After First Ebola Case, Red Flags Emerge That U.S. Unprepared For Pandemic -- Washington Times
Federal reports raise concerns US defenses stagnated, waning
The confirmation Tuesday of the first Ebola case on U.S. soil emerges against a backdrop of increasing concern in America’s medical community that preparedness for a pandemic has stagnated or slipped in recent years because of tough economic times and increasing malaise since the 2001 anthrax threat.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, America’s premier disease fighter, offered an air of confidence Tuesday in declaring that the first Ebola patient in Dallas was carefully contained.
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My Comment: What does not help the situation is the position that the country's leadership has taken.
Update: The Department of Homeland Security Is Not Prepared for a Pandemic -- Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
8 comments:
Back in August the talking heads that the administration (like Tom Frieden of the CDC) sounded oddly over optimistic about our and the world ability to stop Ebola in it's tracks. I feel like they are still spinning.
Look. This is fear-mongering and an effort to dramatically overblow what is happening here.
If Ebola was as easy to catch as, say, Influenza, then we could be in trouble, but it's not.
Basic infection control procedures are enough to minimize the spread.
But that doesn't sell papers or ad time.
This is not a virus.
You can get a disease from 1 virus particle. they did nor think this was true for a long while. they were purposefully fooling themselves. It is statistically improbable but still possible.
People shed viruses all the time when they are sick. In the initial stages I believe they do not shed many. The # of viruses shed after infection could be shaped like a normal curve with time as the long axis.
So what I am saying is just because the CDC says this guy was not infectious, I do not believe them. Small amounts of of bacteria could have come through his sweat glands to be later picked up by someone else. Have they even measured that?
I am not sure about my scenario, but I don't think the CDC has considered all possibilities and they are spinning.
That said everything is better in America than West Africa as a whole concerning hygiene, tracing etc.
Still it could happen here.
& Yes, they are selling news print and being sensational.
My brother is a medical researcher .... what concerns him is that doctors and medical personnel .... even with all the precautionary procedures .... still got sick. This tells him that there are aspects of this disease that are still unknown.
A friend of mine who is an epidemiologist is telling me the same thing .... until we know better .... all precautions should be taken .... even putting a 3 or 4 month ban on flights to and from infected countries.
Mr. Smith, you need more than one virus particle to become infected except for perhaps lab conditions.
The United States has vastly more resources to deal with a non-airborne threat than pretty much any place on the planet with the possible exception of Western Europe.
Supportive care (including replenishment of fluids and electrolytes) have been proven to greatly increase survivability. Basic infection control protocols have also been proven successful at limiting infection.
Mr Pyle,
I remember a Conjunctivitis epidemic going through a population of few thousand people.
To stop it we wiped down all the door handles, handrails, and similar surfaces.
The hand rails were gross. They were oily, because so many people used them. You could feel the oil.
A little oil and temperate to hot temperatures would keep bacteria and viruses from being killed by environmental stresses. They would still die, but tell me that they would all die within 15 minutes.
I agree with the supportive care. It will work better here, but there will still be a death toll for any who catch it. A 10% death rate would still be a shock for a country that should not have to deal with such a threat.
Basic infection protocols are very much better here, yet we do not have STDs eradicated. Nor do I believe that are cities are as healthy as we think. I can go a block and 1/2 from the local police station and see them drug dealing in a project a few hundred feet from the main North south road. Are medical services more robust than the police services in America? We can't control visa holders nor our southern border. We cannot even control security in the White House.
There is not a lot of confidence. It is far from time to throw in the towel far far from it. But we should not have got this far from normal.
Here is an ugly reality that is not fear-mongering:
1. The U.S. Government has demonstrated considerable incompetence recently. Example: the Secret Service fiascoes.
2. The U. S. Government has demonstrated a proclivity to tell falsehoods recently. Examples: "they" underestimated ISIS; the President did not call ISIS the "JV" team, the IRS scandal, etc.
3. The U. S. Government is encased by political correctness. Example: we permit airliners to fly people here from Liberia with no restrictions.
Now, we have one confirmed case. Let's call him "Patient Zero". Look what happened with Patient Zero:
(a) the hospital failed to recognize his ebola symptoms and sent the patient home after he presented himself to the ER with ebola symptoms, and told the ER he was from Liberia. Before an ambulance returned him to the hospital a few days later, Patient Zero had exposed at least 5 children to ebola, plus others to whom he came close, such as the ambulance crew. As a result, Patient Zero has already potentially infected a score of people.
(b) the hospital and the CDC did not voluntarily reveal this information, but the press dug it out. The hospital and the CDC thus handled Patient Zero with both incompetence and less than full disclosure.
4. In light of 1-3, who can blame people for thinking that the U.S. Government is not telling the whole truth about ebola? The Government can dispel fear by providing full and accurate information. The U.S. Government's first responses to Patient Zero are not reassuring.
Could not have said it any better Publius.
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