Ebola in The USA

So is influenza.

For a person who loves to spout racist cant, miller certainly hates the word "racist".

Mr Duncan has died. No new cases from his contacts yet.

I just read that some of the people who have come into contact (incl the person who had followed him in the ambulance that rushed him to the hospital when he was symptomatic with 100 deg F) are considered low-level risk and are being monitored.

The hospital in Texas which admitted him is in some trouble with Feds for sending him home with only antibiotics to fight his illness and not immediately doing the Ebola testing.

This is so sad. Too many people missed the boat to help him. My thoughts are with his family.

Not a US case, but the first transmission outside of west Africa is confirmed in a Spanish nurse who had protected contact with the body/room of a priest who contracted the disease in Sierra Leone.

mine too

I'm sure you do, but you're still not reading what I write.

I didn't say that another 9/11 is an existential threat. Since the first 9/11 didn't cause America to cease to exist, it's highly unlikely another one of the same magnitude would.

Biden said that people need not be concerned because their chance of being directly affected by a terrorist attack (by which I assume he means killed or wounded) is twice as improbable as being hit by lightning.

This presumes that people in this nation are (or should be) thinking, "Well they didn't get me so that wasn't a big deal."

They didn't "get" me on 9/11, but I was deeply affected by the deaths of the almost 3,000 people they did "get," as were millions of my fellow Americans, who, unlike me, didn’t even actually know any of the casualties. Aside from the emotional trauma caused by that day, the stock market crashed and it took a long time to recover the losses to investments, including the 401Ks of Average Joes & Janes (only to see them creamed again in 2008). Investment strategies prior to 9/11 took into consideration downturns in the market due to economic factors like bubble bursts. Now the possibilities for a major selloff have increased. If we have another 9/11, most of us will lose all we've regained since 2008.

The travel and airline industries took a major hit after 9/11 and a lot of people lost jobs. Travelling after 9/11 became more arduous for everyone and not just people flying in and out of NYC. A little piece of legislation called the Patriot Act was made law after 9/11 and that has affected everyone, as has the continuing encroachment of the NSA into our daily lives...for the ostensible reason of preventing another 9/11.

We launched two wars shortly after 9/11 in which thousands of our fellow Americans were killed or wounded. One was in direct response to the attacks on that day and the other was unlikely to ever have happened if there had been no 9/11. These wars eventually divided the people of this country and played a significant role in our major elections.

We are now in a third war due, in large measure, to the threat of another 9/11, and the chances are pretty good that it will drag on and our involvement expand.

So, for these reasons, and probably a few more I can't think of right now, there is a very real cause for concern over terrorist attacks in the US that goes well beyond the very low probability of ending up dead or wounded.

And just as they aren't with Ebola, Americans aren't panicking over another 9/11, even though the chances of another major attack are much greater than the chances of an Ebola pandemic.

When officials like Biden tell people not to panic or worry over some threat, what they are really saying is "Don't question what we are or are not doing. Don't ask for or demand things we don't want to do."


There is a point, in terms of not trusting the government, which if crossed will lead to bad outcomes. Vaccinations are a good example. Even if you are prepared to take the risk of your children coming down with the diseases the vaccines are intended to prevent, the risk you are taking affects more than you and your children, by contributing to the diseases re-establishing themselves in our society.

However, in my opinion, these instances are few and far-between.

Recent studies have confirmed the position that vaccines do not lead to autism, but this was not like confirming that aliens are not abducting Americans on a daily basis for the purpose of conducting anal probes. It could have been the case that some vaccines did contribute to autism. Throughout the period of controversy though, the government insisted they did not. They happened to be correct but that doesn’t mean the additional studies were not warranted.

We all have to make our own risk/benefit analysis about numerous potential threats, and the government is very often a source of accurate information upon which to base an analysis, but it is, frankly, foolish to assume the government is always going to be providing us with correct information, or even the truth as it may be known.

The government is still telling us that salt represents a major health risk, when most experts agree that it is not, and I'm sure that with a little research I can come up with numerous other examples of misinformation that is being dispensed by the government (and not elected officials who can probably be trusted less than anyone).

A skeptical regard for what the government feeds us is healthy, and not akin to believing that vaccines are being used by it to control the population, or that millions of Americans are doomed to bleed out because of Ebola.

9/11 was a monumental LIE, so is this

I read everything you write, Finn. We just disagree on several points.

Overreaction is a bad thing that at times causes more damage than the original threat. I would argue that this was the case after 9/11 and I would certainly argue it is the case in Ebola.

