Posted on 08/04/2014 6:32:42 AM PDT by Black Agnes
Monrovia — Monrovia's streets were buzzing. In my amazement that an air of normalcy seems to prevail despite the emergency measures, I paid little heed to buckets of chlorinated water at the entrance of a local bank.
"Sir, sir, please.." the security guard called out to me, gesturing to the transparent plastic containers on a wooden chair. It was a familiar site; virtually every point of convergence now has one. Regular hand washing has become the norm, and security guards must ensure there's no exception.
A couple of weeks back it was easy to stumble upon small groups questioning whether or not Ebola actually existed. In the last few days, however, the discourse has changed. You won't be out long before hearing neighbors explain what's being done in their households to avoid the dreaded virus. Usually it's either enforcing hand washing, or people carrying around small bottles of chlorine and bleach in their pockets as they take on their daily chores. But it has taken the death of more than a 100 persons and possibly over 300 infections for this to happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at allafrica.com ...
Hopefully better late than never.
Ping.
I think a lot of people are trying to get out of Liberia right now.
As much as I hope they aren’t able, I don’t blame them for trying.
If you were sick with another unrelated issue that required medical care would YOU go to a hospital in Liberia for that?
There will be lots of babies born at home during this.
Yet here, HERE, we have people who think that every infected American with full-blown frank symptoms has a birthright to a private jet to America, and treatment in an American hospital.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Funny that is pretty much what they are saying on the radio this morning...
Sick Americans to be evacuated to come home for treatment.
Basically the whole ‘we don’t leave our citizens behind’ syndrome
Don’t leave our citizens behind unless they are arrested abroad on draconian gun law violations and don’t work for the Injustice Department of Gun Running and Crooked Deals.
No. We provide the best medical care available, and when they are no longer infectious, then we can repatriate them for convalescence and rehabilitation.
Soldiers critically wounded in Afghanistan are are treated and stabilized in Germany before they are subjected to the further stresses of trans-Atlantic flight.
THAT’S DIFFERENT!!!
Good news.
Good news, in the past Africans have always gotten the Ebola outbreaks ended pretty quickly, they need to do so with this one as well.
"Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish?
Nothing else."~Epictetus
God bless this site, this Free Republic.
Please click the pic
Sierra Leone to Germany: about 3500 miles.
Sierra Leone to Atlanta: about 4800 miles.
Doesn’t seem likely to me the additional time on a plane would make much difference.
Have some experience working with containment of pathogens and such. Without exception, to my knowledge, problems do not arrive with newly discovered and known virulent pathogens. They arise with pathogens people have worked with or around for years or decades, get comfortable and stop taking the precautions with the seriousness.
This is a very natural and normal human reaction, but it works in our favor this time. I can guarantee you everybody working around this stuff is going to be very much on their toes.
“Sanitation comes to Africa.”
Better late than never. At least for a while.
At least they’ve largely stopped burning witches.
That still went on in rural upstate Nigeria in the early 70’s unfortunately.
We seem to have a case of magical thinking here. The idea that since we have flush toilets and decent hospitals mean that an outbreak of Ebola would be “minimal”, so lets just bring it in! Never mind that we have very few level 4 hospital beds, and not enough to handle even a small outbreak. Never mind that doctors admit the easiest place to catch a deadly bug is in a US hospital.
People on FR mock the Africans, but we are acting just as nuts. They are trying to keep people in, we are bringing known cases of full blown Ebola here, because we “feel”. I am praying for those infected. I don’t want to have to die because Franklin Gramhn and some mad doctor (and he is mad) demand to import a level 4 disease and expose dozens, if not hundreds, in order to have them WALK into the CDC.
My great grandfather and grandfather had stories of the Yellow Fever, quarantine, and the Spanish flu. We have forgotten everything.
May God have mercy, our arrogance as a country will doom us all.
Indeed, Germany just might regard that as an act of war.
After all, we might regard it as such if a foreign country deliberately dumped Ebola patents on US Hospitals.
My point was that the patents need to be treated in situ, not shuffled all over the planet as living bio-weapons dispensers!
It's called a quarantine.
SOME people, who shall remain nameless, lest I be accused of stalking again, think it is a God-given right for a person critically ill with Ebola to have an opportunity to share that gift with the hospital staff in any major US city.
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