Texas Ebola Patient Dies 487
BarbaraHudson writes Thomas Duncan, the ebola patient being treated in Texas, has died. "It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in an emailed statement. If he had survived, he could have faced criminal charges in both the US and Liberia for saying on an airport screening questionnaire that he had had no contact with an Ebola patient. UPDATE: Reports of a possible second Ebola victim in Texas are coming in. From the article: "The patient was identified as Sgt. Michael Monning, a deputy who accompanied county health officials Zachary Thompson and Christopher Perkins into the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed in Dallas. The deputy was ordered to go inside the unit with officials to get a quarantine order signed. No one who went inside the unit that day wore protective gear."
He thought she had maliaria, not Ebola (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether he lied or not, some accounts say that he believed the woman he aided had malaria, not Ebola [latimes.com]. And the woman's family themselves may have lied to the people aiding them.
Ultimately, the biggest breakdown occured with the hospital, which was told twice that he had just traveled from Liberia on the first visit, and has since admitted this information was available to all providers. This has caused the tilt to the other extreme, with even the most innocuous cases of fever, adominal distress, and similar, with no travel or other history that would point to Ebola, being handled as such "out of an abundance of caution".
Keep in mind that viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are nothing new in the US. what happens in the United States with other fatal VHFs, that, like Ebola, are only spread via direct contact with bodily fluids and can be easily addressed in first world nations:
Hanta: http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/... [cdc.gov]
Marburg: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe... [cdc.gov]
Lassa: http://www.cdc.gov/media/relea... [cdc.gov]
Hanta is especially on point, as the US typically has dozens of cases -- and dozens of deaths -- each year, all of which are rapidly contained. The cases of "imported" VHFs, like has occurred with Marburg and Lassa, result in identification, isolation, and either the recovery or death of that person -- and that's the end of it.
Also, Ebola is NOT airborne. Ebola researchers will AT MOST say things like:
Peters, whose CDC team studied cases from 27 households that emerged during a 1995 Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo, said that while most could be attributed to contact with infected late-stage patients or their bodily fluids, "some" infections may have occurred via "aerosol transmission."
"Those monkeys were dying in a pattern that was certainly suggestive of coughing and sneezing â" some sort of aerosol movement."
"May". "Suggestive". "Some sort".
Even if we change all of these statements to absolute certainty, it still does not translate to, "Ebola is airborne," in the meaning of "airborne" in the context of disease transmission.
Airborne transmission occurs when a droplet nuclei containing a virus (or bacteria) is small enough (10 μm) occurs when droplets of saliva or mucous (or even blood) containing the virus are projected during a sneeze or cough and and projected directly onto someone's eyes, mouth, or mucous membranes. This kind of transmission is usually within 3', and is NOT considered "airborne" transmission.
"Droplet" transmission can certainly occur with Ebola -- or any disease that spreads via bodily fluids and is present in saliva or mucous. VHFs are not airborne diseases, and a study of one strain where monkeys in adjacent cages sneezed on each other and passed the disease does not make it "airborne".
Being able to get something from having someone sneeze or cough droplets onto you and airborne transmission are very different things.
The quickest way to have a threat of possible airborne transmission of Ebola via mutation would be to not aid Africa in this fight, and let Africa fend for itself, creating an environment where the cases could skyrocket into the millions (due to Africa's infrastructure and inability to deal with the onslaught), thereby increasing the statistical likelihood of the feared airborne mutation -- which, if a foothold were to be gotten in the West as an airborne disease, would truly be a catastrophe worthy of fear and panic.
In reading much of the news coverage, online commentary, and this thread, this article struck me as very relevant:
http://www.nationaljournal [nationaljournal.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The first case of anything is bound to be a surprise. Everyone has their "someone else's problem" fields turned on to full. Something that is a very real possibility seems more like a distant fiction.
Errata: slashdot mangled my reply... (Score:5, Informative)
...when trying to use the carat symbol. Fix here:
Airborne transmission occurs when an droplet nuclei containing a virus (or bacteria) is small enough (under 5 um) to travel on dust particles, and can invisibly hang in the air or travel on air currents in large spaces long after someone has sneezed or coughed, and travel great distances, and can infect when breathed in.
