Ebola: Priorities And Risk
[guest post by Dana]
Thomas Sowell considers the president’s response to our country’s fight against the Ebola virus and observes that it’s possible President Obama’s priorities are not what we would expect or hope for.
There was a time when an outbreak of a deadly disease overseas would bring virtually unanimous agreement that our top priority should be to keep it overseas. Yet Barack Obama has refused to bar entry to the United States by people from countries where the Ebola epidemic rages, as Britain has done.
The reason? Refusing to let people with Ebola enter the United States would conflict with the goal of fighting the disease. In other words, the safety of the American people takes second place to the goal of helping people overseas.
As if to emphasize his priorities, President Obama has ordered thousands of American troops to go into Ebola-stricken Liberia, disregarding the dangers to those troops and to other Americans when the troops return.
What does this say about Obama?
At a minimum, it suggests that he takes his conception of himself as a citizen of the world more seriously than he takes his role as President of the United States. At worst, he may consider Americans’ interests expendable in the grand scheme of things internationally. If so, this would explain a lot of his foreign-policy disasters around the world, which seem inexplicable otherwise.
Those critics who have been citing Barack Obama’s foreign-policy fiascoes and disasters as evidence that he is incompetent may be overlooking the possibility that he has different priorities than the protection of the American people and America’s interests as a nation.
In the meantime, we are being informed that the mission of deployed U.S. troops to West Africa will be riskier than originally announced:
Several dozen U.S. troops could come into contact with Ebola while testing for the deadly disease in Liberia, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The highly trained troops will help operate seven mobile labs, where they could be working with the blood of infected patients, Army Gen. David Rodriguez said. The new details on the military’s response to Ebola reveals a riskier operation than previously announced by the White House, surfacing fresh concerns of troops entering high-risk zones.
The U.S. response did not previously involve military members helping to diagnose patients, though Rodriguez maintained that troops will be adequately protected against the disease.
“I am confident that we can ensure our service members’ safety and the safety of their families and the American people,” Rodriguez, who leads the U.S. Africa Command, said at a Pentagon briefing.
No worries though as Rodriguez gave assurances that military personnel in the labs will be wearing protective suits and are trained at a “very, very high level.”
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (4dbf62) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:02 pmI think Sowell may be on to something. It certainly explains a great deal, doesn’t it?
Steven Den Beste (99cfa1) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:08 pmTop. Men.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:10 pmpickle wants him another peace prize and he doesn’t care how many Americans have to die for him to get it
they’re very shiny you know and if you have two it opens up a whole lot of decorating possibilities
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:22 pmWell, many issues swirl around here.
I for one believe president Obama meant what he said when he wanted a fundamental transformation of America and that means to move away from the flawed Constitution we have. It also means he wants to make the US less influential in the world.
It may also mean that he thinks the US is so fundamentally oppressive and immoral that it deserves whatever bad comes its way, I don’t know.
Even if one wanted to take a “Citizen of the World” (CotW) POV, a wise CotW point of view would want a resource rich country like the US to remain free of the disease so it could leverage its resources to help those already in need.
There is a point to be made that unless we quarantine the affected of Africa at the source, and investigate every person coming to the US for travel via Belgium or some such, trying to close our borders will not insure we will not get Ebola,
that said, it is a typical Obama straw-man that misses the point, we could be vigilant for cases getting into the country somehow and minimize the possibility through travel restrictions at the same time.
I am not qualified to know exactly what the military and others should or should not do, but we have one of two basic options:
1) Help Liberia and surrounding areas get this under control
2) line up troops around the border, shoot anyone trying to leave, and napalm it
otherwise there will be sporadic outbreaks throughout the world, including places where it will be devastating,
how about a Liberian official shaking hands with someone from Hong Kong at some International trade meeting, or Mumbai…
I don’t think we should do #2
My suspicion, like with “ISIL”, is that other than his ideological goal and hatred of America, everything he does is a political calculation, not intended to really accomplish anything of worth. He is not serious about stopping ISIS, only in doing enough that people can’t say he isn’t doing anything. Likewise, he isn’t really serious about controlling Ebola, he is posturing that he cares and is going to be PC about it while he “cares”.
I think there are diminishing returns in trying to analyze Obama, and to some degree, we knew all we needed to know about him long ago with Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.
Don’t trust this government for all kinds of reasons, but I don’t think the answers are shrouded in mystery, either. Take what we know to be true and apply it, without trying to calm people unrealistically or worry that everyone will catch it and we’re all going to die when it becomes as easy to catch as the common cold.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:26 pmI think I would seriously refuse to be deployed to Liberia, just like a few people refused to be deployed to the Middle East.
Ten to 15 years in Leavenworth is better than dying of Ebola.
Deploying the military on this type of mission is incredibly stupid and highly dangerous at the same time. Don’t we have civilian government specialists trained to test sick people for contagious diseases?
WarEagle82 (b18ccf) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:34 pmPerhaps, WarEagle
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:54 pmFrom what I know, I think the military has a role in helping to build things, it seems the military is good at some logistical things when given the priority.
But I agree that “regular soldiers” should not be involved in patient care- there are enough things for them to do with facility construction and maintenance, distribution of supplies without contact, etc.
Train and pay Liberians to care of their own, much of the economy is dead with people staying home, which means people don’t get paid, don’t eat.
fzefez@fezfezfze.com
f (661176) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:56 pmsay what???
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:59 pmI just heard a point made, I imagine there are military folk trained for biological and chemical warfare scenarios. If they are trained to be safe in the setting of smallpox, for example, Ebola would be “easy”.
