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Posted on 10/16/2014 11:47:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
One of the popular remedies being floated to address Ebola fears is to isolate West Africa — the Ebola hot zone — and close America off to travelers from the region. Just turn on CNN to see this argument being bandied about or tune into the political rhetoric around the crisis. As Arkansas Senate candidate Tom Cotton said recently, "We've got an Ebola outbreak, we have bad actors that can come across the border; we need to seal the border and secure it."
The fear is understandable, especially as Ebola appears poised to spread closer to home. America last week recorded its first Ebola death with the passing of a Liberian visitor Thomas Duncan, and yesterday, the CDC announced the first-ever case of Ebola transmission to Duncan's nurse.
As Ebola panic peaks, conspiracy theories are spreading fast. So now is the time when we need to check our irrational reactions to this horrible crisis and avoid policies that will divert scarce resources from actual remedies. And we know from past experience that airport screening and travel bans are more about quelling the public's fears than offering any real boost to public health security.
1. Airport screening is political theater
Last week, the US government announced a new airport screening regime for incoming travelers from West Africa. Passengers arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to five US airports will now be questioned about potential Ebola exposure and have their temperatures checked.
Exit screening has already been underway in West Africa since the summer, and famously failed in the case of Duncan. He flew to Dallas with Ebola incubating in his body, and did not disclose the fact that he had close contact with a dying Ebola patient days before his trip.
This failure shouldn't be a surprise. We know from past outbreaks that these techniques don't work. Entry and exit screening was used during the 2003 SARS pandemic. A Canadian study of the public-health response following the outbreak found that airport screening was a waste of money and human resources: it didn't detect a single case of the disease.
This screening was "inefficient and ineffective," the authors of the assessment concluded, noting that the Canadian public health agency should seriously rethink using it again in the future. Another study found that those clunky and costly thermal scanners used to detect fever in airports were similarly useless when it came to singling out sick people who are trying to enter a country. So spending extra money to identify feverish people at airports — especially those with Ebola who can be undetectable for days until they are symptomatic — is an expensive and ineffectual exercise.
2. Closing borders would be a disaster
Taking airline panic one step further, another idea floating around these days is to just close off West Africa to the rest of the world. Allow Ebola to fester over there, and keep people safe over here.
In opposing this idea, public health experts unanimously agree: sealing borders will not stop Ebola spread and will only exacerbate the crisis in West Africa — and heighten the risk of a global pandemic.
There are three reasons why it's a crazy idea. The first is that it just won't work. In CDC Director Tom Freiden's words, "Even when governments restrict travel and trade, people in affected countries still find a way to move and it is even harder to track them systematically." In other words, determined people will find a way to cross borders anyway, but unlike at airports, we can't track their movements.
The second is that it would actually make stopping the outbreak in West Africa more difficult. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, "To completely seal off and don't let planes in or out of the West African countries involved, then you could paradoxically make things much worse in the sense that you can't get supplies in, you can't get help in, you can't get the kinds of things in there that we need to contain the epidemic."
Some have suggested a half-measure: close borders allowing exceptions for doctors, aid workers, and medical supplies only. The problem with this idea is that responses to humanitarian crises are not well-organized affairs. They're chaos. A bureaucratic regime that systematically screens who can go in and out of affected countries would only slow down or make impossible the much-needed relief. Plus, many aid workers — like reserve staff for Doctors Without Borders — would be responsible for booking their own tickets to get to the affected region. How would they do this then? And how long would it take to get them over there?
The third reason closing borders is nuts is that it will devastate the economies of West Africa and further destroy the limited health systems there. The World Bank already estimates this outbreak could cost West African economies up to $33 billion. That's a lot for any country, but especially when you're talking about some of the world's poorest. World Health Organization director Margaret Chan reminded us that 90 percent of any outbreak's economic costs "come from irrational and disorganized efforts of the public to avoid infection."
3. The best way to protect Americans is by protecting West Africans
We live in a world where many crises are predictable. We don't know when the next one will strike, or where, but we know it will eventually come. In the health field, we even know approximately what it will look like. Every few years, for example, we seem to get another global pandemic that spreads across borders as if they don't exist. In 2002 it was SARS, then in 2009 it was Swine Flu. Today it's Ebola. In five year's time it will be something else.
If we know these health crises are coming, why is it that we never seem adequately prepared? It's true that we can't prepare for every kind of outbreak in every place at every time; having a large standing army of white coated doctors at the ready would just be too expensive. But there is no reason we can't use the lessons learned from past outbreaks to make better choices in this time of Ebola.
We also need to stop diverting precious resources on policies and procedures that do nothing to help the public. Instead of using airport screening and entertaining plans to seal borders, the government should focus its attention and resources on West Africa where the outbreak is out of control and where real action could actually be helpful in protecting America's health security. Because we know this for sure: the longer Ebola rages on in West Africa, the more people get the disease there, the more of a chance it has of spreading elsewhere.
Two people in the US have been stricken by Ebola; more than 8,000 have in West Africa. The best way to avoid more cases in America is by protecting West Africans.