There is NO EVIDENCE that Ebola is, or has been, spread in this way. In fact, the evidence is that Ebola is almost exclusively spread via direct contact with bodily fluids.
Droplet transmission (over 10 um) occurs when droplets of saliva or mucous (or even blood) containing the virus are projected during a sneeze or cough and and projected directly onto someone's eyes, mouth, or mucous membranes. This kind of transmission is usually within 3', and is NOT considered "airborne" transmission.
"Droplet" transmission can certainly occur with Ebola -- or any disease that spreads via bodily fluids and is present in saliva or mucous. VHFs are not airborne diseases, and a study of one strain where monkeys in adjacent cages sneezed on each other and passed the disease does not make it "airborne".
Being able to get something from having someone sneeze or cough droplets onto you and airborne transmission are very different things.
Re: (Score:2)
From the clinic, where she was given an intravenous drip but deteriorated sharply, they were sent to an Ebola treatment unit and then another, at a time when there were no Ebola beds available in the city
If you show up for one thing, and they send you off for treatment of Ebola, it would definitely seem you should be concerned it may be the issue when she died the next day (not complications from the pregnancy)
http: [latimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ebola is airborne (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Different strain, VERY bad source, did not happen through ventilation system. It happened to monkeys in adjacent cages without direct contact, through "some sort" of aerosolized transmission in very close quarters. I.e., droplets.
Fearmongers or people who think "the government" is "lying to stem panic" always trot out this story. It does NOT mean "Ebola is airborne".
It took Africa, with some of the worst healthcare, sanitation, and infrastructure in the world, 10 MONTHS to get to the ~7400 cases there are now. If it were airborne, it would be much, much worse. Ebola is not airborne; stop spreading your bullshit.
Thank you.
Re:Ebola is airborne (Score:4, Interesting)
The "mutation" required to make it an effective aerosol pathogen would shave off 90% of its genome.
That isn't to say that it can't be transmitted by a good sneeze or a cough over the air, but even in those cases- it's not so easy, as again, the virus is rather large, and it takes a certain amount of viral load for an active infection to actually occur.
Re: (Score:2)
If I remember my documentary correct, several of the people who worked there were infected by the airborne ebola but never demonstrated symptoms.
Re: (Score:2)
by infected, I mean tested positive for ebola
The critical question (Score:2, Insightful)
i could make a comment but... (Score:2, Funny)
I'm not going to touch this one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My God, that's a lame joke under most circumstances. Right now, it's borderline offensive.
Capt Tripps (Score:3, Funny)
M-O-O-N ... That spells Ebola!
So much for the patient that we knew about . . . (Score:2)
. . . what about the patient with Ebola, who came to the US from Africa . . . and didn't go to the hospital . . . ?
In other news, another Texas Ebola Case... (Score:2)
It looks like there may be another Texas ebola case. [wfaa.com]
Airborne Mutation Remains Greatest Fear! (Score:3)
Probably the biggest concern is the possibility of a mutation occurring that would allow the virus to go airborne.
Were that to happen, you are then looking at every SciFi/Fantasy end-of-days horror movie fan's highlight reel. The Stand meets Outbreak with a dash of The Walking Dead minus the zombies. The government bombing population centers in a vain attempt to contain th...
No, wait that's what CNN wants you to believe to drive click traffic and Geico commercial video pre-rolls.
Disinfectant hand washing and passenger screening will stop this. But that doesn't boost web traffic CPM, so let's sell the worst case scenarios. It's crucially important for everyone in the sound of my voice to believe we're all going to die from a horrible wasting hemorrhagic fever, melting like the wax nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Give us dirty laundry.
Cost of treatment? (Score:3, Interesting)
send some marines to kill a virus (Score:2)
Barney (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, the best part of this sad and frightening story of Ebola in Texas is that the second Ebola patient was one of the sheriff's deputies who was the first to enter the house of the first patient. When offered protective gear, he declined, and entered the man's apartment without gloves, or even a facemask. Being Texas, he probably had his gun drawn, figuring that if he saw any Ebola he'd just shoot that sumbitch.