Like those 4 special hospital units at Emory and elsewhere, facilities just waiting to be needed.
But that does not mean I have any more confidence in the administration than I said above.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:04 pmsoldier 1: hey did you hear we get to go to Liberia to fight the ebola!
soldier 2: oh my goodness how exciting! We will save many lives and it will be a great experience.
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:14 pmRe: What we know.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007-story.html#page=1
Beliefs that will either be reinforced or dashed.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:19 pmIn the early ’80s there were reports of “yellow rain” in Laos that killed entire villages in the hinterland. Those who looked at the data concluded that the Soviets were testing some bio-warfare materials. Those of HteWon’s political affiliations, including at least one member of the Harvard faculty, said that the materials in question were nothing more than pollen from bee swarms. The Laotians had apparently died of fright. With the fall of the Soviet Union it became apparent that a vast industrial enterprise had been undertaken to create bio-warfare materials, and this lent some credence to the earlier concerns about yellow rain.
I mention this only to suggest that the U. S. military should have some serious bio-warfare capabilities if it is going to protect us. That being the case, they should be able to deal with setting up hospitals and labratories for testing hazardous biological materials on the scale of the Liberian relief effort, and much more. But the activities in Liberia appear to be half-vast at best, and military planners may not have been consulted about an operation that was undertaken for public relations purposes, or optics as they are now called. If this mission has been undertaken with full military supervision and control, then I will support it, even if there are serious casualties. These may be necessary if our troops are going to learn how to deal with these problems. But if this mission is compromised by political intervention, then may those who endanger our troops be pursued and punished to the upmost. And our commanders owe their troops their support even if it endangers a very nice retirement.
bobathome (5ccbd8) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:44 pmHmmmm.. I seem to recall from not that long ago some stories about a bunch of militant muslim-types who run around that neck of the woods killing people of different religions, or even different strains of the muslim religion, and who also have a thing for taking young girls from their schools… Civilian health workers from the “great satin” would be a heady prize for those folk, and maybe real live US soldiers being there would cut into their action a bit. So maybe its not a 100% health care mission.
You have to remember that this government of ours is not so hot at telling the whole truth about things, even when cornered it is like pulling teeth to get the truth out of them.
So maybe this medical mission is just cover for inserting US troops into western Africa to chase terrorists. Pardon my skepticism, but this “adviser” game is not new to me and I have seen it morph into 68,000 names etched in black granite.
Gramps, the original (7adb80) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:47 pmamerica *should* be able to do a lot of things Mr. bob
but over and over again when it tries to do even moderately difficult stuff it steps on its dick and usually rather spectacularly
(ouch)
and almost always extraordinarily expensively
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:50 pmAfter working in D.C. for the last week I give that area 2 weeks before its infested with ebola or some other feverish disease. The whole damn area is chock full of foreigners. Whats happening is scary.
mg (31009b) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:55 pmA Doctor’s Without Borders staffer is sick, not good
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 8:16 pmhttp://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/world/europe/ebola-spain/index.html
If we could only change its name to “Churchill Plague” (you know: “blood, sweat, tears, puke, poop and piss”), then President Obama would quite eagerly keep it out of the US (Churchill being an imperialist and all). Oh well, too late now.
Roy in Nipomo (8c3b61) — 10/7/2014 @ 8:22 pmRegarding the assurances of protection, I was reminded of our troops so desperately needing ceramic plated body armor in Iraq around 2004. Families were having to pay for it from third parties before deployment….
This was interesting:
Dana (4dbf62) — 10/7/2014 @ 8:38 pmwhere to start?
Reagan was Presentdent when i started NBC training (CBRE these days, apparently, again) and i seem to remember that the priorities for dealing with biological attacks was to recognize, confirm, map & avoid the areas so contaminated, unless there was a mechanism of protection available, such as a reliable vaccine, AND the area had military value that made the risk acceptable.
also, setting up a hospital, let alone operating it is a logistics intensive exercise, and all the more so if you are in an environment with few or no local sources for supply. how are they planning on getting all the gear there, setting it up and keeping it supplied with expendable items? air lift? don’t make me laugh.
add in a local population that is, at best, ambivalent, if not openly hostile, and potentially homicidal, plus the fact that medical units have almost no ability to provide self defense, and that this regime will undoubtedly insist that the “host nation” will take care of such things and thus our troops need not be armed, and i’d be the first one in the CO’s door saying “yes sir, i know it’s a ccurt martial offense to miss movement: the difference is,i’ll live through that.”
as for wearing MOPP4 in local conditions for hours on end, FTS. if you’ve ever done it, i don’t need to explain. if you haven’t, i can’t even begin to describe it. Step 1: i hope you’re not even a bit claustrophobic. Step 2: that’s the easy part… Step 3: from here on out, it sucks, then gets worse. even drinking water is a life endangering exercise, and heaven help you if you need a rest room. they used to tell us to just plan on filling our pants. (the fact that the moisture load would allow chemicals to penetrate the clothing apparently never occurred to my trainers at Ft Benning, but then again, they said the gear was just to make it possible for us to complete our mission, not survive.)
