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.
The CDC dropped the ball (along with the local authorities). Younger Jallah had to quarantine herself and her family. The only message she got was from her employer saying that she should not go to work (both her and her husband work in nursing homes).
The CDC is supposed to track every contact, every contact of that contact, etc. It appears that they did not bother even one level deep.
The Obama administration thinks they are above the law, even quarantine laws. Enterovirus D68 often found in Central America and Ebola were of little concern when bringing in new low-info voters. So if I start to feel sick the first thing I’m doing is visiting my local Obama voters hangout, cough and sneeze in my hands before I go in then handle everything there. If someone lives near Washington DC and congress is in session go visit your favorite amnesty politicians office and check out their doorhandles, railings, chairs etc.
If a right and just government were doing enough, it wouldn’nt be here. America doesn’t have a right and just government anymore.
Of course they think they are above the law. After all that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave thinks he’s Emperor of the United States
There was a report last year that the flu shot seemed to be only 9% effective in those over 65 yrs.
Why that is, I do not know. Maybe our immune systems work differently, and do not react the way they should.
Might be worth doing some research on it before making your decision. I have decided not to get one. The additives in the flu shot can’t be good for the aging brain.
Given that, asking the administration to do "more" is a bad thing.
States with international airports should take steps to ban flights from Africa. Screw the FAA.
EVERYTHING obama does either:
a) Weakens America/AmericansI have yet to have anyone raise a single substantive counter example in several years of posting this.
b) Distances America's allies
c) Strengthens America's enemies
d) Serves Islam
e) Harms Israel
Or some combination of the above.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
How many would you like?
I agree, and I’m older than dirt!
Unless and until the left can put a political spin on the Ebola outbreak, it will be a low priority. Lives don’t matter-only politics matter. Thus spake Karl Marx.
The White house may be receiving envelopes, not with white powder...but with a big luegy hocked inside instead. ISIS will send them first class.
“Obola’s administration takes it seriously.”
The ‘elite’ Uniparty takes it seriously, they themselves, being exempt and guaranteed to be on the short list for what will be a ‘limited’ supply of ZMapp. I suppose they justify it in their excrement filled heads that they’ll be solving a whole host of the worlds problems, and in the aftermath, be given the opportunity to rebuild in an ‘enlightened’ manner. They are clearly disciples of the fallen angels and their leader.
Thanks for the ping!
“The administration does the wrong thing 100% of the time.”
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I have seen the presidency compared to a multiple choice exam, I agree with that, a president is presented with choices and he picks the one that he thinks will be most likely to result in the desired outcome. I wrote on FR that NO ONE can take a 100 question multiple choice exam on a subject about which he knows nothing and make a zero and amazingly someone said I was crazy. I think it is obvious that if there are four choices you could expect to score about 25% by simply marking off choices at random. Anyone who can score a zero is capable of scoring 100% and is scoring zero by intention. I don’t know how anyone could argue against that.
That is why I say you are absolutely right. Let someone please name a question of importance on which Obama has come up with the correct answer, I can’t think of a single one. I don’t mean to imply that he is brilliant, far from it, I believe he is being controlled by people who ARE brilliant, brilliantly evil.
First they allowed illegals to come pouring in with diseases and distributed them in cities in every state.
The diseases the illegals brought in for the most part aren’t deadly but it created “heightened public awareness” of deadly diseases being brought into the country unchecked.
Now they are allowing Ebola in which is deadly.
It’s a systematic progression intended to create panic, manly in the cities, forcing people to flee the cities.
You get millions fleeing the cities and it will overwhelm the system in a little no time, Cloward-Piven.
“BTW, it has been many years since I last had the flu.”
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Then by all means go and get a flu shot so you can have it again.
Sar chasm
How many would you like?
How many are there so far, though?
We suffer almost 40,000 highway deaths every year. People die in hunting accidents, falling in their bath tubs, building large buildings, etc. Everything involves risk. So the question is, how many deaths from a particular cause should be tolerated before we significantly change our lifestyle?
When it comes to ebola, I believe we have not yet reached that threshold, at least in the US.
How many you got? I'll take them all.
I’d like to keep it that way, too.
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