Ebola (1 Viewer)

[TheIronSheik]

I like how there's a new strain of flu every season but people are sold on the belief that Ebola only works a certain way.

 

[Gary Coal Man]

I don't think there is much concern in America yet. But you have to wonder why they still allow flights to Liberia. Just mind-blowing.

Flights to Israel - BANNED

Flights to Liberia -

I don't think the flights going to Liberia that are the problem...It's the ones coming back....They should be required to come back empty.

White House: We Won’t Stop People From Ebola-Stricken Countries Coming To US

White House spokesman Josh Earnest rebuffed questions Oct. 1 about a possible federal ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and said the president will rely instead on government medical professionals to contain imported epidemics.

“These are the experts, they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said, adding “we can stop the spread of Ebola in its tracks.”

“What are the conditions under which the President would order or want to see travel restrictions?” asked one reporter.

“We are confident that the sophisticated medical infrastructure that exists here in the United States can prevent the wide spread of Ebola,” Earnest said.

“Doesn’t that imply that we’re willing to accept a certain number of people coming into this country who will be diagnosed and develop Ebola once they’re here?” the reporter asked.

“We live in a global world, and what we’re confident that we can do is to both protect the safety of the traveling public and … protect the broader American public by rigorously applying the kind of medical protocols that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Earnest replied.

Link

 

[Ditka Butkus]

I don't think there is much concern in America yet. But you have to wonder why they still allow flights to Liberia. Just mind-blowing.

Flights to Israel - BANNED

Flights to Liberia -

I don't think the flights going to Liberia that are the problem...It's the ones coming back....They should be required to come back empty.

White House: We Won’t Stop People From Ebola-Stricken Countries Coming To US

White House spokesman Josh Earnest rebuffed questions Oct. 1 about a possible federal ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and said the president will rely instead on government medical professionals to contain imported epidemics.

“These are the experts, they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said, adding “we can stop the spread of Ebola in its tracks.”

“What are the conditions under which the President would order or want to see travel restrictions?” asked one reporter.

“We are confident that the sophisticated medical infrastructure that exists here in the United States can prevent the wide spread of Ebola,” Earnest said.

“Doesn’t that imply that we’re willing to accept a certain number of people coming into this country who will be diagnosed and develop Ebola once they’re here?” the reporter asked.

“We live in a global world, and what we’re confident that we can do is to both protect the safety of the traveling public and … protect the broader American public by rigorously applying the kind of medical protocols that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Earnest replied.

Link

Ok..now I'm done with Obama...

 

[Jobber]

I don't think there is much concern in America yet. But you have to wonder why they still allow flights to Liberia. Just mind-blowing.

Flights to Israel - BANNED

Flights to Liberia -

I don't think the flights going to Liberia that are the problem...It's the ones coming back....They should be required to come back empty.

White House: We Won’t Stop People From Ebola-Stricken Countries Coming To US

White House spokesman Josh Earnest rebuffed questions Oct. 1 about a possible federal ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and said the president will rely instead on government medical professionals to contain imported epidemics.

“These are the experts, they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said, adding “we can stop the spread of Ebola in its tracks.”

“What are the conditions under which the President would order or want to see travel restrictions?” asked one reporter.

“We are confident that the sophisticated medical infrastructure that exists here in the United States can prevent the wide spread of Ebola,” Earnest said.

“Doesn’t that imply that we’re willing to accept a certain number of people coming into this country who will be diagnosed and develop Ebola once they’re here?” the reporter asked.

“We live in a global world, and what we’re confident that we can do is to both protect the safety of the traveling public and … protect the broader American public by rigorously applying the kind of medical protocols that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Earnest replied.

Link

What a buffoon. A few preventative measures can go a long way. Limiting travel seems like a slam dunk to me.

 

[Parrothead]

I don't think there is much concern in America yet. But you have to wonder why they still allow flights to Liberia. Just mind-blowing.

Flights to Israel - BANNED

Flights to Liberia -

I don't think the flights going to Liberia that are the problem...It's the ones coming back....They should be required to come back empty.

White House: We Won’t Stop People From Ebola-Stricken Countries Coming To US

White House spokesman Josh Earnest rebuffed questions Oct. 1 about a possible federal ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and said the president will rely instead on government medical professionals to contain imported epidemics.