i’ve never been in a RACAL suit, but it looks as comfy as a 5 star hotel room, compared to the NBC gear we used, and that the average GI is still issued these days. hell, that stuff doesn’t even seal between the pants & jacket, or the hood and jacket, or even with the gloves & boots, unless you tape those off… said NBC suits are designed to deal primarily with MILSPEC NBC agents, not viral infections in a medical facility. they may result in acceptable losses to troops exposed to nerve or blister agents, etc, but they aren’t designed to protect care givers in a hospital setting. this is important because that, while troops may be reasonably well versed in MOPP gear procedures, etc, if they are issued new gear, there will obviously be a learning curve, and, since said curve will occur IRL, not in training, people will die from their mistakes. if they try to give care in MOPP gear, bad things are also predictable, for the reasons above. Oh, and you will need a new suit, new filters and a complete decon cycle for each and every person coming off duty, plus for the troops running the decon, plus those doing recon, etc…
add that to your logistical load, to include safe water supplies, disposing of all the contaminated items, deconing all the vehicles involved… it’s a fing S-4 nightmare come to life, and the 3 shop will 5hit themselves trying to staff it along with other operations.
there is a reason that the traditional response to epidemics has been to quarantine the area: it’s simple, it w*rks and it endangers the least number of people possible.
in closing i would just like to say that i believed from Jump Street, based on his own words, that our SCOAMF has different priorities than the protection of the American people and America’s interests as a nation. too bad more voters weren’t as discerning as Mr Sowell and i, eh?
he hates us, and only the most willfully blind person can now argue otherwise. if he were lying in the street in front of my house on fire, i’d go get the gas can for the chainsaw.
but not the chainsaw, in case he was infected. 😎
redc1c4, 54 series, long long ago (abd49e) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:11 pmHillary Clinton was a Saul Alinsky groupie, but it is Barack Obama who is unique in his anti-American orientation? Guess again. I know the Left would like to hang this P.R. fiasco on Obama, but we can see through that, can’t we? Barack Obama is many things, but an “original thinker” is not one of them.
ThOR (5d4ee2) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:55 pmThat Spanish nurse was “wearing protective suits and (was) trained at a “very, very high level.””
Now can we start worrying about the deployment?
ThOR (5d4ee2) — 10/7/2014 @ 10:02 pmGood is the military for two things, and for these two things should only be used; Killing people
Yoda (cffabe) — 10/7/2014 @ 10:20 pmand blowing things up. Their purpose under the USCON it is!
14. Gramps, the original (7adb80) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:47 pm
Hmmmm.. I seem to recall from not that long ago some stories about a bunch of militant muslim-types who run around that neck of the woods killing people of different religions, or even different strains of the muslim religion, and who also have a thing for taking young girls from their schools…
Boys attending school they simply killed.
But that’s northern or northeastern Nigeria.
This epidemic started in Guinea. A Sunni Moslem country but no al Qaeda there.
However, before they set up shop somewhere, they do some organizing and Guinea may have bene in the organizing stage where they are only spreading propaganda..
Now one of the things Salafis are against is vaccination, and foreign doctors in general. At lest when they go into teh villages. (they want an intelligence free zone)
That might be the key factor that was different that led to this ebola epidemic.
For the first time, ebola affected an Islamic country (Guinea) where possibly al Qaeda or some other branch of the same poisonous tree, had begun to be active. Not enough to attract attention, but maybe enough to create an ebola epidemic.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 10:32 pmThere are also cocaine traffickers and money launderers and Hezbollah people in Guinea, besides al Qaeda..
The United States and I think other organizations are staying out of Guinea, but it seems there to be mostly under control – or is it?
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 10:52 pmPres’ent Obama just wants to be able to feel good for helping the Liberians – and, because he is a Democrat/Progressive, he is happy to be able to feel good at the expense of others, like the troops he is sending over there …
It’s not good …
Alastor (2e7f9f) — 10/7/2014 @ 11:53 pmA pessimistic view:
http://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-ebola-farce-guest-post-by-ol-remus.html
Resources we have, abundance, not so much.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 12:00 amPossible insight:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/10/jane_austen_in_the_white_house.html
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 1:01 ami posted some new links in the music thread upstairs… good (but very scarey) data and another call for immediate quarantines, from an epidemiologist.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 1:02 amThanks for the links, gary. We are so screwed. Round zem up and send them to rug head land.
mg (31009b) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:27 amred, thank you for your knowledgeable comments
I understand the immense problems, at least a little bit
but I think the alternative to doing nothing is to watch 1 million people or more die in a cesspool of sickness, starvation, and anarchy
I would not like to be treated that way.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:01 amMy Ebola has a first name
It’s B-A-R-A-C-K
My Ebola has a second name
It’s O-B-A-M-A
We’ll have more cases any day
nk (dbc370) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:08 amAnd if you ask me why I’ll say
Because Obama has a way
Of f***ing up the USA.
The ignored outbreak that is here:
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:10 amhttp://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2014/10/moving-to-phase-ii-of-the-enterovirus-coverage.html
3- Dittos!
askeptic (efcf22) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:19 am5- Doc, your #2 is impractical….we don’t have enough Napalm or the aircraft to deliver it.
askeptic (efcf22) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:23 amBut, we have scores of ThermoNuclear weapons slated to be deactivated due to the joint Russia-USA draw-down….
Been on an airplane? The attendant says “Put your oxygen mask on first before helping others with theirs”. (Which makes it hard to kiss each other good-bye, but let’s not think about that yet.)
nk (dbc370) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:28 am36- Just remember your a-bomb training from your school days, and that part about kissing your a.. goodbye.
askeptic (efcf22) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:33 amnk, exactly, nk
sometimes taking care of others means taking care of yourself to be there to help them
I think protecting the US and other nations from getting Ebola is a necessary step in helping west Africa
well, askeptic, I think you know my #2 was to make a point, not a plan to be implemented
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:19 amthat should have been:
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:20 amexactly, nk, exactly
33. Unfortunately, the CDC and its umbrella Public Health departments are months behind this outbreak as well. I have only deductive logic and anecdotal evidence to work with but I believe this outbreak started in Central MN about two months ago passed here from the Mountain West.