Some of the steps we took in reaction to 9/11 were logical. Some were clearly irrational. Of course distinguishing between the two will likely depend on our political positions. From my point of view the Patriot Act and the Iraq war were clearly overreactions to 9/11 that were far more harmful than helpful. There was no logical reason (other than fear) that our airline industry needed to suffer. There is no reason that another attack would have to take away everything we have regained.

I don't think Biden is telling people not to question. He is telling people not to panic.

This is the correct message to be giving. The panic over EBola can be far more damaging to our economy, to our social structure and even our health, than any possible incidence of Ebola in the US.

There is an interesting difference between 9/11 and Ebola. In the case of 9/11 it was our government (motivated by political forces) that was telling us to "panic". The government persuaded us to accept the NSA snooping, overlook torture and support a war.

In the case of Ebola, the government's job is to come up with a public policy that will react rationally to the disease while minimizing the damage to the public.

Part of their job is to stop people from acting irrationally.

A possible second case in Texas. This patient claims to have had contact with Mr Duncan and answered "yes" regarding travel to west Afica.

http://www.khou.com/story/news/local/texas/2014/10/08/frisco-patient-suspected-to-have-ebola/16923565/

I agree with much of what you're saying but I don't think this is what Biden was saying. I, too, think a healthy skepticism toward official pablum/babble is a good idea, but I also think it's a good idea not to panic or worry unduly. What good is it going to do and what will it change? The medical community feels that it can contain the spread of this virus. Containing the spread doesn't mean that no one else is going to get it or that no one else is going to die from it. It's too soon to know if the individual who self-presented to an acute care clinic today is a second case, but after Mr Duncan was sent home (still shaking my head over that) everyone is on high alert.

I well remember the panic the set in in the mid-80s during the HIV crisis. People made all sorts of irrational responses. I was doing HIV risk counseling at the time and running an infectious disease laboratory doing HIV testing. One woman called me and said she ran a guest house and rented two rooms to two men. The next morning she saw them both standing in the hall bathroom (dressed, with the door open) and assumed they were gay. She evicted the two men and had already thrown away the sheets from both rooms, and the towels from the bathroom. Her question to me was whether she should replace the mattresses as well. Another man called and wanted to know the results of his HIV test which we tested under code on samples submitted by doctors/hospitals/or the state dept of health. We were the only testing laboratory in the state at the time and offered an anonymous testing service so that high risk test-seekers wouldn't donate blood in order to be screened. This man was in a hellofa state of panic. He had no risk factors, didn't think he knew any gay men, wasn't hemophiliac or live with a hemophiliac, didn't use drugs or share needles, had no contact with a known HIV positive individual and hadn't r'cd a transfusion - basically close to zero risk of being HIV positive. And yet he called me four times a day wanting to know if his test results were available yet. When he first called I told him that a negative test result would be reported back to his dr by mail within 48 hours of receiving the sample, but if the screen was positive we would have to send the sample out for confirmatory testing which could take up to two weeks. I also told him that because the samples were submitted with a coded id I had no way of knowing which sample was his. I thought he was going to pass out on the phone (he'd pulled over to the side of the road to call me because he was hyperventilating so badly he couldn't drive). The next day wasn't any better because his doctor told him he didn't have the results yet. We had a policy of never giving results out over the phone as we had no way of knowing who was actually on the other end of the line. The poor man almost died of a heart attack waiting three days for his results - and he had ZERO risk factors. That's the kind of panic and worry VP Biden is talking about.

Stirring **** is a contemptible business. I'm sure you regret saying that. Shame on you if you don't.

Info on the second possible case in Tx.



http://www.11alive.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/10/08/patient-frisco-ebola-suspect/16924603/

Latest poll regarding Ebola in America!

Let me predict the future. Michael Monnig does not have Ebola.

Do you see how silly this is? We are going to get all hot and bothered over every "possible" Ebola case. It's like want there to be more cases (maybe to justify their irrational fear).

If you use any logic, you would realize that the odds that a deputy would get the virus by serving a warrant are very low. Obviously they are going to do the right thing and act with an abundance of caution...

But he doesn't have Ebola,

We're gonna die and we won't get a chance to ignore "Duck Dynasty" for another season. Oh no!

Aw, JPB, you know of what you speak.
You know my background, yours is thicker, longer, I'd joke but not now.

our " abundance of caution" re terror attacks in America has proven to be financially ruinous, AKA not obviously the right thing.

Just one of many areas where America bowing down to the Gods of SAFETY! was a bad move.

Your logic has obvious flaws.

It's highly unlikely, I agree. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the final outcome is that he has "worried himself sick". And, yes, an abundance of caution is warranted.