“These are the experts, they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said, adding “we can stop the spread of Ebola in its tracks.”

“What are the conditions under which the President would order or want to see travel restrictions?” asked one reporter.

“We are confident that the sophisticated medical infrastructure that exists here in the United States can prevent the wide spread of Ebola,” Earnest said.

“Doesn’t that imply that we’re willing to accept a certain number of people coming into this country who will be diagnosed and develop Ebola once they’re here?” the reporter asked.

“We live in a global world, and what we’re confident that we can do is to both protect the safety of the traveling public and … protect the broader American public by rigorously applying the kind of medical protocols that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Earnest replied.

Link

What a buffoon. A few preventative measures can go a long way. Limiting travel seems like a slam dunk to me.

this is what happens when arrogance trumps common sense

 

[TheIronSheik]

I don't think there is much concern in America yet. But you have to wonder why they still allow flights to Liberia. Just mind-blowing.

Flights to Israel - BANNED

Flights to Liberia -

I don't think the flights going to Liberia that are the problem...It's the ones coming back....They should be required to come back empty.

White House: We Won’t Stop People From Ebola-Stricken Countries Coming To US

White House spokesman Josh Earnest rebuffed questions Oct. 1 about a possible federal ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and said the president will rely instead on government medical professionals to contain imported epidemics.

“These are the experts, they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said, adding “we can stop the spread of Ebola in its tracks.”

“What are the conditions under which the President would order or want to see travel restrictions?” asked one reporter.

“We are confident that the sophisticated medical infrastructure that exists here in the United States can prevent the wide spread of Ebola,” Earnest said.

“Doesn’t that imply that we’re willing to accept a certain number of people coming into this country who will be diagnosed and develop Ebola once they’re here?” the reporter asked.

“We live in a global world, and what we’re confident that we can do is to both protect the safety of the traveling public and … protect the broader American public by rigorously applying the kind of medical protocols that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Earnest replied.

Link

What a buffoon. A few preventative measures can go a long way. Limiting travel seems like a slam dunk to me.

I saw on the news last night that they use one of those laser thermometers on all people coming from these African countries. That's our sophisticated medical device. Something that you can buy at Home Depot for about $100.

 

[Quez]

Are we all going to have to take a rushed out vaccine? That didn't work so well back when the Government tried it with polio.

 

[El Floppo]

I saw that Bill Gates (foundation) is donating $50mil to help with this... not sure where the money's going- but damn.

 

[Gary Coal Man]

I saw on the news last night that they use one of those laser thermometers on all people coming from these African countries. That's our sophisticated medical device. Something that you can buy at Home Depot for about $100.

Man in U.S. With Ebola Had Been Screened to Fly, but System Is Spotty

NYT, 10/1/2014

As he was preparing to leave Liberia for Dallas two weeks ago, Thomas E. Duncan, the man confirmed to be the first Ebola case in the United States, was checked at the airport for signs of the disease. He was determined to have no fever and allowed to board his flight, American officials say.

Since the deadly Ebola virus began spreading rapidly through West Africa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been pushing the authorities in the worst-hit countries, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, to implement just that type of screening for departing passengers.

In early August, the C.D.C. sent medical workers to the region to train local government officials and airport workers in Ebola screening, according to Dr. Nicole Cohen, an infectious disease specialist with the agency’s Division of Migration and Quarantine. As part of that process, the agency advises that airport workers ask travelers if they have been exposed to Ebola in the last 21 days, have had a fever, and have had any symptoms including severeheadache, muscle ache, abdominal pain, unusual bruising or bleeding,vomiting and diarrhea. The screener is expected to use a hand-held non-contact temperature monitor, a few inches from the travelers’ forehead, to check for fever.

But the system has its limits, relying on the traveler to reveal whether he or she has been exposed. And it leaves it to local officials to conduct the screening as they see fit, Dr. Cohen said. It is unclear how consistently or effectively those screenings are conducted across West Africa, and Dr. Cohen said she did not know how many potential travelers had been caught by screeners — if any.

“Our expectation is that people who are sick or people who are exposed should be getting the message they shouldn’t be traveling.”

