Ebola

Two thoughts from reading this thread:

1) Viruses are surprisingly stable genetically. The ebola of today is virtually identical to that of the 70's. The chances of it going airborne are VERY, VERY low.

2) Ebola is a "wet virus", meaning it cannot survive for long outside of body fluids, so it does not spread easily. It requires direct transfer of infected fluids.

For these 2 reasons, talking about an ebola "pandemic" possibly being like previous flu pandemics is a false equivalent. These are two completely different viruses. Finally, this idea of "shutting down the borders" is both unreasonable and illogical. The guy who came back infected in Dallas came to the US via Germany, meaning we would have to either shut down ALL air travel, quarantine ALL travelers, or track all previous travel for EVERYONE entering the US. I think the number of people going to/from the US and foreign destinations is around 100 million/year.

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Originally Posted by gugi

I don't know about this one person thing - it's the SCIENCE that claims it is so but we all know how trustworthy SCIENCE is. If you stop being dogmatic and read the non-SCIENCE sources you'll find out there are plenty of alternative explanations that make just as much sense.
There were people long before there was SCIENCE and they survived just fine, well technically they all died, but still the point is that they lived all of their lives without any SCIENCE mumbo-jumbo (which was just for the chief/priest/shaman/etc. because he could manhandle it).

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You realize that the average life expectancy before "science" as you put it, was in the 30's-40's, right?

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Originally Posted by DickWhitman

You realize that the average life expectancy before "science" as you put it, was in the 30's-40's, right?

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Not to mention the 50% child mortality rate.

Exactly. Yet people still believe we walked the earth with the dinosaurs. :confused:

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Originally Posted by OCDshaver

Jimmy, forgive me but your post almost suggests that it's best that that the US gets infected with Ebola in order to fix the problem. I'm not ready to subscribe to that thinking or sacrifice our own to save the rest of the third world. Call me selfish but I don't believe in sharing the pain just to resolve it.

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As an old ironworker I knew used to say, "Don't put words in my mouth and then quote me." :nono: I'm not suggesting that at all. Merely pointing out that until it seemed to be a direct threat, "we" weren't very concerned, based on our response. Sort of like the situation in Rwanda when the slaughter was happening. What was Clinton's response ....... play nice now children, or something along those lines ....... if that.

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Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

As an old ironworker I knew used to say, "Don't put words in my mouth and then quote me." :nono: I'm not suggesting that at all. Merely pointing out that until it seemed to be a direct threat, "we" weren't very concerned, based on our response. Sort of like the situation in Rwanda when the slaughter was happening. What was Clinton's response ....... play nice now children, or something along those lines ....... if that.

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The thing about ebola is that there's never been a very large outbreak until now. It generally hits a small community hard, then goes back into obscurity. We have limited research dollars, so it's going to be spent on whatever is seen as an immediate threat. Every year we (in the military/DoD) get a list of major research topics from congress that reflects what are considered the top threats/problems, and we have to put the money there. And when it comes to DoD, when you have thousands of soldiers dying from often preventable injuries, and tens of thousands coming back with injuries that require treatment, something like ebola is just not the main focus.

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Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic

The thing about ebola is that there's never been a very large outbreak until now. It generally hits a small community hard, then goes back into obscurity. We have limited research dollars, so it's going to be spent on whatever is seen as an immediate threat. Every year we (in the military/DoD) get a list of major research topics from congress that reflects what are considered the top threats/problems, and we have to put the money there. And when it comes to DoD, when you have thousands of soldiers dying from often preventable injuries, and tens of thousands coming back with injuries that require treatment, something like ebola is just not the main focus.

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That is the cold logic behind what gets done with taxpayers dollars for medical research. I am sure the same holds true up here. The short version is "If it is not happening to us it does not matter" regardless of how it is justified. That goes for private sector research not funded by government monies also, with the added disincentive of there being little profit in it if they are successful in finding a vaccine. A basic complete lack of altruism.

Fortunately for the people that so far have been the only ones effected by Ebola, Africans, there now seems to be more of an incentive to come up with a vaccine. The public in the West now views it as more of a direct threat. Lets hope that when this current large scale outbreak is declared over this new found incentive does not disappear totally also.

Bob

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Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic

Finally, this idea of "shutting down the borders" is both unreasonable and illogical. The guy who came back infected in Dallas came to the US via Germany, meaning we would have to either shut down ALL air travel, quarantine ALL travelers, or track all previous travel for EVERYONE entering the US. I think the number of people going to/from the US and foreign destinations is around 100 million/year.

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That is simply not true, nor what anyone is proposing at least not what I have seen so far...

"The Guy" Duncan still had to have a Visa to travel from Liberia to the US that is exactly what counties like AU just stopped. that is literally a stroke of that oh so famous pen here in the US.

Seems like a reasonable solution until the public panic dies down and we are sure we have the proper protocols in place, a temporary halt to Visas from West Africa.. With a reasonable quarantine situation in place for returning US citizens from West Africa..

As to other foreigners coming to the US, I would hope that we can tell where they have visited recently from their PP stamps/scans

Our people are in quarantine in Italy. Australia has closed their border. These are facts.
Artical from yesterday. NTY.

Ebola is a lot easier to catch than health officials have admitted — and can be contracted by contact with a doorknob contaminated by a sneeze from an infected person an hour or more before, experts told The Post Tuesday.

“If you are sniffling and sneezing, you produce microorganisms that can get on stuff in a room. If people touch them, they could be” infected, said Dr. Meryl Nass, of the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington, DC.

Nass pointed to a poster the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly released on its Web site saying the deadly virus can be spread through “droplets.”

“Droplet spread happens when germs traveling inside droplets that are coughed or sneezed from a sick person enter the eyes, nose or mouth of another person,” the poster states.

Nass slammed the contradiction.

“The CDC said it doesn’t spread at all by air, then Friday they came out with this poster,” she said. “They admit that these particles or droplets may land on objects such as doorknobs and that Ebola can be transmitted that way.”

Dr. Rossi Hassad, a professor of epidemiology at Mercy College, said droplets could remain active for up to a day.

“A shorter duration for dry surfaces like a table or doorknob, and longer durations in a moist, damp environment,” Hassad said.

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.

Avoid doorknobs at all costs ......... :beer2: