But first, let me kiss my dead uncle with an open mouth. There ya go...
There are a few common sense reasons why the US will not have a horrible outbreak. First is that we generally listen when we are told to go to the hospital. Second, hardly anyone takes care of their sick at home. Thirdly, we are generally reluctant to do anything with our dead bodies.
Now, it doesn’t mean we won’t get whacked. But I was telling my kids that if they are deemed to have Ebola, there is a spot in the shed out back. I will stick in a hose for them to scrub up with when they get better.
Then ask yourself how Patric Sawyer infected 10 people. He was someone familiar with our way of doing things and no relatives or friends around to do anything with his dead body (thank God).
Someone had a chart of a few deadly diseases and how many people one person usually infects and this is off the charts compared to some of the others with very deadly reputations. Some common sense tells you they are not telling us the whole truth about how easily this thing spreads...these were just the people in Nigeria not those he had contact with before leaving the first country. One of those 10 was given Ebola by a nurse not presenting symptoms that had worked on Sawyer.
This thing is a lot scarier than the press is reporting.
When you say we, does that include the Middle East immigrants, the Somalis in Maine, Mexican and Central Americans, Eithiopians, and so on?
There’s a huge amount of them that have not and refuse to assimilate. They retain all their customs, perhaps even more tightly than when in their homeland.
As to sanitation practices, well enough has been said on this board about the lack of them. Re-read the Census Bureau stats while thinking about Ebola.
And then there’s the almost invisible army that serves in the McMansions, Upper East and West Side condo, California estates, etc. The Guatamalan nanny, Honduran gardener, etc, etc. You think they have suddenly acquired the habits of the English servant class of days gone by?
How many have recently arrived relatives? They don’t exactly advertise do they?
We’re only a few secret visitors away from the potential spread through every strata of society in some fashion or other.
I’m not tin foil hat conspiracy guy, but I do take a close look at our perimeter denfenses and they are abysmally porous. By design.
Not addressed to you, but our smug complacency is no different than that of the West African ruling classes.