mutate. What once wasn’t airborne can become airborne. What used to survive only moments outside the body can change to thrive outside it. These changes can happen quickly, or not at all. Pretending to know what happened with a virus is folly.
Is Ebola worthy of panic? Not right now. But it is worth concern. If this current strain has mutated, or is in the process of mutating, waiting to take action is the worst thing we can do.
The government can and should impose travel restrictions from Ebola-infected areas. The Obama administration so far has refused, but there is no sensible reason not to.
The director of the CDC, Tom Frieden, claimed this week that, “Even if we tried to close the border, it wouldn’t work. People have a right to return. People transiting through could come in. And it would backfire, because by isolating these countries, it’ll make it harder to help them. It will spread more there and we’d be more likely to be exposed here.”
Maybe I’m not smart enough to understand how that works, how stopping travel from countries with an outbreak would cause more outbreaks here, but that’s the administration’s line.
The mishandling of the first Ebola patient not imported to the U.S. for treatment, Thomas Eric Duncan, shows just how woefully unprepared the United States is to deal with it. A patient who should have raised every red flag and set off all the alarm bells the system claimed to have, didn’t.
Duncan should not have been allowed to enter the country, but it appears the only safeguard for checking if someone from Liberia has been in close proximity with an Ebola patient is the honor system. Duncan now faces charges in Liberia for lying on his form, but he has to live to face them. The risk, for him, is well worth it. The risk for us is clear.
The reports of patients around the country being tested and isolated under suspicion of Ebola are growing, but some of that is merely being overly cautious. But over-cautiousness is exactly what’s needed in this situation. That it happened once means it can happen again.
With all of this happening, the president of the United States is focused on the election, a West Coast fundraising trip and spending an inordinate amount of time pandering to Hispanics on amnesty. In other words, Barack Obama is being Barack Obama the ghost.
I could take the Ebola threat a lot less seriously if I had the sense the government, from the president on down, was taking it seriously enough.
TY
The woman on the flight to Newark relayed the fact that there were ton of Liberians on the flight fleeing the country including unaccompanied minors. In Mexico those would be used as mules.
How many US ebola deaths so far?
With that new mall openin g up in a week or so on University Pkway, I think I will avoid that place like the plague until the Ebola crap disappears.
FLASHBACK: Obama Administration Dumped Quarantine Rules----sucked-up to civil libertarians
Breitbart ^ | 10/01/14 | Kerry Picket / Posted by Enlightened1
Politico initially reported in August of 2009 that the Obama administration examined Bush administration 2005 quarantine regulations, which were criticized by civil liberty advocates.
In April 2010, Politico reported the administration “quietly dumped quarantine rules that would have required air passengers to submit more information to airlines and strengthened the government's authority to detain travelers suspected of carrying disease.” (Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
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Hillary wrote "it takes a village." But it took only one doofus--- Obama---to expose the lib/prog's dumb "humanitarian" elitism that is endangering us.
These brain-dead, feel-good types believe “singling out” backward nations or antediluvian cultures which pose deadly threats to the public health or safety of Americans “stigmatizes” those nations or cultures, it “shames” them, it makes them "feel" unequal.
It’s (horrors) "judgmental."
We can never, Ever suggest that America prefers already existing tax-paying, law-abiding citizens to foreigners w/ big plans for our heads.
Dumbo Dummycrats are the reasons for the deluge of Central American refugees, the reason why illegals never feel the sting of US justice, the reason we remain unable to strip jihadists of US citizenship.
The reason why a year after two Chechen refugees on expired visas bombed/maimed/killed Boston Marathoners, America is preparing to expand resettlement of blood-thirsty individuals who have big plans for our heads, and border-jumpers carrying horrific contagious diseases.
This is sort of true, except that there really is no system.
Even when medical personnel or authorities get the information (such as the person's recent arrival from West Africa) the procedure seems to depend on the individual hospital, authority or medical person. KC had a possible case (Nigerian woman, later determined not to have Ebola) and immediately sealed off her apartment, evacuated her securely and kept her in isolation. Was it expensive, inconvenient for the neighbors, and difficult for medical personnel?
Yes, no doubt, but it kept the possibility of infection much lower, and made people confident that everything was being done and being done quickly to treat this woman and stop the spread right there. It turned out not to be Ebola, but it's far better, if even simply for public confidence, to overreact than sit around blandly assuring everybody that it's all gonna be cool.
I think the major danger isn't really so much that Ebola (unless it mutates in some major way) will get out into the general population as that people will panic and simply stop living their daily lives. This could certainly have all sorts of repercussions, particularly economic.
Another thing they have got to do for public confidence is simply not permit anyone from the affected African countries - whether a resident or someone who has traveled there - to enter the US without undergoing a period of quarantine.
The latest US case was not only a citizen and resident of Liberia, but he lived in Monrovia, a super hot-spot, something which surely should have merited some attention. The only thing that's remarkable is that there haven't been more cases like his, except that probably many of the ebola sufferers don't have the money to travel (he was relatively well employed and had been a driver for a FedEx subcontractor in Liberia).
European airports should do likewise with all flights originating in Liberia, Sierra Leone. It's not going to catch everybody, and at some point, they'll work out strategies for getting around the requirement, but in the meantime, maybe we'll develop a vaccine or an effective treatment. What we need to do is buy time.
The west African shuttles will continue for sure as long as Obola has anything to do with it. I’m concerned being in Florida with flu season coming here soon, as also the arrival of people from up north that visit every year, and just travelers in general, especially those in contact with people that were in West Africa.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Either way, you can’t plot a trend with only one data point. But you are correct that we will find out—the crew pressure washing the vomit off the sidewalk had no visible PPE, and at least one person was walking a short distance away in the parking lot (maybe 20-25 ft.). They are candidates as well.
Do the CDC even have those people under quarantine or did they just vanish like a fart in the wind?
I agree with that....this evil govt want us all dead
The problem isn’t the ones who are sick - it’s the ones who are incubating.
With the epidemic curve nearly vertical, there are lots more infected people (in the 21-day incubation period) than there are sick ones.
You can stop arrivals, or quarantine them for 30 days (separated from each other), but to do neither is unimaginable.
Some.
Answer: No.
Comment: This administration is actually setting up conditions for an epidemic. They are so stupid that they fail to realize if a full blown epidemic occurs it could enter the White House killing 70% of its occupants.(70% is the current estimated death rate from what I'm told) This administration is dangerous to the American population at large. This administration is so negligent, careless and reckless in its handling of the entry of the disease into our country that it approaches willfulness; i.e. they want a mass epidemic.
Agreed. The ones who are presenting before they get on the plane could infect the whole bunch on there, but may be denied the opportunity. The ones who caught the disease, come here and start shedding virii at some unknown time and location will leave the seeds of destruction in their wake.
So here we are and they are scrambling now to follow through with all the years of planning without implementing the safe guards they said should be in place but were not.
I had issue CDC could not find other accommodations for the Duncan family ....it took so long because they could not “find” a place that would take them....this speaks volumes that they do not have in place what they have claimed. Nor does it look like they will should this escalate.
Yes, there are plenty of candidates. I think Louise Troh will get it (she’s now in a “gated community”). She seems to be quite stupid and careless. Some of the kids might get it since they do a lot more contacting. But if any of the others get it then that would be troublesome.
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