Posted on 10/16/2014 5:51:17 AM PDT by shortstop
We have screwed the pooch.
With this ebola thing, it is hard to imagine how we could have been more incompetent.
Our stupidity has killed one patient and infected two nurses, and left a nation suddenly unsure of the reliability of its health care system.
For all the cocky assurances and arrogant assertions, it turns out that primitives with dust masks are better at caring for ebola patients than we are with our isolations units and high-tech doo-dads.
In the treatment of one patient, the American hospital system has infected more health care workers than would be infected by the treatment of hundreds of Africans.
It is almost inconceivable.
Let’s review the chain of calamity.
A man who self-diagnosed as having ebola, and who informed a nurse that he had recently traveled to the United States from Liberia, was misdiagnosed and sent home to allow his disease to fester and potentially spread to dozens.
When an ambulance brought him back two days later, we now learn that he lay in an open emergency department essentially unattended and spreading his contagion for hours.
And that somehow through the course of his treatment – until his death to the disease – two nurses operating under strict contagious-disease guidelines became infected with ebola.
How does that happen?
How do we, with our moon suits and boy-in-the-bubble technology, catch this deadly disease when doctors and nurses in Africa, working with far fewer assets and much less technology, largely avoid it?
What went wrong?
And why are we worrying about the fate of a nurse’s dog when what the UN is calling potentially the worst epidemic of the modern era is knocking at our door?
About that. Though the UN isn’t staffed by the smartest kids in class, and warnings do tend to be alarmist, it is worrisome that health officials at the United Nations think this ebola outbreak has the potential to rival AIDS and the Spanish flu of 1918.
Only time will tell about predictions. And only time will tell if the incompetence at the CDC and Texas Health Presbyterian are representative of the rest of the American health care system.
Ebola is controlled by diagnosis and isolation. You diagnose patients and those exposed, and you isolate them from the rest of the population.
We failed to do that in Dallas.
And then we got dumber.
The second nurse to be announced as sick with ebola, concerned about her temperature and an approaching trip to Ohio, called the CDC, informed the person she spoke of her work with an ebola patient and her own fever, and asked if she should fly on a commercial airliner or not.
Think that through.
You’ve been around an ebola guy. Coincidentally, a co-worker of yours has just been in the news for coming down with ebola, and you’ve got a fever, and you want to know if you should fly commercial.
That’s the question laid before a CDC official.
That’s a question almost everyone in America would have gotten right.
But a question which the CDC got wrong.
It told the nurse that, though her temperature was bad, it wasn’t bad enough. So she was free to fly.
And she did, from Ohio to Texas, while arguably contagious for ebola.
That’s the kind of stupidity that gets people killed. That’s the kind of leadership the CDC is giving us. That’s the kind of direction our nation is getting in the fight against ebola.
And it raises a question.
If a state-of-the-art hospital in one of America’s largest cities can so fail in its handling of an ebola patient, then what about the hospital in your town? Do you live in Magicville, where mistakes are never made? Are all your doctors and nurses just smarter?
And what about the CDC?
When a federal agency clears a likely ebola sufferer to fly on a commercial jetliner, you have to wonder how engaged it is, and how it will avoid such stupidity in the future.
Finally, there is the issue of the president’s order to send some 3,000 American soldiers and Marines into western Africa to help fight ebola.
If we can’t protect our health care workers in isolation units in America, how are we going to protect GIs operating in the open air in Liberia?
If you send 3,000 Americans into the cauldron of contagion, don’t you expect that some of them are going to come home sick?
And what are you going to do with GIs who catch ebola? Do they get treated where they are? Are they shipped off to military hospitals in Germany? Do they come back home for treatment?
And if they do come back home for treatment, how will we keep the nurses from catching it?
It seems like sending troops to fight ebola is a pretty good way to bring that virus into the heart of our population.
Seems like if we wanted to keep this contagion out of our society we would tell folks coming from affected areas that they have to sit out an incubation period over there before they can come over here.
But we’re not doing that.
We’re screwing around taking temperatures at airports and pretending that this will be a piece of cake.
We’re pretending that ebola is nothing.
That’s what our words say.
Though, thus far, our actions say something else completely.
Our actions say we’re in trouble.
