Posted on 10/04/2014 10:11:39 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ebola is, of course, a serious disease and recent events demand a rational analysis. A man who traveled from Liberia to Dallas has become the first case of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever diagnosed stateside. So far, all other domestic cases have been in US citizens diagnosed in Africa who were flown back to the US for treatment. No healthcare workers or patients in the US hospitals in which these patients have been treated have been infected with the virus. The two patients flown here in August, a doctor and a nurse infected in Liberia, were successfully treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Because it is totally the fault of the incompetent administration that it is even here?
Politically correct delusions are dangerous and elections have serous consequences. The Obama administration will spend more time and energy defending the bizarre decision to allow continued commercial air service to West Africa than they will protecting Americans from the spread of the disease.
I agree that panic is not necessary but there needs to be a good, healthy dose of skepticism thrown on those in charge because it is plain to see that all the mechanisms supposedly in place are not functioning with any level of confidence.
Yes, several patients have been treated with a very high level of success and no other healthcare workers have caught the disease, at least not yet. But they were all working with a single patient in their care and had the full resources of the country at their beck and call. Can we scale that up and still keep the same measure of success? Doubtful, and that argues against complacency.
I'll throw in another quote: "actions speak louder than words." All the political speeches by the idiots in charge and the "don't worry, we have this covered" tomes from the medical establishment mean little when we watch the cluster flop in Dallas unwind.
We're on a knife edge here, folks, and confidence is low.
Like many FReepers on the bug ping list that have followed numerous ebola outbreaks for a while...this appears to be a lie.
There is a world of difference between the heartbreaking conditions in which Ebola thrives in Africa and those in the US and other modern countries.
Again, this is incredible nonchalance and hubris, especially after what we have just witnessed at the apartment in Dallas! This sort of thinking is what will get us a full blown outbreak.
We live in a modern country with excellent sanitation, thankfully making it unlikely that those of us not in healthcare will come into contact with the body fluids or waste of strangers.
Again, more hubris from someone who lives in elite circles, not the apartment slums many of these folks end up in when they first come to America. In fact, one of the challenges the CDC had was a language barrier at the apartment building!
Ebola presents us with an intrinsically much more deadly disease than the others I discussed in previous articles, with a case fatality rate that far exceeds that of any flu. Yet, the White House urges calm and the CDC deems an outbreak unlikely. What do we make of this? Many of us are understandably concerned that we are being lied to. However, while I certainly feel the White House and CDC are capable of this, in light of what we know about the epidemiology of Ebola and the low risk of a true outbreak here, there would be little point in understating an already low risk. For once, and likely accidentally, the White House and the CDC have got it right. Maybe they are just tired of making predictions that are always wrong.
I cannot believe he is playing this naïve. Somebody got to him and told him to help keep the public calm.
The chance of one dying from Ebola are very low so as not to be statistically significant.
More people die from the flu and malaria than from Ebola and they’re easily treatable. And with flu - preventable with vaccination.
People have to take things in perspective. A Black Death type outbreak is unlikely. We’re fortunate in the West to the extent we weren’t for centuries.
The government and the pharma companies don’t have a vaccine to sell and there is none in prospect that could be mass produced.
But the White House and the CDC are talking out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand, it's not a big deal, and on the other hand they say there will be 1.4 million cases by the end of January and are too scared to project out any further. And if they don't think it's such a big deal, then why are they sending 3,000 troops to fight it, when they've never sent a single troop to fight malaria, which kills far more people than Ebola has? Because the potential for Ebola to kill far more than malaria does is real. That's why.
Screening at the point of departure from Africa is being done.
Really?! Are you really willing to risk it based on whether or not some poorly trained official in some third world country detects a fever in a passenger? Really?! After what has already happened? If so, then you're nuts!
We know that a top Ebola virologist disagrees with this guy: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/10/03/Top-Ebola-Virologist-Liberia-s-Airport-Checks-Useless-a-Disaster-Due-to-Lack-of-Training
And this totally ignores the wide open southern border.
Voluntary restriction of apparently healthy but exposed persons to their homes for the duration of the incubation period would reduce the risk of contagion is an option.
Thomas Eric Duncan's family doesn't seem so agreeable to the idea of a "volunary" 21-day quarantine. They've had to be put under armed guard because they went out after being told not to, and are continuing to complain about it. Why would we expect that anyone else would be more agreeable to the idea?
We live in a modern country with excellent sanitation, thankfully making it unlikely that those of us not in healthcare will come into contact with the body fluids or waste of strangers.
