Will Ebola become a big problem in the United States?

[jusanothajoe]

Yup, I'm sure that is the protocol they are following.

Seriously, these people are working with CDC staff as well. And BTW, if you think that is a downgrade from the TSA, I can only assume that you don't travel internationally.

Yeah, all they have done is deal with this for decades. I guess we should listen to media pundits who has been around it for, what, three weeks at best?

The fact that the only two people to date who have contacted the disease are healthcare workesr who were working with Duncan while he was in his death throes, points out how difficult it is to contract the disease. There were scores of people exposed to him previously but nobody contracted it.

So would YOU be willing to have contact with ebola patients ? It is difficult to contract you know

[phan52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by phan52

Yeah, all they have done is deal with this for decades. I guess we should listen to media pundits who has been around it for, what, three weeks at best?

The fact that the only two people to date who have contacted the disease are healthcare workesr who were working with Duncan while he was in his death throes, points out how difficult it is to contract the disease. There were scores of people exposed to him previously but nobody contracted it.

Originally Posted by jusanothajoe

So would YOU be willing to have contact with ebola patients ? It is difficult to contract you know

If I were a healthcare worker, then it would be my obligation. Otherwise, the question is nonsensical.

24,000 people, on the average, die of the flu in this country every year. I am sure that I have been in contact with somebody who has had the flu in the past. By the standards people are calling for here, I assume you all believe that flu shots should be mandated, right?

[jusanothajoe]

If I were a healthcare worker, then it would be my obligation. Otherwise, the question is nonsensical.

24,000 people, on the average, die of the flu in this country every year. I am sure that I have been in contact with somebody who has had the flu in the past. By the standards people are calling for here, I assume you all believe that flu shots should be mandated, right?

Yes, this is correct. BUT millions of americans contract the flu every year. The percentage of people that die is very low. Wonder what he percentage of people that contract ebola and die is ?? Very much apples to oranges comparison.  I assume you would just as soon contract ebola as the flu ?

[saevel25]

Yes, this is correct. BUT millions of americans contract the flu every year. The percentage of people that die is very low. Wonder what he percentage of people that contract ebola and die is ?? Very much apples to oranges comparison.  I assume you would just as soon contract ebola as the flu ?

I believe it is anywhere from 25-90%, but roughly about 50% survive.

[misty_mountainhop]

Yup, I'm sure that is the protocol they are following.

Seriously, these people are working with CDC staff as well. And BTW, if you think that is a downgrade from the TSA, I can only assume that you don't travel internationally.

Yeah, all they have done is deal with this for decades. I guess we should listen to media pundits who has been around it for, what, three weeks at best?

The fact that the only two people to date who have contacted the disease are healthcare workers who were working with Duncan while he was in his death throes, points out how difficult it is to contract the disease. There were scores of people exposed to him previously but nobody contracted it.

Er, no. If you're in contact with infected saliva, blood etc from an ebola carrier, all you need is ~10 virions to contract the disease. Why do you think it's currently spreading like a wildfire in western Africa? HIV took decades to go as far as ebola has gone in the last few months.

As for the last sentence there, what I think you mean is that, of those scores in contact with Duncan, no-one is known to have contracted it yet .

Hopefully, this is all just more unnecessary 'panic' but better to be a bit draconian now than sorry later eh?

[trickyputt]

The butchers bill for the current ebola strain is around 70%. Overall, the lower the number the more survivors and therefore the more survivors to spread the disease. Its finding a happier medium for itself in its environment. Mortality in previous strains was as high as 90%, and those strains couldnt procreate very far into the hosts because of the rapid death rate. One day it will go airborne if it is allowed to keep trying. We best have a vaccine by then.

[misty_mountainhop]

I believe it is anywhere from 25-90%, but roughly about 50% survive.

Current outbreak is about 70% mortality although I'm sure that would drop in any country with a good health service.

[misty_mountainhop]

The butchers bill for the current ebola strain is around 70%. Overall, the lower the number the more survivors and therefore the more survivors to spread the disease. Its finding a happier medium for itself in its environment. Mortality in previous strains was as high as 90%. One day it will go airborne if it is allowed to keep trying. We best have a vaccine by then.

Not sure about this as it's a zoonotic (i.e. crossed species boundary) infection. In its natural host I'm sure it does as you suggest - in us, it basically just goes crazy. Unlikely it evolved with us as part of the equation although that's not to suggest that something funky won't/doesn't happen when it gets into a human pool for a bit. Who really knows though? It's that bad that not enough people have studied it.

[phan52]

Current outbreak is about 70% mortality although I'm sure that would drop in any country with a good health service.

This. The two healthcare workers in Dallas had "extensive" contact with Duncan, a guy with full blown Ebola and it is possible that a few more will be diagnosed under the circumstances that existed there.

That is the problem in West Africa, too many people with extensive contact with the Ebola patients, a poor healthcare system, and many people who are not isolated even when they are dying of it. That is not going to happen here.