My view is this: Ebola cannot spiral out of control quite fast enough to really cause the overthrow of American society the way Obama would like. Therefore, he will intentionally handle the situation in an explicitly incorrect manner, causing panic, anger, and confusion. He wants to do a bad job – he wants people to say, “What is the president thinking?? No travel ban?? He’s totally mishandling this!” He WANTS to be seen as incorrect and dangerous. He’s pushing for a revolt, either from the military, from congress, or armed mobs. He will declare martial law in 2014. The Republicans elected in November will not be seated.
The disease itself will not necessarily have a devastating effect – but the disease will allow Obama to end America as a world power.
NOTE: Neither martial law or civil war have to result in a viable dictatorship and the declaration of Muslim supremacy in the United States – that does not have to be Obama’s winning strategy. He can lose. He can die. I don’t think he cares. All he needs to do is cause a complete breakdown. Civil War will be the breakdown. The winner of the war is inconsequential – America will never be capable of propping up the West again, and the Caliphate will become firmly established in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe (Spain).
I think this will happen very quickly.
Drs and nurses in africa do not largely avoid this. It has decimated their ranks...
Much of this policy is understandable if you realize that Obama and his acolytes in the Federal government are implementing his one world/no borders ideology in virtually all policy.
You can blame Obola all you want, but he has always been always will be worthless. The real people to blame are those that accepted his words voted for him, especially twice. Those are the people I hold accountable, and who will reap the wrath.
Don’t for a minute, believe the excuses about inadequate funding from the CDC. They have more than enough funding for diseases and treatments, but the major part of their budget is diverted by the regime for bicycle lanes, global warming BS, anti-gun lobbying and establishment of gun-free zones in schools and public places.
It is not incompetence. No Administration could possibly be as incompetent as the Obama Administration pretends to be.
This is treason.
“Drs and nurses in africa do not largely avoid this. It has decimated their ranks...”
Exactly, this article is ridiculous insofar as it’s comparisons of modern health care with “healthcare” in West Africa. It makes the whole article lose credibility.
Time for the Solution for the root problem in a single day:
Playing Russian Roulette with people THIS LATE in the crisis! When does the ‘A-Game’ kick in? From the beginning, up until now:
This is too stupid to be stupid!
Which means?
Either it was deliberate or insane.
One thing is for certain — ‘why’ doesn’t even matter. A high crime and misdemeanor does not need to demonstrate motive. And the only ‘proof’ required is abject, unpardonable failure to do one’s sworn duty. The RNC should go through the motions — impeach in House and patriotic senators petition for an impeachment trial on the same day.
A single day!
Public record is all that is required at this point.
PUT THE DNC ON THE HOT SPOT. THIS CRISIS IS FAR ABOVE PETTY ‘RACE’ ISSUES BECAUSE EVERY RACE IS VULNERABLE TO EBOLA! If the DNC wants to subject the US to more of this ‘leader-ship’, let it BE ON RECORD! Then let the voters decide next month.
We can choose to forgive without pardoning. Forgiveness is a matter of the heart, not a matter of good governance.
And we need it to be DECISIVELY STRIDENT.
If they don’t get ahead of this outrage at warp speed, the RNC will end up being ‘Jeb Bushed’ — remember schindler “Terri Schindler/Schiavo? Jeb Bush got too far behind the issue and was despised by conservatives for not having a police-v-police gun fight over the debate.
Move at WARP SPEED. Constitutional duty!
This is from a blog???
Don’t think they can get away with that, it sounds like you are hoping for it.
The military, and civilians will turn on him SO fast.
Obama and his government is either incredibly, criminally stupid, or it is exhibiting evil on a scale not seen since the middle of the last century. There is no other answer.
I give the current political handling of this crisis to last about another 2-3 days...
Presidential rectal bleeding will be the least of the countries concerns...
But by then the country could be locked up like cheese puffs in a goose with a single, well-timed announcement...
October surprise folks!!! Just in tome for the elections next month...
Just watch...
I hope I am proven wrong...
Obama October Surprised himself. Heh.
And why would I hope for that?
God I hope you’re wrong, but all the pieces are fitting into place. CWII is just around the corner.
Obama declares martial law. That will be the end of the Democrats, and the end of Obama. Not one person will support that.
Obama is an incompetent, narcissistic fool, and he has surrounded himself with a government of thousands of like-minded incompetent fools. Just listen to "Baghdad Tom" Frieden. He doesn't even realize how silly he sounds.
Seriously LMAO!
Thanks for the Camus link - had to read parts in HS French class, the horror!
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