Furrydoc asked in comments the other day, “Where’s the CDC?” (in fighting Ebola in the U.S.) Rhetorical question, of course. She knows quite well where the CDC is: giving bland assurances to the media about being just right up there on top of Ebola while primarily occupying itself with profitable and political mission creep. These days it’s focused on “epidemics” such as obesity and “gun violence.”
—–
Ron Fournier, at the National Journal says the scariest thing about Ebola isn’t the disease but our growing lack of trust in government and other institutions.
He, of course, comes from the “if we don’t trust our leaders we’ll all run amuck in the streets” school of thought.
But faced with a real infectious health danger that may require quarantines and travel restrictions to contain it, even many traditional libertarians (as Newsweek happily reports) say let the government handle it.
—–
And yes, in the traditional libertarian view, protecting citizens by containing epidemics may be one of the few legitimate functions of government. (Not my view, but definitely a much thornier problem than who builds the roads or runs the post office in Libertopia.)
But of course, all we have to do is look around us in the real world to see precisely how well governments respond to epidemics. The governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone et al. haven’t contained Ebola any better than they’ve ever done anything else (other than practice corruption, wage savage warfare, and enrich cronies). And so far, Authoritah in America isn’t inspiring much confidence, though I’m sure the CDC and local governments will eventually do better than some medal-ridden tribal dictator.
American institutions have better infrastructure, a more educated public, more money, and more polished P.R. machines to assure us they’ve got everything under control. We’re not about to turn into Africa, though should Ebola get loose in some already dysfunctional U.S. city, things will get … interesting.
—–
But very little is under control. Politico examines the role that government mandated (and often politically purposed by officials at various levels of government) electronic health record systems may have played in the Dallas mess. Their article goes well beyond what may (or may not) have happened when one hospital made a terrible mistake with one patient:
No one wants to go back to paper records, but health care providers’ protests have reached a fevered pitch over the software’s expense, its lack of user-friendliness, the slowdowns in patient care it often causes, and its failure to enable the sharing of information among doctors.
Some, such as the American Medical Association, have warned that the electronic health records program could collapse in the next year if something isn’t done, quickly, to make it work better. …
Even at the best hospitals, dissatisfaction is high. Peter Pronovost, safety director at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, recently said his famed institution was “more dangerous than a hospital that was built 30 years ago” because the health records system it just installed “is backed with scores of pieces of equipment that do not communicate.”
Of course, in today’s news climate, it’s impossible to know how much of that is also fear-mongering by those who want more funding and how much is a genuine cry of distress from knowledgeable people who see disaster looming.
In overgoverned societies, everything is political and no institution is trustworthy.
—–
Without ever directly referencing the ongoing Ebola crisis, Kent McManigal certainly nails a big part of it:
People who want to have power to control you need you to believe their control is better than the alternative of you controlling, and being responsible for, your own life. If they can keep you fearful, you’ll allow them to do things to you that you’d never otherwise permit.
They also depend on pitting you against your neighbors. If they can get you to beg someone else to control your neighbor, through limiting his choices of what to do with his own body or his own property, they gain power. And never forget they are encouraging your neighbor to seek protection from you, too.
—–
The Washington Post at least gives friendly coverage to the self-responsibility view of preppers.
—–
And somebody’s going to ask, “If government and health experts aren’t equipped to handle Ebola, what would you do, instead, Ms Critic?”
I don’t pretend to have “the answer.” Not in any sense. Not in a medical sense (thank heaven for cutting-edge researchers, gutsy medical workers, and honest educators!). Not in a political or public health sense (my heart goes out to anybody charged with dealing with messes like the one in Dallas).
But of course those who pretend to have answers don’t have answers, either. They have only bland assurances that everything’s going to be okay — followed by brute force when it develops that everything’s not okay.
The only thing I can say is what you already know: be prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones.
It may be premature to run out and buy a hazmat suit. Or maybe not. If I lived in a city, I might be shopping for one. Just to beat the rush.
It’s questions like quarantine that make me more devout than usual in my joy that I don’t run a government. I could be drummed out of my anarchy club for quietly admitting that not only do governments push people around, sometimes – at least theoretically – they legitimately need to.
(And let’s see if that doesn’t start a fight.) 😛
‘“if we don’t trust our leaders we’ll all run amuck in the streets” school of thought.’
I belong to a different school of thought, one that gets confused with that one: the “too damned many people have been conditioned by generations of welfare and gov schooling to rely — child-like — on authoritarian government leaders, and do all run amuck in the streets when they finally perceive them as having failed.”
Sine at least the Johnson administration, governments at all levels have done their best to produce perpetual infants who throw tantrums when mommy and daddy won’t give them what they want. And throw tantrums when they get tummyaches from all the free candy.
My school of thought differs from Fournier’s in that he thinks leaders should be better at handing out free candy, while I wish the kids would grow up.
[Joel, in the current reality, you’re right. In theory, there are other, nongovernmental, ways to do it, but I’ll be damned if I know how to get there from here, with the material we have to work with. I think that’s why so much libertarian fiction involves alternate universes or just abandoning the system to go somewhere else and start fresh with those already like-minded.]