The over/under on when Texas goes full Walking Dead is now Thanksgiving. If there's one place that's not going to do will in an Ebola outbreak, it's a state where no goddamn government scientist is gonna tell me I gotta wear a facemask. Plus, post-Darwin biology is not really their strong suit, so it's doubtful they even believe there's such a thing as a "virus". I'm betting the churches and gun shops are gonna be doing big business in the coming weeks. Well, they're already doing big business, but you know what I mean.
I understand that (and I'm not joking) that in the past days Alex Jones has been talking about home remedies for Ebola that the government doesn't want you to know about.
Re: (Score:3)
You know, I was halfway joking, but here we go...
"Is The Government Orchestrating The Ebola Crisis To Confiscate Guns?"
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2... [mediamatters.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Dallas is not a backwater (Score:3)
Dallas is a major, cosmopolitan, city with one of the world's busiest international airports. It is inevitable that at some point someone with a life-threatening and contagious disease will come to such a city. I'm sure it has happened before and that it will again.
I'm not a medical professional, but to my untutored eye the preparedness of Dallas' medical professionals is tragically lacking. It seems the original patient's first contact with the medical system was mishandled, the family were reportedly treated badly and now a sheriff's deputy has contracted the disease.
It's not enough to just offer the guy gloves, he needed good advice and someone to ensure he followed it (I'll bet he got neither).
If Dallas' medical profession is going to conduct itself in this way, then maybe African airports should consider closing to mitigate the risk of contagion from Dallas
Bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
All the internet Einsteins said, as with the government's statement, Ebola simply couldn't reach America. Then, that even when it reached America, we had the means to keep it spreading to anyone, because the only way to get it is to basically give a victim a blowjob and swallow at the end, because it's very difficult to contract and those filthy heathens that aren't in America only spread the disease, because they liked to drink and bathe in the bathwater of dead Ebola victims and that every precaution anyone might suggest in this country was just the result of ignorant fear-mongering. Are you telling me all of these junior-college keyboard-geniuses are *gasp* possibly wrong?
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. Aid workers from the US could return if they go through quarantine. And throughout that process they would receive our best medical care. However, having unrestricted travel between countries when there is a plague on the loose is moronic.
Moronic... an opinion morons have.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrong. Aid workers from the US could return if they go through quarantine. And throughout that process they would receive our best medical care. However, having unrestricted travel between countries when there is a plague on the loose is moronic.
Moronic... an opinion morons have.
Really? You don't think the people that want to get to the United States are going to travel somewhere else first and then simply go to the US from there? Thus, if they are infected, spreading the disease even further? Or simply trek to the nearest nation they can travel around from?
Call names all you want, that seems to be the method employed by the people promoting the travel ban option. That and batshit insane fear mongering.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus other countries establish quarantine procedures.
Are you literally slower on the uptake here then an ignorant medieval city state prince? Because even they were able to connect these dots.
The whole region needs to be quarantined.
The issue is not travel restrictions to the US, though that is of course relevant as well. The issue is rather controlling population into and out of the hot zone to prevent the further spread of the infection.
Yes provide assistence. Yes aid workers. Yes work on a vaccine.
However, in the meantime do not fuck around with this disease and just assume you can kiss it on the mouth, give it tongue, and then expect to not die horribly shortly there after.
This disease is a proven killer. Show it some respect. That is all I am saying here. We are dealing with something dangerous. Like dealing with fire arms, explosives, toxic chemicals, or psychopaths. There are protocols. Please follow a couple.
What I am seeing is people play hackysack with granades and occasionally blow their fucking legs off... And that would really be just fine only that analogy ultimately includes my legs and the legs of my friends and family. The disease has not spread much beyond west africa at this point. We have isolated incidents beyond that but very few incidents of the disease actively spreading outside of west africa. That is good.
We cannot help the west africans if the disease spreads in the US or infects south america. If that happens our resources will focus internally. We will abandon the west africans entirely.
If you care about them you will first ensure that our own safety is secured. If our safety is threatened we will turtle and anyone that says otherwise will not be able to sustain their position politically.
You do not have a choice here. This is another lead/follow/get out of the way situation. You can either take the issue seriously. Follow the direction of those that wish to take it seriously. Or stand aside. One of these three things is happening.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
We cannot help the west africans if the disease spreads in the US or infects south america.
