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.
Obola’s administration takes it seriously.
They plan to execute by BIOWARFARE 80 million
Americans and their children.
GAME ON.
The government is doubling every effort to protect Africans privilege to visit us, yes.
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.
If Obola were putting every Bolshie in the isolation ward with Mr. Duncan, they would be doing something good. Because, the PC crowd is hindering an effective approach to the problem. The American people need to know the Regime is going to get them killed.
America is not only doing enough....it is the cause and plans to kill off the right wing ‘surplus’
The Administration’s position on travel restrictions and closing the border has nothing to do with Ebola.
What has Obama been pushing since his first election? Why didn’t he stop the most recent invasion of illegal children from Latin America? What was he pushing earlier this week? What has caused him to threaten to ignore the Constitution, the Congress, and the American people?
Granting unrestricted amnesty to millions of illegals.
So, how much harder would it be for him and his administration to accomplish his political goals (he has declared that the future of the Democrats depend on the illegals) with one group if he prohibits the free and unrestricted entry for another? How would that be “fair” BTW being “fair” is one of the linchpins of liberals.
It is vital that our government does everything in its power to protect our highly lucrative West African tourist economy.
Newsmax
Obama Scrapped CDC Rule Giving Feds Power to Block Ill Travelers
Friday, October 3, 2014 12:59 PM
By: John Blosser
Four years ago, quietly and without public notice, the Obama administration scrapped quarantine plans from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which could have blocked travelers with the deadly Ebola virus from entering the U.S.
The Daily Caller reports that the rules, which would have given the federal government quarantine power over sick airline passengers, likely would have stopped Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian resident and the first case of Ebola reported in the U.S., from ever setting foot in the country and bringing Ebola with him.
Duncan may have infected up to 100 people before being confined to an isolation ward in a Texas hospital.
The rules, first proposed by the CDC under the Bush administration in 2005, would have allowed the federal government to quarantine airline passengers showing symptoms for up to three days, as well as people exposed to those symptoms, and required airlines to inform the CDC about sick passengers and keep contact information on all passengers to enable the CDC to track down those possibly exposed.
Ebola was one of the diseases listed, along with highly contagious diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, pandemic flu, tuberculosis and cholera. The rules were only to be used in the event someone suspected of carrying such diseases refused to cooperate with authorities.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Ebola-CDC-Obama/2014/10/03/id/598485/
Newsmax
Rep. Tim Murphy: US Needs to Restrict Travel in Ebola Crisis
Saturday, October 4, 2014 06:24 PM
By: Todd Beamon
Rep. Tim Murphy said on Saturday that the Obama administration must restrict travelers from West Africa to the United States until they have been cleared of carrying the Ebola virus.
“We need restrictions on people coming over from there until the incubation time passes that proves they are healthy,” the Pennsylvania Republican told Fox News. “We do not want to face this at our borders.
“The president said it’s highly unlikely it will get here and it has. This is serious. We don’t want public panic.”
Murphy, a physician who has been on Capitol Hill since 2003, chairs the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which is holding a Thursday hearing with administration officials on the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Ebolacrisis-travel-Murphy/2014/10/04/id/598638/
Patient NOT tested because he doesn’t meet criteria. Hope that is not based on where he has said he visited. People have been known to LIE!
OK. I admit it. I am nuts. I have been following the Ebola outbreak since March. I live in the Sarasota area. I watch the local news. I missed this completely.
Just wait until flu season hits to see what a completely paralyzed nation that battens down the barricades REALLY looks like as millions have symptoms that are much like how Ebola starts off! The trenches of our medical system are woefully unprepared for something like this. And thank you, President Obola for your “fundamental transformation” when flu season hits! Oh, and PLEASE let’s keep those West African shuttles flying back and forth, since obviously it would do no good anyway with your open borders policy. Oh, and everyone? Be sure to vote a straight Democrat ticket in November: they really DO care about you folks, ya’ll hear? After all:
“Now, I am not on the ballot this fall,” Obama stressed. “... But make no mistake: My policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.” (Including unrestricted West African air flights.)
Barack Hussein Obama, October 2, 2014, Northwestern University
They allowed others to get here (The outbreak was recognized in March, has grown to an unprecedented level, and is still out of control in three countries, and still no travel restrictions, still issuing visas)
The cleanup of the site where the one patient we have had 'in the wild' (so far) was a keystone cops parody of BSL-4 protocols.
The CDC is still telling us 'there is nothing to worry about' while a level 4 pathogen is loose, describing what doctors in Africa call "highly contagious" as 'hard to catch'.
Oh, if government does any more, they'll inject us with the damned virus at the rate they're going.
And the borders are still wide open...
There’s an app for that - iBola!
I’m old and I have never gotten a flu shot. My doctor tried to convince me to get one a month or so ago.
However, this situation has me thinking maybe I should go get one, just to keep me away from the madness to come.
BTW, it has been many years since I last had the flu.
The author is just repeating some FUD. Looking at each case there are a lot of problems with that claim. As just one example, Dr. Brantly treated a patient who had no symptoms but later died from Ebola. He was unprotected for that patient. There is a small, but nonzero probability of getting Ebola from a patient without symptoms. That probability would increase for a medical worker.
It’s telling that the very under developed nation of Liberia is taking this more seriously than Obama by prosecuting this Duncan guy but we haven’t charged him with anything, and knowing Obola, we probably won’t.
Yougor Jallah will be a good test of that. She took her step father's temperature at least twice, propped him up in bed, took his BP, gave him hot tea. After he was taken to the hospital she came back and disinfected the apartment. If she did all that unprotected and doesn't get it, then the CDC might have a point. It is day 7 for incubation for her if she has it.
I’ve gotten the flu shot the last few years starting at age 50. It seems to have worked, I got a cold or two, but never got the flu.
Anyone doesn’t believe this is all being planned out, the strategy they are following has it’s roots as far back as the Cuban Missile crisis.
It’s also Cloward-Piven strategy.
This is coming straight from the 1960s radicals playbook.
We saw an attempt at this in 2006 when the P210 was found in Europe.
Perfect weapon for dirty bombs. The idea was to position the dirty bombs in multiple cities throughout England and touch them off at about same time. Completely overwhelms the system with refugees fleeing the contamination.
Instead of nuclear dirty bombs being positioned all over the country, this time we have bio “dirty bombs” being delivered all over the country.
We had a 1960s radical that was planning a presidential run in 2006 and we have the same 1960s radical planning a second run in 2016.
What a coincidence.
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