I just don’t see Ebola as being any real threat. From the Wikipedia page on how it’s transmitted:
“Human-to-human transmission can occur via direct contact with blood or bodily fluids from an infected person (including embalming of an infected dead person) or by contact with objects contaminated by the virus, particularly needles and syringes.[17] Other body fluids with ebola virus include saliva, mucus, vomit, feces, sweat, tears, breast milk, urine, and semen. Entry points include the nose, mouth, eyes, or open wounds, cuts and abrasions. [18] The potential for widespread EVD infections is considered low as the disease is only spread by direct contact with the secretions from someone who is showing signs of infection.”
That just isn’t something that ordinary people in a first-world country need to worry about.
There should be a tempature at which Ebola is rendered dead. It would seem incinerating corpses, dressings, clothing, medical waste at that tempature would eliminate some of the possibilities of exposure. Treatment might be done better at select facilities set away from the general population centers. FEMA camps maybe since they aren’t getting much use anyway. When the epidemic is over, burn the camps.
Governments are good at rounding people up, trampling rights, killing huge numbers of innocents, etc so they are perfect for forcing people into quarantine.
It is transfered almost the same as the common flu, (they are both viruses). The only reason it doesn’t actually spread around like the flu is because it sickens so much more severe, often leading to death. So its not so much the methods of transfer which make us safe — as the flu is everywhere. No one even thinks of containment, except on a personal level. So we limit our chances of exposure — yet still it spreads. Thankfully we generally don’t pay for it with our lives when it is only the flu.
“That just isn’t something that ordinary people in a first-world country need to worry about.”
OTOH, it’s something medical personnel/first responders in any world do need to worry about. And should any disease cut through the medical community, that puts the rest of us in bad shape.
I agree that Ebola isn’t likely to spread here as it has in West Africa, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s not a threat to people in a first-world country. Let’s hope that’s true. But I can easily see isolated pockets of disease and chaos. And as furrydoc says, it doesn’t take much to overwhelm isolation units at hospitals.
Ron Fournier, at the National Journal says the scariest thing about Ebola isn’t the disease but our growing lack of trust in government and other institutions.
IMHO the real problem, and the reason we don’t (and shouldn’t) trust government is that we know government won’t trust us.
“We can’t tell people the truth, they’ll PANIC!!!”
Not meaning to fight with Joel, but I disagree that governments “need” to push people around at times. What they need to do is maintain an on-going system of hands-off while we take care of ourselves – *especially* at times of crisis – before panic sets in. When crisis hits, people are too concerned with the immediate (family and self) to listen to others, especially when those others give conflicting advice; they need to be able to react automatically, as medical people do in an emergency. That takes education. What WE need is less experts giving directions, and more (private) community mentors with practical ways to handle emergencies – before they happen.
The problem with database/computer systems in hospitals is that 1) they were incorporated too fast in every hospital when the word came down “We gotta do it”; 2) the programmers knew little about the needs of the medical field, what to ask for, or how best to make it user-friendly to the personnel; 3) the medical field knew little about computer mechanics or how to feed medical knowledge to the programmers — so the parameters were always changing, or worse, once set up, they NEVER changed to meet new criteria or methods; and 4) the reasons for incorporating it were never truthfully presented – yet they were suspected by personnel, and therefore resented. Even “privacy of the patient” was obviously not about privacy OR the patient; as soon as the systems were in place, they established databases that could be tracked, hacked, or lost, and were used to monitor the personnel for performance in order to ward off litigation and update personnel records. (Including doctors, I might add, who fought the computerized system vigorously in the hospital I worked.)
FishOrMan: “It is transfered almost the same as the common flu, (they are both viruses). “
No, actually. Not all viruses spread the same way. It depends primarily on the protein coat. “The” common flu (in fact, there are different varieties all the time because they mutate) are airborne viruses, as are the “common cold” rhinoviruses. Ebola is not airborne because it doesn’t have a protein coat that allows it to remain active in air. Even an airborne mutation (a possibility that worries some) wouldn’t necessarily be a human pathogen because the protein change would still have to be compatible with humans.
If you’ll recall “bird flu;” that one had been around for a long time, but only infected avians. It was a protein coat mutation that let it spread to humans by physical contact, and it never did (so far as I’ve seen reported anywhere, mainstream or otherwise) mutate to go airborne and infect humans.
Retrovirus (yet another family of viruses, which includes AIDS-causing HIV) also vary. HIV is not airborne; Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus is.
If Ebola transmitted the same way as most influenza, we’d be seeing about a million times as many cases.
(Somewhat to the point, I recall a cynical definition of STDs as a class of diseases so difficult to catch that they require extremely intimate and deliberate contact to spread. [Heinlein, in To Sail Beyond the Sunset, I think.]
OT — recent run of coverage on civil asset forfeiture.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Civil Forfeiture, YouTube, 16:29
CBC warns Canadians: US cops will pull you over and steal your money
http://boingboing.net/2014/09/14/cbc-warns-canadians-us-cops-w.html
and, a three-part investigative series by The Washington Post, Stop and Seize
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/
Regarding the electronic health records: “No one wants to go back to paper records,”
That’s a big fat lie. I experienced the beginning of this insanity just before I retired. I have long personal experience. Unfortunately, the already paper-doll cutout inefficiency of the pen/printer records being kept were totally screwed up when the computer terminals started showing up at the bedside. Nurses had to spend a great deal more time doing their nonsense on the machine than they did with their pens. And, unless there was a nursing station terminal for each nurse, doctor, therapist, social worker and so forth on the floor at the same time… some people had to wait long periods to access ANY records, entry or reading. And then the system went down for one reason or another, and NOTHING could be accessed by anyone until the geeks could come and fix it. Even the narcotic medicine cart was “electronic” and tied into the computer system. Tell your patient he has to wait for his meds until the machine wakes up… Oh yeah.
Oh no… I still talk to quite a few of my former colleagues, and I’ve yet to find one who wouldn’t go back to paper in a flash… but many of us would want the paper records the way they were 40 or 50 years ago, when they were bare bones simple, at least had some relevance to what was actually going on and involved little or none of the more recent PC crap with everyone trying to satisfy Medicare BS AND cover their butts against lawsuits at the same time.
I’m sure there have been improvements in the machines and back up systems in the last 10 years or so, but the disease of government meddling and all the rest that made medical records a joke for decades can only get worse.
Western medicine is TOAST. Don’t trust it with your life if you can possibly avoid it. Prepare – because this isn’t the only rodeo that’s going to come along. Prepare both your supplies and your immune system to survive. And get the hell out of the cities, people. That is exactly where a very large number of even otherwise well off and healthy Americans will die, of one thing or anther.
[rant]
While we’re on a medical kick, IF YOU LIVE ALONE GET AN “I NEED HELP” ALARM AND WEAR IT.
Sorry. I sang at the funeral of a very good friend yesterday. He got in trouble and it took him twelve hours to get to a phone. Surviving that took so much out of him his leukemia exploded.
He’s the third friend in that situation in the last eighteen months. One of them was perfectly healthy until he had a mild stoke sitting on the toilet. It was thirty plus hours before he was found. He almost lost both legs. The third one wasn’t discovered until it was several hours too late.
[/rant]
Spread the word.
Bear — Wiseass. 🙂
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/06/us-spain-ebola-idUSKCN0HV1MC20141006
Nurse in Spain contracted Ebola from a priest who was repatriated from Africa. First known case of Ebola contracted outside of Africa — and presumably contracted in modern, first-world iso/hazmat conditions.
[proud smile]
“contracted in modern, first-world iso/hazmat conditions”
Hmmm, maybe so. And maybe there was some hanky panky going on. Or sheer carelessness, or who the heck knows. Trust me, shit can happen anywhere, but this doesn’t begin to indicate some wide spread epidemic in first world countries.
Yes, Bear is a wiseass… and I’ll figure out what the heck he’s talking about if it kills me. LOL
“…but this doesn’t begin to indicate some wide spread epidemic in first world countries.”
Oh, totally agreed. In fact, I said earlier in comments that while I didn’t expect a widespread epidemic, there’s an obvious high risk to medical personnel & it’s that, rather than a widespread contagion, that could really affect the rest of us.
Claire, the medical professionals in this country (and most others) have everything they need to both avoid contamination and prevent the risk of infection. They are, however, mere humans and not all of them will always use it. And sometimes it fails. But I see no reason to fear that medical people would be at high risk, much less more risk than anyone else.
Remember that the doctors originally infected in Africa had become contaminated when their “hazmat” suits were killing them in the heat and humidity… they broke infection control procedure, probably grossly. It happens.
Ebola will soon join the ranks of SARS, bird flu redux, pig flu, AIDS and all the rest. Then somebody will come up with a new one. Relax everybody.
It’s funny you should reference my column from last week, because the one I’m writing now directly talks about Ebola. Being in the Printed-on-Paper, Dinosaur Media, it won’t publish until Friday.
And, it looks really weird for you to write out my whole name. LOL.
Lastly, if you’re going to buy hazmat suits, anyway, use Claire’s Amazon links. (Hopefully I did that right)
Thanks, Kent. Please post when your Ebola article appears. I expect there will be a lot of interest. I’ll definitely be interested.
And 🙂 for the Amazon promo. I’m not sure whether your link will work or not, but I created another one, just in case:
This link should do it.
‘Course, people will need more than plain-vanilla hazmat suits if they’re going to get serious about this. I may do some research and ask some of our medical types …
From that NJ article:
[we are only as strong as our institutions—and our trust in them.]
If there is one thing that is scarier than people not trusting the ruling class institutions, it is people trusting the ruling class institutions.
Mission creep at CDC certainly is a problem – even when the ruler’s wishes backfire, as they did here:
http://www.gunsandammo.com/politics/cdc-gun-research-backfires-on-obama/
They shouldn’t be studying this at all.
For a while my wife and I did some work on hospital software. This was long before terminals by hospital beds. We made a lot of money just keeping our hospital up to date with state and federal mandates, and insurance company requirements. I can’t see how hospitals could even dream about coping now.
I’m with Susan. Don’t use hospitals if there is any way to avoid them. We are on our own (which is not such a bad thing after all).
Maybe we should ask, how would we react to the issue if there were no government?
Matt, another- That’s kind of what my future column is about: how a free society would deal with it.
In 1976 I discovered Ebola – now I fear an unimaginable tragedy
Around June it became clear to me there was something different about this outbreak. I began to get really worried
The virus is continually changing its genetic make up – mutating.
Yes, that really is the apocalyptic scenario.
Peter Piot, the man who named Ebola.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outbreak
Here’s some hope, and an answer to Matt’s question:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/06/354054915/firestone-did-what-governments-have-not-stopped-ebola-in-its-tracks
Anyone surprised?
Bear,
You are correct. Ebola is not considered airborne by the medical definition: of staying ‘suspended’ in the air. Certain viruses do stay suspended, which are called ‘airborne droplet nuclei’. But this is not a main transmission method for the flu virus, in fact, some studies have found zero transmission rates for the “airborne” Rhinovirus particles(1), other studies do claim transmission is “possible” via airborne virus transmission (2 – 4).