Airlines have not taken any specific steps to deal with Ebola, representatives from several carriers said. They follow general guidelines issues by the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization. They have also informed their flight attendants about the hazards of Ebola, its symptoms and how the disease is spread. Delta has increased the supplies of gloves and sanitizers on board. But beyond taking simple precautions, airlines said they were not responsible for screening passengers.

The number of those passengers from West Africa is large. According to Airlines for America, the trade association of American carriers, more than 10,000 people flew to the United States from Sierra Leone from April 2013 to March 2014, and more than 17,000 flew from Liberia in the same period. Those figures include only passengers who flew on itineraries involving an American carrier.

The Dallas patient, Mr. Duncan, flew from Brussels to Dulles International Airport near Washington on Sept. 20 on United 951, and then on to Dallas-Fort Worth on Flight 822, the airline confirmed. It appears likely he got to Brussels from Liberia on Brussels Airways, a United code-share partner in the Star alliance.

United, in a statement, said it had been informed by the C.D.C. that its passenger was the one now hospitalized in Dallas. The airline repeated a statement from the director of the C.D.C. that there was “zero risk of transmission” to other passengers on the flight, because the man was not symptomatic at the time and thus could not have been contagious. But as a precaution, the airline said, it was “providing information about the flights United believes the patient took.”

 

[dickey moe]

I don't think there is much concern in America yet. But you have to wonder why they still allow flights to Liberia. Just mind-blowing.

Flights to Israel - BANNED

Flights to Liberia -

I don't think the flights going to Liberia that are the problem...It's the ones coming back....They should be required to come back empty.

White House: We Won’t Stop People From Ebola-Stricken Countries Coming To US

White House spokesman Josh Earnest rebuffed questions Oct. 1 about a possible federal ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and said the president will rely instead on government medical professionals to contain imported epidemics.

“These are the experts, they have a keen understanding of how to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said, adding “we can stop the spread of Ebola in its tracks.”

“What are the conditions under which the President would order or want to see travel restrictions?” asked one reporter.

“We are confident that the sophisticated medical infrastructure that exists here in the United States can prevent the wide spread of Ebola,” Earnest said.

“Doesn’t that imply that we’re willing to accept a certain number of people coming into this country who will be diagnosed and develop Ebola once they’re here?” the reporter asked.

“We live in a global world, and what we’re confident that we can do is to both protect the safety of the traveling public and … protect the broader American public by rigorously applying the kind of medical protocols that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Earnest replied.

Link

What a buffoon. A few preventative measures can go a long way. Limiting travel seems like a slam dunk to me.

this is what happens when arrogance political correctness trumps common sense

 

[Guest]

Unless there is more activity behind the scenes, the US response is not nearly what it ought to be. The focus on avoiding a panic and/or affecting the economy should not preclude common sense.

There's a simple measure to track. If there is a multiple of infected patients that exceeds one new infection per patient, then there is an exponent effect in motion. If there is a projection of a multiple, then all measures, including closing borders, quarantines, restricted travel must be employed immediately. The measures needed to bring that multiple down become similarly more exponentially difficult and expensive for every initial exposure.

I was watching a news program yesterday with a representative of the CDC who was reassuring the public that there are a grand total of 7 people on the ground in Dallas tracking who the initial patient had contacted. 7! And in the course of a day, the reported number of potentially exposed rose from a CDC estimate of 12-18 (which is it) to 80 as reported by NBC news.

This is scary stuff that needs to be met with proactive leadership (not the Obama Administration's strong suit), and transparency (also not the Obama Administration's strong suit).

If this does start to spread, it'll be easy to look back and wonder why we didn't pull out all stops early. I can just see the Obama 60 Minutes interview where he says that no one could have predicted x,y and z.

In reality, it's math. Do everything possible to ensure that there are no exposures in this country, and if there are go overboard to ensure that that dashboard stays <1. I think the issue is that to do that properly, there has to be honesty and ownership, starting at the top of our government institutions and filtering into the media. All of the things that have become broken in this nation work against the common sense measures and free press principles that would help.

 

[shader]

It's extremely scary. I assume it will be knocked out, like it was in Nigeria. But it still doesn't change the fact that it's scary. This isn't the flu. This isn't malaria. It's an extremely dangerous virus that up to this point, has only been handled in the US in laboratories with crazy safeguards. Now it's been out in the open in a major US city.