[saevel25]

This. The two healthcare workers in Dallas had "extensive" contact with Duncan, a guy with full blown Ebola and it is possible that a few more will be diagnosed under the circumstances that existed there.

That is the problem in West Africa, too many people with extensive contact with the Ebola patients, a poor healthcare system, and many people who are not isolated even when they are dying of it. That is not going to happen here.

The major problem was also how the dead were taken care of. In many cases people got infected because of the standard type burials that happened over there. It wasn't even being around them were they the person was actually alive.

[Gunther]

No. Far from a big problem. A minor nuisance at best.

New patient took a flight from Cle to Dal day before she was diagnosed. Mmm

[Golfingdad]

That's the biggest downside?  That a handful of people might be "abandoned"?  Come on.......  No one would be abandoned.  Instead, because it would be such a small number, they could easily be tested and monitored individually and all precautions taken......just as with the small number of authorized healthcare workers that would still be helping over there.

It was the biggest I knew of when I wrote it.  I don't think it's at all trivial either.  Imagine it's your daughter in place of my in-laws.

Come on.  Not even close to the same thing, and you certainly understand that.  And again.......no downside.

You're right, not the same thing.  Silly me.  One is disallowing all travelers to the United States from a certain dangerous area out of fear that one of those travelers could potentially harm or kill several Americans and the other is .... wait, what is the other one?

Regardless, you must have been up late last night.....  You certainly aren't going to compare a right guaranteed under our constitution with a decision to allow non-citizens infected with a deadly disease to travel without restriction to the U.S.  Right?

Told you it would get your dander up ;) (For the record, I did "officially" say I wasn't making that comparison though.)  But since you responded anyway, I think it's amusing how you threw in the "non-citizens" part there so it would fit your argument.  Since when were we talking about non-citizens?  I thought we were talking about any travelers coming from that part of Africa?  In which case, it kind of flies in the face of your Constitutional rights argument, eh?

Regardless, it was clearly a mistake bring that up becase it allowed you to completely ignore the rest of my point.  ....

... but instead, let's talk about something even more related.  We have a certain amount of freedom here, and one of those freedoms is the ability to (idiotically) choose not to vaccinate.  There is no law or requirement for people to ensure that they or their kids won't contract malaria, or whooping cough, or measles, or the flu (which kills, or contributes to killing thousands a year, in America alone).

Why panic for Ebola when we clearly don't care enough to panic for any of the other diseases?

So, what do you think??

Again.  No panic.  Simple prudence and common sense.......with very little to no downside.  I have to admit, I'm struggling to understand why anyone would even hesitate to implement an aggressive travel restriction.  Can someone please explain the upside to continuing to allow unrestricted travel at this point?

Again, like I said, my original "downside" argument was just me and my beliefs, no education yet.  Now that I've read a little, I have another one:  It's been said a written by quite a few (the Indian Dr. guy on CNN was one of them) that not only would restricting air travel not help the situation, it would actually make it worse.  It's not like people are going to just sit there patiently and go, "well, I can't leave by airplane so I guess I'll just hang out here and get me some Ebola to keep me company."  No, they are going to get the hell out of there by any means necessary.  So now what?  They can't come here and land at one of the airports that will document and screen them, so they are going to go somewhere else that they can and then come here.  So they'll take a flight to Mexico City or Brazil or Denmark or South Africa or any number of other airports in countries that won't restrict them, and then they'll come home.  Or, if they can't find a flight, they'll take a bus or a car or a train to whatever country they can get to that will allow them to somehow eventually get here.

Now, I'm no virologist (and neither are any of you, which goes to my next point) but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that containing or eradicating a disease is probably a teensy bit easier if it has spread to less places, wouldn't you agree?

So, there is your downside.  What say you?

Yep.  Hospital officials are saying the the CDC is constantly changing protocols.  You'd have thought they would know the best way to handle something like this.  If you listen to @phan52, they've got it nailed.  Unfortunately, he seems to be one of the few outside of the federal bureaucracy that believes it.....

What's wrong with constantly changing protocols in the face of learning new things?  Sure, they screwed up by not being proactive and ready for this, but are they just supposed to stick to their unprepared guns and go down with the ship, or are they supposed to recognize mistakes and make changes to try and correct things?  The arrogance of the ignorant general public in the face of this kind of thing staggers me.  I've made plently of mistakes at my job, but that doesn't automatically make me incompetent, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean that joe public immediately knows more about engineering than I do.  The same is true about the CDC.  They are the experts and they know a shitload more about any of this than we do, which doesn't mean that they'll never screw up, but it does mean that they are still in the best position to fix a screw-up.  Not me.  Not you.  Not newtogolf or phan.

[Slice of Life]

New patient took a flight from Cle to Dal day before she was diagnosed. Mmm

My concern level is at 0.000001%. Slightly above where it was yesterday.