Since we seem to have no disagreement on the other transmission methods between Ebola and the common flu, lets talk about what “airborne” means outside of the medical definition of airborne. This transmission method for Ebola is in fact identical to the common cold virus and flu and is described by the CDC thus: “if a symptomatic patient with Ebola coughs or sneezes on someone, and saliva or mucus come into contact with that person’s eyes, nose or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease.” (5) (It is my belief this transmission method is the most common way the flu virus is spread — and NOT the airborne droplet nuclei method which has questionable transmission ability).
If this infected saliva or mucus lands on a surface what happens? Well, the CDC answers that too: “Ebola dried on surfaces such as doorknobs and countertops can survive for several hours.” (5) That is, it survives several hours AFTER the saliva or mucus has dried out.
Bear, you said, “If Ebola transmitted the same way as most influenza, we’d be seeing about a million times as many cases” — Again this is explained because of the symptoms. Ebola just doesn’t generally cause coughing, therefore we see different transmission rates than the flu even though they share the same most common transmission methods.
The director of the CDC actually recommends staying 6 feet away from anyone infected — but won’t call it airborne due to the medical definition of ‘airborne’; “…people dealing with anyone who may be ill are told to stand at least three feet away, preferably six. Being within three feet of a patient for a prolonged time, without wearing protective gear, is considered direct contact, Frieden said. (6) “Direct contact means that body fluids (blood, saliva, mucus, vomit, urine, or feces) from an infected person (alive or dead) have touched someone’s eyes, nose, or mouth or an open cut, wound, or abrasion.” (5) {FishorMan wonders how many lives have been saved because folks followed this sage advice and only stood near an infected person for a not-quite-prolonged time.}
(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/208415?dopt=Abstract
(2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5920335?dopt=Abstract
(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14246085?dopt=Abstract
(4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3039011?dopt=Abstract
(5) http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/qas.html
(6) http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/article_b2f9f092-4d6f-11e4-83f6-0017a43b2370.html
Also used for overall reference: http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.200306-760OC?journalCode=ajrccm&#.VDOs9hY02b4
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2014/10/06/many-ebola-victims-can-treated-u-s-hospitals-23/
(Includes a link to the source of that info.)
Apparently we can only treat 23 people in the entire nation at one time – all in 4 hospitals. The CDC is already closely watching 50 of the people Duncan had contact with, and he’s got one of the 23 beds already.
So, I’ll believe it’s not a problem, when the administration stops trying to reassure me and starts to fund conversion of some rooms in other hospitals to the level of security that is required for such a dangerous disease.
Interesting article on how Firestone curtails the Ebola epidemic in its company town near Monrovia, Liberia:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/06/354054915/firestone-did-what-governments-have-not-stopped-ebola-in-its-tracks
Ebola will soon join the ranks of SARS, bird flu redux, pig flu, AIDS and all the rest. Then somebody will come up with a new one. Relax everybody.
===================
Everybody except every healthcare worker on the front lines. To us it horrible death just waiting to have droplets sneezed on us and getting past the barrier.It will,and it does.
Most hospitals are also jokes at containing bugs,they are FILTHY in that regard as an industry….lets get real,we cant even contain staph,strep,MRSA at this time,and suddenly Ebola is chopped liver????
MamaL,you should know better,youve been there.You wouldnt be nearly as sanquine if you still were.
This is ESSENTIAL to understand.
Ebola is far far harder on the body that say Mers or Sars,where you only have to isolate their repirations,ie,a single body system,very easy to do on a ventilator,or aids where you are dealing with an opportune infection and pretty much dont stab yourself with a needle and you are safe.
EBOLA your entire body rots while you die.Your skin sloughs off,your tongue rots and you swallow the tissue,and vomit it up.Your eyes bleed out.Your internal organ rot into mush.You are are rotting corpse of massive virii,pouring out of you.Your blood does not clot,it pours out.And this happens FAST! Then you have a massive pulp of a body thats pouring out virus at death.Get one electron microscope drop of infected fluid on any body opening on you and youre the next virus factory.
Read this….EBOLA is one scary mother bear and makes the other infectious disease look like a walk in the park dealing with them.
We arent comparing apples to apples,or even oranges,more like apples to open uncontrolled death dealing sewage.
Read the horror of what Ebola does here….
http://cydathria.com/ebola.html
“In 1976 I discovered Ebola – now I fear an unimaginable tragedy
Around June it became clear to me there was something different about this outbreak. I began to get really worried
The virus is continually changing its genetic make up – mutating.”
While it hasn’t been discussed for a few years, “weaponized ebola” was on the war machine’s want list for 20 years or so. Of course that coudn’t have anything to do with this.
The mainstream media monopoly took a widespread, daily, feature-it interest in ebola LONG before it seemed like anything extraordinary.
The peace president imported ebola into the USofA overtly and covertly.
Skuze me while I suspect widespread acceptance of martial law as the likely result of what looks a lot like their first really good plan to get it.
Fred, I’m well aware of the potential problems… and there are many good reasons why I left medicine and would not enter a hospital willingly under most circumstances… even as a visitor. That isn’t the question here.
I refuse to be stampeded by the fear mongers in both government and the medical/pharma complex that have used fear and hate of everything but UFOs (so far) to drive people to accept ever greater control of their lives and property. This ebola thing is merely the latest, and whether or not it is a worse actual threat than the past ones is not the point.