One thing that really bugs me is the assumption that the US will be fine because we have awesome hospitals. Our hospitals are no different than hospitals in other countries. It's US arrogance that somehow thinks we have nice, modern hospitals that the rest of the world doesn't.

Yeah, Liberia and Sierra Leone's hospitals are probably worse off. But ours aren't much better. I've worked in and around hospitals for the past four years. I've been in a lot of hospitals. Most hospitals aren't equipped to deal with Ebola. They just aren't. This isn't time for arrogance about the amazing state of US healthcare facilities.

 

[Ditka Butkus]

It's extremely scary. I assume it will be knocked out, like it was in Nigeria. But it still doesn't change the fact that it's scary. This isn't the flu. This isn't malaria. It's an extremely dangerous virus that up to this point, has only been handled in the US in laboratories with crazy safeguards. Now it's been out in the open in a major US city.

One thing that really bugs me is the assumption that the US will be fine because we have awesome hospitals. Our hospitals are no different than hospitals in other countries. It's US arrogance that somehow thinks we have nice, modern hospitals that the rest of the world doesn't.

Yeah, Liberia and Sierra Leone's hospitals are probably worse off. But ours aren't much better. I've worked in and around hospitals for the past four years. I've been in a lot of hospitals. Most hospitals aren't equipped to deal with Ebola. They just aren't. This isn't time for arrogance about the amazing state of US healthcare facilities.

Correct...The first ebola patient that was not brought over by the government and our modern hospital f**ked it up.

 

[Fennis]

Are we all going to have to take a rushed out vaccine? That didn't work so well back when the Government tried it with polio.

a vaccine, when available, will only be available for those at risk.

 

[Sinn Fein]

www.chickenlittleguys.com

 

[Fennis]

It's extremely scary. I assume it will be knocked out, like it was in Nigeria. But it still doesn't change the fact that it's scary. This isn't the flu. This isn't malaria. It's an extremely dangerous virus that up to this point, has only been handled in the US in laboratories with crazy safeguards. Now it's been out in the open in a major US city.

One thing that really bugs me is the assumption that the US will be fine because we have awesome hospitals. Our hospitals are no different than hospitals in other countries. It's US arrogance that somehow thinks we have nice, modern hospitals that the rest of the world doesn't.

Yeah, Liberia and Sierra Leone's hospitals are probably worse off. But ours aren't much better. I've worked in and around hospitals for the past four years. I've been in a lot of hospitals. Most hospitals aren't equipped to deal with Ebola. They just aren't. This isn't time for arrogance about the amazing state of US healthcare facilities.

do US hospitals reuse bloody, feces stained sheets after treating contagious patients? Because that's what happens in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

 

[Fennis]

I feel like I'm living in an episode of Hannity reading this thread.

 

[ShamrockPride]

I know there will certainly be conspiracy theories to all of this going on...population reduction, setup by big pharma in order to create a vaccine and make massive profits, etc.

But on the other side of the coin, in the real world, less of us = less $$$ for the corporations that essentially own this country.

 

[Gary Coal Man]

www.chickenlittleguys.com

Senior Chicken Little Guy...

Ebola 'could become airborne': United Nations warns of 'nightmare scenario' as virus spreads to the US

Exclusive: Anthony Banbury, chief of the UN's Ebola mission, says there is a chance the deadly virus could mutate to become infectious through the air

Telegraph, 10/2/2014

There is a ‘nightmare’ chance that the Ebola virus could become airborne if the epidemic is not brought under control fast enough, the chief of the UN’s Ebola mission has warned.
Anthony Banbury, the Secretary General’s Special Representative, said that aid workers are racing against time to bring the epidemic under control, in case the Ebola virus mutates and becomes even harder to deal with.
“The longer it moves around in human hosts in the virulent melting pot that is West Africa, the more chances increase that it could mutate,” he told the Telegraph. “It is a nightmare scenario [that it could become airborne], and unlikely, but it can’t be ruled out.”
He admitted that the international community had been “a bit late” to respond to the epidemic, but that it was “not too late” and that aid workers needed to “hit [Ebola] hard” to rein in the deadly disease.
Mr Banbury was speaking shortly before the first Ebola diagnosis was made in the US on Tuesday evening. The man, who contracted Ebola in Liberia before flying to Dallas, Texas, is the first case to be diagnosed outside Africa, where the disease has already killed more than 3,000 people.
The number of people infected with Ebola is doubling every 20 to 30 days, and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has forecast that there could be as many as 1.4m cases of Ebola by January, in the worst case scenario. More than 3,300 people have been killed by the disease this year.

