Ebola in The USA

It is the same thing Ragman. The public-at-large has a minuscule chance of contact with Ebola.

I have nothing against the CDC other than an aversion to believing that any organization is infallible, and public statements by government entities that "there is nothing to worry about." I support the CDC too. I think they do a great job and I'm glad they exist, but they are not perfect. The director himself said as much, very clearly in his testimony before congress. If the CDC doesn't have a sufficient "culture of safety," that's a problem, and if it is not addressed it will only get worse.

I also trust and support NASA but we all know that brilliant scientists and engineers on their team have made several catastrophic mistakes. No one is perfect, of course, which is precisely why we should think they are. When people in the media question their processes and assertions, it is, to some extent, to obtain ratings, but it also serves the public. Branding them fear-mongers is inappropriate.

I live in the Dallas area and I can tell you that there isn't a general state of panic. I was in the airport this morning and two guys were passing hand sanitizer back and forth calling it "ebola juice." nothing wrong with some added precautionary steps. You seem to think the public is on the cusp of running screaming through the streets and stoning anyone who seems like he or she may be an African.

There is an underlying issue here of Progressive faith in an elite class governing our lives.I happen to think the CDC performs much better than most government agencies, but the bar isn't very high.

In this case it's not a question of government vs private enterprise. A government agency like the CDC is needed and couldn't be duplicated in the private sector, but when anyone tells me there is zero risk, usually they are wrong. The next question is how wrong? There are plenty of examples of elite experts and average bureaucrats making mistakes both small and large. Serious problem are often caused by a series of small mistakes which is why redundancy is built into critical functions, Still, catastrophes happen. They may be rare but they are catastrophic, and if such a thing happens with ebola or any other infectious disease, it will be small comfort that the CDC got most things right.

I get that they don't want to panic the nation but I think they can do that without making statements that simply aren't true, like there is "zero risk," and I'm left to wonder if they are simply being overzealous in their desire to keep the public calm or if they are too confident of their processes. The latter is a classic precursor to significant failures.

If the threat of an ebola pandemic is overstated by some, so is the degree of anxiety in the nation concerning it.

And I'm more afraid of an ebola outbreak than the Pocono Cop Killer. One culprit is in my neighborhood and the other is a thousand miles away. Whereas the reverse is true for you. Are you saying your fear is more rational than mine?

I need a slushy

I thought I made my point clear - perhaps not. There is a broader concern to a larger number of people for the risk to the public as it affects more people than those in one area of PA.

My point is written and summarized more eloquently than what I have posted by this statement:


If one person dies or dozens in USA, isn't it important for everyone to understand clearly that there is some inherent risk ... and that the risk is NOT zero, as some seem to think? Greater education of the public of all precautions is mandatory in order to be responsible. There is risk and it is NOT at all like the dynamics of what happened with SARS. This one is far more deadly and the there is/are no absolutes here.

This is nonsense. I can't think of a single example of something that the CDC (or any other agency) has specifically stated is "very low risk" that has then turned into a disaster. Can you? There were some dangers that were overlooked... but that is a different story. Here we have the experts saying explicitly that there is very little risk of a Ebola epidemic in the US. This type of assurance is almost always correct.

Not only is this type of thinking wrong, it is sometimes dangerously wrong. People use this argument to avoid doing things they should be doing, such as vaccinating their children for the alleged "risk" of autism.

Keeping kids out of school is less stupid than keeping kids from getting vaccinations. But it is still stupid.

You are being deliberately obtuse.

I did not say that CDC has a history of being wrong about risk assessment, I said that when someone tells me there is "zero risk" they are usually wrong. Obviously when someone assures me that there is zero risk of my 1954 (the year I was born) traveling to the present and killing and eating my 2014 self, I accept them at their word.

There is very little risk of an Ebola pandemic. I acknowledge that, but clearly there is some risk, no matter how small. Why folks like you want to equate expressing this simple truth with full blown panic is , I suspect a desire to be perceived as a Voice of Reason and in some way superior to we scared rabbits running wild through street. This is a characteristic of some progressives that I find quite annoying, whether it has to do with science or morality.

It is more than semantics. I doubt you will assert that the CDC and our Heath system is perfect. There are a legion of examples of mistakes minor and serious, and indeed mistakes have been made with the fellow in Dallas who has Ebola. How significant they were remains to be seen.

I'm tiring of stating that I believe the CDC and our healthcare system in general does a great job. It's ironic how certain people who in one discussion want to tell us how poor it is (high infant mortality rates on a relative basis) and in another it's praises.

You seem to believe that when a government spokesperson stands at a podium and tells us all our airport immigration officials have been trained and are performing the proper procedures for screening that they are 100% accurate. That is true nonsense. The majority may or may not be, but certainly not all of them are. We were also told hospital ER staff could be relied upon to identify someone who came in with Ebola and act immediately. Then came Mr. Duncan.

Joe Biden just made a speech telling his audience that terrorists didn't represent an existential threat to our way of life and that they had twice the chance of getting hit by lightning as being affected by a terrorist act. That's nonsense. He may be right that our chance of being killed or wounded is less than getting hit by lightning, but if there is another 9/11, virtually every American will be affected.

Telling people not to worry, or worse, that worrying is silly or stupid, is not the way to deal with a crisis, which is why the CDC is now focusing on stating specifically what it is doing to prevent a greater problem then exists.

What kind of thinking are you talking about? You are lumping any kind of thinking about this matter that doesn't agree with yours as "dangerous" and hysterical.

Tell me specifically what is dangerous about not wanting experts to tell me to stop worrying and asking questions.

Please give a relevant example of this. There are thousand of thing that the government has told you have very low risk. These include microwave ovens, irradiated food, genetically modified food, vaccinations, fluoridated water, Tylenol... and so on and so on.

People have freaked out about many things that have zero risk. Sometimes it is ridiculous (I know people who won't eat food that has touched aluminum) sometimes it is dangerous (as in the case of vaccinations).

Do you want to know who's hysterical? CNN is hysterical. I don't usually watch CNN but it was on in the restaurant where Mr B and I ate lunch today. Nonstop blather and bullshit. I imagine most/all of the 24hr news networks are similar. They have to keep people on the edge of their seats so that they'll stay glued to the television. It was obscene.

I think it is you who is being obtuse.

You are making stuff up about what the CDC has told us (unless you want to provide links). The CDC never said that there is a low risk of isolated cases arriving in the US. No one at the CDC has ever promised that the hospital system would be perfect, or that airport screening will be foolproof.

What they are saying is that there is an extremely low risk of an Ebola epidemic in the US. They are telling us this in spite of the fact that they admit that the behavior 300 million people, with millions of travelers and tens of thousand of airport personnel can't be perfectly controlled.

They aren't just telling not to worry, they are telling us why we shouldn't worry. What they are telling us about the difficulty of transmission and public health measures being taken. An intelligent American should be able to understand this (especially since we have been through this recently with H1N1 and SARS).

I also don't understand why you think that another 9/11 is an existential threat. 9/11 was a horrendous tragedy, but there was never the slightest possibility that it would destroy our way of life. (Or do we disagree on the meaning of the word "existential"). I suppose this is a tangent though... but this time Joe Biden was right especially since he was talking specifically about ISIS.

HIV is still mutating.

Every virus mutates to adapt to its surroundings. The longer a virus circulates, the more it changes its genetic material.

Finn, when will you realize that these stories are subliminal messages to scare people into taking vaccines? They did it with the H1N1 Influenza - they are doing it now with this story. It's scare tactics. It's the psychopath side of politics.

Vaccines for Ebola? Learn something every day.

People will do anything to just feel that they are safe when they truly know their fate is inevitable, so people will take what they can, like vaccines, to feel safe.

For an example, look at what germ commercials can do to someone who over thinks germs. Germs are everywhere, but the thought of always being in it can lead someone to become fearful of germs, as to psychologically imprison themselves with over-thinking, much like a person in tight spaces.

Huh?

The Ebola virus is very unlikely to spread through the US. It is a very fragile virus, highly susceptible to basic and common personal hygiene practices.

If something is going to get us, it's far more likely to be some type of dangerous influenza like the Pandemic of 1918.

Have you tried human stupidity?

Now that's an infamous disease.

THIS JUST IN!!

Man Infected with Ebola Misinformation Through Casual Contact with Cable News

CANTON, OH (The Borowitz Report)—An Ohio man has become infected with misinformation about the Ebola virus through casual contact with cable news, the Centers for Disease Control has confirmed.

Tracy Klugian, thirty-one, briefly came into contact with alarmist Ebola hearsay during a visit to the Akron-Canton airport, where a CNN report about Ebola was showing on one of the televisions in the airport bar. “Mr. Klugian is believed to have been exposed to cable news for no more than ten minutes, but long enough to become infected,” a spokesman for the C.D.C. said. “Within an hour, he was showing signs of believing that an Ebola outbreak in the United States was inevitable and unstoppable.”

Once Klugian’s condition was apparent, the Ohio man was rushed to a public library and given a seventh-grade biology textbook, at which point he “started to stabilize,” the spokesman said.

But others exposed to the widening epidemic of Ebola misinformation may not be so lucky. “A man in Oklahoma was exposed to Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Fox for over three minutes,” the C.D.C. spokesman said gravely. “We hope we’re not too late.”

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/man-infected-ebola-misinformation-casual-contact-cable-news?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_141007_Borowitz&CUST_ID=16449100&spMailingID=7183119&spUserID=NzA5MDgxNTQ3NDAS1&spJobID=540743944&spReportId=NTQwNzQzOTQ0S0

Good luck at getting anything that'll quench that huh. There's a growing group of us that have blocked that twit.