RIP....America!
You keep fiddling and adjusting to your paradigms oh “former ems first responder” and I’ll probably contract a disease from a paradigm shift progressives couldn’t cover up or put a political spin on. I don’t see my self cutting and running when plague victims of all sorts of backgrounds should start flooding out hospitals. Yeah even the “fa——s” you think I’m hung up on.
I am looking at the situation in terms of most likely early vectors not from a moral view point. That includes IV drug abusers as well as heterosexuals engaging with multiple partners in high risk sexual practices. From those vectors the disease can and will spread. Americans are better fed and have better immune systems so many could well tolerate the early symptoms, not feeling as sick early on until their systems just crash.(thus continuing their risky behaviors while actually already carriers) Many cases may be atypical, just passed off as the flu and they seem to recover(but remain a carrier for several months) because our nutrition is generally better so some folks just won’t get as sick. It’s the atypical cases, the silent “typhoid Mary’s” that will be a problem and we will have to learn identify them early.
Now perhaps all will go well, the disease doesn’t get spread, it just dies out because enough folks get a clue and the disease in these African nations where it is rampant gets contained via proper controls and the two Americans to be treated in Atlanta are quarantined properly by the American doctors and nurses who aren’t necessarily accustomed to the extraordinary barrier measures needed to protect themselves. Maybe it will all just be peachy keen....
You also know the crowd that has been running things in DC and you also aware of our border situation and the illnesses amongst our “new friends” that our border agents and other personnel have been exposed to and are contracting as well, from these vectors. Obama’s crowd has been quite busy setting the world afire from North Africa to the Middle East and having quite a bit of fun bearding Putin as well! Now they’ve got this new “Ebola” toy to play political games with, like children with matches!
RIP....America!
( I hope you remain clever with your paradigms and you stay safe. I just have bottoms to wipe and mucky trachs to suction!)
Likely vectors are international travelers and business people (first thing they do is shake hands) who came into contact with sick people or with virons they shed on countertops, handrails, virtually any surface. Sexual contact and exchange of blood are NOT required to catch this disease. Someone washing a corpse for burial can catch it.
While some of them may be homosexuals, I seriously doubt you'd bust the 5% mark if you don't count the stewards on the flight.
You just can't get past the homos and the needles, can you?
The guy who is running a fever who gets off to make the connecting flight after coming back from working in Africa is a likely vector. That includes oil workers, salespeople, and the like.
I'm pretty far removed from the sorts of major air hubs that cater to these folks, and by the time anyone is showing symptoms, they'd have to be really fast to get this far out in the boonies.
Our biggest worries out this way would be getting the local grid back up and food for the first winter. That isn't saying we're immune to being infected, just that we are remote enough to make it unlikely compared to major urban areas. Those areas have the concentrations of people and venues likely to expose the populations to infected people, and literally tons of common contact surfaces those of us in the sticks just don't have.
If you have a bitch to pitch about the intestinal fortitude of guys who wrapped up accident victims (after we peeled the car from around them while kneeling in a puddle of gasoline), go for it Oh ICU controlled environment person). I no longer do the job, because (as I noted) I'm a great grandpa, and not in the same shape I was in when I was 25. At this age, it is best to get out of the way and let a younger man do that job.
Good luck to you (I mean that). You'll need it, because you will likely be exposed long before I will.