Posted on 10/10/2014 9:19:18 PM PDT by TWhiteBear
Officials Admit a ‘Defeat’ by Ebola in Sierra Leone
Acknowledging a major “defeat” in the fight against Ebola, international health officials battling the epidemic in Sierra Leone approved plans on Friday to help families tend to patients at home, recognizing that they are overwhelmed and have little chance of getting enough treatment beds in place quickly to meet the surging need. “It’s basically admitting defeat,” said Dr. Peter H. Kilmarx, the leader of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s team in Sierra Leone,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
By....”near airports” I mean to imply that with shipping, then airports in surrounding areas also need be closed if one wanted to halt this. South is Liberia but north is another area not totally hot yet
All American homes are ahead of the game though, and many American homes have what amounts to a pretty good treatment room in the huge master bath.
Americans can follow directions and have the means to serve as decent medical beginners if we ever got so desperate, or if we had to move many people to outpatient status that currently take up hopital space.
“It seems the population is on their own, and barely have a government.”
But hey, at least the “Africa for Africans!” has been achieved there, and after all, isn’t that the only thing that matters?
We’re not doing much of anything. The hospital building is more political grandstanding than anything particularly useful. IVs can be administered in a tent just as well, as the military well knows. Central hospitals are inviting more trouble by requiring transportation of patients (via taxis, etc.) leading to more contagion.
Try “taking some of their piles of money they normally use to build wahabbist mosques all over the world and instead contribute a few million level C suits and suites of rehydration fluids and analgesics”.
Hopefully that won’t pull a muscle...
That’s no more useful than when the liberals say take all the money the U.S. spends on the military and spend it on education or food or something else. That’s just not going to happen either way. It is not a single pile of money in a pot you ship one way or the other.
If it’s spun that badly out of control and treatment can’t possibly be provided, then forcing people to stay in their homes is just about all that can be done to halt the outbreak. The truly ugly side of this is condemning entire families to die, but what else can they do?
I think we are doing much.
Building 17 treatment centers of a 100 beds each is enormous. Building a 25 bed hospital for the medical staffers has to be a huge morale booster, and way to save their lives. Operating classes to produce 500 medical assistants a week will be huge.
Taking over the shipping and logistics of supplies and medicines, and having 3000 Americans there will give a huge boost to hope, and getting things done, and protecting and legitimizing aid flowing in from other nations.
This is a fantastic effort.
“This is a fantastic effort.”
It’s a fantastic waste of US taxpayer dollars on something that isn’t authorized by the U.S. Constitution.
L
I still think it’s mostly a big show of supposed good intentions by the Obama Administration.
There is no way any significant fraction of infected persons in the country is going to be reached by this as morbidity increases, since many will hide from western influences and others are too distant from the facilities and there will be just too many.
Not to mention that fact the IV saline is already in short supply worldwide and specific treatments are just about nil.
The burnout and turnover in medical personnel will be huge.
It probably would be more useful epidemiologically to take over disposal of the corpses, although this would cause more anti-western resentment.
The average West African is going to be hard pressed to perceive the ‘hope’ you speak of. Other than hoping the Americans will leave.
If I sound discouraged, I am.
Sierra Leone reported 140 Ebola deaths TODAY...
And those are just the ones that made it through official channels.
There is a real reason that the Canadians issued such a stark statement today, telling its citizens in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia to basically “Get out by any means possible while you still can”.
I don’t understand how you can think that this is somehow trivial.
500 trained helpers being produced per week, 1700 new beds, a hospital for infected staff, mountains of supplies, testing laboratories.
Nothing helps burned out staff more than the world showing up to help.
But it’ll kill about 50% of them.
I know, them and I was thinking I never hear about China helping with things, even though they’re the biggest economy.
When it gets desperate here, what do you suggest we have in our home kit to survive ebola? I read that female doctor's account of surviving ebola in Africa. She made sure she constantly ingested fortified liquids to ward off dehydration and loss of electrolytes in her blood until she regained her strength. This disease robs your body of liquids and necessary minerals and destroys the ability of blood to keep your heart and mind functioning.
Any suggestions of fortified liquids to keep on hand, and where do we get them?
I know the majority of Americans can handle just about anything. Town going to be flooded? Well, they'll get the heck out of the way. Some stupid people will stay behind - oh, I'm not talking about the guy who says he was born in this home and he's never going to leave it, I'm talking about the guy who whines that they should have said 'we're really serious this time, and here's a nice posh motorhome coach to whisk you away in the lap of luxury.'
Those are the ones who always get on the news, and when I watch them, I have to wonder, why isn't that reporter going 'you're an absolute idiot, what are you thinking?'
I mean, I'm slightly split on the latest St. Louis suicide by stupidity. The guy shoots at an off duty officer, and mind, probably used to shooting at someone and having them cower and cry, not shoot back. But people are up in arms and thinking it is totally unfair that the off duty officer shot him with the full supply of ammo available at that moment.
A part of me is going 'dude, he got what was coming to him, get a life.' Another part is going 'is it really such a bad thing to make it harder for cops to execute people?'
Yes, most Americans could face and handle the worst catastrophe that comes down the pike with dignity and strength. They'll do what needs to be done. And then there's the group who'll appear on the nightly news, whining about how the government isn't doing enough for them.
Is it really that awful of me that a tiny part of me is hopeful that it does take root here, because we can reduce the population of idiots down enough that we might actually have enough money to fix roads again?
You were looking for relevance, not usefulness. And regardless, in this instance, doing that would be useful, whereas the libtardian invocations to divert spending are ridiculous in as much as everyone eats here, and crappy education is due to their running of it, not lack of money.
And we continue to be fed the line that it’s not airborne!!!!!
Yup. Just checked expedia.com. I can go in two stops:
ATL-PARIS-CASABLANCA-FREETOWN.
Round trip. $4500.
It wouldn't even take a large number of Ebola cases. All it would take is an abundance of caution and a flu epidemic maybe add in a nasty strain of pneumonia and you'll have a lot of people with symptoms that could be Ebola. It wouldn't take much to overwhelm emergency wards, quarantine wards, and the health care system in general.
I can imagine that a situation could arise where people will say "it's probably not Ebola" if they don't think they've been exposed and staying home rather than risking catching an even worse disease than they already have in the emergency waiting room.
Do I think the US could have a gruesome epidemic? No. We're too healthy and too medically aware for it to spread out of control. Could the medical care structures be overwhelmed and for some unavailable? Yes....that alreay happens to some degree in a bad flu season. Could the concerns affect the economy and our lives in ways we don't anticipate? Of course.
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