The disease begins as a cold with a mild fever but settles into the chest running about three weeks. I sat home with the squirt for two days 2nd week of school B4 she returned to school then 5 days later I contracted the plague.
She has since had the influenza mist with flu symptoms.
We are definitely past the peak without serious issues.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:39 amAs always, we are on the same page.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:43 amBan Ki Moon’s term up at the UN in December 2016. I predict that Obama has his eye on becoming the
MJBees (f89551) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:45 amnext Secretary General of the UN. Why wouldn’t his activity(so far) on the Ebola epidemic suffice as part of his resume? Then he can really EARN his next Nobel Prize!!
41, that was for sicko @ 30. No prisoners.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:45 amOur King is in check:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-08/feds-lacker-slams-fed-inappropriate-bond-buying-distorting-markets-undermining-indep
Time to swap some pieces and clear the board.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:48 am@ redc1c4
According to the links, it seems to have been eliminated in rural areas of Guinea, but it growing in urban areas and almost every place in Sierre Leone and Liberia. And we all know only a fraction of cases in Liberia and Sierre leone are reported – those who get into some kind of a hospital setting, probably – the number is less even than the number you could get from death certificates or the equivalent.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:50 amThe Ship of State’s bilges are full:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/10/leon-panetta-i-knew-right-away-benghazi-was-a-terrorist-attack-video/
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:59 amThe NBC cameraman thinks he got it from pressure washing a car.
The Spanish nurse may have gotten it, it is speculated, because the place where the biohazard suits fail is when somebody takes them off – there’s a special difficult way of doing it people are supposed to do. She may have touched one of those suits or maybe her own.
Duncan doesn’t seem to have given ebola to anybody else. That may be because he was relatively healthy when he came and even when he was admitted to the hospital.
Patrick Sawyer – the VIP sent back in July by the Liberian government, or with the special permission of the Liberian government, to Nigeria was very sick, and was initially diagnosed with malaria. Even after half a dozen people got ebola they were able to halt ebola – it doesn’t spread that fast unnoticed.
I read that a nurse died, I had seen a letter in the Wall Street Journal that a female doctor, who rssited importunings to release him so he could attend that conference, died. Maybe both?
The Spanish priest was also very sick. And he wasn’t young either. Well over 60.
When someone is very sick with ebola, and bleeding and vomiting, they leave a lot of ebola particles around them. When they are not, they not so much. And I think it takes a certain amount of exposure to come down with a real case – there probably are subclinical cases. The Spanish nurse was 40 years or 44 years old. I think the older someone is the greater the chance or the less ebola virus needed.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:00 am#20, red: Thanks for the great information. Your comments reminded me of the misery of the troops who were outfitted in their protective gear just prior to the two Iraq wars, and it reinforces the basic lesson that the armed forces are intended to kill people and blow up things. They were headed out in M1 tanks, the mobile field hospitals were held back until they had someplace safe to go.
So the military isn’t going to be much use here in the U. S. in the event of an Ebola outbreak except to enforce quarantines.
Fortuneately, there is a vast Federal bureaucracy with equally sweeping responsibilities. It’s just a matter of finding the right group of prospective pensioners based on their mission statement. Perhaps the administration should have sent FEMA to Liberia? They no doubt need lots of training on massive logistic operations, and this would focus their minds on the task at hand. We’d all learn something, no doubt. They’ve done so well in past emergencies.
bobathome (5ccbd8) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:02 amMy horse for a meathook!
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/10/drudge-goes-there-obama-ebola/
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:02 am17. The second case they’ve had.
The Spanish nurse is not a nurse, but a nurse’s assistant?
I think the antibodies of Ebola survivors is proably much better than the antiviral drug. (and my question does it also stop the body from manufacturing white blood cells and antibodies that fight the disease?)
They are reporting Duncan is getting better. He is getting extremely good palliative care.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:08 am50. The answer to your question is no, they will not stop. And yes Sam, you can learn, albeit slowly, with fits and starts.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:18 am51. Case in point.
http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-patient-thomas-eric-duncan-dies-at-dallas-hospital-201613535.html
Remember, your starting at the very rear of the pack.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:24 amI would agree with MD in Philly about our troops being safe in Africa, but we will see mission creep, already have seen mission creep. I am so angry they are being sent there I could just scream.
Also, it is too early to see if Duncan has infected anyone here. It took 2-3 week for the Spanish nurse and others in that setting to show symptoms. I agree with those who said it was wrong to bring these two men to Spain when they were clearly so sick they were going to die. But humans, PC humans, make mistakes–which Obama will not admit to.
I mention again Obama’s interview, where he called the US the indispensable nation. His eyes were shining! I thought, how weird, he never sounds excited about the US. Now I know why: He was planning on this “Ebola In the US Is Only Fair” campaign, where he would conquer this plague and sacrifice some Americans to PC too.
Patricia (5fc097) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:32 amApparently our Ebola patient zero to the US has just died. Wonder what will become of those criminal charges awaiting him.
The Emperor (d356d4) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:54 amThis, unfortunately, is the reason why a ban of travel from Liberia will not eliminate the risk of Ebola coming to the US:
http://capitalistsrebellion.blogspot.com/2014/10/southcom-commander-ebola-outbreak-in.html
But as I also said, that is a bit of a straw man. Just because it will not make the risk zero does not make more travel restrictions a good idea.
