Posted on 10/10/2014 1:26:14 PM PDT by illiac
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Is the U.S. Ebola screening effort really just a public-relations ploy?
Health officials say beefed-up defenses in five U.S. airports mean they will screen 94% of passengers flying in from Ebola-hit countries. But a check of airlines schedules shows that even if that figure is correct, a significant number of flights will bypass that extra security.
Dr. Joseph McCormick, professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health and former CDC official specializing in viral diseases, says the efforts seem to be the result of public pressure.
“I think that the screening program is, to some degree, a response to the media,” said McCormick, who once led a team investigating a 1979 Ebola outbreak in the Sudan.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
In other news, sales of asprin unexpectedly rise.
Hands up those of you who are surprised...
It’s important not to single any individual group out. That would be rasis.
Really? I’ve been doing some research and I’ve been unable to find any direct flights from Liberia to Dallas. The map is most misleading. For example, no travel site I’ve found lists direct flights from Liberia to Dallas or Charlotte. All have two or three stops.
Screening out people who are at the end, or past the end, of the 21-day incubation period will miss most infections.
Travel ban or quarantine on arrival are the only two strategies that could possibly be effective. Temperature screening of arrivals is guaranteed to fail.
Well, you can single out Christians,
but no one from a non-christian “brown” country.
I think we are toast. Once it hits Central America there will be a mass invasion north to an open US border. There won’t be enough manpower on earth once it begins to spread.
Since its here, who’s screening passengers outbound from the U.S.?
Obama: You Can’t Get Ebola ‘Sitting Next to Someone on a Bus;’ CDC: ‘Avoid Public Transportation’
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/obama-you-cant-get-ebola-sitting-next-someone-bus-cdc-avoid-public
MEMORANDUM
TO: Vladimir Putin, President, the Russian Republic
FROM: Sane people everywhere
DATE: As soon as you read this
RE: The spread of Ebola
FACTS:
1. Ebola is a communicable disease that, in its current variant, is fatal approximately 70% of the time, and causes immense suffering.
2. There is no cure (or at least none available to more than a few dozen people), and no vaccine. Additionally, the disease mutates very rapidly, so even if scientists are able to develop a cure or a vaccine, the disease may by then have already mutated to a more easily communicable form. Actually, the more people who are infected, the greater chance of such a mutation.
3. Additionally, the more people that are infected outside of West Africa, the greater chance that a second or third “natural reservoir” of the disease will become established, making it virtually impossible to control future outbreaks.
4. People from the 3 nations where this nascent pandemic originated are traveling to various places around the globe, and cases have occurred in a variety of places around the world including the United States and Europe.
5. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, has repeatedly refused to take any action to stop people who may be infected with Ebola from traveling via air.
ISSUE:
What can be done to stop the spread of this disease before it becomes incapable of being managed?
ANALYSIS:
1. Since the disease is effectively incurable, and since there is no vaccine, the best hope of minimizing the harm created by this disease and minimizing the chance that it will become a pandemic that could literally kill half or more of the human race, lies in containing the disease to its points of origin in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
2. Since President Obama is, apparantly, unwilling to do anything of substance to halt air traffic originating from the originating nations of this Ebola outbreak, something else must be done by some other nation that is capable of effectively stopping the above-mentioned air travel.
3. The Russian Republic is a nation of vast resources, including vast military resources.
4. You are in charge of the armed forces of the Russian Republic.
CONCLUSION/RECCOMENDATION:
1. Since Ebola is a communicable, highly-lethal and effectively incurable disease, the spread of this disease must be stopped as soon as is practical in order to spare the world a pandemic that could literally kill hundreds of millions or billions of people.
2. Since the United States has abdicated responsibility or intiative in attempting to accomplish the halt of the spread of this disease, some other nation must do so to avoid an unspeakable tragedy.
3. Since the Russian Republic possesses enormous military resources, and since you are in charge of those resources, and since you have displayed tremendous deceisiveness over the years of your leadership, it is the conclusion of all sane people everywhere that you may be our only hope. Therefore, and with great humility and respect, we hereby ask you to order the armed forces of the Russian Republic to destroy every airport in the nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and to do so without delay.
This is nonsense. “Special Screening” is ineffective and nothing more than a meaningless gesture intended to reassure the public. This is the same playbook they used for Sars a few years ago to prevent panic. No epidemic in human history has been contained due to human self reporting. Quarantine is the only real preventative.
Do the research. Look up the 1878 Yellow Fever epidemic along the Mississippi River for insight into how it could be. The US Army sent a relief steamer down the Mississippi under the command of Lt. Hiram H. Benner. They made it as far as Vicksburg before he contracted the disease and died.
https://archive.org/details/reportexecutive00commgoog
https://archive.org/details/historyofyellowf00unse
https://archive.org/details/Dr.DromgoolesYellowFeverHeroesHonorsAndHorrorsOf1878.AListOf
https://archive.org/details/reportofexpediti01unit
It is stupid to initiate this on a limited basis and pre-announced. I wonder how many flights have been changed ... I don’t suppose that can be FOIAed.
Well I did mean other than that guy in my White House...
We will see. If there are 32 thousand dead in mid Dec. look for one billion in a year.
“Therefore, and with great humility and respect, we hereby ask you to order the armed forces of the Russian Republic to destroy every airport in the nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and to do so without delay.”
His undoubtedly the best suggestions I have read for a while.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Who the hell is the CDC protecting?
Bring Out Your Dead
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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