Certainly not true. This means we would spend more resources on a cure.
Re: (Score:3)
half truth... we'd work on a cure to save ourselves... however, we'd probably have to deploy the national guard to the southern border because you might have millions of people trying to stream across if a pandemic broke out.
in any case, the point is that if our own safety is threatened, we'll act to protect ourselves first. That is what you do in a plague. First you keep your own house in order.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 1: Track all travel paths. This already happens. Did somebody's travel originate in a high-risk place for ebola?
Step 2: Take them from the airport to quarantine if they manage to make it to the states. Hopefully that won't happen because...
Step 1.5: They will have been denied boarding without medical clearance or quarantined at a layover.
Some will argue that the region should be locked down. It should. Others will argue that free enough travel is necessary to provide aide and let people escape before they're infected. It should. These are not mutually contradictory options. Nobody goes into those regions except medical personnel and nobody comes out without being cleared. This isn't rocket science, and it shouldn't take an event of black plague proportions to make obvious decisions.
If people could cut the crap and use their heads instead of seizing on opportunities to argue for their ego's sake in just one instance for our entire lives, then this needs to be it. And if people have complaints about being told rudely that they're thinking like morons then maybe they should stop thinking like morons. Politeness exists so that undeserving insult or correction doesn't happen, not so that people can't be told when they have body odor (so-to-speak).
If I'm being a moron, please let me know so I can correct that. When it comes to mass life or death, it's more important to actually BE correct than to enjoy warm fuzzies and self-congratulation for looking correct. This isn't a damn game of "Let's see who looks smart on the Internet." This is a matter of, "Let's see if we can stop being morons long enough to stay alive."
That's not Conservative at all (Score:3)
When disasters hit the job of a citizen is to get off their arse and prevent their neighbours from dying AS PART of keeping that little cutie safe - in fact you can't keep that cutie safe unless someone is working to make sure that there is food and water getting in for her. It means precautions, protective gear and being co-ordinated by whatever
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, yes. That's because it's not been able to spread here until this man was allowed to fly across the Atlantic carrying it.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Funny)
Yes and more people have died of heart disease then were killed in WW2. So if there is a world war... just keep that in mind... we can ignore it and just focus all efforts on heart disease.
I'm not sure if you're a chat bot pretending to a person or if you are really that stupid... either way... you're a one man example of how easy it would be to replace some people with machines. Less because the machines are so clever and more because some people are so fucking stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, no.
Deaths from Ebola this year alone are in the 3500 range.
Firearms deaths in the USA (including suicides, which account for >60% of firearms fatalities in the USA), average about 2800 per month.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Insightful)
In the US, more poeple have died of gunshot wounds in the last month than have died from Ebola since it was discovered. Let's not talk about rational, effective responses from conservatives.
Yes, and far more people die every in the US from being beaten to death by killers using fists and blunt instruments than have died by killers using rifles of any kind, let alone the small number that involved scary looking rifles with black plastic parts on them. So what? Someone deciding to kill someone else - with a knife, a pipe, a gun, or their bare hands - isn't nearly as common as stupid kids killing themselves and others in cars, but mostly: it's an active decision. There's no comparing that to an outbreak of an ugly infectious disease, especially one with a high mortality rate that can kill you weeks after pick it up from someone's spit on a doorknob.
You want rational responses to both topics? OK, don't let violent criminals out of jail. Don't tolerate the existence of violent gangs like MS13 in our cities, and stop making it so politically incorrect to lock up crazy people who are plainly dangerous. And of couse, find ways to reduce one of the largest sources of death-by-gun stats, which is suicide - like, make Oregon's option more widely available. And in the meantime, work globally to stop travel out of West Africa until their outbreak problem is under control.
Re: (Score:2)
And appreciate that what we know about gun wounds is historical while Ebola's effects will be the subject of a future announcement.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Informative)
The incredibly high case fatality rate.
That tends to get one's attention, it does.
Re: (Score:3)
this is kind of overwhelming in relation to just about every norm form of influenza
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
We don't normally kiss birds.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Informative)
Location of infection.