None of us really can know what might happen, whether we’re talking about ebola or a nuclear war or rocks falling from space. We can speculate, try to make decisions based on previous history, look for solutions to new and old problems, and so forth. None of that can truly predict the future, and none of it can truly prevent all the problems. We pays our money and we takes our chances.
The ONLY thing I’m speaking out against is the hype, the hysteria, and the manipulation of everyone who’ll buy all that. But, in fact, the actual number of people affected is quite small, in comparison to the population of the world, and there is no real reason to doubt that even our seriously imperfect medical system will be of great help to those who can use it rationally. Not everyone will survive, of course. That isn’t an option… think how many people die of cancer, stroke and so forth every day.
We are not ALL GOING TO DIE from ebola. If the PTB actually had the power to kill us all, this way or any other, then we’d likely all be dead already. I just don’t buy that they are quite that omnipotent, and refuse to give them any more power over me by swallowing the lies.
It is up to each one of us to defend ourselves and our health. What we can each reasonably do about that will be different depending on our location and present health, most likely, and nobody has the whole answer.
Staying away from crowded conditions, maintaining a healthy immune system, and practicing good hygiene will most likely be sufficient for most of us. And, in the end, I can’t do that for anyone else. Neither can anyone else, much less government.
The discussion here focuses solely on Ebola, but the real issue is much larger than that. Ebola may not be the incipient civilization-destroying plague some are making it out to be (although frankly I don’t think we really know that yet), but our government has done literally nothing to stop it from becoming such. Just as it has done literally nothing to stop the introduction into this country of numerous deadly diseases which, until a few years ago, had been completely eradicated here. In fact, our government is actively working to exacerbate the importation of those diseases (whether that is intentional or merely a byproduct of other political objectives I leave as an exercise for the reader).
Here is a short article concerning the point: http://www.economicnoise.com/2014/10/04/ebola-marker-insanity-tyranny-government/ An excerpt:
“3. The deliberate, considered, and premeditated response of Federal agencies across the board has been to bring as many disease vectors into this country as they possibly can, to forcibly prevent them from being medically screened, to scatter them throughout the country, and to actively impede state and local health authorities from responding to any disease outbreaks triggered.”
A government which truly was concerned with the wellbeing of its citizens would be doing almost precisely the opposite of what the Obama government has been doing these last few years. This cannot be attributed solely to incompetence.
Laird, isn’t the bottom line the fact that no non-voluntary government is even CAPABLE of providing for the actual wellbeing of its “citizens,” regardless of intention or method? Even the most draconian police state and mind control could not stop infectious diseases from spreading. Unfortunately, those tactics can and may well prevent people from taking care of it themselves.
I dont think its the end of the world as we know it either,I do think it can can kill millions possibly and I PERSONALY dont appreciate me and MY family being served up by the governmant because we are healthcare workers.This is the group being served up here.Im not that altruistic to die for someones agenda.And I didnt sign up for it,nor did my family.
The FIRST thing you do is stop it from migrating and our aholes in charge are refusing to do that very FIRST step in the control of infectious disease spread.
“If we close border it only makes it WORSE”,who in the hell believes that? Not a single healthcare worker Ive talked to,not one nurse,paramedic ,not a single one.
Simple,you dont have to close the border to all as they are pretending that entails,nobody in or out.(and that half assed excuse quarantine travel restriction OUT only makes it worse?????),what you do is allow no citizen from outbreak central with a passport to leave.We can still send in medical volunteers,and quarantine them on repatriation,whats wrong with that?
We can stop those passport holders at the airport with document screening,and the airline/shipping line,whatever that violates it loses travel rights to here.That simple,that will stop the world wide spread or at least cut it dramatically.
As for the hospital to treast them there,every serious war machine on Earth has many many many mobile hospitals that can be deployed in an instant,and they arent doing that either.Could it be we are just the greatest murderers on the planet,no longer the great benevolent Country we were in times past?
WHY??? I’d sure like to know,the response we are seeing is only serving us up to the disease.Deliberatly.And violating infectious disease containment from the very first step.
Reminds me of Seinfeld and Bizarro World,only this isnt funny.
Fred, I’m well aware of the potential problems… and there are many good reasons why I left medicine and would not enter a hospital willingly under most circumstances… even as a visitor. That isn’t the question here.
I refuse to be stampeded by the fear mongers in both government and the medical/pharma complex
================
Yes Mama,I avoid the hospitals as much as possible too but it is my career,along with millions of others.It IS the issue for the healthcare industry workers,for us its our lives on the line.
Should I/we refuse to go to work,along with all the rest of us? Then welcome to all the other disease that will spread uncheck in the disease process going forward.The cholera’s,typhoids,whatever the opportunistic infectious diseases that pop right up when the sytem of healthcare/garbage collection/sewage/rule of law,etc goes down when the others ‘run for the hills’ attitude takes hold,taking care of their families first and going into isolation,those who can r/t to financial ability,location,whatever.
If I was retired with resources I’d be isolated,but Im not,nor are most of us.We are being served up.
Its not just the EBOLA,it wont happen in a vacuum.
Dogs and other animals are carriers. Isn’t this a new development possibly due to mutation? The Spanish government is killing the family pet of the nurse who contracted Ebola while wearing a hazmat garment, and has her put husband in quarantine. If the disease is spread only by direct contact with fluids from the infected as they telling us, then the Spanish government doesn’t believe it.
