It's Here!

[ZAKO]

BUT YOU NEEED IS TO PUT THINGS IN PROPER PERSPECTIV,,,YOU REFUSE TO SEE THAT..

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Each person actually thought that Africa was the "country" in question

 

 

I am guessing that these people live in the state of confusion...

[joessportster]

 

 

Ebola is certainly WIDESPREAD in West Africa, and in my opinion It only makes sense to take the measures here in the USA to make sure it does not become widespread  here.  

 

We here on the forum are not alone in that quest Polls (as much as I hate to stoop to using them) show 67% of the public want travel bans, I will forego the political reasoning I believe is stopping the so called leaders from enforcing bans

 

 

 

I believe that the main problem with a travel ban is answering just what does 'widespread' constitute and where should travel be banned?  For example, I’ve talked to seventeen people consecutively and not one knew that there are approximately 47 countries on the African continent mainland. 

 

Each person actually thought that Africa was the country in question; however, in reality, the continent of Africa is larger than the entire continent of North America.  To think about it another way, think about a travel ban for the entire west coast of North America that consists of part of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

 

I need to update my research; however, at last check, in reality, only five countries out of the 47 countries on the African mainland have had Ebola cases in the current outbreak.  

 

As you indicate, all of them; Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone, are located in the western part of the African continent.  In addition, the last I checked, Nigeria and Senegal have since been declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization after going six weeks without any new cases.

 

It would seem that all of the panic, anxiety, nervousness, apprehension, angst and general fear that has been engendered in the news and on many forums, may be primary through various, multiple interpretations of the events taken out of context instead of people taking a real hard look at the facts and considering alternatives immediately available and considering the alternatives available in the long term.

 

I agree the media has created a great deal of fear, and the argument for where to ban travel from is indeed a tough subject.  We have a history to prove that the USA is woefully inept at controlling entry into America......................personally I support more of a paid quarantine approach for all the volunteers, and a ban on travel from the affected areas for all others.  Of course as stated that then leads to people in the affected areas simply traveling to a nearby area not on the ban list and traveling anyway

 

I dont pretend to have all the answers, but if we prevent even 1 case from making it here to infect others I would call it a success

[Fjd]

 

Each person actually thought that Africa was the "country" in question

 

 

I am guessing that these people live in the state of confusion...

 

 

 

I've been wondering when the late-night talk show hosts will be 'interviewing' people on the street and asking similar thought-provoking questions.

[iRONic]

Isn't there one of the brand new mods around to muzzle this CAPS LOCKED, name-calling, insult-spewing troll?!

[The History Kid]

 

I've been wondering when the late-night talk show hosts will be 'interviewing' people on the street and asking similar thought-provoking questions.

 

 

I'm honestly surprised that hasn't happened yet - especially Conan or Jimmy...both seem to do that a lot.

 

 

However, this does have me wondering - what if someone who was so against quarantine started have people around them getting sick one by one.  Isn't the saying "better safe than sorry?"  You're dealing with a virus that is capable of mutating, I'd think this would be a situation to follow that rule.

[Fjd]

 

It would seem that all of the panic, anxiety, nervousness, apprehension, angst and general fear that has been engendered in the news and on many forums, may be primary through various, multiple interpretations of the events taken out of context instead of people taking a real hard look at the facts and considering alternatives immediately available and considering the alternatives available in the long term.

 

I agree the media has created a great deal of fear, and the argument for where to ban travel from is indeed a tough subject.  We have a history to prove that the USA is woefully inept at controlling entry into America......................personally I support more of a paid quarantine approach for all the volunteers, and a ban on travel from the affected areas for all others.  Of course as stated that then leads to people in the affected areas simply traveling to a nearby area not on the ban list and traveling anyway

 

I dont pretend to have all the answers, but if we prevent even 1 case from making it here to infect others I would call it a success

 

 

 

 

 

I've been wondering when the late-night talk show hosts will be 'interviewing' people on the street and asking similar thought-provoking questions.

 

 

I'm honestly surprised that hasn't happened yet - especially Conan or Jimmy...both seem to do that a lot.

 

 

However, this does have me wondering - what if someone who was so against quarantine started have people around them getting sick one by one.  Isn't the saying "better safe than sorry?"  You're dealing with a virus that is capable of mutating, I'd think this would be a situation to follow that rule.

 

 

 

An immediate situation will need to be addressed immediately; however, it is not easy, nor cheap to develop contingency plans for unknown or unanticipated disaster, which probably has been more of the root of all of the speculation and anecdotal story telling on some of the forums.  Some of this just shows how ill-conceived many of our disaster recovery contingency plans are.  