Lack of control of infected population.
Number of people killed.
Mortality rate of those infected.
Basically everything is different. I'm struggling to understand why you think they're the same.
Bird flue has killed fewer then 200 and is contained. Ebola has killed more then 3000 and is not.
Math is hard.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Bird flue has killed fewer then 200 and is contained. Ebola has killed more then 3000 and is not.
Math is hard.
Swine flu has killed hundreds of thousands in the current global epidemic (not contained), and at least 50 million the previous time (1918).
Ebola has a lot of catching up to do.
Re: (Score:3)
The only way you get to that number is by going back to an outbreak from 1918 which was one of the worst viral outbreaks in modern history.
So you're right... it isn't a complete fucking disaster yet that has claimed 100 million lives.
So automatically we should just french kiss people with the disease and then cough in the face of every new person we meet. Because this isn't something that should be taken seriously.
We don't get outbreaks like that anymore BECAUSE we have quarantine procedures. Your attitude
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Informative)
Not true. Ebola is not infectious until it is symptomatic. That, with the long lead time to becoming symptomatic makes it easier to contain. Just monitor anyone who was in contact with a sufferer for at least 21 days. if they become symptomatic, then quarantine else leave them be.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Interesting)
Who said anything about forcing other countries to do anything? And as to burning bridges, do you really want to get into the whole "democrat vs republican" thing in this thread?
I mean is that all you political tools are able to do at this point? Are you brains so hardwired into this pathetic US vs THEM mentality that EVERYTHING turns into a proxy fight in your pathetic struggle against your very similar rival?
This has nothing to do with the ongoing joke which is the Obama presidency or the ongoing joke which is the republican party. It has everything to do with there being a "plague".
What is being asked here is nothing extreme. Just basic quarantine procedures. You know, the things we learned to do with diseases when we stopped being ignorant savages that didn't understand microbes.
If this breaks out the aid the west Africans are currently getting will be GONE. It will all shift to internal defense faster then you can snap your fingers. Gone. So if you want to help these people as I do... first make sure we don't have cause to refocus those resources.
Re: (Score:3)
It's at least theoretically possible for this to become a general pandemic. Some consequences absolutely follow, IF it does:
1. If it's out of control in the US, it's out of control in Europe and Asia as well.
2. If it's a general pandemic, nobody will provide any more aid to any part of the current region that shows even sub-epidemic levels of spreading. The whole rest of the world will be dealing with the problem in their own backyard, unless and until someone gets a real breakthrough. In a pandemic, it won
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. Aid workers from the US could return if they go through quarantine. And throughout that process they would receive our best medical care. However, having unrestricted travel between countries when there is a plague on the loose is moronic.
Moronic... an opinion morons have.
Really? You don't think the people that want to get to the United States are going to travel somewhere else first and then simply go to the US from there? Thus, if they are infected, spreading the disease even further? Or simply trek to the nearest nation they can travel around from?
Call names all you want, that seems to be the method employed by the people promoting the travel ban option. That and batshit insane fear mongering.
Or...you know....look at their travel history before letting them in the US. Isn't that the job of customs at the airports?
Re: (Score:2)
Or...you know....look at their travel history before letting them in the US. Isn't that the job of customs at the airports?
This guy lied on his entry paperwork, so how would that work out for tracking them?
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to play devil's advocate here for a moment:
This guy knew he had been in the hot zone and may have been exposed, and was trying to get back to the US. So his options were
Now, if he had not actually contracted ebola, he was likely to live in either case, (a) just would have been more inconvenient. But if (as was the case) he really did have ebola, then he would have seen (a) as suicide, and (b) as a small but measurable chance to live, given the quality of health care facilities in the US.
So, he had quite an incentive to lie about his exposure, didn't he? I'm clearly not condoning it, but... that's quite a catch, that catch-22.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
An Ebola outbreak in the US is undesirable by pretty much everybody here, except maybe for people with stock in the companies producing cures and vaccines.
Travel bans seem entirely reasonable to me. If aid workers want to go over and help, then by all means we should have some sort of quarantine procedure in place so we can get them home. But we don't need Joe Schmoe going over there, getting infected, and bringing it back with him. It's an unnecessary risk, just as it is unnecessary to take a leisure trip to Liberia in the middle of an epidemic.
