That is an apt description of that first panel. The most "real" panel was the second panel, where there were no agendas. I was, frankly, disgusted with the poo-poohing going on in the first panel. The way Fauci turned Senator Burr's question about transmission via fomites, to one about touching dead bodies was quite obvious to me that he was avoiding that answer. He also dismissed the idea of somebody sneezing on someone as a way to get infected, turning that answer into being about "airborne" transmission. I was thinking that these scientist types aren't acting as if this is as serious as $1 Billion and 3,000 troops "right NOW!" would indicate it is.
That was very deliberate.
>>He also dismissed the idea of somebody sneezing on
>>someone as a way to get infected, turning that answer
>>into being about “airborne” transmission.
As was that.
>>I was thinking that these scientist types aren't acting
>>as if this is as serious as $1 Billion and 3,000
>>troops “right NOW!” would indicate it is.
The CDC like a lot of Federal government agencies has factions based on who you are and what you do.
There are at least three that stand out.
1. Researchers
2. CDC public relations folks who do “Public Health Messaging”
3. Hot zone operators.
The first two tend to dominate the CDC bureacracy as the Hot Zone folks rotate in and out of NGO’s like MSF/Doctors Without Borders.
The researchers tend to be time servers who don't deal well with real people and have been responsible to the horrid storage of dangerous diseases like the recent “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” forgotten warehousing of Small Pox.
The worse of the crew are the PR “messaging” flacks, whom Fauci seems to be chief of as head of CDC and lead faction leader.
When the CDC talks “messaging,” they are trying to reduce lots of public health information down to the simplest form to maintain control of the populations while they do their thing.
Its relation to the truth is strongest when it helps with control.
Ebola Fomite and droplet spread are nightmares from the disease message control point of view in that they are complicated and subject to lots of panic.
The CDC (and WHO come to that) 1st instinct when dealing with either Ebola Fomite and droplet spread is to “revert to message” which will limit any public response — even if it can be useful for preventing future disease spread — so they can maintain the illusion of control right now. Even if they have none.
I already addressed Dr. Fauci's inability to answer a question that no one has actually studied. Dr. Fauci is correct on this one, too. In order for Ebola to become airborne, it would have to 1) infect cells in the upper respiratory system, in the bronchia and possibly alveoli, and 2) be resistant to destruction by drying. Without those two conditions, neither of which exist now, Ebola cannot become airborne. Since Ebola does not infect respiratory system cells, if someone with Ebola sneezed, blood would have to mix with the respiratory secretions for the sneeze to be infectious. If the person's disease has progressed to the point where they are bleeding, you probably wouldn't get close enough to them to be sneezed on in the first place, because the diarrhea, vomiting, etc. would be a clear clue that something isn't right.