The CDC Is Carefully Controlling How Scared You Are About Ebola 478
HughPickens.com writes: Russell Berman reports in The Atlantic that the Obama administration is trying to navigate a tricky course: Can officials increase public vigilance about the deadly Ebola virus without inciting a panic? "Ebola is scary. It's a deadly disease. But we know how to stop it," says Dr. Thomas Frieden, the CDC director. speaking "calmly and clearly, sticking to an even pitch and avoiding the familiar political image of the whip-smart fast-talker." International groups wanted the U.S. to step in sooner to help fight the outbreak in west Africa, while more recently some Republicans have called on the administration to ban travel from the most affected countries.
Frieden and other officials say such a move would be counterproductive, citing lessons learned from the SARS outbreak a decade ago. "The SARS outbreak cost the world more than $40 billion, but it wasn't to control the outbreak," says Frieden. "Those were costs from unnecessary and ineffective travel restrictions and trade changes that could have been avoided." The government announced Wednesday that it was stepping up protective measures at five airports, where authorities will screen travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea with targeted questions and fever checks, an action, officials acknowledge, that was taken not only to stop the spread of the disease but simply to make people feel safer. According to Berman, the message is this: Be afraid of Ebola. Just not too afraid.
Frieden and other officials say such a move would be counterproductive, citing lessons learned from the SARS outbreak a decade ago. "The SARS outbreak cost the world more than $40 billion, but it wasn't to control the outbreak," says Frieden. "Those were costs from unnecessary and ineffective travel restrictions and trade changes that could have been avoided." The government announced Wednesday that it was stepping up protective measures at five airports, where authorities will screen travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea with targeted questions and fever checks, an action, officials acknowledge, that was taken not only to stop the spread of the disease but simply to make people feel safer. According to Berman, the message is this: Be afraid of Ebola. Just not too afraid.
Increased public vigilance?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Increased public vigilance?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Be aware of travelers to west central Africa in your life. Make competent decisions about whether you, yourself should go there. Go to your doctor for any suspicious illness if you have any reason to believe you're exposed at all.
You know, nothing major.
Re:Increased public vigilance?? (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to swing by West Central Africa on my way back from my vacation to Syria. Thanks for the warning!
Re:Increased public vigilance?? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you work in an ER and someone comes in sweating and vomiting with a history of travel to Liberia... yes? Is that too much to ask? We just had medical professionals send someone home with classic Ebola symptoms and a history of travel in highly infected regions because of a total lack of vigilance.
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Yep, especially when they deny all of the screening questions.. That's helpful.
It's also helpful to understand that the Dallas case was the FIRST field infection in the US (as opposed to the patients with known Ebola that were transferred here for further care). It just wasn't on the radar. Nobody's perfect, least of all a busy ER doc with someone who could well have a ;typical; viral illness. I don't know why he was sent home on antibiotics - that seems a bit sloppy (although the doc might have seen so
He didn't deny them in the hospital. (Score:5, Informative)
[Hospital sent home the ebola patient in Dallas, though he had classic ebola symptoms and had traveled to Liberia.]
Yep, especially when they deny all of the screening questions.. That's helpful.
He denied the screening questions at the airport. ('Let's see. If I answer yes you won't let me fly and will throw me in with everybody else who answered yes. Of COURSE I didn't have contact with Ebola!)
He DIDN'T deny the questions at the hospital. They knew he'd been to Liberia recently. But their bureaucracy didn't get that info to the person who made the release decision.
Re:He didn't deny them in the hospital. (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFM - in a computerized system, the nurses enter some information about the patient, but that information is not relayed back to the screen that the doctor sees.
Brilliant.
That also explains why we have to repeat to the doctor(s) everything we just repeated to all the attending nurses.
Re:Increased public vigilance?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, yes. Then if you see one call the public health authorities.
Common sense? Sure, but you'd be surprised at the degree to which what you'd think was common sense flies out the window when people encounter the unexpected.
In my experience what people do when confornted with the unexpected is take their cue from what other people around them are doing, and if that's nothing, they'll try to ignore whatever it is. I've even seen that happen with FIRE ALARMS. Instead of getting up and leaving, they look to see what other people are doing. And since those other people are doing the same thing, nobody is leaving. They're looking at each other, wondering whether that really IS a fire alarm. I once had to stick my head in the room on my way out and tell the people there that yes, it really is a fire alarm and they have to leave right away.