Was it President Obama who said something about “governments could fall” if the Ebola epidemic is not controlled?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:57 amI don’t think he would be in a very good political position if Ebola came to the US through the unsecure southern border.
Patricia (5fc097) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:32 am
It took 2-3 week for the Spanish nurse and others in that setting to show symptoms.
I think actually a fever showed up on September 30, only a few days after the priest died.
I agree with those who said it was wrong to bring these two men to Spain when they were clearly so sick they were going to die.
Not very helpful, except perhaps to ensure they got a decent burial, in accirdance with their religious rites. But a large number of cases is too new for people to realize it would not be helpful.
The only cases when it has been transmitted to anyone as a result of an airplane trip, is when somebody was very, very sick already. The Nigerian case is like that, and also the Spanish priest.
I doubt that Obama wants ebola in the United States so he can stamp it out here. He is not Bill Clinton, and this is not the Iowa floods of 1993 and neither is this Hurricane Hugo.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:06 amDoctors are not God, neither is anyone else. The only time when you KNOW it is too late is after the person has died.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:11 amYes, sometimes the odds are stacked against a person, but many a person has survived in that situation.
The Emperor (d356d4) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:54 am
They will try and convict him, in absentia; and confiscate all of his possessions.
askeptic (efcf22) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:24 amThere is very little, if any, travel between the countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierre leone and Central and South America, and if some crew member of a Liberian registered ship gets it, the trip itself takes so long, it’ll be diagnosed before the crew departs the ship. Of course, if it becomes endemic in Liberia, it will be hard to avoid. Sooner or later some mistake will be made, and it’ll get to Europe.
Anyway, what is being lost is that solitary cases can be handled very very well (in the sense of no widespread epidemic occurring) without there being that much of a medical infrastructure.
The problem is, that the kinds of things that they do to contain it and eliminate it cannot be scaled up once you get too many cases.
Nor can all contacts be traced very well in a big city, but that may not be very necessary.
What happened now is that a lot of people avoided or did not get medical attention when this was beginning, and again, after they first thought they had stopped it in Guinea.
I have to trace the difference this time to
1 (probable) al Qaeda and similar anti-medicine anti-vaccination propaganda in Guinea, which I have not been able to verify happened, but which is logical to suppose that it did – Guinea is one of those countries with some problem with polio vaccination –
and
2) Some other somewhat different anti-medical propaganda, and/or distrust of government, the distrust quite often justified, among the survivors of the years of turmoil in Sierre Leone and Liberia.
There’s a nice question, by the way, how it ever got to Guinea in the first place. It is adifferent strain than the one in the Congo, but was that strain known before?
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:29 amThe Four Horseman now ride at a gallop.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:30 am“I think actually a fever showed up on September 30, only a few days after the priest died.”
Sammy – The priest was flown back to Spain on September 22. The nurse was diagnosed on October 6. If she was caring for the priest, you are talking about a two week incubation period.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:30 am#53, Patricia: I can find no reason to think that our troops in West Africa will be safe. Their number is growing rapidly. In Doc’s link in #55 the West African deployment is now 4000, up 1000 from a couple of days ago. And we are sending in groups piecemeal, with little acknowledment that each increment increases the need for even more troops. So the when the commander of the West African Command says he’s sending in two more medical labs each consisting of four “highly trained” specialists what he’s not acknowledging that these troops will require a lot of support services if they are to function efficiently, meaning more troops will have to be sent. And the story indicates that these labs can process either 80 specimens a day (2 lab operators) or perhaps 160 a day with 4 operators (maybe 24×7). We now have four such labs, suggesting that we can process perhaps 300 to 600 specimens a day provided we deploy another 6 to 8 lab orperators to give these troops some time off. That means the “routine testing” that our 4000 troops will be monitored with are not going to be these definitive tests. They will be examined for symptoms, and only tested after showing signs of the disease. Which means that they are the guinea pigs for our future responses. General Rodriquez did say that all troops infected with the disease would be evacuated with the special purpose business jets we’ve seen already. This presumes, of course, that the number of cases are not higher that a few a week.
Working along side Liberians may not prove to be the safest plan of action. But it is an “interesting” medical experiment. The type not seen since Mengele or the Japanese in WWII.
bobathome (5ccbd8) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:32 am“They are reporting Duncan is getting better.”
Thread winner!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:33 am#59, Sammy: Liberian registration does not imply Liberian crews. It does imply Liberian operating rules, but sailors of all nationalities crew “Liberian” ships. Which more often than not are named after something of significance to their American owners.
bobathome (5ccbd8) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:35 am“They are reporting Duncan is getting better.”
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:33 am
That’s what they were reporting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/us/ebola-patient-on-ventilator-and-getting-kidney-dialysis-officials-say.html?_r=0
I can’t see a time stamp, but it is on page A14 of today’s New York Times, so that was still considered accurate news 12 hours ago.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:45 amReally what is Sammy’s point?
The Emperor (6dcbd3) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:47 am“I can’t see a time stamp, but it is on page A14 of today’s New York Times, so that was still considered accurate news 12 hours ago.”
Sammy – The respirator and kidney dialysis were probably big clues everything was moving in the right direction, am I right? Do you ever think beyond the Gospel of the NY Times?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:50 amDuncan died at 7:51 a.m. CDT. (about 9 am eastern time, 6 am Pacific time)
I guess what this means is Duncan was killed by the anti-viral drug he got. I was thinking that could kill him, if it prevented the manufacture of antibodies or white blood cells or whatever the body uses to fight infection, something that just would not be a factor with HIV, or with long term viral infections that don’t get worse fast.