The CDC is lying to us.
I also agree the electronic medical records are a disaster.Its a really bad system.IT people havent got a clue about medicine.So lets have em design the medical records,brilliant.
FishorMan……
The director of the CDC actually recommends staying 6 feet away from anyone infected — but won’t call it airborne due to the medical definition of ‘airborne’; “…people dealing with anyone who may be ill are told to stand at least three feet away, preferably six. Being within three feet of a patient for a prolonged time, without wearing protective gear, is considered direct contact, Frieden said. (6) “Direct contact means that body fluids (blood, saliva, mucus, vomit, urine, or feces) from an infected person (alive or dead) have touched someone’s eyes, nose, or mouth or an open cut, wound, or abrasion.” (5) {FishorMan wonders how many lives have been saved because folks followed this sage advice and only stood near an infected person for a not-quite-prolonged time.}
===========================
And yes,its is spread by droplet and that appears to be a fact at this point.Airborne droplets.
The Union in Spain is calling for full repirators,not just masks and goggles.I agree,paper masks arent going to do it,along with ventilated goggles it appears in what Im seeing?
I’d like to see the actual pics of what the workers are wearing in Spain,its reported it is NOT respirators like we see the CDC folks wearing thats the image in the LameStream news.
———————
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/10/cdc-forced-admit-ebola-might-spread-even-symptoms-coughing-sneezing.html
Two national experts on infectious disease transmission – both professors in the School of Public Health, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, at the University of Illinois at Chicago – report that Ebola can be transmitted by aerosols … i.e. fluids mixed with air (footnotes omitted):
We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients,
[b]which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks. [/b]
[Aerosols are liquids or small particles suspended in air. An example is sea spray: seawater suspended in air bubbles, created by the force of the surf mixing water with air.]
The important points are that virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that a wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract.
Being at first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, we are now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings.
***
The CDC lie to us? Hard to believe. Wait, no it isn’t. I do have full faith in their ability and desire to lie to us, and when they appeart to be telling the truth we will find out they had no idea what they were talking about.
How Nigeria is containing Ebola. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2014/1006/Nigeria-contains-Ebola-and-US-officials-want-to-know-more
MamaLiberty, I don’t disagree with you that no non-voluntary government is truly capable of providing for the well-being of its citizens, but that wasn’t my point. A decent government would at least give the appearance of trying to provide for our well-being; at a minimum it would go through the motions of pretending to care. After all, the protection of its citizens is the sole legitimate function of any government. Yet this one doesn’t even do that much. Rather, it is doing everything within its considerable power to facilitate the importation of deadly, infectious diseases (many of which we had considered totally eradicated a few short years ago) and to disseminate the vectors of those diseases as widely as possible throughout the country.
The government itself (HHS) reports that this year alone (through August) over 43,000 unaccompanied minors have been scattered around the nation, into every state in the union plus DC, Puerto Rico and even the Virgin Islands(!). See http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/programs/ucs/state-by-state-uc-placed-sponsors. Nearly 500 are in my state alone (SC), and they are distributed across a large number of school districts (with no advance warning given, I might add, which would have permitted those districts to at least prepare for their arrival). Many of these children are the carriers of those diseases, but there is no health screening being done by the federal government and the school districts can’t even insist on immunizations.
As I said before, this cannot be attributed solely to incompetence, or even to the natural stupidity of bureaucrats. Ordinarily I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories, and I am a devotee of Hanlon’s Razor, but this case is different. What we are experiencing today can only be a purposeful, designed plan. What its true objectives are I can only guess, but the effect is obvious. We are being intentionally and systematically put at significant risk by our own government. This is a government which has crossed the line into being objectively evil.
Claire, maybe it is time now.
What we are experiencing today can only be a purposeful, designed plan. What its true objectives are I can only guess, but the effect is obvious. We are being intentionally and systematically put at significant risk by our own government. This is a government which has crossed the line into being objectively evil.
Read The Open Conspiracy by H.G. Wells. One of his objectives was world wide biological control of disease and population. What better way to achieve that than by a catastrophic worldwide epidemic.
Yes it is evil, as evil as Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, etc. The thing that occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is evil incarnate. Snowden woke me up, but the coming Ebola nightmare is the clincher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Conspiracy
Just an explanation of the inevitability of mission creep: http://www.economist.com/node/14116121
Thanks, Shel. That’s always worth re-reading.
Good post and link on the actual number of treatment facilities, David. Strongly recommend that everyone follow the link to the raconteureeport, much good additional info there.
BTW, even though there seems to be some uncertainty about airborne vs droplet transmission of Ebola, droplets occur everywhere. Droplet transmission of Clostridium dificile in hospitals, and the spread of diarrhea among patients is known, even to CDC.
My prediction,best I can come up with….
Zmapp is claimed to be death to Ebola,but its in ‘limited supply’.
The elite will get it first,it wipes out Africa and then the ‘collateral damage’, thats us,then when its run it havoc,suddenly enough zmapp available to go around? That seems to be where we are at.
I dont believe in coincidences,and we have the largest spread ever with a cure in the wings,its not coincidence.
I see the evil sociopaths having orgasms just thinking about the mass murder they are doing.
And THAT has happened before,recently Hitler,Pol Pot,Stalin,etc,so it isnt out of the realm of possibility.
Fred, that’s not too far from the plot line of “V for Vendetta”. And maybe you’re right, but I’m not quite that far gone in my paranoia. Yet.
