I’ve decided if people here want to live their lives scared to death of things that have almost no chance of happening, that is their choice. If they want to think that they are going to catch Ebola wandering through their daily lives, you aren’t going to convince them otherwise.
Meanwhile, somehow Duncan’s entire family and friends seem to have avoided getting sneezed on, with only two nurses involved in his end-care and handling of highly infected bodily fluids getting the disease.
If Ebola ever actually became Airborne, we’d know it by the hundreds of thousands of Africans who suddenly became infected. Then you’d see real panic.
What IS clear is that the CDC is completely unprepared to handle a REAL infectious disease. We need congress to completely zero out the CDC current spending budget, and impose a NEW budget that funds ONLY infectious disease prevention.
Because there ARE diseases that spread easily, and are one mutation away from being deadly or becoming resistant to our antibiotics. And THAT is the real threat, not Ebola that can’t manage to kill 10,000 people in a backwards 3rd-world country where they actually handle their dead bodies for burial without any protection.
The first time ebola hit a somewhat populated area in Africa, infections and deaths skyrocketed. Dismissing the possibility it can take off in NYNY with the most mobile population on the planet is ignorant.
“If Ebola ever actually became Airborne, we’d know it by the hundreds of thousands of Africans who suddenly became infected.”
Finally, some sense and reason. Almost exactly what I said weeks ago.
“What IS clear is that the CDC is completely unprepared to handle a REAL infectious disease.”
So far the CDC has managed to limit perhaps the worlds most deadly disease[a single microscopic virus can infect] in America to two cases of infection(in America) and no deaths. By “REAL infectious” disease, I am taking it that you mean a currently non-existent highly deadly, AIRBORNE disease. You may be right. The CDC is dealing with known diseases.
The US already has many infectious diseases. Influenza and pneumonia are one of the leading causes of deaths. Is that due to CDC incompetence? I don’t think so. They are trying to encourage healthy lifestyle and vaccination for prevention. What are they supposed to do? The average American, contrary to all scientific evidence and good sense eats:
Too much food
Too much fat (especially saturated and added fats
Too much sugar
Too little nutrition
Too many environmental poisons
And 70% are taking some form of prescription drugs, and many more are taking over-the-counter drugs. Then there is alcoholism and illegal drugs.
It is the American people who are completely unprepared for a REAL infectious disease.
Honestly I think the CDC does a good job. The problem is they’re in the same boat anti-terrorism and hurricane predictors are in: they will miss eventually and that’s all anybody pays attention to. In the end in a world made this small by convenient travel, with a people that are fond of clustering into dense population zones, diseases will happen, they will spread, and they will kill people. It can’t be prevented entirely, but we can work to educate, we can work to find cures, we can work to find vaccines, we can work to control the outbreaks. Which is why they’re named what they’re named.