EBOLA:
A couple of thoughts. Might even deserve it's own thread. Just have to get this off my chest.
There were too many "oddities" about this whole "bring-them-home-it's-the-humanitarian-thing-to- do" Ebola situation. Just a few. (I btw do wish these patients, and all those infected, well. I'm not panicky, hysterical, or uniformed, just concerned.)
1) The head of the Emory Critical Care unit was being interview on TV and said he got a call about using the facility for these two patients. He readily agreed to make the unit available. When asked who called him, he couldn't remember. Now given the importance and significance of this event, a) I find it incredible he couldn't remember. b) His PR person should be shot for letting him go "on-record" without being armed with the Who-What-When-Where-How-Why.
2) Repeatedly, Emory and CDC official said that there's nothing we can do for them here we can't do over there. They've also said the ONLY way to fight the virus is to keep the body of the patient as strong as possible. Why then would you stress the patient out with an intercontinental relocation? Why take the risk? What message does that send to the African nations battling the infection? We turn tale and run when it's our people? We're not giving them "all" the same treatment?
3) Healthcare official keep saying that the risk is low, the risk is low. What they mean is that compared to, say influenza, the probability of passing the virus is low. RISK, in my book, is determined by factoring the probability of and event with the consequence of an event. Granted the probability of passing Ebola is low (in a controlled environment), but the consequence is HIGH (60% mortality rate). That makes the total risk, HIGH. PR Note: It would have gone a long way towards backing up there statements of low risk, if the officials had been there to greet the incoming patients, just wearing the business attire.
(By they way, saliva in the form of a sneeze is an airborne bodily fluid, in my book too. And did you know the patients' urine and fecus will be not be specially processed as hazmat, but flushed into the Dekalb county sewage system? Not like they've never had a sewage spill. PEGLEG, after processing that waste well be dumping it in the Chattahoochee River and sending it down to you in SW GA.)
4) There is already Ebola virus in CDC and ARMY labs here in the US. When people said we've never had Ebola in the Americas what they are referring to is that there have never been any humans infected with Ebola here.
5) While we like to think we're superior here in the US with our way of life, sanitation systems and medical practices, I think that's a little arrogant and short sighted. Ebola virus could find our society MORE to it's liking. How do we know? One way we different from many other countries is our mobility. We think nothing of traveling 60 miles on a whim. As a society we travel and interact over great distances and with large numbers of people. My view of life in many other countries is that they travel less and interact with smaller, more isolated groups, than in the US. How will that play if the virus get's loose here?
6) I've not seen a story as to how these to workers contracted the disease. What failed in their procedures over there? Could it fail here?
My theory: It would a political/ethical/PR nightmare to experiment on humans in a 3rd world country. The rush to get these medical workers here was not a humanitarian effort for them, but the desire to use them as guinea pigs (with the consent I'm sure). Now one could argue that for the greater good it was worth the risk to move along the development of a treatment in hopes of saving the greater population. I'd love to see the economic balance sheet on that.
BUT TELL ME THAT. Don't hide things, make up stories or belittle me as hysterical or ignorant.
(Side note on economic balance sheets: Buried somewhere in a governmental report is an economic study that purports the ban on smoking is costing more than it saves. {No, I don't smoke.)}