[dsc123]

I can't even figure out what the deal is with "Fox News". I watched a little bit of news this morning on whatever that morning show is on NBC that my wife watches every morning. Then I watched a little bit of Shepard Smith's news broadcast on Fox this afternoon.

Was he in the fancy room full of people reading twitter feeds on 10 foot ipads?

I'm sorry, but the only thing I know about Shepard Smith is that he works in a room that looks like this.

Come on.  Not even close to the same thing, and you certainly understand that.  And again.......no downside.

You're certainly not going to argue that there's no downside to restricting a person's ability to travel, right?  Because if you own a passport, you probably recognize the value in traveling.  So I have to assume that you mean that the downside TO THEM is less of a concern to you than the risk TO YOU.

My statement was in response to a very specific statement by @phan52......where he intimated that "isolated" cases were ok.

Regardless, you must have been up late last night.....  You certainly aren't going to compare a right guaranteed under our constitution with a decision to allow non-citizens infected with a deadly disease to travel without restriction to the U.S.  Right?

If you're going to be smug, you should also be right.  The right to travel, and personal liberty, are also a constitutionally protected.  I'll see your and raise you .

But I see what you did there.  You've back peddled quite a bit and now only  argue in favor of restricting the travel of non-citizens infected with Ebola .  Because nobody can disagree with that, right?  Only that's not really how you started, since you're now saying non-citizens that don't have ebola should be allowed in (aka screening) and, apparently, that us citizens with ebola should be allowed back in.  Can I raise you twice in a row?

---

Its funny how often I come to these discussions with one opinion and have my opinion completely changed after reading what people who share my opinion say to defend it.  It makes me realize how flimsy it is.  I was talking to my father last night and remarked that's its unbelievable that we haven't restricted travel.  Now it seems like screening is probably the best solution, though hopefully their doing more than just asking questions.

I also tend to think this is a really big deal--its a deadly infectious disease with no cure that we aren't really ready to handle.  We shouldn't be panicky because the odds of it spreading beyond a dozen people here is very low, but we should  do everything we can to stop it because however unlikely it is to spread here, the magnitude of an outbreak would be so large.

[Gunther]

My concern level is at 0.000001%. Slightly above where it was yesterday.

Lol, fair enough...

[dsc123]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsc123

Was he in the fancy room full of people reading twitter feeds on 10 foot ipads?

I think the guy on the right is checking his fantasy football scores.  And the guy second from the left appears to be writing a personal email (that's a gmail inbox, right?).  Shep needs to get control of his ipad command center.

---

Quote:

The second health care worker diagnosed with Ebola flew on a passenger jet with more than 130 other passengers on Monday, a day before she reported symptoms of the virus and was tested, according to authorities.

See, this stuff can get scary pretty fast.  Don't you guys watch 24 and all those disaster movies where the generals put up screens showing how fast these sort of things spread?

[Golfingdad]

I think the guy on the right is checking his fantasy football scores.  And the guy second from the left appears to be writing a personal email (that's a gmail inbox, right?).  Shep needs to get control of his ipad command center.

"That guy over there is playing Galaga!!!  He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did!!"

[I could so totally use a screen like this at my office.  We use CAD and design on twin 19" screens, then print to 24"x36" or 36"x48" size paper.  Would be nice to be able to design directly on the computer at full size!!

[jusanothajoe]

Was he in the fancy room full of people reading twitter feeds on 10 foot ipads?

I'm sorry, but the only thing I know about Shepard Smith is that he works in a room that looks like this.

If you're going to be smug, you should also be right.  The right to travel, and personal liberty, are also a constitutionally protected.  I'll see your  and raise you .

But I see what you did there.  You've back peddled quite a bit and now only  argue in favor of restricting the travel of non-citizens infected with Ebola.  Because nobody can disagree with that, right?  Only that's not really how you started, since you're now saying non-citizens that don't have ebola should be allowed in (aka screening) and, apparently, that us citizens with ebola should be allowed back in.  Can I raise you twice in a row?

Its funny how often I come to these discussions with one opinion and have my opinion completely changed after reading what people who share my opinion say to defend it.  It makes me realize how flimsy it is.  I was talking to my father last night and remarked that's its unbelievable that we haven't restricted travel.  Now it seems like screening is probably the best solution, though hopefully their doing more than just asking questions.

I also tend to think this is a really big deal--its a deadly infectious disease with no cure that we aren't really ready to handle.  We shouldn't be panicky because the odds of it spreading beyond a dozen people here is very low, but we should  do everything we can to stop it because however unlikely it is to spread here, the magnitude of an outbreak would be so large.

Really ? How could you possibly know what the risks are of it spreading ? And too only a dozen people or so ? We have yet to see, there could be a dozen people infected from this one incident. The only way too be sure it doesn't spread here is if it doesn't come here

But I can see your point, our health care system keeps the flu from spreading too only a few MILLION each year