The head of the CDC has explained why he opposes travel restrictions on flights from Africa. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/09/cdc-chief-why-dont-support-travel-ban-to-combat-ebola-outbreak/ Some of his arguments have at least a veneer of plausibility, but in the end I don’t accept them. (I see no purpose to offering a point-by-point rebuttal here, though.) Severely restricting flights from the affected portions of Africa would not completely prevent the importation of ebola (no one claims that it would; that’s a straw man argument), but it would certainly reduce the risks substantially.
And now we’re using our military to “fight” ebola! We’re sending troops to Africa to build hospitals, etc. This is utterly ridiculous, and an offensive mis-use of our armed forces, but it certainly is in keeping with how we’ve degraded the military mission in recent years. I suppose it’s only a short step from nation-building to hospital-building. Still, to me it seems completely unfair to order servicemen into such conditions. This is not what they enlisted for. The idea is noble, I suppose, but it seems to me that such a project should be entirely on a voluntary basis, even if it is conducted under the auspices of the Army.
I like the idea of sending MASH style hospitals,Im hearing lately 80% or so are turned away from care,or even isolation.But they are only sending hospitals so far for our personnel.They need to help the people there with some sort of care and isolation.HOPE thats the plan.
It SHOULD be staffed with volunteers IMO also,but thats not happening.
When you sign on the dotted line for the military you are government property,and they can do as they will with you.Maybe they dont grasp that on joining,but its crystal clear once you are in. So unfortunately I dont have much sympathy for them in that regard,again IMO they made that choice to join the international murderers club that our military has become,not a defensive force but a gang of killers for the elites agendas.I wish these young people understood that.
All the money we spend to kill to force people to our bidding is insane,we should send instead aid that begets friendship(if we send at all),not justifiable animosity,but thats another story.
Sure is a mess,thats for sure.My prayers are for all affected.
And that crap Duncan came here for love of his family…..what a bunch of BS!
The travel ban can still allow those aid workers with a need to leave to do so under controlled conditions,aid in and out doesnt have to stop,but the Duncans of the World have no overwhelming right to travel that exposes countless others to spread a horrific disease.
They act like banning travel is putting up a total barrier from which no goods or people can enter to fight the fight,thats ridiculous.That small amt of travel can be much more effectively controlled in both better screening and huge risk reduction in spread.As for border crossings in the jungle,good luck on that,if people are stupid they will continue to be so,isolation or not.
Isolation is rule number one in containing infectious disease outbreaks,period.No political excuses change that.
Let me go to the hospital,walk in and out of isolation rooms unprotected with no more than a temperature check and see how thats received?
1-I would be treated as an incompetent fool.
2-When I explained my brilliant reasoning for doing so….see #1 above,and see the pink slip in my hand,instantly.
My column on Ebola is now on the paper’s website: Health crises work themselves out
I do get irritated at how often they pick some very minor point to focus on and make into the headline. It’s as if they are trying to subvert what I’m actually saying. Oh well.
Thank you, Kent. Good think piece.
I agree they composed a dumb headline, but in my limited experience writing for newspapers, I saw a lot of that. Even ended up apologizing to a few people about the distortions (and gritted my teeth because so few people understand that the writer of the article doesn’t usually have a say over the headline).
Glad you shared that.
@Laird
[A government which truly was concerned with the wellbeing of its citizens would be doing almost precisely the opposite of what the Obama government has been doing these last few years. This cannot be attributed solely to incompetence.]
[A decent government would at least give the appearance of trying to provide for our well-being; at a minimum it would go through the motions of pretending to care. After all, the protection of its citizens is the sole legitimate function of any government.]
This is so strange a view of what government is about. Do people really think it’s here for us? May be time to check your premises. The world makes a lot more sense when you’ve got the right ones.
It’s strange to be so impressed with pretend caring.
[This is a government which has crossed the line into being objectively evil.]
Ya think? There was no crossing the line here. It never was any thing other than evil. Try that one on for size.
[Still, to me it seems completely unfair to order servicemen into such conditions. This is not what they enlisted for.]
It turns out that this applies to every serviceman. They never end up doing what they enlisted for. How many servicemen end up fighting for freedom or protecting the homeland? Zero. In fact, building hospitals in Africa may be closer to protecting the homeland than what most servicemen usually end up doing.
If the non-voluntary aspect bothers you, then maybe the thing to do is never to join the military in the first place. The only thing that is voluntary about the military is joining it.
Kent, you make sense!
Since they wont isolate the carriers my plan is to isolate myself.
Its starting to look a lot like aids on steroids for transmission.You CAN get it from a sneeze,so its possible to spread on the wind,but likely not far. If we can avoid touching anything that might have the virus on the surface,and stay far enough away from a persons’ sneezes or body splashes,we can evade the thing.
So,if we get an outbreak anywhere close Im going into isolation.No fresh store veggies for sure,no products that could in any way have met up with a carrier.I will use up the pantry just like my parents and grandparents did,no constant shopping for things.Eat meat frozen from before outbreak,that sort of things.Visitors wont be welcomed.
I will self quarantine til its out of the area for sure.I will not be leaving home.Use my own water,that sort of thing.Though supposedly water is a killer for it,water could still be a dicey proposition,like that Ohio(?) algae bloom thing they had.Best be prepared as best as possible to import nothing into our home.
This will eventually get controlled IMO,just treat it as we treat aids,dont go anywhere around possible carriers,dont import it into our home,we are going to be OK.
