Posted on 10/20/2014 12:38:21 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We are at a point where it is difficult to determine if our nation is endangered by the possibility of more cases of Ebola entering our nation because of “incompetence or willful misdirection.”
I highly recommend taking the time to read Jonathan V. Last’s excellent article, “Six Reasons to Panic,” which appears in the current issue of The Weekly Standard. Jonathan Last states,
As a rule, one should not panic at whatever crisis has momentarily fixed the attention of cable news producers. But the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has migrated to both Europe and America, may be the exception that proves the rule. There are at least six reasons that a controlled, informed panic might be in order.
We have discussed much of this material over the past few weeks. Jonathan Last brings together the information relating to the Ebola epidemic and how Obama’s political goals have put us in much greater danger. Last summarizes all of this very well.
Last made six major points to consider,
(1) Start with what we know, and don’t know, about the virus. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other government agencies claim that contracting Ebola is relatively difficult because the virus is only transmittable by direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person who has become symptomatic. Which means that, in theory, you can’t get Ebola by riding in the elevator with someone who is carrying the virus, because Ebola is not airborne.
This sounds reassuring. Except that it might not be true.
(2) General infection rates are terrifying, too. In epidemiology, you measure the “R0,” or “reproduction number” of a virus; that is, how many new infections each infected person causes. When R0 is greater than 1, the virus is spreading through a population. When it’s below 1, the contamination is receding. In September the World Health Organization’s Ebola Response Team estimated the R0 to be at 1.71 in Guinea and 2.02 in Sierra Leone. Since then, it seems to have risen so that the average in West Africa is about 2.0. In September the WHO estimated that by October 20, there would be 3,000 total cases in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. As of October 7, the count was 8,376.
(3) Do you really want to be scared? What’s to stop a jihadist from going to Liberia, getting himself infected, and then flying to New York and riding the subway until he keels over? This is just the biological warfare version of a suicide bomb. Can you imagine the consequences if someone with Ebola vomited in a New York City subway car? A flight from Roberts International in Monrovia to JFK in New York is less than $2,000, meaning that the planning and infrastructure needed for such an attack is relatively trivial. This scenario may be highly unlikely. But so were the September 11 attacks and the Richard Reid attempted shoe bombing, both of which resulted in the creation of a permanent security apparatus around airports. We take drastic precautions all the time, if the potential losses are serious enough, so long as officials are paying attention to the threat.
(4) Let’s put aside the Ebola-as-weapon scenario—some things are too depressing to contemplate at length—and look at the range of scenarios for what we have in front of us, from best-case to worst-case. The epidemiological protocols for containing Ebola rest on four pillars: contact tracing, case isolation, safe burial, and effective public information. On October 14, the New York Times reported that in Liberia, with “only” 4,000 cases, “Schools have shut down, elections have been postponed, mining and logging companies have withdrawn, farmers have abandoned their fields.” Which means that the baseline for “best-case” is already awful.
(5) And by the way, things could get worse. All of those worst-case projections assume that the virus stays contained in a relatively small area of West Africa, which, with a million people infected, would be highly unlikely. What happens if and when the virus starts leaking out to other parts of the world?
Marine Corps General John F. Kelly talked about Ebola at the National Defense University two weeks ago and mused about what would happen if Ebola reached Haiti or Central America, which have relatively easy access to America. “If it breaks out, it’s literally ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.”
(6) While we’re on the subject of political crisis, it’s worth noting that the politics of Ebola are uncertain and dangerous to everyone involved. Thus far, there’s been only one serious political clash over Ebola, and that’s concerning the banning of flights to and from the infected countries in West Africa. The Obama administration refuses to countenance such a move, with the CDC’s Frieden flatly calling it “wrong”:
Ebola has the potential to reshuffle American attitudes to immigration. If you agree to seal the borders to mitigate the risks from Ebola, you’re implicitly rejecting the “open borders” mindset and admitting that there are cases in which government has a duty to protect citizens from outsiders. Some people on the left admit to seeing this as the thin end of the wedge. Writing in the New Yorker, Michael Specter lamented, “Several politicians, like Governor Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, have turned the epidemic into fodder for their campaign to halt immigration.” And that sort of thing just can’t be allowed.
What would happen in the event of an Ebola outbreak in Latin America? Then America would have to worry about masses of uninfected immigrants surging across the border—not to mention carriers of the virus. And if we had decided it was okay to cut off flights from West Africa, would we decide it was okay to try to seal the Southern border too? You can see how the entire immigration project might start to come apart.
So for now, the Obama administration will insist on keeping travel open between infected countries and the West and hope that they, and we, get lucky.
We have arrived at a moment with our elite institutions where it is impossible to distinguish incompetence from willful misdirection. This can only compound an already dangerous situation.
Hopefully Obama will not be hiding Ebola cases in an attempt to prevent a growing demand to ban travel from countries with Ebola cases and to fully secure our border. If there is just one more case of Ebola in the United States, Congress and the American people will demand a travel ban and a fully secured border.
