No medical facility other than a specialized research and testing lab is going to use level 4 gear. It’s not gonna happen.
Wikipedia article says there are only 15 BSL4 facilities in the US and 9 of them are federally owned. They are research only labs..or testing...many have to do with agriculture.
The BSL 4 rating for ebola and other hemorrhagics is due largely because it has no vaccine. Much less a approved antiviral.
That argument is not relevant.
We can gear up for level 3 with or have done so already with many of our larger hospitals. The smaller ones (clinics) will have to enhance their predominantly level 2 setups with some better protective gear and protocols.
All that aside, I watched the briefing today. Although nothing was surprising, I did find what they said about controlling this disease outbreak at the source to be very relevant.
If this continues to run uncontrolled, like a forest fire, it will begin to spread up and down the African Western coastal communities.
People in the interior who get their supplies and food from the coast, will find that there is none available, and they with their lifelines cut, they will have no choice but to migrate out, increasing the population densities..
Eventually the fire will end up in North Africa, and in South Africa.
Use your imagination as to where it will go from there, but you can be certain that at that point, people will be trying to get out, and using any mode of transport to get to Europe, North and south America...anywhere but there.
We would not be able to stop them. There are far to many miles of unprotected coast, and of course the land borders. At this point, no transportation controls will work.
Of course within months our medical care system would collapse. Just as any system would.
But all that is preventable, I believe, if we put the resources to work on the source.
All this bickering over air travel fears brought on by one guy, is ridiculous. It totally avoids talking about the elephant in the room.
I have seen hundreds of posts decrying what is essentially the only correct course of action for the US and the entire world to take, and that is to put out the fire in Africa.
If we don’t, then all the argument will be moot. There will be only one course of action left and that is your own self protection because you will not be able to protect the US from succumbing to the fire.
Oh...we can spend all our time predicting the end of days caused by a gigantic CME or the likely hood of a asteroid strike that would be a cataclysm and end of life on earth, but it’s waste of time because we cannot do anything to prevent that.
But we can prevent this...We have beaten disease and plagues, once understood, and we have the tools to beat this one..We understand it..
But the best way is to put the fire out at the source. If we don’t, our tools will be useless.
“No medical facility other than a specialized research and testing lab is going to use level 4 gear. It’s not gonna happen.”
Well I guess it’s going to spread like wild fire then. Right now in Sierra Leone. It’s spreading to 5 people an hour.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/ebola-infecting-five-every-hour-sierra-leone
“If this continues to run uncontrolled, like a forest fire, it will begin to spread up and down the African Western coastal communities.”
Yes and their weak economies will crash. Many of the infected immigrants (3 weeks this Ebola can not be detected) will come here since our borders are wide open. Plus they can fly here now with no ID.
The Ebola pandemic will flood and exhaust are already very busy health industry.
“We would not be able to stop them. There are far to many miles of unprotected coast, and of course the land borders. At this point, no transportation controls will work.”
I strongly disagree with this point. If we can medically treat, feed, house, school and give them welfare, then we can stop it by simply cutting off the benefits.
We can also end flights to the heavily infected countries and securing the border.
It’s not a fail proof system, but it’s a good start and better than what we have now.
“All this bickering over air travel fears brought on by one guy, is ridiculous.”
Well according to the CDC and WHO (World Health Organization) It has killed over 3000 people (about the same number of deaths of 911 was that over hype???), and is doubling every 3 weeks. It has a death rate of 70%. So I think the fears are more real than ISIS and Syria that the politicians are having an orgasm over.
“But the best way is to put the fire out at the source. If we don’t, our tools will be useless.”
It only dies when there is no host bodies left to jump into. This is why you quarantine them and do not let them into your country.
perhaps our 3000 military personnel are being sent to Africa to establish perimeters around the infection zones?
nah...that would make too much sense....