I am a little surprised that noone is fear mongering about someone intentionally spreading Ebola. It seems like the perfect thing to let loose in a country you are at odds with, whether you are another country or a terrorist organization.
Re: (Score:3)
An Ebola outbreak in the US is undesirable by pretty much everybody here, except maybe for people with stock in the companies producing cures and vaccines.
An Ebola outbreak in the US is also pretty much impossible. Listen to the experts, people: it's not a highly infectious disease. Lack of first world hygiene standards is the reason it's spreading all over certain parts of Africa. The virus isn't even airborne, you have to come in direct contact with the person who is sick or with their bodily fluids.
If Sgt. Monning caught Ebola, is because we've committed the absolutely stupid act of allowing people to go in to a patient's apartment, where he likely was
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Funny)
So.....basically you should attend burning man?
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
US doctrine on the intentional use of biological weapons of mass distruction is to respond with the only WMDs in our arsenal - that is Thermonuclear Devices. Anyone deploying such a biological would presumably kill a similarly large number of Russian, Chinese, Indian and Western European citizens, and all those governments have roughly similar doctrines, (except for the story I can't confirm that a Soviet era ambassador once claimed to his Chinese counterpart that official doctrine of the USSR was to make any language group or religion that released such a bio-weapon literally extinct, down to bayonetting individual 1 year olds). The US cold war era Project Pluto was only seriously considered as a response to some projected Bio-weapons and not just nukes, Israel was rumored to have developed cobalt jackets for a few of its warheads in response to rumors of Iranian bio-labs (although that rumor may just be something started by a Tom Clancy novel). Presumably anyone funding ISIL (or whatever they are calling themselves this week), does not want to risk every nuclear armed state in the entire world going literally ballistic.
One point in all this that few get. The researchers and theoreticians discussing a weaponized version of Ebola or Smallpox were postulating an airborne hardened virus with such lethality that they could stop saying Megadeaths and start using the Giga- prefix. Current research shows pretty clearly that such a weapon is very unlikely. Ebola isn't the type of virus that's close enough to airborne to make the jump, and getting a smallpox variant that overcomes the existing vaccinated population's resistances seems equally a very hard problem. I doubt such an attack as you're suggesting would kill more than, say 300 million, world wide, tops. Maybe the various nuclear armed nations wouldn't go to a nuclear response, or even conventional full scale war (yeah, right!) It's not like the US got all stirred up about the "mere" 2,996 casualties of 9/11, right? The only real risk of ISIL (or whatever) doing anything this totally insane is if they somehow believe the great powers would all limit themselves to careful, deliberate, reasoned responses in the face of an indescriminately inflicted act of total barbarity that killed the elderly and young disproportionately and destroyed the world's economies and afflicted every nation of that world regardless of whether they were on ISIL's enemies list or not. My own bet is the UN resolution would pass unanimously among all members not implicated, and start with "Purge the sub-human scum with cleansing nuclear fire, unto their last generation", and go to STRONG language from there. The NATO powers would jump the gun before the resolution was finalized, only to find out that Israel had already launched against everybody else in the Middle East, India had already moved against Pakistan, and the Russians had already gone to war against every adjacent "stan" they suspected of harboring ISIL sympathizers. (And the Republican party would blame all of this on Obama).
Re: (Score:2)
Really? You don't think the people that want to get to the United States are going to travel somewhere else first and then simply go to the US from there?
That's already what they do because there are no direct flights between the region and the US. It's not that hard to check a passport before letting someone board a plane.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Interesting)
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07... [cnn.com]
It is nearly impossible to estimate how many U.S. citizens have dual -- or even triple -- citizenships, says Michael A. Olivas, an immigration professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
[...]
The number is likely well over 1 million, he says, and is probably several times that.
So, I can use one passport to go in and out of Cuba, Africa, Iraq, or wherever, and use the US passport for going in and out of the USA. How would they track that?
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:4, Interesting)
When it comes to life-threatening problems, 90% solutions are great solutions. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
When trying to "close the borders" a 90% solution is not much better than a 10% solution.