Again,IMO,if it was traditionally airborne like flu,Africa would be enveloped from it,it isnt spreading in that manner,but aerosol,like sea foam ocean spray,is as a sneeze,so that IS in a form airborne,just short range.
Ive sure been giving this a lot of thought,I feel much better when I have a plan and not have to wing it in a crisis type mode.But its been a very stressful couple weeks working out a plan,for sure.Can get overwhelming.
Im thinking most of us in this hemisphere are going to be OK,but we may see pockets of it.I think Africa has a few countries that are royally screwed and their death toll could be millions maybe,more or less,but its going to pretty bleak for a lot of peasants there,very tragic.
Im not going to worry about it mutating to flu style airborne at this time,I’ll deal with that if it happens at that point in time,going to deal with what the appearance of reality is at this time.
The texas hospital has to put ER on diversion for ‘staffing issues’.Bad news on the Texas hospital worker victim.
Hmmm….would you go back to work there?
Fred — I probably wouldn’t go back to work there, but then I don’t think like a health care worker. Oh, the difficulties and risks some of them already face, even without Ebola!
You don’t have to answer, of course, but are you in or near Dallas, Fred?
There are two attitudes at work in the health care field these days. One is old-fashioned: you do what you have to do, it’s your chosen profession, and the patient’s life is at stake. The other is more modernly practical: you can’t help the patient by being sick yourself and you’re not going to endanger yourself and your family in the process. It all depends on how you perceive your job – as work, or as a vocation. Health care is divided at the present time, both sides are vocal (and active, as determined by who responds and who calls in “sick”) when a situation like this arises.
Im not doing it for sure until they get us the PROPER gear to do so.As for a calling….I had it and am over it.
Now I care for too many lazy sleazebags getting free health care i pay for and dont get myself,who demand IV narcotics and threaten you with racism claim if you wont wake them at 3am to shoot em up with that pain med they so desperately need that they are asleep.Im sorry,but those slugs Im not sacrificing my family for.And bet they will be the largest part in a pandemic being so responsible as they are in life.
Would you?Im sorry but the population is filled with leeches I dont care to die for,I already support their lazy azzes.
Claire,thank God no Im in Calif.In a small community hospital that in no way is qualified to care for Ebola,a level 4 biohazard.
Nice to see the Nurses went ape crazy over blaming the nurse who DIDNT have the proper gear or break protocol,and they have surveillance video to prove it they claim.Good on her on calling them on a CDC notice on a hospital bulletin board does not equate to proper training in a disease weve never faced before.
Also good on the former infection disease Dept head at Dallas who also says they were provided with only minimal protection,and all the other non government Drs that have called for victims to transfer straight to major medical centers (regional hubs) properly equipped and staffed to care for these victims ,all good advice as opposed to the CDC lies and nonsense.
The nurses union that called em out on the CDC notice=training,not the nurse victim
Fred — I hear you. And thanks for all the info. Yes, I was glad to see the nurses call out the health-crats, too. It’s certainly possible that lots of the risk to medical personnel do and will come from errors (e.g. I believe Kent Brantly said he made some sort of mistake that led to his illness). But clearly, too, everything about that first Dallas Ebola case was handled horribly by “authority,” and for a health-crat to blame that nurse without a thorough investigation of what really happened was pretty egregious.
Here’s an interesting article about the dangers of treating an epidemic as a “national security” issue. Not sure I agree with every word of it, but it’s food for thought and a sad historical example:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/obamas-great-big-ebola-error-11450
Claire,good article.
We know what happened,paper or plastic gown that doesnt vover you fully,a partial face mask that leaves head and neck fully exposed will not work,and that is the CDC guidelines for hospitals,at CDC the guideline is an enclosed space suit. Can see any problem there,your doing a great job Brownie.
Drs without Borders have a full tychem orange suit they step into,a full pull over hood,and it looks like enclosed goggles.They are sprayed when exiting,and a TEAM undresses them.They in 30+ years have never had an Ebola infection..
Lets hope we just see pockets here,get some common sense protocols and we will mostly all be OK.IMO.
As for you Claire (wags finger,LOL!)…get your rest and hopefully you can turn your brain off to the stressors,yet I have the very same problem.We need you and your voice and I for one cant thank you enough for what youve done and do,be safe!
Darn,wish this had an edit function.
Anyhow,can you keep a few threads up as this progresses so we real folks without agendas can disseminate info without the dang trolling we have just about everywhere else,the maturity here sure is refreshing.
Wow,a second case in Dallas,bet they are scared to death,literally.
CDC served em up,yep,thats what they did and Im not the least bit surprised.The staff followed THEIR guidelines,CDC is the entity responsible.
Those poor people!!!
And WTH??? with 4500 dead in africa they say in 60 days there will be 10,000 cases a week???
And we sent 4000 troops over there,with CLEARLY no safe protocols,wth happens when Obama sends em home,going to put them in voluntary isolation across the country,how long will it be until we have 10,000 cases a week if that happens.
These gov fools are going to kill us!
CDC is completely incompetent,as is Frieden.The protocols should have been in place,not what do we do with the garbage at the hospital.What do we do with Duncans mattress. Have they doen ANYTHING to prep for this,clearly,CLEARLY no!!!
God have mercy,folks stay safe,stay away if you can.
Still not panicking yet,but man my spidey senses are in full tingle now.
When we get the Drs without Borders protocal in place,then and only then will we be protected in the healthcare setting to at least some degree.