Obama realizes that his Obama Amnesty plan would begin to unravel if there is another Ebola case. Obama’s major goal remains giving the vote to tens of millions of present and future illegal immigrants, which would give the Democrats a permanent voting majority.
If this had remained with Duncan only....we wouldn’t be talking about this at all. The fact that we have around two hundred people on some watch/quarantine list now, and this cruise-boat was prevented from docking in Mexico...really says a great deal about how this has gone negative and a bunch of people have screwed up.
Many in the media are saying ONE MORE confirmed case and amnesty is off the table for years. Obola won’t let that happen.
How long have TPTB know about Ebola?
TREASON
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Misdirection is not the right word. Malignant ACTIVE action against We The People. Biological warfare.
I have to admit I thought we would already have more cases here and God may have spared us this time but the question is just what will it take to wake folks up?
That would be a sad blessing. I still think obols is doing this on purpose to create chaos and terror.
There was a group of students and teachers from Moore OK on that boat for a fall break trip. The school district has notified all parents and staff that this group has been told to stay isolated until that lab worker’s incubation period has passed. CDC has been notified/consulted and will advise the school district on the results on that lab worker. This is just a small example of how the virus could spread rapidly and across a wide area due to access to transportation in large groups.
Rumor has it this morning that Nina Pham’s boyfriend is hospitalized with symptoms,
zer0’s 3000 boots on the ground in west Africa to ‘fight’ Ebola, tells me he’s out to thin the herd here at home. Tree hugger, Gaia crap.
I suspect half the reason for this Administration not placing a quarantine upon W. African nations is that they have placed middle level managers in positions seeking absolute control over governmental regulations, who haven’t been servants dedicated to implementing proper regulations. Instead, many of them have been corrupted into using public office as a conduit to redirect government funding to noncompetitive contractors in return for political kickbacks and previous campaign contributions.
IOW, CDC and Dept of Health Services under the DHS, have the elements of government dedicated to inspecting immigrants and enforcing health codes. Quarantine is one mechanism of establishing control. When they read the book, they understand quarantine to be a bidirectional control,..nothing comes out of the controlled area, nothing goes into the controlled area. The plans and regulations proceed from that definition.
When asked about quarantine, they immediately reject it because their protocols recognize the captured area will suffer until the disease burns itself out by lack of fodder.
There is a void of planning in support of their actual mission. The mission is to prevent malaise from entering the US. If they are unable to detect the viral infection until symptomatic, then other controls must be enforced.
It is possible to keep those from that area from entering our nation. It is very possible to issue such a regulation. That IS the reason for an Executive Branch and the authority of Executive Order. Even if not all encroachments are identified, the authority is then dispersed to enforce such controls.
It is obvious this Administration is not only incompetent, but drunk with power to do anything they desire without any immediate consequence.
Who are they fighting? This is military soldiers...troops....why?
To infect the military and weaken us further, or just to get them out of the country?
Purpose is not clear. Is it true they will not have suits to protect them from the virus?
Thomas Duncan’s “family”? is coming out of quarantine with much much media fanfare
All the coverage must be for our dear leader’s benefit since he pretty much JVed the deadly virus, welcomed it across our borders and continues to minimize any risks.
This all is his planned October Surprise. Just imagine how good obama would look to voters and the world if those careless stoopid health care workers had not gotten infected. Just how did the “family” not get infected?
This whole thing stinks worse than BENGHAZI.
I think the crux of this whole Ebola problem here now is that most people are realizing that we are seeing signs of one mishap after another, increasing numbers of people being put in quarantine, and a very high rate of blame giving on the part of Obama’s responsible agencies.
Personally, I think the major policies for visas, travel to/from affected countries, and our ‘first response’ actions are not being derived by and addressed by those agencies supposedly most capable to do the job.
Travel actions likely are edicts handed down by Administration flunkies with State Department influence. I’d hazard to guess that not all inside the CDC agree with the Administration’s policies, either.
Years of policy, funding and preparation time since Ebola was first discovered. A CDC that seems to have money enough to spend on studies outside epidemiology. An administration that has spent more time on figuring out how to implement stealth taxes in order to pay for a health system few can compliment. What did we get from Friedan? a “Wash your hands” and “You can’t catch Ebola except through DIRECT bodily fluid contact” protocol that is even now being revamped.
Inaction, unpreparedness, distraction, diversion, and blame are the hallmarks of Obama’s legacy.
The reason given is to prevent infected people from avoiding being taken to care centers. Seems zer0’s African brethren who are infected are not wanting to get medical care or to be quarantined.
So we infect our guys instead
They know the American public’s attention span is likely less than the incubation period.
The genie is out of the bottle, now they will try to ignore it thinking public attention spans will burn out.
Or Obola will declare martial law with the blessing of the fifth-column media. Kiss your ballot goodbye.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
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