If people have been recently primed then perhaps they're more likely to do something reasonable. Of course that sometimes means lots more false positives, but that's a tradeoff.
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You know when it comes to racism, people say: "I don't care if they're black, white, purple or green"... Ooh, hold on now: Purple or Green? You gotta draw the line somewhere! To hell with purple people! - Unless they're suffocating - then help'em.
- Mitch Hedberg
Ebola threat (Score:5, Interesting)
Airborne Ebola would be a serious problem. What we have with the current epidemic is an education/sanitation problem, not a disease problem.
Re:Ebola threat (Score:5, Insightful)
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It doesn't take outlandish behavior (like corpse water drinking) for this disease to spread.
Yes, but proper behavior will easily stop it. To quote the CDC director (did you read the summary?), "we know how to stop it."
Re:Ebola threat (Score:5, Insightful)
We do know how to put a stop to it, it's quite easy, all it takes is bio-containment level 4 procedures, that should be easy to slap together in every international airport, seaport, and border crossing to the US. Look, I'm not going to fear monger here, but the fact is that if significant numbers of infected individuals start traveling around the globe we will not be able to maintain containment for long, even with all the resources that ultra-rich 1st world countries have at their disposal. How many beds do you think there are in the entire US that can safely treat Ebola ? I'd be shocked if it's over 1,000 and if the situation in western Africa doesn't change we will very soon see Ebola victims numbering in the millions (by the CDC's own estimates, 1.4 million by the end of January).
We need to stop pretending that Ebola is no easier to catch than HIV or other pathogens that are carried by the same bodily fluids, those diseases don't typically cause you to leak and eject the infected material all over yourself and the room you are in. A nurse in Spain got sick after possibly touching her face while removing her hazmat suit, when was the last time you heard about someone catching HIV the same way? This whole idea that Ebola is so hard to spread you'd have to be stupid to catch it needs to stop; it's wrong and it's dangerous and it leads to wonderful things like people not bothering to put on gloves and mask to go into a confirmed Ebola patient's apartment (thankfully that deputies tests have come back negative).
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Why do you say ebola is harder to spread than the flu? They use the same infection vectors, contaminated droplett method, and have similar hardiness when it comes to survival outside of a host body. We use influenza vaccinations but we do not have ebola vaccines. In the absense of behavior alteration we should see higher infection rates of ebola compared against influenza.
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probably because half the hosts die.
Re:Ebola threat (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to stop pretending that Ebola is no easier to catch than HIV or other pathogens that are carried by the same bodily fluids
It spreads easier than AIDS, but not as easily as the flue. Because of the way it spreads, it's easy to contain. Look, I'm not the only one saying this here, the head of CDC said it too, if you had even read the summary. But MozeeToby on the internet is worried, so we should all freak out?
The parent is right. Level 4 containment is exactly what the CDC mandates themselves in order to even study this virus or warehouse it. If it were "easy" to contain, you sure as hell wouldn't have those kinds of insanely expensive precautions being taken to store it in a jar.
And I sure as hell hope you're not eating those "easy to contain" words 6 months from now.
And the head of the CDC is like any other elected official. They are not there to start a panic during a crisis, so regardless of the seriousness of it, they are going to downplay it to a level just below widespread speculation and panic, even if the concerns are actually far greater.
Re:Ebola threat (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy to contain?
Say you have a breakout and spread among the US population. The emergency room starts getting people with fever and stomach ache. What do you do? Put them in quarantine? Fine.
Ok, now we've exhausted the 10 beds at the hospital that are usable for quarantine. We've still got 150 patients with symptoms in the emergency room. Put them all in the same room? Maybe only one or two have ebola. Can't put them in one room, then they'll all get ebola if a few had it. No rooms for individual isolation. Send them home? Violations of curfews will be common, police won't be itching to babysit every emergency room visitor. That won't contain it once we're reaching that number of cases.
Now we know there's 150 patients with potential ebola. That will get us another 5000 patients with the symptoms in the emergency room. Quarantine them? No place. Send them home? And we go another round.
