If you're more nervous about an Ebola patient in an Emory isolation ward than one loose in Lagos, your sense of risk is out of whack.
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 12, 2014
Obama Derangement Syndrome is every bit as silly as the Bush variety at times.
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Part of what concerns people, is that the various health agencies are sending mixed messages regarding their knowledge of whether or not Ebola has an airborne transmission vector.
ReplyDeleteUS CDC says no, Canadian equiv says yes.
Didn't you hear the latest idiot blather that this is an Obama plot to infect the Bible Belt with the ebolas? Because moslem or something.
ReplyDeleteTechnically I do not believe anyone has suggested that any Ebola strain has mutated to become an "airborne" virus. Rather, it appears the Canadian researches believed that the transmission was through fluids aspirated into the air from the pigs. Which is similar to other viruses transmitted through body fluid. If someone coughs and aspirates mucus into the air, and then you come into contact with that airborne mucus - there is a chance of you becoming infected - even though it is not an "airborne" virus.
ReplyDeleteAs I posted on my Blog yesterday, I'm not worried about people infected with Ebola flying into Cleveland, hacking and wheezing.
ReplyDeleteI am concerned about Infected People getting on Ships and leaving the West Coast of Africa and spreading the Disease through the Transfer of Bodily Fluids via Prostitution.
With a 2-3 week Incubation Period, that is plenty of time for it to spread via Sexual Congress in Foreign Ports.
And speaking of Lagos, I am VERY concerned about the Disease spreading into the Oil Workers of Nigeria. If enough of them get sick, then Oil stops flowing from Nigeria, just because Workers won't show up.
And as Screwed Up as the rest of the World's Oil Fields are (Libya, Iraq, Russian Sanctions, etc.) I can see a large amount of Oil no longer hitting the Market.
And that would be Bad.
As if somehow the real bad crap was inadequately bad.
ReplyDeleteActually, Ebola HAS already mutated to have an airborne transmission. That was back in the nineties. Look up Ebola Reston, it happened in a US facility.
ReplyDeleteBut Ebola Reston is no worse than a bad cold. Strains with the kind of virulence possessed by the African Ebolas, including the one tearing through right now, are extremely self-limiting as airborne viruses because all the victims stay home and die, fast, instead of getting on planes, going to work, etcetera.
THIS strain of Ebola is not airborne. Not remotely.
Not for one second do I think Obama had anything to do with bringing Ebola patients to the US. I still think it is a bad idea. Same way as I don't point guns I know are unloaded at myself or others.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Obama has done an outstanding job of royally fucking up this country without the help of Ebola.
Not to wish ill on anyone, but if he did, I hope he personally nursed them all.
ReplyDeleteLabRat -- Does Ebola Reston seem to provide a future immunity to the rest of the Ebola family, a la cowpox/smallpox? Maybe a possible vaccine source?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the definition of an "airborne" virus? The traditional method of spreading influenza was by someone coughing and aspirating tiny droplets of mucus into the air, and someone else comes into contact with that airborne mucus which is either inhaled or picked up by touch which infects the subject. That was my understanding of how a virus might be spread that was considered airborne.
ReplyDeleteThere is whole cottage industry catering to Obama Derangement Syndrome and fear is it's greatest salesman.
ReplyDelete@ reno,
ReplyDeleteWith these kind of syndromes it's more of a bunker industry.
It is now ODS to think that it's a bad idea to bring Ebola patients to the US when we've never had it here? And put them under the control of an agency that recently admitted to finding cases of various heinous diseases lying around in a warehouse? When they could just as easily been treated in an African hospital?
ReplyDeleteAn odd definition of Obama Derangement Syndrome, if you ask me.
I've popped the popcorn and I sit here waiting to hear how they've messed up with containment in Atlanta.
ReplyDeleteIf they've not actually messed up, I don't even need butter!
"When they could just as easily been treated in an African hospital?"
ReplyDelete*wipes tear*
Thank you, I like starting my day with a belly laugh. :)
If you are expecting the people who are suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome to A) understand the germ-theory of disease, B) understand how the isolation works in isolation units, C) that there are MUCH worse things in labs in various parts of the country....
ReplyDeleteWell, science requires math, and math is hard, and I can't just cram for the exam the night before the test, so they can't be bothered.
Then you can add a D) to the above list about why we should be concerned about global epidemics. (Spanish Flu? Ignorance. History. Relive it.)
Comrade Tam, I plead No Contest to the charge of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
ReplyDeleteThose who trust the Emory staff to contain an "out of control" virus that has infected over 100 of their fellow medical professionals in Africa is like trusting the Fed Governors to manage our monetary policy, trusting the JPL staff to land the Mars Polar Rover, trusting an Indianapolis police officer to stop drinking before his shift, or trusting Glock to make a single-stack 9mm.
As to "risk," I agree. The situation in Africa is a bigger threat to an America with an open border, and thousands of international flights each day, than the two patients in the Atlanta hospital. But my derangement reaction to Ebola patients being allowed into the states cannot be contained outside a foam-padded room.
ODS Symptom #1: I do not trust Obama to ever make a decision that is in my best interest.
I will seek professional help soon. Perhaps after the 22-day Ebola incubation period...
Who's Sobama, and why should I thank this person?
ReplyDeleteSo, Karl, what you're saying is that you think Emory can't quarantine as well as Monrovia General, home of the reusable hypodermic. Gotcha.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteNot even remotely as worried about ebola as I am about a few hundred thousand terrorists and gang members now in our midst. But hey, they're "contained", right?
Right??
Thanx, Mr. President.
Emory, where the doctor to patient ratio is roughly "everyone to one".
ReplyDeleteEmory, where a plurality of all the world's experts on Ebola are within "midday driving distance".
Emory, where the doctors aren't treating hundreds of suspected Ebola patients apiece.
Yeah, I'm not so concerned about a patient or two, in a proper First World isolation lab, handled under BS4 provisions, located in the US. (In an area that is horribly harsh on the Ebola virus -- it's actually a pretty fragile bug outside a host.) Hell, there's less chance of an outbreak from treating these few patients here than there would be shuttling teams back and forth to Africa to treat them there.
And, Heresolong? Not the first time Ebola has been brought to the US. Or any other First World nation.
where do you think they study it? Monrovia General isn't a world-class vaccine development center. . .