Ebola outbreak

[Juliajms]

If it were airborne it would have spread a lot faster in Africa and there would already be a lot more cases here. However, it does worry me that trained professionals are catching and potently spreading it. Not in the sense that I fear a wide spread outbreak in the U.S., but in the sense that it now seems clear we were not ready for this and more people are going to die because of it. If ever there were a time a health care professional was going to be hyper vigilante it would be when dealing with Ebola, but things still went wrong.

I agree, but I chalk that up to our abysmal education system, at least in part. So many people believe conspiracy theories over fact based evidence. 40,000 people died from the flu in 2004, but people are still more worried about being injured by the flu vaccine.

[Eric83]

Something about this sudden Ebola hysteria in America doesn't sit right with me. But I will wait before addressing that.

[Sundance]

The National Institute of Health has been working on a vaccine to immunize against ebola. Do you think most people would get immunized if the cost was very reasonable? Doesn't just about everyone get vaccinated against measles? Mumps? Rubella?

[Juliajms]

Eric83- To some extent it's the media stoking (maybe even manipulating) people's deep seated fears of serious contagion, imo. This sort of disease is click bait. We're hearing a lot less about that virus that's sent thousands of kids to the hospital, even though any one of us are a lot more likely to encounter that disease.

[Vee]

If it were airborne we'd all be dead already, years ago.

[Juliajms]

If it started off as airborne, but I don't think even the biggest conspiracy theorist believe that. I guess there are researchers who believe this outbreak has mutated to be more contagious, which is why it's spread as much as it has. I'll see if I can find that article.

ETA:

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/13/6959087/ebola-outbreak-virus-mutated-airborne

[Max]

I personally think it's reprehensible to turn Ebola into a political issue, but sadly we all know that some at the other extreme would be doing the same thing if this happened under Bush's watch.

Certain problems are so severe that we ought not to inject politics into them.

[ellabelle]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/health/ebola-cdc/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

"Ebola: Five ways the CDC got it wrong"

Definitely worth the read. Someone was asking in the comments on another article today if doctors' offices and urgent care clinics were up to handling a potential Ebola patient. I think it's clear that the answer is NO. I'm not sure why they're telling people to contact their doctor. I can guarantee my doctor would say "Go to the ER." Whether anyone would call the ER in advance and let them know I was coming and should be isolated is anyone's guess. Why isn't there a toll free number for people to call?

[marceline]

People are using this to advance political agendas. Not surprising because IMO politics are a factor. Political decisions have real world consequences and it usually takes something like this to show that.

For me this situation points out just how damaging the worship of the free market is. The free market can't handle a problem like Ebola. It's not surprising to me at all that Ebola hit Texas first. Texas has done its level best to become a third world nation so third world problems are just par for the course.

[ellabelle]

^ It could have just as easily been any other major city in America.

I do think though that the outbreak is proof that cutting funding for scientific research and for the CDC and other organizations is a really bad freaking idea. I am all for responsible government spending, but you can't strip away funding for essential programs and then complain because we're unprepared to handle a crisis. Speaking of politics and the free market though... it's shocking how many supposedly free market conservatives who hate government now want government to shut down our borders and thus devastate our economy.

[marceline]

But it wasn't, was it? It was in a state where the governor routinely spoke of secession and refused Medicare expansion. I wish that people like Rick Perry and his mouth breathing supporters actually had to live in the type of society they claim to want. Imagine what Texas would look like now without help from the dreaded Federal government.

[ellabelle]

Okay, look, I think Rick Perry is a pathetic little twat who needs to get the eff out of politics before he wrecks Texas further. I cheered when I heard he was retiring, and I hope he doesn't run for President. I dislike Greg Abbott just as much, and if I still lived in Texas, I'd vote for Wendy Davis. I even gave her money, at the expense of good candidates in my own state. I lived in Texas for six years, and there are parts of the state that are good (cough, Austin, cough), and parts that just plain suck. That said, it's not the fault of Rick Perry or any other state governor that Thomas Duncan's family chose to settle in Dallas. Its not their fault that Duncan decided to visit his family. It's not their fault that he wasn't running a fever when he left Liberia.

Let me repeat: this just as easily could have happened in any other American city. And before it's all said and done, it probably WILL happen in another American city, even one in a blue state. If you want to place blame, place it on Congressional Republicans, held hostage by Tea Partiers, who repeatedly shut down or threatened to shut down the government unless more cuts were made to government spending. Blame Bush and Cheney and co for lying to the American people and wasting trillions of dollars on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, depleting a huge budget surplus left behind by the Clinton Administration, and pushing for deregulation of everything and the gutting of government programs designed to keep businesses from running roughshod over the rest of us. Blame the right wing for refusing to believe in and invest in science, in the research necessary to treat disease, and for the support needed to contain Ebola in Africa before it spread. Hell, blame the Obama administration for caving too often to those morons in Congress.

If you want to include Rick Perry in that above group, by all means do, but really I don't see how you can blame him because Thomas Duncan's family chose to live in Texas, and he chose to visit them. If Thomas Duncan had gotten on a plane to Little Rock, Arkansas or to St. Louis, Missouri, would you blame the Democratic governors in those states?

[marceline]

I'm not blaming Perry for Duncan. I blame Perry for advancing unworkable policies that can, will and do result in negative consequences that harm people. Except that we keep protecting these people from those very consequences and I'm simply to the point where I'm no longer willing to do that. In a just world, Rick Perry wouldn't have the Federal government to bail him out yet again. I'm sick of right wingers who think that the government is the enemy until they need it and then even once they get bailed out they go right back to blaming the government.

If those governors talked about secession then put their hands out for government help, hell yeah I'd blame them.

[alphanguy74]

Travel to and from West Africa should have been temporarily suspended weeks ago, but of course, no official would have had the guts to do it, for fear of being labelled a racist. Political correctness may truly be the death of us all.

[Max]

It's really sad, but I think that Marceline has hit a new low, by even her obnoxious, ultra-partisan standards. (And I think it screams volumes that another liberal poster is arguing with her regarding Rick Perry.) Yes, plenty of blame can go around, and I'm sure that Rick Perry and the Congressional GOP have some responsibility. But in Marceline's black-and-white world, Republicans are totally responsible and her beloved president gets off scott free.

Of course it should have, Alphanguy. But now that Marceline wants to be the first to play politics, go into the gutter, and suggest it's Rick Perry's fault, it is important for somebody to point out that Obama has yet to do what you suggested. In fairness to the president, I am not certain if banning flights would have stopped the spread, but it may have helped.

As I mentioned before, plenty of blame can go around, though that is of no comfort to the victims now.