Mr Banbury, who has served in the UN since 1988, said that the epidemic was the worst disaster he had ever witnessed.

“We have never seen anything like it. In a career working in these kinds of situations, wars, natural disasters – I have never seen anything as serious or dangerous or high risk as this one. I’ve heard other people saying this as well, senior figures who are not being alarmist. Behind closed doors, they are saying they have never seen anything as bad,” he said.

 

[Psychopav]

www.chickenlittleguys.com

Really?

As documented in this thread, there are tons of people in West Africa who think that Ebola is a spiritual problem, not a pathogen, and don't even grasp the concept. We're banking on someone believing the right thing, understanding the risks of losing containment, and caring enough to tell the truth to achieve appropriate controls, and that's assuming the West African airport personnel do their jobs? I'm not a panicker but this is kind of ludicrous.

 

[mcintyre1]

Here's how I see it. We're pretty sure we'll be able to contain it, because we've paid people to think about how to contain it or things like it for decades. However. Preparing to contain it and actually containing it are two very different things and we cannot be certain that our plans will work. The initial outbreak containment will be vital. Right now, we're pretty sure we know everyone who could have been infected and we can force them all to be monitored. What happens if it breaks that containment? You can't monitor everyone. Most people will seek treatment if they think they're infected, but not all people behave rationally when presented with something that they find terrifying. Some percentage of those infected would be in denial about the possibility that they have Ebola. They'd convince themselves that they just have a cold or the flu and stay home, possibly with other family members caring for them or, worst case, them caring for others (namely small children). If people aren't going to the hospitals, how can the hospitals contain the outbreak?

Personally, I think if you asked experts in the field in private if they are worried, they'd tell you yes.

 

[ShamrockPride]

Yeah, you can convince yourself you have a cold or flu...until you start s####ing and coughing up blood. And by then it's too late.

 

[TheIronSheik]

Containing the Ebola virus should be easy. I mean, it's not like it something crazy difficult. Like building a healthcare website.

 

[mcintyre1]

Containing the Ebola virus should be easy. I mean, it's not like it something crazy difficult. Like building a healthcare website.

You joke, but the complexity introducted to the ACA website through byzantine state-by-state rules and regulations is actually a much tougher question to solve than virus containment, programmatically. Relevant XKCD comic.

 

[Parrothead]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/15/health/enterovirus-outbreak/

Ebola is the favorite these days, but don't sleep on the enterovirus

 

[Buddy Ball 2K3]

Texas officials now looking at 100 people possibly infected with deadly Ebola virusThis good news or bad news?

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

Are we all going to have to take a rushed out vaccine? That didn't work so well back when the Government tried it with polio.

Or anthrax.

 

[Ditka Butkus]

Texas officials now looking at 100 people possibly infected with deadly Ebola virus

This good news or bad news?

I say bad...it once again proves they've got no idea how many have been exposed...by the end of the day they will revise that number.

They should be counting all of the people on the planes that he traveled with and the people who they contacted as well... Dallas Ebola Man probably sneezed or coughed on the arm rest and magazines on the way over here.

 

[El Floppo]

Texas officials now looking at 100 people possibly infected with deadly Ebola virus

This good news or bad news?

POSSIBLY INFECTED!!!!!

or depending on what you read- 100 people came into contact with the Ebola guy.

 

[mcintyre1]

Texas officials now looking at 100 people possibly infected with deadly Ebola virus

This good news or bad news?

I say bad...it once again proves they've got no idea how many have been exposed...by the end of the day they will revise that number.

They should be counting all of the people on the planes that he traveled with and the people who they contacted as well... Dallas Ebola Man probably sneezed or coughed on the arm rest and magazines on the way over here.