 

The sad part is that probably neither you nor I would cancel Myrtle Beach plans or Florida plans for an outbreak of something such as Ebola in Los Angeles. 

 

Here is an example, from another perspective, when the American healthcare worker infected with Ebola was flown to Atlanta for treatment, how many people outside of Atlanta actually cancelled the family trip to Epcot or Disney in Orlando, Florida?  How many miles separate Atlanta, Georgia and Orlando, Florida?

 

Now let's think about it from yet another perspective.  Most people do not realize that many of the African countries already did adopt travel restrictions over the Ebola outbreak areas as early as August of this past year.  However, those travel restrictions have not helped avert the devastation taking place in their respective economies right now, and I'm not referring to Ebola.

 

Tourism to Africa’s greatest wildlife destinations, which includes Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa and Botswana is in a type of free-fall, as travelers scheduled to go on safari holidays have cancelled in droves.

 

Think about it this way, the Ebola outbreak has killed thousands in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea; however, Liberia is more than 4,600 miles from Kenya, and Sierra Leone is more than 6,700 miles from Durban, South Africa. 

 

Those distances sure seem much further than the distance from Atlanta to Orlando…… I suspect that the tourism industry in Florida is fortunate that the cases in Dallas that eventually ended up in Atlanta did not devastate their economy.....

[joessportster]

Obama publicly bashes governors for enforcing 21 day quarantines, and approves an order to quarantine troops returning from west africa

 

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/29/hagel-orders-21-day-quarantine-for-all-military-personnel-returning-from-ebola/

 

 

Now thats rich 

[minermark]

Kaci Hickock better not even sneeze in the next month.

[joessportster]

she is drawing a lot of attention to herself, Not all good

 

I can understand her feelings although I dont agree with her, considering she above most has first hand experience with the disease you would figure she would choose to air on the side of caution

 

recent polls show 80 percent of Americans want quarantines (when is the last time 80 percent of Americans agreed on anything ??)

[tigerwoodKhorns]

she is drawing a lot of attention to herself, Not all good

 

I can understand her feelings although I dont agree with her, considering she above most has first hand experience with the disease you would figure she would choose to air on the side of caution

 

recent polls show 80 percent of Americans want quarantines (when is the last time 80 percent of Americans agreed on anything ??)

 

 

They did what is probably the right thing (a quarrintine) the wrong way.   I do not watch very much TV, but holy crap.  They put her in a tent with a box to poop in.  This woman was a hero for going out there to help, and should expect to be segregated, but, as usual, the government completely screwed this up. 

[Fjd]

 

she is drawing a lot of attention to herself, Not all good

 

I can understand her feelings although I dont agree with her, considering she above most has first hand experience with the disease you would figure she would choose to air on the side of caution

 

recent polls show 80 percent of Americans want quarantines (when is the last time 80 percent of Americans agreed on anything ??)

 

 

They did what is probably the right thing (a quarrintine) the wrong way.   I do not watch very much TV, but holy crap.  They put her in a tent with a box to poop in.  This woman was a hero for going out there to help, and should expect to be segregated, but, as usual, the government completely screwed this up. 

 

 

 

Since then I caught in the news where she and her boyfriend stepped out of their home on a Thursday morning and rode away on mountain bikes, followed by a state of Maine police cruiser.   I suspect that she may feel that they continue to make her out as a common criminal in this process.

 

I suspect in her mind, she may believe that she has followed all of the protocols with the protective suits and may believe she did not made the same mistakes to expose herself as other healthcare workers appear to have made.

 

If you want to read a book that will whip up more anxiety and fear than the news and internet forums, get the 1995 book titled “The Hot Zone” written by Richard Preston.   I just ordered another copy since I haven’t read it since the late 90s.

 

Is anyone familiar with the Reston, Virginia incident?   

Edited October 30, 2014 by Fjd

[Fjd]

If you want to read a book that will whip up more anxiety and fear than the news and internet forums, get the 1995 book titled “The Hot Zone” written by Richard Preston.   I just ordered another copy since I haven’t read it since the late 90s.

 

Is anyone familiar with the Reston, Virginia incident?   

 

 

 

Since the resurgence in the book’s popularity, in a recent interview Preston was asked;

 

 

“More than 30 years have passed since this Ebola virus was discovered. We still don’t know where Ebola lives when it’s not in humans. Why?”