There is no way western medicine has any chance at all to contain any sustained outbreak. It isn't a matter of knowing how to prevent spread, it's a matter of sheer numbers making those measures ineffective and the fact that potential patients will know that most hospitals can't do anything for more than a few patients with sepsis at a time which means that you're better off hydrating at home, hoping you don't actually have ebola and not risking getting exposed to other possible ebola infectees in an emergency room.
To have a serious chance at containment after any significant breakout removes travel history as a useful major red-flag there will have to be really good treatment or a cure or the rational choice for any individual having the fairly common symptoms simply won't be to go to the hospital.
Re:Ebola threat (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ebola threat (Score:4, Insightful)
People with fevers sweat, they cough, they sneeze. Droplet transmission is a serious threat, especially in cramped conditions. No licking necessary. But then you throw children in the mix, and there will be licking and mouthing of potentially contaminated items. And sick kids that want to be held by mommy or daddy, and will sneeze directly in their face.
Not saying that we have reason to panic now, but it is fatuous to dismiss the very real challenges of effective containment once the disease becomes endemic to a particular population.
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Except that people don't cough and sneeze because of symptoms. Each are distinct set of symptoms that match a distinct virus.
This should be especially important to you since sneezing and coughing are not Ebola symptoms. Now there's no reason someone with Ebola couldn't also have Influenza or a common cold but Ebola patients don't normally have symptoms that involve spreading the disease throughout the room.
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Excellent. Thanks for the link.
COMMENTARY: Health workers need optimal respiratory protection for Ebola [umn.edu]
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Re:Ebola threat (Score:5, Insightful)
And, if she was wearing any sort of face mask and eye protection (like you are supposed to do), nothing untoward would have happened.
Contact precautions aren't particularly hard, but they do require a significant degree of vigilance which is not a human being's strong point.
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Re:Ebola threat (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhh, she was in the process of undressing...
Then, correct procedures weren't followed.
For any truly infectious disease, proper procedure would have health care workers walk into a disinfectant shower (and possibly UV light) before removing protective clothes. Any disease that can survive that sort of thing is going to kill us all anyway.
Then, order of removal is important. In general, headgear is removed first (preferably by another person), then outer gloves, then fasteners released and gear removed, then inner gloves. All this is followed by hand washing (at a minimum). This makes sure that easier paths to infection get as little possible contact from anything that might have had contact with the pathogen.
The nurse screwed up by touching her face with her outer glove, and I suspect that disinfectant showers/UV were not done first.
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Curious... How do you remove the second glove?
With some practice, it is possible to remove the first glove only half-way, then use it to remove the second glove before removing it completely by doing a little twist-and-pin maneuver. Unless, of course, there's something slick on the wrist of the glove. Then you need a paper towel to get traction, and getting all of these things involved at the same time is a major PITA.
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Or you could just use your teeth. It's what I've always done and I've never sunlfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffhb ,ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÃâÄ'gfooooooooooooooooooh
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Treating someone known to have the disease and then touching your face with a glove that touched them is actually pretty outlandish behaviour.
You have never been suited up? (Score:2)
This is sort of like the Nicholas Cage film where our hero (Cage, of course), suits up to face the Plague or the Deadly Nerve Gas, and his boss coaches him, "You'll do OK, pal, the suit will protect you. That is unless your nose starts to itch, you brus
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The reason Ebola is spreading in Africa is because of poverty and customs. In some places the doctors have run out of gloves.
No. These are contributing factors. There is no proof that poverty and customers are the only reason for Ebola spread.
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Only if you're African.
Today, at least.
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Flip a coin. Did you live? I call that a bit more than an education problem.
The education problem is how you got Ebola in the first place.
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What happens when it spreads to central america?
Central America has a free healthcare system, to begin with. They have systems and infrastructure necessary to contain epidemics. It's a much richer place than Western Africa.
Haiti would have trouble.
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With no free healthcare, the USA is also in trouble.
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Why go from one depressed area to another? (Score:2)
Re:Only in Africa? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice rhetorical scoring, but, yes, it *is* totally different. Comparing the poverty, lack of trust in government workers and dysfunctional healthcare system in the US South to those factors in Africa is like comparing the neighborhood pool to Lake Erie.
One quote *is* the story (Score:3, Interesting)
"Ebola is scary. It's a deadly disease. But we know how to stop it."
Full stop, that's it. Quit worrying. For better or for worse, the United States is not eastern Africa. We cannot and will not have a massive epidemic here. A coworker of mine died from H1N1 "swine flu" a few years back. RIP Dusty. Swine flu was a valid health concern, it was something to be alarmed about and take extraordinary precautions against. Ebola is not.
Media's doing what media does, hyping and scaring to rake in eyeballs and sell their advertisements.
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The virus hasn't gained any sort of foothold or presence in the US but that doesn't mean vigilance isn't warranted to prevent it from entering the country. The problem is that ebola shares many of the traits of influenza that we can see how problematic ebola could be if it got into the US. They have similar transmission vectors and a similar hardiness when it comes to survival outside of a host. We see an infection rate of 12.5% annually with influenza and that's with vaccines. Without modifying behaviors w
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Supportive treatment for ebola reduces the mortality rate from about 70% to 33-40%.
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Probably the single most useful thing the government could do is to shut down CNN. Yes, it would be terribly illegal but hell, never let a crisis go to waste.
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Re:One quote *is* the story (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry about your friend but ebola scares me ALOT more than the swine flu, h1n1, or sars.
Shutting down airports for sars was probably a bit of an overkill. Yes, sars is contagious but
it's also highly survivable. My guess is that your friend was already compromised in some
way whether it was extremely old, extremely young, weak immune system, etc...
Until we have an effective cure for ebola (80% survival rate or better), then it's much better
to be overly cautious with ebola. Can you imagine what would happen if this made it to
an elementary school where hundreds of kids are in close contact? Give me sars any day.
I start worrying when I hear "Full stop." (Score:2)
When someone is trying to tell me they don't want to discuss this any further and this is the end of the conversation, that is when I really start to worry.
The monitoring of passengers is a joke (Score:4, Interesting)
Definitely can't trust the government is saying regarding the disease if/once it gets established in the U.S., as preventing panic is the highest priority. The disease expert did say the industry and Feds were working night and day to get a blood test created and available and said they were probably a month or so away from that (if things continued moving along).
Re:The monitoring of passengers is a joke (Score:4, Informative)
Ebola victims don't show a temperature until many, many days after they've been infected
But people aren't contagious until after they show symptoms, e.g. fever. Taking people's temperature is a perfectly valid measure.
Maybe you should get some facts to go along with your strong opinions.
Re:The monitoring of passengers is a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
If they're contagious when they get off the plane, you're in a buttload of hurt. Now you have to find everyone else who was on the plane and monitor them for symptoms, because some are now infected too.
The only way this can possibly work is to prevent them from boarding the plane.
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The only way this can possibly work is to prevent them from boarding the plane.
OK. How do we do that?
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Further, no screening protocol short of a full on two week quarantine will catch everybody. Given the less than terrible procreative habits of Ebola, cutting down on the disease burden is a useful epidemiological tool.
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On the contrary, taking people's temps is a very effective step in protecting the public.
As seen in the case of Mr. Duncan, true. But when you don't have a fever, Ebola isn't contagious. At all. None of the people on Mr. Duncan's flight here need to be checked or isolated, because he couldn't have infected t
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World Net Daily. Yep. "WND Exclusive!" In other words, "Everybody else saw this for the bullshit it is!"
Re:The monitoring of passengers is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
"The SARS outbreak cost the world more than $40 billion, but it wasn't to control the outbreak," says Frieden. "Those were costs from unnecessary and ineffective travel restrictions and trade changes that could have been avoided."
This isn't SARS. The death toll is already 5x that of SARS.
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What is the amount of trade and other commerce from Africa VS Asia? Do we do 40 billion worth of business with the 3 west African countries in a year? 10 years? 100 years?
Just because they've got no money doesn't mean they don't deserve to live.
I don't think he's saying they don't deserve to live. I think he's saying that travel restrictions on West Africa would not result in anywhere near the cost seen with travel and trade restrictions on Asia.
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Try getting a medical excuse to cancel a trip (Score:2)
Or at least that used to be the system until SARS/H1N
Be Afraid! Very Afraid! (Score:3, Funny)
Ebola is worse than the government says and this Ebola epidemic is all Obama's fault. If we only elected Romney and stuck with libertarian principles of government this Ebola outbreak would have never started to begin with.
Disease spread is fractal (Score:2, Interesting)
Ebola has already gone from outbreaks in communities to outbreaks that threaten whole countries.
It's on the verge of repeating the process, but now at a global, not country or community level. So the question is, will it develop enough of a reservoir internationally to repeat its' performance, this time around? We simply don't know - and we won't know until we either beat it or lose to it.
To compound the problem, the right solution to this outbreak may not be the right solution to the next one, but w
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More fear mongering. I'm looking at it from a perspective where we're not in trouble at all. Are you planning on drinking fluids from a sick person? No? Neither am I. So please lose the "we're all gonna die" attitude.
Re:Disease spread is fractal (Score:5, Insightful)
The aid workers who picked it up despite taking precautions will sure be comforted by your sentiment.
Even in modern hospitals, disease outbreaks happen despite precautions.
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Given that the disease HASN'T spread outside of West Africa to any extent yet, that information that we all already know is worse than useless, it just spreads fear.
Why not forget your personal safety for a moment? The fact that this is spreading in a here-to-unforseen manner should be cause for alarm. Even if it remains confined to Africa this time, it's still a HUGE disaster in the making, and we don't know how bad it will get there. We just know that at this point in time it will get worse.
If I could go help, I would. Unfortunately, I don't have [wsj.com] the required skills [umn.edu].
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Unlucky cases happen. Outright stupid cases happen. But please save the freaking out for when all of those aid workers suddenly fall ill and die. After all for the one nurse who has contracted the disease, thousands haven't and have taken such incredible precautions like wearing gloves and a face mask. Quite the opposite from the freak the hell out and put on the space suit response some people in the west want to apply.
The nurse didn't correctly degown based on the story going around. I get why the problem happened.
The problem is that the official line going around is that it is really hard to get Ebola. That was the message about AIDS, and it is correct for AIDS - you can't get it by just shaking hands with somebody who is infected. The problem is that this isn't the case with Ebola. You CAN get it by shaking hands with somebody who has Ebola if they haven't done a surgical scrub down after sneezing on their hands.
Do
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Ebola has already gone from outbreaks in communities to outbreaks that threaten whole countries.
No it hasn't. Liberia which is one of the worst affected areas has reported 4,000 cases. Population is 4.3 million.
No matter how you look at it, we're all in trouble.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
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Not so much for FOX News (Score:2)
What A Weapon (Score:3)
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Then making it a point to shake hands with a lot of people in multiple areas.
That's fine. You won't catch ebola just by shaking their hand. You have to come into contact with their bodily fluids.
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I mean if terrorists can recruit people to become suicide bombers why not get someone to infect themselves with Ebola, board a plane when showing no signs and fly to some
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Terrorists actually tried this in 1984 with salmonella. [wikipedia.org]
What essentially consisted of a cult moved to this rural town in Oregon and tried to get the cult leader voted in. The math didn't pan out, so they tried to give the voters food poisoning right before the election.
1) Casual contact doesn't work. They did the whole thing with doorknobs and toilets. Didn't work. Your skin in a fantastic shield against this stuff and it dies before infecting you. Or you simply wash your hands.
2) Infecting the food does wo
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Someone becoming symptomatic with Ebola isn't going to be feeling physically well enough after 1 day to do anything.
They're not going to look well enough to get near anybody. This isn't a disease where you have a cough and runny nose for a long time. This is a disease where after a couple of hours you're bleeding internally and will barely be able to move. The time frame of the Texas patient was he went to the hospital, got sent home and then started vomiting blood before he got in the door.
Which is bad, bu
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Distraction (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe I'm just jaded, but it feels like the Ebola scare is being hyped because it would be convenient if everyone forgot about ISIS, Ukraine, and how James Clapper should be charged for perjury. [wikipedia.org]
Don't get me wrong. It's a terrible thing, and a risk to the USA. But it's not that big of a risk. And there are more important things that should be vieing for prime-time on the news reels.
I should be pretty safe... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, my strategy of spending all my time alone at my computer, having no close contact with other people is starting to pay off.
Once everyone else has died off from ebola, the geeks, nerds, and dorks shall inherit the earth.
Am I the only one? (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I the only one who isn't even slightly scared about ebola? It isn't transmitted through the air or casual contact, so its' pretty easy to avoid. What is there to be scared of?
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Headline is a joke (Score:2)
If the CDC were actually controlling how scared people are, then I wouldn't keep having friends freaking out like it's the end of the Mayan calendar.