Actually, it dramatically is. Eliminating 90% of a risk is better than eliminating 0% of a risk. Approximately 8000 carriers (though about half that number are dead) in a large population covering several west African states. If you eliminate 90% of those traveling to and from west Africa (only about 1/3 of which travel to the United States) back down to 0.1 persons infected. I'll take a 10% risk that ONE person with Ebola manages to get through. With no meaningful procedures in place we already have 10x that rate -- or precisely what a quarantine or travel ban is set to eliminate.
Re: (Score:2)
We could call this document a "Passport".
Didn't Microsoft trademark that a while ago?
Re:The Conservative Option (Score:5, Insightful)
A deadly plague is a small price to pay to be able to say we're not racists.
Re: (Score:3)
Bring out your dead!
Bring out your dead!
Re: (Score:2)
One should clarify exactly what the plague is before you propose such measures. This is not the black plague. This is not the Spanish flu, and this is not SARS.
What those had in common was the relative ease in which the diseases spread. The black plague was a victim of it's time and would be much more like ebola in this case.
Ebola is a virus that is only transmitted by direct bodily fluids of someone who is actively showing symptoms of the virus. Prevention is as simple as practicing basic hygiene like wash
Re: (Score:3)
Says the guy in the Slashdot thread about the LEO who go infected just by walking inside the house.
What? The only infected person in the US died earlier today--that's what this Slashdot article is about. Where does anything say that the LEO is infected? He doesn't even have the classic symptoms of Ebola, and neither do any of the people who the Ebola victim was staying with. The LEO just felt a bit sick, so he decided to go to the hospital just in case, but it's extremely unlikely that he caught Ebola--he was in the apartment 4 days after the Ebola victim was taken to the hospital, and he didn't touch an
Re: (Score:2)
The conservatives seem to want to turtle and ban all travel from those nations.
The Republicans just want to oppose and criticize whatever Obama is doing. If Obama banned travel, they would be protesting about that, and insisting that flights continue. If Bush was still president, the Democrats would be complaining about whatever he was doing.
Re: (Score:2)
McCain probably wants to napalm Africa.
Re: (Score:2)
I have very little sympathy for a man that lied on a form and endangered the health and lives of many, many people. Hopefully no one else turns up infected and the threat he posed is over.
I hear that there is already another patient in Dallas which would have been infected by Duncan. I hope I'm wrong.
We are waiting for the news conference right now.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
i find it strange that people seem to think that even if he knew, he must be doing it on purpose.
some people just go into denial if something like that (that is likely to kill you) happens
others just completely get blocked mentally and don't dare to tell the truth because they know what will then happen.
We're not talking about robots that just without emotions can say yes or no you know.
people don't always lie because they're evil masterminds bent on infecting the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Being in denial is often quite fairly equated with being an asshole.
Re: (Score:2)
Benefits could be my student loan balance.
Re:Ah yes... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a lot of high-tech going on wrt ebola. Just look at the efforts to predict its spread using different models. These models could eventually bias the debate over whether extreme measures such as total border closures should be taken. Then there's the race to test different medications, and as was pointed out in an earlier article, the ethical questions surrounding control groups, with only a partial solution being the step wedge (giving different people the same treatment at different times).
Only 774 people died in the last SARS epidemic. We're already way, way beyond that, with no end in sight.
This is a human disaster unfolding as we watch, and at least a few of us here are still humans.
Re: (Score:2)
There a probably a few posters here who do have some valuable insights they could offer, but again this story is stretching the bounds of relevance as it has more to
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously why did you comment?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
slashdot isn't the only website on the net, it doesnt need to cover _everything_.
Re:Ah yes... (Score:5, Informative)
Some have wondered why President Obama is sending 3,000 American troops to Africa, when it would make more sense to send 3,000 medical workers instead.
Troops are being sent because unprotected aid workers are being butchered to death. Also, troops are really good at logistics, like setting up field hospitals - something desperately needed in the rush to try to contain the spread of the disease.
Re:Ah yes... (Score:5, Informative)
Troops are being sent because unprotected aid workers are being butchered to death.
In addition, many of those troops are medical workers.
Re: Ah yes... (Score:2)
The military has troops trained and equipped for exactly this. That's who they're sending.