Oh yeah?! Well there are an awful lot of people who are doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and other health care workers. Also, teachers, cops, paramedics, and firefighters come into contact with strangers body fluids ALL THE TIME!!!
And what will happen when all the available quarantine beds in a city are filled?
This guy should read up on "normalcy bias" because he's got it. Real bad.
A vaccine is expensive and requires a lot of research and testing... which can take years.
And unlike with HIV/AIDS victims, its just not a politically correct disease and won’t get top priority - unless a lot of people die.
What we are seeing is that we don’t have a problem with the patients themselves, once they are being treated then the situation is under control.
What we are learning is how totally unprepared for bio terrorism we are as a nation, in spite of the movies and the billions, it seems that no one has actually ever looked into preparing for it at all, with the exception of the special, dedicated research and treatment connected clinics that operate as part of the laboratory system.
The schools, the hospitals, Homeland security, the Airports, everyone is reacting as though biological attack has never been thought of before.
I don’t know the list, but Anthrax, Bird flu, AIDS, all the other events, and no system was ever developed, no guidelines and procedures for schools, quarantines, transportation and all the other public gathering places and sources of interaction and exposure?
When this is over the Republicans need to stay on target and get us ready for biological attacks for the future, the way this nation prepared for nuclear war in the days when we used to get things done.
Biological warfare/terrorism, EMPs, nuclear attack, massive and simultaneously timed terror attacks, we need some serious focus on internal national defense.
Well, sometimes and partially because the vaccine is often for the wrong strain. Sunshine and/or vitamin D3 supplement is or is almost almost 100% effective against respiratory virii. My wife, a primary schoolteacher, most of my relatives, and I, and various friends who have been taking the supplements through the winter or, in my case all year as I work at night, have been entirely free of flu and colds for so long as we have been doing this. For me and my immediate relatives that is eight years. As a side effect of this practice I have discovered that sunshine and/or D3 supps are highly effective fixes for the manic depression of my daughter and a friend whom I had induced to take the D3 for her frequent colds a couple of years ago.
Being against Eb0la is racis’.
Apparently, dogma is standing in the way of recognizing what is occurring, and that the virus may be fomite bourne and infect has become evident. It is also highly likely that the virus travels in the air in droplets of bodily fluid, sprayed washwater, etc. for greater distances than previously thought and with greater infectious potential.
This might explain some of the deaths of medical personnel in Africa. The three foot standoff zone may be woefully inadequate for those who are unprotected.
Failure to recognize discrepancies between previous outbreak observations and data from the larger present sample will lead to more infected and dead, in the medical profession and outside of it.
This isn't cause for panic, but unless those in the medical profession and the agencies setting policy recognize in a timely fashion when current protocols are simply not working, and will adapt those protocols to ensure protection from newly recognized aspects of the threat, the potential for unnecessary losses of medical and other personnel will be significantly higher.
Good point. The problem I see is that CDC, WHO, and other "authorities" will never change their preconceived ideas about how it is and is not transmitted without peer-reviewed double-blind studies and journal articles. And by then it will be too late. And perhaps even then they won't change their minds. Their tendency under these circumstances is to view what they know as "settled science" and not to even ask the question "is it true that it can't be spread across the room?"
Normalcy bias.
Dr. Rosenbloom, you are an uninformed idiot. Suggest you sign onto the Free Republic Ebola ping lists to keep up to date.
Concur, big time
You should tell that to the passengers on United 988.
Excellent assessment of the article, also I read here on FR the gov’t has most recently ordered multiple thousands of those bio-suits.
Risk is probability AND consequence.
The consequences of contracting ebola is very frequently death. In the U.S. the probability of contracting ebola is very low. The risk of death from ebola for anyone in the U.S. is very low.
The consequence of contracting flu is very infrequently death. In the U.S. the probability of contracting flue is moderate. The risk of death from flu for anyone in the U.S. is very low.
The risk of death from flu is not likely to change. The risk of death from ebola could increase quickly if infected persons are not quarantined or prohibited from entry from hot zones.
ebola mortality rate 70% ( http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411100#t=article )
flu mortality rate 0.0005% ( http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm )
The incubation period for ebola can be up to 21 days.
That means that every person arriving in the U.S. from an infected country may not exhibit symptoms until weeks after arriving in the U.S.
In Texas an infected person did not seek care immediately. Their initial visit to the hospital was not handled properly, presumably such events will not be repeated. But there is still the time between symptoms appearing and aid being sought.
In my opinion this is a ticking time-bomb. Everyone arriving from an infected country must be tested. There is no reason not to when the consequences are so high.
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