Posted on 10/13/2014 10:48:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
I have no interest in adding to the rising level of fear-mongering and finger-pointing that we're reading, hearing, and seeing about Ebola. It is scary enough without a bunch of people running around like a character in an Edvard Munch painting.
I just looked this up. According to webmd.com an outbreak"happens when a disease occurs in greater numbers than expected in a community or region or during a season."
An epidemic "occurs when an infectious disease spreads rapidly to many people. In 2003, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic took the lives of nearly 800 people worldwide."
A pandemic "is a global disease outbreak. HIV/AIDS is an example of one of the most destructive global pandemics in history."
Health officials have had a number of problems in dealing with the Ebola (according to the webmd.com definition) epidemic both in its earliest stages and as the disease has progressed.
In Africa, the three major host nations for this Ebola outbreak - Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone - even before this epidemic, had very limited healthcare capabilities.
When Ebola cases started showing up, they overwhelmed their health care systems almost immediately.
The first cases were reported on March 22, 2014, according to a white paper published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By August 31 there were 3,685 cases. Factoring in the likely underreporting the CDC "estimates that approximately 21,000 total cases will have occurred in Liberia and Sierra Leone by September 30, 2014."
The CDC released a study last month that, according to Reuters "projected there could be as many as 1.4 million cases of Ebola in West Africa by mid January."
On March 30 - shortly after the first reports of Ebola, the World Health Organization - a unit of the United Nations - issued a report calling for (among other things) "training [caregivers] in safe practices and the community in safe burials." Local customs often call for direct contact between family members and the deceased before burial.
The WHO has, to no one's surprise, been moving at United Nation's speed.
You already know that a healthcare worker in Dallas who worked on the patient that died last week has been diagnosed with Ebola. Officials are looking for a "breach of protocol" that might have involved a mistake in how she removed her protective gear.
Although we have been assured since the beginning of the epidemic that because of our excellent healthcare system in the United States ?
If our healthcare system is so great, why have we been bombarded for years with statistics showing that it badly trails other developed nations in almost every area except cost?
and the simple fact that the average American is better fed, has access to better hygiene, and is otherwise lots healthier than the average citizen in west Africa we have little to fear.
But, the reality of an Ebola case in an American hospital is different that reading the pamphlets in a staff meeting.
Yesterday, a patient at a clinic in the Boston area was transferred to a major medical center after he presented with Ebola-like symptoms. The clinic was evacuated, according the The (UK) Daily Mail and an official said:
"We are working closely with the Department of Public Health who will determine next steps."
One might have hoped that between March and now those "next steps" might have already been decided.
Two confirmed and one suspected case of Ebola in the U.S. does not an epidemic make. And the breathless reporting that has surrounded these cases isn't helpful.
What would be helpful would be the Administration putting together a senior team of experts - health, management, military and anyone else who can be helpful - to help calm the fears of those Americans who believe that we really don't have a clear understanding of what we're facing or how to cope with it.
Count me among them.
But, this disease is the perfect one to finish the job Obama has planned for us.
Rich, it must be wonderful to be so broadminded and objective and calm. However, Ebola is an infectious killer without remedy. A lot of us are stunned that the government is importing this infectious killer. Have you never heard of Typhoid Mary? It just takes one.
The new commie lib talking points that this whole Ebola thing is happening because we don’t have some leftwing political buffoon drawing six figures designated as the “Surgeon General” that we can go to for all of the Ebola answers. That’s some of the dumbest thinking I’ve heard in a long time. Personally, I don’t see how having an Obama supporter designated as “Surgeon General” would stop the outbreak of Ebola. I guess the leftist wingnuts know something I don’t know.
I’ve been thinking about the possibility of Ebola being spread by mosquitoes. I know not all viruses can’t be transmitted through mosquitoes or we’d all have AIDS by now.
This scientist basically says “We don’t know” but they haven’t seen it and it doesn’t appear likely.
http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/virology/2004-February/007604.html
They have. It's made up of morons from the CDC and NIAID.
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/full-retard.html
Note that: a) this was written yesterday morning; and b) the rest of the article (plus comments) are at the link above.
And this thing has now gone full retard.
Ebola coming here is “highly unlikely”? Fail.
Screening measures will keep infected persons out? Fail.
American medical care is well-prepared to handle it? Fail.
Ebola is “hard to catch”? Fail.