 

 

Preston commented that;

 

“It’s just a weird conundrum. The scientists are all scratching their heads. It’s an interesting problem. The guy who wrote the textbook on Ebola explained it to me: there is a gold standard proof that the Marburg virus (an Ebola cousin) lives in a particular species of bat. They’ve proved that. But that’s Ebola, not Marburg. They are both members of the filovirus family. With Ebola, there’s a lot of speculation that it could be living in fruit bats. The fruit bat carries Marburg. Could Ebola be in fruit bats? Living Ebola has never been found in a fruit bat. So maybe it could it be tiny little tick or insect that lives on the body of a bat, and then it’s infecting the bat and the bat infects a human. Those fruit bats are incredibly common in Africa. People eat them. They are supposed to be delicious. So there’s all this contact between bats and humans. Shouldn’t there be more Ebola? But there isn’t.

 

Ebola could easily live in an arthropod. But go into a rainforest environment — ecologists haven’t even given names to a lot of the insects there, and when it comes to mites and ticks, forget it. Even experts have real trouble distinguishing one species of insect from another. All of a sudden, you have to test thousands of creatures for Ebola and you still might not have found Ebola because it might be in that insect you didn’t test. There’s something here we’re not seeing.”

[Fjd]

I do not watch very much TV, but holy crap.  They put her in a tent with a box to poop in.  This woman was a hero for going out there to help, and should expect to be segregated, but, as usual, the government completely screwed this up. 

 

 

 

The conditions that she was placed in caught my attention too and maybe we are witnessing State government reacting to a constituency with a poorly implemented make-shift solution?   From my research, it seems that 76 workers have been identified who had some form of contact with Duncan while he was in the hospital in Dallas, Texas.  

 

Those workers are being checked every day for signs of fever.  I’m curious how an enhanced version of the Dallas alternative for these 76 workers has been considered for the returning volunteers?

 

However, maybe those 76 workers should be quarantined and given a cardboard box with a plastic bag to crap in?  Maybe we should just quarantine the whole city of Dallas and stop all flights in and out of Dallas?  I sure can see how things can spiral out of control rather quickly.

 

Some of this is why I find general polls of 1,269 people to be useless in identifying all of the issues and working to effective solutions.  To me the polls only show people have a certain high level of anxiety and fear over the issues, but may not really grasp other common sense aspects.  If more read the book I reference and maybe we can get to 95%...... 

 

Granted, in the West African nations we have a dire, ominous situation that could spiral much further out of control a whole lot more quickly if it wasn’t for these VOLUNTEER healthcare workers. 

 

They go into the West African nations and find grossly insufficient resources and severely ravaged health care systems that have essentially put these healthcare workers at even greater risk than any of us could even imagine.

 

I have read where the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare says it needs nearly 2.5 million boxes of exam gloves to treat future Ebola patients; however, there are fewer than 18,000 boxes in the Liberia right now.   Maybe more of us should find reputable organizations to donate and help fund appropriate equipment?

 

Now add to the mix that the healthcare staffs are so overworked and exhausted that infection control mistakes may happen fairly easy.  The latest World Health Organization data show that there have been more than 400 Ebola infections and 200 deaths of healthcare workers in the West African countries impacted.

 

Yes, I understand the risks and I understand the fears; however, if we continue to treat volunteers as criminals and not offer effective alternatives, volunteers will stop volunteering and those healthcare worker deaths will just continue to rise and continue to deplete an already strained vital asset that is needed during the control of any outbreak, not just Ebola.……

[BigStewMan]

 

she is drawing a lot of attention to herself, Not all good

 

I can understand her feelings although I dont agree with her, considering she above most has first hand experience with the disease you would figure she would choose to air on the side of caution

 

recent polls show 80 percent of Americans want quarantines (when is the last time 80 percent of Americans agreed on anything ??)

 

 

They did what is probably the right thing (a quarrintine) the wrong way.   I do not watch very much TV, but holy crap.  They put her in a tent with a box to poop in.  This woman was a hero for going out there to help, and should expect to be segregated, but, as usual, the government completely screwed this up. 

 

I do agree with your statement.  I suspect that the poop box was intended for the safe disposal of infectious waste???  i think she is overreacting with comparisons to prisoners. i also believe that we’re a spoiled bunch of people … 21 days was too much to ask?  Three weeks of watching tv, listening to music, surfing the internet, sleeping in, etc… her claim that the science behind the quarantine decision is faulty diminishes her credibility -- not that i’ve got blind faith in science, i surely do not; but, she just wants to be able to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Spoiled. For her to be “sure” that she hasn’t been exposed would mean that she wasn’t around infectious people … so what did she do over there while the rest of the world “did nothing?” If she helped…she most likely was exposed. Yes, the govt didn’t handle things perfectly; however, it’s not like we have a long track record doing this.  There are going to be some growing pains as we learn to handle things that we haven’t had to deal with before.