Hope and Chage
change
Lame!
That’s some new kind of stupid you found right there...
This explanation is surreal and defies all logic. Ebola is mostly carried by people. Why not simply not allow admission to the US for all persons holding visas from these infected countries? For US citizens having traveled to these areas a mandatory quarantine. That still leaves the problem of illegals coming across our southern border and that is why I believe Obama is not willing to implement a quarantine. Obama is ignoring the safety of US citizens to further his political agenda
My opinion on what to do...sorry about your luck West Africa, we’ll air-drop supplies and food.
We will also be here for advice on how to improve your situation, just give us a call.
Then watch as they beat each other to death trying to get to it.
If you don't, please contribute monthly to Free Republic to continue to get the reality of Ebola. This reality might save the lives of your loved ones.
“1. Airport screening is political theater”
Done the way they are doing it, voluntary exit screening, is. The proper way of doing it is ordering airlines to ban anyone with a recent stamp from West Africa on their passport from getting on the plane in the first place. Use specially prepared charter flights to bring any Americans in the area to an offshore facility and hold them in isolation for 30 days before letting them back into the country.
I am not able to post the questioning from Steve Scalise, if someone can it is available and definitely worth it. But here is an excerpt, although it doesn’t show the full detail in which he acted and refused to answer.
2:57 pm - Frieden Repeatedly Dodges Questions on Travel Ban Talks with White House - Charlie Spiering
Questioned by House Majority Whip Steven Scalise, Dr. Frieden refused to say whether or not he had discussed a travel ban with White House officials.
Frieden would only say that he “had discussions on the issue of travel” with White House officials but refused to say whether they considered a travel ban.
“Is the White House considering a travel ban?” Scalise asked.
“I can’t speak for the White House,” Frieden replied on two different occasions.
“..The third reason closing borders is nuts is that it will devastate the economies of West Africa and further destroy the limited health systems there.”
The combined economies of these countries is likely less than that of the Dallas Metroplex. IOW, who gives a damn? As for their health systems...really? Who are these idiots trying to fool? What good docs that they may have had are either dead or dying. There is NO healthcare system to speak of over there, not after what Ebola has done there.
These guys, and anyone that agrees with them, are drooling idiots. Ebola is a Level 4 disease - there simply isn’t a catagory for higher virulence. In the BEST of circumstances it kills 70% of people who contract it, and we still don’t know how EXACTLY it can be transmitted. We know some of the ways, but not all - especially since it can mutate. And it can, has and will continue to mutate. But, somehow, making Americans and Europeans sick will help Africa. WTF, over?
Throughout history, quarantines and isolation are the ONLY ways that work to stop a disease for which there is no cure (and there is NONE here, ZMapp not withstanding). No more hosts, then the disease dies, period. We absolutely need to blockade travel to and from West Africa, except for military transports that airdrop supplies and gear. The gear should all have clearly-written instructions in English, French, the native language and pictures. DON’T expose anyone else where it is preventable.
As to the BS argument that you can’t stop everyone...OK, that is true on its surface. So what! If someone robbed your house last night, do you leave the doors unlocked tonight? WRT Ebola or any other deadly communicable disease, if you can stop 95% of them, then you substantially slow the spread of this plague, giving the more advanced nations more opportunity to come up with a cure, come up with a vaccine, produce new supplies, etc. Help Africa where you can - from both a practical and moral view this is what we can and should do. But DO NOT, EVER, allow the crown jewels of medical knowledge and research in the First World to become compromised; otherwise everyone INCLUDING Africa, will suffer that much more than with a blockade.
These phucktards have just tripled down on stupidity. Since they are very, very clearly doing this for political reasons, I can only hope that a just God and a ticked off American public reward them with a monumental defeat in 3 weeks.
Wait a couple months, though, to see how much more true that statement will be.
What are they going to do, walk here from Liberia? Shut the damn airlines down, now.
Total frustration dealing with these people. This has nothing to do with race, economics, or politics. Isolation of an infected area is JOB ONE. Not doing so because it can't be perfect is stupid and suicidal. Not doing it because it's politically incorrect is worse.
No. No way. Our guardian a protector would NEVER do that /dripping, morbid sarcasm I yearn for the day when the American public understands this about ALL issues. EVERYTHING for these bastards is about politics...which is to say, about power over us. We must rid ourselves of this disease (not Ebola, OBOLA).
So the only way to reduce the infections in West Africa is to let the infected come here and infect Americans, brilliant analysis. What next, we should fight house fires with high pressure gasoline hoses?
Oh well.
6 weeks. There was a study showing that Ebola Zaire could take as long as 6 weeks to produce symptoms after infection...and even then as much as 2% of people STILL wouldn't show symptoms despite infection.
EVERY SINGLE THING that this administration and the CDC have said about Ebola is a damned lie - other than saying that it is lethal. Beyond that, if their lips are moving, they're lying (IOW, business as usual).
60 days is fine by me.
I'm beginning to lean toward bombing every runway within 500 miles of these countries. Are you listening, Vladimir?
Ezra Klein’s foolish vox.com is a travesty. It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.
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