It could also mean he was too far gone.
If there was mis-communication by doctors, I don’t think that was by accident. Somebody just didn’t want to communicate bad news.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:53 am67. They didn’t say when the dialysis started – it could have been a few days ago, so he could have improved since then.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:54 am66. My point was, maybe the experimental anti-viral drug was working.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 9:55 am61. The nurse (actually a nurse’s aide) was diagnosed maybe on Oct 6, but she detected a fever on sept 30 when she was on vacation. The priest died on Sept 27. She was in his room only twice, once after his death. Ebola survives in liquid – a liquid pool – for a few days at room temperature (a declaration probably based either on experience, or testing by researchers, probably on monkeys.)
It survives for much less dry. Blankets they don’t know but it can’t be longer than in a pool of water.
Sept 30 is consistent with the usual 8 to 10 incubation period. The incubation runs until symptoms show up that could lead to a diagnosis, not until there a diagnosis of ebola is actually made.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:04 amApparently it wasn’t. That may have killed him.
The Emperor (a2886c) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:04 amMy feeling about the nurse in Spain is that there might have been indirect contact.
It is being said that the weakness of the biohazard protection is what happens when they take them off.
It is being said – by a union – that the suits they had in Spain were not of the highest quality (or perhaps that could be just not correctly designed.)
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:07 amThey will try and convict him, in absentia; and confiscate all of his possessions.
askeptic (efcf22)
The Emperor (d356d4) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:10 amYou mean his Ebola-infected possessions? Good luck with that.
The patient’s liver and kidneys have shut down (announced yesterday)and he can’t breath on his own, but there’s good news, his temperature has come down and he’s stopped uncontrollably shltting.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:15 am72. That the anti-viral drug actually may have contributed to his death – by interfering wth the body fightingthe infection – was a thought that had occured to me.
One case of course does not establish this.
I have something about another anti-viral drug. There is an interesting caveat I noticed. This has to be administered close in time to the start of the infection – otherwise maybe it is useless, even if not harmful. (or was this given only once?)
This class of drugs then it seems would work only when somebody suspected they might have been exposed, or as prophylactic, but not very well to heal. For that, antibodies are what’s needed.
http://www.xconomy.com/raleigh-durham/2014/07/24/biocryst-bets-on-new-ebola-drug-to-fight-bioterror-outbreak-threats/
As late as 48 hours = NOT later.
It would seem, if you really want to have people be guinea pigs, it might be an idea for eole taking care of ebola infected people to take it – the question would be are there harmful effects, but this is actually probably known.
Everyone involved insists cannot be used, of course.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:20 am75. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:15 am
but there’s good news, his temperature has come down and he’s stopped uncontrollably shltting.
The temperature drop could be bad news. It might mean he’s stopped fighting the infection. Do doctors even know in serious infectious diseae cases, what’s good news and what’s bad news?
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:22 am@daley. Death does that: bringing down temperature and stuff. If you are the glass is half full kind of person. 🙂
The Emperor (3db71b) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:26 amNew York Times lied, and Duncan died!
askeptic (efcf22) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:29 amIf he was gonna die why didn’t he just do that in Liberia? Why endanger others?
The Emperor (3c91e7) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:39 am79. askeptic (efcf22) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:29 am
Well, the Reverend Jesse Jackson was there to confuse matters. The New York Times did not spesak to any doctors (who are bound by rules of medical confidentiality, although they can break them)
It spoke to family members.
Maybe the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who had rushed over to pray (before it was too late?) with them, helped the family misinterpret what the doctors were saying.
The nephew was quoted, later in the article, as saying:
That’s paragraph 13 (of 21)
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:50 amThe temperature drop could be bad news. It might mean he’s stopped fighting the infection.
True, in the sense that the body has exhausted all of its resources, there is no fight left.
Interesting link, Sammy. I wonder what their stock is doing right now.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:52 amHmmm … the accuracy of the New York Times …
Isn’t that becoming increasingly similar to the accuracy of the Grauniad in the UK ? (The Guardian newspaper, the world-standard publication for inaccuracy in reporting which *earned* its “Grauniad” application by the sheer number of times that they spelled their own publication’s name incorrectly in their print editions)
Alastor (54b49a) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:03 am80. The Emperor (3c91e7) — 10/8/2014 @ 10:39 am
If he was gonna die why didn’t he just do that in Liberia? Why endanger others?
He didn’t kow he was going to die. He didn’t even know he had ebola.
The NewYork Times said he came here to re-unite with (and possibly marry maybe?) Louise Troh, with whom he has a son, now 19. The son, Karsiah Duncan, said in a church service the New York Times reporter evidently attended this Sunday that he had not seen his father since he was 3.
His parents were in a refugee camp in the Ivory Coast and his mother left for the United States (that would have been, therefore, about 1998)
Why Thomas Eric Duncan (who went by the name Eric) left Liberia just now, in September – that could be because he was trying to run away from ebola, and/or his other love interest, if that was what she was, had died. (of what anyone should have understood was ebola)
He wasn’t coming really to marry her, it seems. Just to visit, and probably to stay away from ebola until it was over.
It is unlikely he was running to get cured, or else he would have said something in the emergency room.