Current indications are that he had no symptoms during either flight. Of course, if that changes, we're in much tougher territory when it comes to containment. RE: the original article, I'd say good thing. Cast the net as wide as is reasonable when you're trying to stop this thing from going anywhere else.

 

[Tom Skerritt]

Got a text from a friend who does anesthesia in Dallas. They are being fitted for masks, and required to wear plastic gowns, boot covers, and double gloves.

 

[Smack Tripper]

The refusal to close the borders is plainly politics over policy. My goodness. It doesn't need to be permanent but let's get a handle on what we got.

And this Duncan idiot, I can imagine a bigger selfish SOB.

 

[ShamrockPride]

Pretty much we're already screwed. Think about it. 1 dude with it got on a plane of 100 or so people. Those 100 people then went back home and exposed it to family, in their workplace, out and about in their communities shopping, etc. All those people in that community then go a few days not knowing doing normal activities, and everything just increases exponentially. There will be at least 1 person under quarantine in every state by the end of October.

 

[Bucky86]

Should I buy a gun?

 

[Sinn Fein]

www.chickenlittleguys.com

Really?

As documented in this thread, there are tons of people in West Africa who think that Ebola is a spiritual problem, not a pathogen, and don't even grasp the concept. We're banking on someone believing the right thing, understanding the risks of losing containment, and caring enough to tell the truth to achieve appropriate controls, and that's assuming the West African airport personnel do their jobs? I'm not a panicker but this is kind of ludicrous.

This is much ado about nothing.

It does remind me of the Outbreak game on my iPad though - you want diseases to spread via airplane, and also boat - so keep an eye out for boats leaving from infected regions.

 

[Brony]

Should I buy a gun?

I don't think your average bullets are gonna stop that virus. Maybe a tiny virus gun?

 

[ShamrockPride]

www.chickenlittleguys.com

Really?As documented in this thread, there are tons of people in West Africa who think that Ebola is a spiritual problem, not a pathogen, and don't even grasp the concept. We're banking on someone believing the right thing, understanding the risks of losing containment, and caring enough to tell the truth to achieve appropriate controls, and that's assuming the West African airport personnel do their jobs? I'm not a panicker but this is kind of ludicrous.

This is much ado about nothing.

It does remind me of the Outbreak game on my iPad though - you want diseases to spread via airplane, and also boat - so keep an eye out for boats leaving from infected regions.

Exactly. The European side of the Straight of Gibraltar MUST be locked down right now. One ferry coming over with an infected person would start an event reminiscent of the Bubonic Plague.

 

[mcintyre1]

Pretty much we're already screwed. Think about it. 1 dude with it got on a plane of 100 or so people. Those 100 people then went back home and exposed it to family, in their workplace, out and about in their communities shopping, etc. All those people in that community then go a few days not knowing doing normal activities, and everything just increases exponentially. There will be at least 1 person under quarantine in every state by the end of October.

If he was asymptomatic on the flight it is near impossible for him to have infected another person. In fact, it might be impossible. I guess maybe if he like, hooked an IV line directly from his vein to another person's vein, then yeah, but I'm not certain the virus spreads at all until symptoms appear. The risk in Texas is that, once symptoms appear (cold/flu like) it can be spread by bodily fluids including sneezing/coughing directly on another person who then gets the virus into his body through facial touching or open wounds. The virus does not live long in those water droplets from the sneezing and coughing, but it the contact was near immediate, it is possible.

 

[mcintyre1]

The refusal to close the borders is plainly politics over policy. My goodness. It doesn't need to be permanent but let's get a handle on what we got.

And this Duncan idiot, I can imagine a bigger selfish SOB.

I disagree with this. Closing the borders isn't practical in any sense. Are you suggesting that we should shut off all people entering the USA? Otherwise we're not going to accomplish much. We have little control over boarding when it comes to international flights and the only way to know someone has Ebola is if they're visibly sick, which we're already trying to enforce (and even then, we just know they're sick, not that they actually have Ebola and not any number of other viruses that create identical symptoms). Remember, this guy didn't fly into the US directly from an Ebola country, he came through Europe.

I also can't blame Duncan personally, he wasn't exhibiting any symptoms when he took the flight and couldn't have known he was infected. Can you blame him for wanting to leave the country before he got sick (from all the knowledge he had at the time)?

