[LambSlave]

Tom Frieden has spent a bit of time at the heart of the epidemic over the last two months; he has seen a plague of biblical proportions first hand. He has looked at the outputs from the models, and understands one thing that has likely pushed him to the edge of madness-- if we don't stop this NOW in Africa, and there are a million cases by the end of winter as the models predict, there is NOTHING that will stop this from becoming a global pandemic that will significantly depopulate every continent on earth at a scale we have not seen since 1918. Main effort number one is in the hands of GEN Rodriguez, someone who in my personal experience was an admirable commander at his last post in FORSCOM. His task is to build seventeen 100 bed isolation centers in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the next few weeks so doctors can stop sending patients home to spread the virus further, and instead be isolated and cared for, while also setting up training centers to instruct people how to isolate themselves at home and train replacement medical personnel.

Frieden probably hasn't slept for weeks, he has likely thought about all of the options-- stopping travel to the US is probably not the highest priority, because of the gravity of what is happening in Africa, and what that will cause to the US next year if we fail. He knows the corruption in Africa, and that trying to stop visas will just lead to a massive exodus under false papers to nearby countries spreading the disease further. He knows that we can shut down air travel one way, but the airlines need nearly every seat full both ways to make their break-even and when it's no longer profitable they will stop all flights both ways. This will prevent sustainment of the main effort and precipitate a mad rush out, to neighboring countries so far not affected by the outbreak, and beyond, to Europe and the middle east. I understand how poorly the reality of the gravity of this situation is communicated, and yes they look like reckless idiots with no concern for the US, but the knee jerk reaction to assume that they are evil and trying to destroy the US may be inaccurate. This is a complex problem, and for every action there are predictable second and third order effects-- what seems like a simple solution may have unintended consequences that could be catastrophic. These folks are in the fight of their lives, and they don't have time for informative dialog with the public to spoon feed us all of the trade offs in the decision making process. Some of the administration's leadership are idiots, or arrogant oafs, but I think Frieden and GEN Rodriguez are truly trying to do the best they can in a very difficult situation. Donning asbestos suit now...

[Atomic Vomit]

Interesting, and thank you for your perspective.

Mrs. AV

[Diogenesis]

Waging BIOWAR against Americans does not help
Africa.
It gives, however, bot Obola and Frieden
more $$$$ and power.

Frieden and Obola have declared WAR on the American people.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ebola does not spread like flu, but mostly through bad sanitation. It would be unlikely to ravage the Western world like flu has.

[Sooth2222]

1. Are there that many direct flights to the US right now? There probably isn't too much to stop. But do we really want to invite travelers to come here from the affected areas by issuing visas?

2. I doubt that they are deliberately trying to destroy the Red State US. Wouldn't an Ebola pandemic be most damaging to indigo-Blue urban areas? I've read that the #1 US destination of travelers from Africa is NYC and #2 is D.C.

While I don't think this is malice, this bunch is making the Bush administration look amazingly competent in comparison. How many days did it take them to get around cleaning up the mess in the Dallas apartment?

3. Finally, aren't asbestos suits illegal?

[VTenigma]

Unhinged, restricting or maintaining a quarantine of people holding passports from these countries is prudent.