Magic Doesn't Help (Score:5, Insightful)
In many communities where Ebola is running rampant, superstition, and a belief in shamanistic or animistic magic are helping spread the disease and prevent proper care.
And here in the US, I've seen a well-shared Facebook link to a 'natural health' site that tells you how you can get Ebola from ATM keypads and doorknobs, but you can protect yourself via essential oils and the immune system boosting properties of silver! No need for autism creating vaccines!
I'm so glad I don't live in a place where people think magic potions and mystic talismans will ward off disease!
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I was listening to someone on the radio saying that some cultures have developed superstitions that may have a positive effect though. I can't remember the word he used, but there is a superstition that puts family disputes on hold, puts someone who has survived infection in the past in charge of caring for the sick, limits sex, there were some special eating practices etc. Many of these things sound helpful even if they are not backed by clinical trials.
This can't be the first time Africa has seen outbreak
Perhaps I'm naive... (Score:3)
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I'm in favor of the CDC disseminating as much information as possible. I'm against the media spreading "OMG we're all going to diiie" type stories, as they often do with diseases.
SO How Does Screening Work (Score:2, Interesting)
A plane from Liberia arrives at JFK. When entering the country, agents are asking questions about whether the traveller has been in areas where Ebola has been present, have they been exposed, do they know anyone that was exposed, how are they feeling, etc. Finally they non-invasively check the traveller for fever. Ok.....so let's say a plane holds 200 people. The first 121 people off the plane all answer the questions properly, and test negative for fever. Out they go into the US. Traveller 122 has a
Unnecessary and ineffective travel restrictions? (Score:3)
Unnecessary and ineffective travel restrictions? Have these guys been to an airport recently?
The government doesn't give squat about unnecessary and ineffective policies. It will be decades before we can get back to reasonable airport security. A waste and burden on all Americans, helping to keep the economy down (viz. international tourism) with no end in sight.
If the government believes that people will feel safer with more restrictions, then that's what will happen. Hell, even if that weren't the case the government will still do it because they can say that it's to keep people safer.
This will just be another excuse for draconian policies. Trading more freedoms for more safety, because "safety at any cost" lets them reform the nation.
Controlling Fear (Score:2)
The CDC cares about controlling the disease. They couldn't care less about people being scared except when panicky people starting interfering with controlling the disease.
The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of fear.
There's a silver lining to this (Score:3)
I suspect the TSA won't be as quick to do anal probes now the Ebola is a factor.
Just wait (Score:2)
A travel ban is only prudent and necessary (Score:3)
The fact is a travel ban would not affect the ability for aid to reach the countries where you have an epidemic, quite the opposite. The travel ban that would be implemented would be designed to stop people from leaving the hotzone countries who are not involved with any sort of medical or aid activities relating to control of the epidemic. It would not affect medical experts or aid officials from reaching the hotzone countries. The law would be designed to stop exactly the kind of people as Duncan who was coming to the US for personal reasons. All other travel except those experts and workers involved with control of the epidemic would be banned. By putting in such a ban, we are making the effort to contain the virus and the job of the CDC and WHO much easier by increasing the chance that the virus will not spread beyond the areas where it is currently found, thus allowing resources to be more focused on those particular regions, so that the CDC and WHO is not dealing with an ever increasing list of territory that is affected and so that it does not turn into a whack a mole game.
Restricting travel to just the experts and authorities would bring the level of travel to a relative trickle. This would make it much easier to carefully vet and examine the relatively few experts who might leave the hotzone countries, if necessary, through a isolation period and an intensive medical examination which is much more involved than what is done at an airport gate. So it makes the relative trickle of travel much easier to control and regulate and to assure that anyone crossing is not infected.
The problem with trying to detect the disease at a higher levels of travel where travel is not being limited to just experts and authorities, is the volume is higher and its not as easy to do the more intensive examination. Many everyday would-be travellers will lie on any questionaire, if they are experiencing any symptoms. The temperature symptoms can be covered up and suppressed with tylenol as well. There is a clear incentive for Ebola infected individuals to come to the USA, now that a Liberian has already done so and recieved free medical treatment, and many will lie, fake and cover up to do it.