 

[lod01]

Pretty much we're already screwed. Think about it. 1 dude with it got on a plane of 100 or so people. Those 100 people then went back home and exposed it to family, in their workplace, out and about in their communities shopping, etc. All those people in that community then go a few days not knowing doing normal activities, and everything just increases exponentially. There will be at least 1 person under quarantine in every state by the end of October.

If that actually happens, the stock market is going to meltdown faster than these people's organs. I'll work from home.

 

[Buddy Ball 2K3]

Pretty much we're already screwed. Think about it. 1 dude with it got on a plane of 100 or so people. Those 100 people then went back home and exposed it to family, in their workplace, out and about in their communities shopping, etc. All those people in that community then go a few days not knowing doing normal activities, and everything just increases exponentially. There will be at least 1 person under quarantine in every state by the end of October.

If that actually happens, the stock market is going to meltdown faster than these people's organs. I'll work from home.

Time to buy!

 

[lod01]

Also, if this actually does spread from one infected person, you gotta figure there are a few crazy radical muslims fitting an even crazier radical(s) with the ebola virus and booking him/them on a plane(s) to the US.

 

[Tom Servo]

Flashback: In August 2010, President Obama scrapped tougher Bush-era quarantine rules designed to halt the spread of epidemics.

Bush Weighs Strategies to Counter Possible Outbreak of Bird Flu

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 - President Bush said today that he was working to prepare the United States for a possibly deadly outbreak of avian flu. He said he had weighed whether to quarantine parts of the country and also whether to employ the military for the difficult task of enforcing such a quarantine.

"I am concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world," he said at a White House news conference.

The president emphasized that he was not predicting such an outbreak. "I'm just suggesting to you that we better be thinking about it," he told reporters, "and we are. And we're more than thinking about it, we're trying to put plans in place."

Since 2003, the avian flu has killed about 65 people in Southeast Asia who had been in contact with infected fowl. So far the virus has not mutated into a strain capable of transmission from one human to another.

If it does, scientists say that it could kill millions of people worldwide, reminiscent of the 1918-19 Spanish-flu pandemic, which claimed more lives than World War I. Because the virus is new, humans have little or no defense against it. It kills about half of those infected, and an outbreak could spread around the world in days.

Now watch this drive:



More than 30 Democratic senators,
including Mr. Obama
, sent Mr. Bush a letter today asking him to release the administration's final plan for dealing with a pandemic influenza. The group expressed its "grave concern that the nation is dangerously unprepared."

And then...

Flash forward to April 2010, after Obama became president, and reviewed the 2005 rules. He "quietly" dumped them.

The Obama administration has quietly scrapped plans to enact sweeping new federal quarantine regulations that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention touted four years ago as critical to protecting Americans from dangerous diseases spread by travelers.
The regulations, proposed in 2005 during the Bush administration amid fears of avian flu, would have given the federal government additional powers to detain sick airline passengers and those exposed to certain diseases. They also would have expanded requirements for airlines to report ill passengers to the CDC and mandated that airlines collect and maintain contact information for fliers in case they later needed to be traced as part of an investigation into an outbreak.
Airline and civil liberties groups, which had opposed the rules, praised their withdrawal.

Incidentally, Obama has a history of rebuffing calls to close borders in response to a public health threat:

 

[Parrothead]

how many confirmed cases will we have in the US by Halloween?

I say 8.

 

[lod01]

how many confirmed cases will we have in the US by Halloween?

I say 8.

Zero...or we are in a world of ####.

 

[Parrothead]

how many confirmed cases will we have in the US by Halloween?

I say 8.

Zero...or we are in a world of ####.

we already have one..

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

I like how there's a new strain of flu every season but people are sold on the belief that Ebola only works a certain way.

Because people who know a lot about it say that's not a worry?

 

[lod01]

how many confirmed cases will we have in the US by Halloween?

I say 8.

Zero...or we are in a world of ####.

we already have one..

I'm expecting that to be cured by them.

 

[Bucky86]

Should I buy a gun?

I don't think your average bullets are gonna stop that virus. Maybe a tiny virus gun?

No to shoot the Ebola zombies when this thing goes wide spread.

 

[Hot Diggity Dog]

Should I buy a gun?

And LOTS of bullets.