His son is not being quarantined. In quarantine are his mother, a half brother, and two men who were staying with them in the same place Duncan stayed, which was not Louise Troh’s home. They were stuck in the same apartment until some person in the Dallas “faith community” – that is, connected woth a church – volunteered to let his house, away from a roaday, be used. City officials had looked for some place to rent before that, so they shouldn’t stay there in the same place woth all the conteminated bedding, but no landlords were willing.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:03 am“The temperature drop could be bad news. It might mean he’s stopped fighting the infection.
True, in the sense that the body has exhausted all of its resources, there is no fight left.”
Sammy and MD – Or good news as the doctors indicated because they’ve got him so pumped up on antibiotics and other medications that his temperature has been lowered by treatment and diarrhea stopping by a combo of organ failure, lack of food intake and other factors.
I await the Finkelman diagnosis, since he obviously knows more than doctors treating the patient.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:09 am@Sammy. There are reports that indicate that he knew he may have contracted the deadly virus before he left for America. Google it. That is why charges were being prepared for him by the state department. He knew about his Ebola status. He was just selfish.
The Emperor (ef6506) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:12 am“…he didn’t know…”
BS!
askeptic (efcf22) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:23 ami posted these links last night on the Ziggy Stardut thread, so they wouldn’t be lost on a dead thread… silly me.
the outbreak is totes under control
nothing at all to worry about
additional snark available with the original links. 😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:41 am“Ziggy Stardust”…
stoopid fingers.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:43 amnk (dbc370) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:08 am
Not bad, sir. How about this?
Barack: Oh I wish there were a great Ebola outbreak!
felipe (b5e0f4) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:45 amThat is what I trully wish would be.
’cause if there was great Ebola outbreak!
Everyone would be knee-deep in me!
felipe – It’s always all about Barack.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:48 amMOAR good news from Spain about Ebola.
interesting, and frightening, question at the end of the analysis: has the virus already mutated?
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:52 amDon’t we know it, Daley.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:52 amoh the upside, however, we don’t have to wait for the autopsy to find out the cause of his death.
smfh.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 12:07 pmBreaking News in Frisco Tx… possible Ebola case, with apparent recent travel to Liberia. showed up at a local community clinic: other patients & staff “being screened”… (for what & how?)
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 12:24 pm@redc1c4
The Emperor (4dcc08) — 10/8/2014 @ 12:38 pmHe died because he was black. Makes sense now. I blame the white side of Obama.
@24 Sammy informed us that Boko Haram does its dirty work in Nigeria and Liberia is where we are sending our troops (that’s an editorial “we” since I do not concur) so there is little to worry about. I had no idea that Boko Haram had such respect for international borders. I should have realized that since those ISIS guys respect them.
Speaking of Boko Haram, has anyone thought of a sustained Twitter assault on this Ebola thing since it worked so well at getting those school girls released.
Gramps, the original (7adb80) — 10/8/2014 @ 12:38 pmredc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 12:07 pm
Tne problem with the internet and twitchy in particular, it is easy to concentrate the disgusting and revolting thinking of a relatively few out of 7 billion people and think the whole world is nuts.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:41 am
The graph makes things obvious, but I had read a week or so ago that the number of cases was doubling every week.
Which, depending on how you graph it early on, might seem momentarily to be sort of linear.
but it’s not.
These people are way behind the curve, and at this rate there will be outbreaks here and there all around the world before its over, and none of it was necessary.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 11:52 am
I’m thinking that maybe I need to have someone lock up my computer and look at it only once a day, as I am finding it difficult to refrain from responding to everything, especially if only a few people are interested IMO.
The virus may be able to mutate to infect someone from 5,000 miles away before it is over, but at the moment there is nothing impressive other than people making obvious errors in how to handle this.
In almost everything in life we make decisions based on prior probability. In medicine this is most commonly expressed by the saying, “If you hear hoof-beats, think horses”. Of course, it shouldn’t take a lot of thinking to realize that the saying needs to take into account whether one is standing on a ranch in Oklahoma, in the Bronx Zoo, or on the plains of Africa.
Having direct “contact” with an Ebola patient should make the threshold of suspicion incredibly low in a person who has any symptoms at all, because as everyone has said, just as a car doesn’t go from zero to 60 in 0.25 seconds, neither does someone with Ebola go from healthy to deathly ill in 30 minutes.
As I have said repeatedly, everything so far with this outbreak is consistent with all previous outbreaks.
Maybe at some point this will change,
but until then…
we know enough about Ebola to have done what we have done in every prior outbreak, identify and isolate infected people, put into quarantine those with high risk exposure, and be vigilant to evaluate anyone who gets ill who is not already quarantined.
This should have been evident months ago, and every frickin minute people do not do the obvious they are just falling further behind.
And as nk said about oxygen masks in airplanes, if the developed nations of the world become occupied controlling their own outbreaks, the developing world will end up going to hell on earth.
And San Francisco has many brilliant doctors and outstanding university hospitals, I don’t know why they are sending the suspected patient to dallas, unless it is so they can use the same ventilator and dialysis machines if he end up needing them.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 1:08 pmUmm, my bad, I think.
Perhaps the “Frisco” mentioned is a suburb of Dallas, and not short for the better known San Francisco.
I already said to expect more cases in Dallas before it is all over. All recorded history of Ebola, as already experienced, would tell us to expect that, with or without mutations of the virus.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 1:19 pmjeja vu all over again:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/08/john-kerry-other-countries-need-to-do-more-to-stop-ebola/?hpid=z1
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/8/2014 @ 2:46 pm#99: yeah, it threw me when i first saw the story elsewhere, hence my saying “Frisco Tx”…
guess i should have gone with “Frisco TX“, eh? 😉
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:01 pmYes, red.