The CDC knows all of this. That is why the CDC is lying through their teeth. The CDC is knowingly exposing Americans to increased danger from Ebola and when it is not necessary to do so. This is criminal negligence. The american people are being lied to.
Another fact is we have numerous experts who admit that we cannot take it for granted the virus is not easy to pass. There is a concern the virus may be airborne, and the more widely the virus would become geographically dispersed, the possibility of an airborne mutation increases. The fact that the USA has an advanced medical system is not an excuse or a reason to allow people to come to the country from areas which have an active outbreak, in fact such statements are the height of arrogance, especially since even our own resources would be taxed to deal with these situations, and as well the long incubation period and the tendancy for some people not to seek medical treatment and instead transmit the virus. The fact is despite all of the medical facility in the US the virus could be transmitted in the public nonetheless. We are dealing with human nature here.
To say that somehow that its okay to not be worried or to take lightly a very dangerous virus such as this because the US has running water and soap is such an arrogant and simplistic way of thinking, and it almost seems like they are exploiting the ignorance of the public to suggest such a thing. People obviously do not wash their hands every 20 seconds, even in the US, and all it would take is for someone to say come into contact with a bodily fluid say on a subway seat and then transfer that to their mouths via their hand within a period of just a few seconds. This may not be an unlikely scenario, especially with a virus that causes profuse secretions, but even if just one person were to die from such a
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*sigh*. I think it's about being scared of being scared of Ebola at this point.
Not quite. It's scared about being scared about being scared about Ebola. In other words, it's Ebola, all the way down.
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We all agree that the US is not the World's police.
I think that'd be nice, but it's not quite a universal sentiment.
Since when did the US become the World's nurse?
Uh..... [wikipedia.org] The 1800's?
Re:wont take long till singularity (Score:5, Funny)
After the Singularity, we'll get computer viruses and bad OS updates.
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Patch Tuesday will be the new weekend.
wont take long till singularity (Score:2, Interesting)
An Intelligent computer would realize humans are a virus and exterminate us.
Re:wont take long till singularity (Score:5, Funny)
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That's an interesting presumption. Does cell-phone coverage/usage imply that the users have smartphones? Has that technology filtered down to the poorer strata?
It's a heart-warming feeling that technological progress is enabling the poor masses. Yeah, why don't we see more pictures on instagram of poor Liberian street urchins?
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What did you have for lunch? THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Re:HAZMAT Theater Coming To The Airport Nearest Yo (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a simple way of dealing with that. Don't be a racist nut job. Have actual valid reasons for your positions and keep the outrage to a reasonable level.
Coming from a person of color, far too often accusations of racism are used to silence legitimate dissent and debate.
Having valid reason and articulable concerns will not be enough to protect anyone from charges of racism.
We shouldn't be allowing anyone to enter this country if they have been to a country with an outbreak of any hemorrhagic disease in the past 90 days. For now, that means certain west African nations. The people in Zambia are every bit as black as the ones in Liberia and THEY aren't letting Liberians in.
Obama himself isn't a lefty, he's a moderate right politician. It's just the racism that blinds so many right wing nutjobs to what Obama is actually doing.
Depends on your politics. If you're an anti-war lefty, there's not much difference between Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush or Reagan.
If you're a small government righty, again, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Reagan aren't much different.
Me, I'm a fiscal moderate and a social conservative. There are lightyears between Obama and Bush, from my perspective.
LK
Re:Easy question (Score:4, Insightful)
Can officials increase public vigilance about the deadly Ebola virus without inciting a panic?
No.
Some officials have a vested interest in intentionally inciting a panic. The fox is already guarding the henhouse, the REAL question is: How much of a panic will officials incite while increasing public vigilance.
Most officials will always have a vested interested in lying about it, regardless.
If Ebola is a big threat, they can prepare themselves while keeping the public blissfully unaware, helping to ensure their survival.
If Ebola is not a big threat, they can whip up a managed amount of fear in order to secure more funding, feel powerful, have fun dicking around with their toys, etc.
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This is what scares me the most about Ebola. It's that the government is telling me that there's nothing to worry about and that everything is going to be just fine. I know that when they say I should run for my life and be scared shitless of something that it isn't a real threat. I assume the opposite rhetoric means that it really is a threat and I should probably be scared shitless hiding out somewhere until it all blows over.
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hiding out somewhere until it all blows over.
May I suggest The Winchester?