CDC-guideline full PPE will protect healthcare workers? Fail.
“Any hospital with infectious patients can treat Ebola patients”? Fail.
Dallas officials and the CDC are working tirelessly to stop any further spread? Fail.
And we STILL aren’t going to shut down flights, and impose a 21-day quarantine on all persons coming here from affected countries?? FAIL.
At this point, the nurse who’s now presumptive US Patient #2 was in full PPE while caring for Duncan on his second visit, after his 9/28 admission. Evidently self-isolation/monitoring is a concept no one is clear on, because she exposed additional contacts; the Dallas FD Hazmat unit decon’ed all the public spaces around her apartment complex and her car (which she was travelling around in). Someone else will go in and decon her apartment directly (which involves essentially throwing everything she owns into hundreds of barrels, to be incinerated. No word on who’s picking up the tab for this trip, but if you pay taxes in Texas, presumably, that’ll be you.)
And they’ve notified everyone in her neighborhood.
No telling what the sick call-off rate will be tomorrow at that hospital, but they’ve turned all ambulances away and closed their ER until further notice.
Which probably means it’s presumptively contaminated too.
If your grannie was close-by, and having a heart attack later today, I hope the Duncan Ass-capades don’t kill her too as collateral damage.
In case no one mentions it on the news, shutting down a 56-bed ER for a 968-bed acute care primary hospital in a major city is HUGE.
One more time:
This is just the beginning. And the officials and media have been lying to you every day in every way since this started.
Electing incompetent assclowns has consequences.
But if you like your Ebola, you can keep your Ebola.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration sees every act, every event as a political opportunity. They've carefully weighed their options, and the "experts" they've put together consist of speech-makers, public relations' people, pollsters, mass media managers, and political strategists. Oh, sure, they might ask the CDC for some talking points on occasion, but even those are highly scrubbed for anything useful.
Secondly, actions like you're wanting would indicate that Obama actually wants to protect us and look out for our best interests. I'm not convinced that he'd love a little outbreak right here in the old US of A. He could practice implementing marshall law, civil defense and curfews, just in time for the elections.
The most important critical move once an infectious disease breaks out is what Rich?
It’s isolation!
When this primary duty by health organizations is ignored, the populace gets a bit testy.
Imagine that!
Our president still can’t grasp that for every EBOLA positive patient that is allowed to arrive on our shores, there will be literally hundreds of people at risk of exposure. And when one of them becomes EBOLA positive, tack on hundreds more.
Infections disease cases explode exponentially!
Geez, Rich no need to take this issue seriously is there...
What a dufus.
This isn’t fear mongering. It’s a simple numbers game from here on out.
One might have hoped that between March and now those "next steps" might have already been decided.
Yes, one might have hoped that they had taken more action by now. The whole purpose of fearmongering educating people on Ebola, it's speed of spread, the dangers of air traffic, etc. is to get the so-called experts to do more to get control of the situation.
We don't need any more "experts" to "calm our fears" and convince us that know what we are doing even as the problem grows.
What we need is to:
The creditability of the experts has been blown away by their attempts to "calm our fears" even as the problem keeps growing. Demonstrate control of the problem and our fears will go away on their own. Until then you and the rest of the experts flapping their mouths just add to the distrust.
Well said.
Thanks DannyTN.
But they lie to cover the most effective course in the interest of political expediency and ideology.
Quarantine at the barrel of a gun.
No travel from West Africa.
Let it burn out.
Here's a bit of wisdom for the CDC: Humans have a genetic predisposition toward Quarantine of the sick during "plague". Any government or medical official who tries to overturn that will be swept away and will be lucky to preserve their own life.
Humans panic in these situations because our ancestors panicked and LIVED. Those who did not panic, DIED.
Make you wonder whether this was a population control experiment for Africa gone bad. That is why the administration is doing all they can to help so not to have the focus turned on them. Duncan( one of the rats) got out of his cage.
But our ancestors rightly panicked when something really scary was happening right in front of them. Not when they got a text message about events on the other side of the world, or what could happen "in theory". The latter is more akin to mental illness which is not a beneficial adaptation.
There is nothing rational about this, and those who seek to compel rationality on the populace are wasting their energies.
It's encoded into the lizard brain. The reaction occurs at a level that is not conscious and is CERTAINLY not reasoned.
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