Re: (Score:2)
Troops are being sent because unprotected aid workers are being butchered to death
I wonder how true this is. I've heard a lot about massacred aid workers. Raids on hospitals. "Natives" deliberately exposing themselves to bloody corpses and generally acting like superstitious chimpanzees.
I heard about all of these things from the mainstream American and British news media, just as you probably did.
In fact, I heard about them on the same news programs that told me that you can only catch Ebola by fellating
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
It's going to turn into a racist issue and/or a malpractice suit.
Already is... Jessy Jackson showed up in Dallas YESTERDAY, even before Duncan died, to get the ball rolling on that.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but for now, it's not that easy to contract Ebola. Assuming we don't overwhelm the healthcare system here and can effectively isolate all known cases it's not going to be very bad. Assuming we can keep secondary infections to a minimum, we can likely keep it under wraps. Should Ebola go airborne and pass like the flu, then prepare for the destruction of a healthy percentage of the world's population.
Re: (Score:2)
Never let facts get in the way of a good ol' xenophobic rant. ;-)
Re:21 day incubation period... (Score:5, Insightful)
On average, 12.5% of the US population will get the flu in a year. That amounts to 39,500,000 individuals getting the flu. 50,000 people means the mortality rate of flu is 0.126% of cases. We have had 1 death due to ebola with 1 case of infection that was not intentionally tranfered to the US for treatment. That's a 100% mortality rate with current non-intentional US cases. Ebola's average mortality rate is 50% though it varies between 25-90% depending on the outbreak studied.
I think a little perspective is certainly justified.
Re: (Score:3)
You mention all of the relevent numbers but then fail to see their significance. It's HARD to get Ebola in a country with modern sanitation systems. Yes, if 12% of the population catches Ebola we're screwed. But they wont.
Numbers are meaningless these days (Score:2)
Assessing things in a rational way is just sooo 20th century (or may 19th even). These days people want to have their lowest instincts confirmed and will pick everything that does the trick and then will stop looking. The 21th century will be the century of believing. Of course being rational would be the only way out of the mess we have created but since we created this mess by being not rational I doubt very much we will change now.
Now, Ebola. Ebola is more like HIV than the flu when it comes to catching
Re:Numbers are meaningless these days (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you read TFA? This deputy walked into the apartment after the patient had left, in order to get a decontamination warrant signed. Without protective gear. And he caught it. Apparently it's significantly more contagious than HIV. When's the last time you heard that an HIV victim's apartment or ambulance had to be completely decontaminated by people in level 4 bio-hazard gear?
Re: (Score:2)
Ebola has mortality rate of 50% according the WHO and there is no vaccine. The mortality rate of typical flu is .1% .
Re: (Score:2)
Current estimates say that upwards of 700,000 Liberians will die of Ebola before this outbreak is contained, out of a population of 4.5 million. If, as some research has suggested, survivors can become reservoirs for the disease, you'll have an additional 700,000 mostly health and mobile disease carriers for at least a few months afterward. The odds of a full blown outbreak in a major western country are slim, because it's hard to spread and relatively easily contained. But we will not be returning to th
Re: (Score:2)
thats pretty much how ebola works too, poor hydration is what kills you. whatever caused inadequate hydration can be anything, from poor care to weakened organism.
call it "ebola related death" if that tickles your fancy.
Re: (Score:3)
The flu kills people who are already sick (or elderly or infants) before they got the flu.
Ebola kills people who are perfectly healthy at the time of infection.
Which you certainly knew, but just decided to be deceptive about.
Re: (Score:2)
the flu kills plenty of people who are _apparently_ perfectly healthy.
but we're digressing, the original theses i was objecting to was that somehow restricting immigration was going to help to save lives. and that is simply asinine.
Re: (Score:3)
This is false. The most dangerous flu variants kill healthy people in their prime.
>Which you certainly knew, but just decided to be deceptive about.
Awesome to see someone who's spreading falsehoods call someone who's telling the truth "deceptive."
Re: (Score:2)
because big gov't == BAD
Why did you use a test, and not an assignment operator?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to check your temperature. You're clearly delirious.
Travel much?