I’m jumping on top of things out of irritation. The updated report says the person is a deputy who once entered the apartment for one reason or another, and that “he doesn’t have all of the symptoms, but we’re taking precautions”.
counting to 10…
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:10 pmI would have hoped there would have been a plan for people to be monitored and evaluated than necessary, rather then walk into the local urgent care and send everyone into a panic.
True details to be told later.
His Ebola virus was such a boon
nk (dbc370) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:43 pmHe’ll be importing smallpox soon.
nk (dbc370) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:44 pmOBAMA SHAVE!
nk (dbc370) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:44 pmwhat I don’t get is how O and all the lefties have spent the last six years telling us how broken and inadequate our health-care system is, but now, all of a sudden, we’ve got the best super-duper health care in the world…What changed?
champ (56cd04) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:46 pmPerhaps the “Frisco” mentioned is a suburb of Dallas,
It is; he works for Dallas County. Evidently this deputy has been self-monitoring because he was in the Duncan apartment. Supposedly, he’s just generically ill, not with Ebola signatures, and they won’t know for two days.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 10/8/2014 @ 3:59 pmYes, but he’s not the first. The evidence has been out there for quite some time.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-citizen-of-the-world-presidency-1/
This is why the Scandi socialists gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. They understood that Obama had lied his way into office not to give us what he promised, but to give us a comeuppance the anti-western, anti-American left had long knew we needed.
You are aware, are you not, that despite the veneer of sympathy and solidarity following 9/11/2001 the left was privately gleeful about what happened. We were finally going to know what it was like to feel scared and vulnerable like EU citizens do on a daily basis. Because they have a festering, hostile, unassimilated Muslim threat in their midst and no right of individual self defense. The anti-western, anti-American left wanted us cocky, swaggering cowboys reduced to the same level. Fearful, unconfident, pathetic supplicants with nowhere else to turn except to a government that, deep down, disliked its own people untensely.
It took a few years, but they finally got the Preezy who could deliver on that promise in Barry Soetero.
Everything he has done, everything he is doing, has been to further the above agenda.
As I’ve been saying since he was still candidate Mean Girl, he only wanted to become President of his enemies to help his anti-American friends.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/8/2014 @ 4:44 pmWhat changed? Their short term political objectives.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/8/2014 @ 4:48 pm“His Ebola virus was such a boon”
nk – Shovel ready ebola creates jobs!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2014 @ 4:57 pmwell, IIRC, i got that vaccine when i went through Benning back in the early 80s… i also seem to remember that they decided to stop immunizing the troops to it, as it was no longer a threat.
this is gonna be fun.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:07 pmYou got the horks and I got pukes
There ain’t no difference between the two
Ebola, running all ’round my brain
Headin’ to teh Congo, turned left at Angola
how was I to know I’d catch that Ebola
Ebola, runnin’ all ’round my brain
Late last night about a quarter past four
got the shakes so bad I fell on the floor
it’s that damn Ebola
it’s runnin’ all ’round my brain
I was talking to my doctor down at the hospital
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:35 pmHe said, “Son, it says here you’re sixty three
But that’s impossible
Ebola… you look like you could be two hunnerd an’ five”
good Lord… O’Reilly just said to Megyn Kelly, “but you blew Carville”… NOOOooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:41 pmthat does it. This is teh End of life as we know’d it.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:42 pm#113, Col: Megyn is NOT that sort girl!
bobathome (41dcc0) — 10/8/2014 @ 5:53 pmThe most frustrating thing about this outbreak to me is that since it’s the first one in our lifetime, our government and media are completing bungling it. As MD in Philly says, the procedures are well known, so why don’t people use them?
Answer: human nature. The media wants a story, so NBC says that Duncan might have been saved if the hospital had not turned him away initially (racism again!). The government wants to appear competent and completely non-racist, assuming their citizens are both incompetent and racist. And fatally ill people want to think it’s just the flu
We are all caught in a web made of PC and hubris and affluence. The outcome of all this is unknown but it will be deadly for some. This I am sure of.
Patricia (5fc097) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:13 pmGood observations, Patricia. And utterly depressing. All mentioned parties being dishonest to protect their own self-interests. Human nature indeed.
Dana (e0f9d1) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:21 pmit’s the first one in our lifetime
to clarify, the first what, large scale infectious disease threat?
human nature in the form of selfish ambition that looks only for personal gain of one type of another, rather than facing what responsibilities we need to step up to.
too many people think talking about something means it will get done, magical thinking, part of childhood
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:24 pmDoc, “too many people” happens to be our Preezy at the moment.
Steve57 (e409e4) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:09 pm60. Sammy’s point is to obstruct informed discourse and blockade commerce in reality.
We cannot handle the Truth.
gary Gulrud (46ca75) — 10/9/2014 @ 8:35 amYes.
Patricia (5fc097) — 10/9/2014 @ 1:15 pmI have a question for MD, since he seems to be the most knowledgeable person regarding disease around these parts, and it’s a serious question about an issue I haven’t seen addressed in the news coverage surrounding decontamination.
If you know the answer or can make an educated guess, how much of a transmission risk is posed by the public sewer system immediately downstream from Duncan’s apartment, between the apartment and the waste treatment plant? Would public works personnel and/or plumbers be at risk working on those pipes? Do you know if decontamination efforts would include the sewer system?
Chris (0ba377) — 10/10/2014 @ 5:51 am