October 4, 2014

"You are being given this card because a sick person who might have been exposed to Ebola sat near you on a plane OR had contact with you in an airport."

Card handed to 261 passengers who arrived at Newark Airport on United flight 988 remain from Brussels. This reading material staved off boredom as they had to stay in their seats and watch authorities come on board to deal with the person suspected of carrying ebola.

100 comments:

traditionalguy said...

The Ebola world there will be will be much less hugging and hand shaking, not to mention kissing, until new people have done a 21 day quarantine.And you know those paper toilet seat covers are not so silly anymore.

William said...

Try again:

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

cassandra lite said...

"Please present this card to the intake nurse at the emergency room when you begin coming down with violent symptoms. This will alert the medical staff to the seriousness of your condition. May you R.I.P."

Bobber Fleck said...

I keeping wondering if Ebola will spread into Mexico and Central America, bringing a new significance to our open southern border.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

Hope we can develop an effective vaccine because we sure aren't able to successfully limit the spread of Ebola. We are on our way to a pandemic.

Fen said...

"Also, remember to recycle! We are a Green biohazard team. So please cough all over your card and then turn it into the nurse to be used for future persons of interest. Thanks!"

Wince said...

10 miles from NYC.

Maybe it's time to start looking at the Triple VIX?

Anonymous said...

"I keeping wondering if Ebola will spread into Mexico and Central America, bringing a new significance to our open southern border."

Can we at least spread the news south of the border that America is Ebola infested and anyone coming here will die of a terrible internal bleeding disease?

Lydia said...

Do all flights from Liberia go first to Brussels? Anyone here know?

Michael K said...

" We are on our way to a pandemic."

Yup.

WSJ today has a good piece if you can get through the pay wall.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/scott-gottlieb-and-tevi-troy-stopping-ebola-before-it-turns-into-a-pandemic-1412376544

Yet too many public-health officials still believe that they can solve the crisis with tried-and-true methods to contain an outbreak that prioritize manpower over technology. Groups like the World Health Organization have been wrong at every turn in responding to the Ebola outbreak earlier this year. We can’t take the chance that they may again be miscalculating.

This administration has been so hostile to the pharmaceutical industry, they may not be able to ask for help.

Steve M. said...

False alarm, per ABC News.

Wince said...

Lydia said...
Do all flights from Liberia go first to Brussels? Anyone here know?

Since Britain and France shut-down in-coming flights, I think Brussels has effectively become the main vector of infection.

MadisonMan said...

I fly next in January. I hope this whole thing is over then.

sinz52 said...

That's how we ended up with bubonic plague in the American Southwest.

A hundred years ago, some infected Chinese guy came to San Francisco. Officials there could have instituted a quarantine, but they refused, believing it would hurt business and tourism. As a result, the plague spread eastward into the Southwest, where it continues to circulate among wild animals there to this day.

And every few months,somebody comes in contact with those animals and gets the plague.

http://tinyurl.com/kb2vtwt

The difference, of course, is that the plague is curable with antibiotics. Ebola is not.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Hard to believe it has come to this- just two weeks ago Prez Obama said Ebola would never get here. He is the unluckiest president since Jimmy Carter!

traditionalguy said...

Whoever came up with Dr Malthus' perfect population eliminator may be the same people who have known cutting back our energy producing system by 50% would be no big deal after 80% of the useless people have met a quick Malthusian death.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

AJ Lynch said...
Hard to believe it has come to this- just two weeks ago Prez Obama said Ebola would never get here. He is the unluckiest president since Jimmy Carter!


So, I guess the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor, the complete collapse of the neocon project in Iraq and the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression weren't bad luck but actually the result of bad management. Good to know.

Michael K said...

"So, I guess the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor, the complete collapse of the neocon project in Iraq and the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression weren't bad luck but actually the result of bad management. Good to know."

ARM, you know I love you for the defense on evolution. The solution for Ebola will come from doctors who understand evolution and why kinase inhibitors are our probable only hope but you are batshit crazy on Iraq and 9/11.

I'm Full of Soup said...

ARM - I was trying to be funny by suggesting Obama and Carter were only unlucky as opposed to what they really are and that is dumbass incompetents in over their heads [and I voted for Carter].

khesanh0802 said...

ARM delivers a classic non sequitur to AJ Lynch. Come on you can do better!

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

AJ Lynch said...
dumbass incompetents in over their heads


On what planet is Ebola Obama's fault?

I'm Full of Soup said...

Feeling awfully defensive tonight about Prez Obama's suckass record aren't you? I did not claim Ebola was his fault.

Unknown said...

---On what planet is Ebola Obama's fault?---

On this planet, why haven’t Obama’s crack public health effort banned flights from Ebola involved countries like Britain and France have?

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28966419

http://newswirengr.com/2014/08/27/air-france-stop-flights-to-ebola-hit-countries/#

Big Mike said...

@Bobber, if the US gets enough confirmed cases it will be Mexico that closes the border, and bans flights from the US.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

You guys need to get your stories straight. It is, it isn't Obama's fault. Which is it?


Fen said...

Notice ARM's principles - A potential plague outbreak and its still about excusing The One.

This is the Democrat party.

chickelit said...

AReasonableMan said...
You guys need to get your stories straight. It is, it isn't Obama's fault. Which is it?

Ebola is not Obama's fault. But his tepid response and unwillingness to consider travel restrictions is probably race-based on his part. I say that because there is no rationale left.

chickelit said...

Fen said...
Notice ARM's principles - A potential plague outbreak and its still about excusing The One.

I think it's fine if ARM wants to risk his life for the sake of unrestricted travel to and from Ebolaland -- but he's willing to risk everyone else's lives too.

rcommal said...

Honestly, if ever both the passive voice and faux passive voice ought be banned in a missive... .

Anonymous said...

I get perturbed when someone coughs on the bus.

rcommal said...

And you know those paper toilet seat covers are not so silly anymore.

Oh, good lord. You kidding? Guess you've never had to remove those paper toilet seat covers that other people--who apparently were enough worried about other people that they employed those covers--weren't enough worried about yet other people to remove the covers they'd put down (in other words: to clean up after themselves).

It's to laugh.

C'mon now, folks. Step up and see the human nature.

jr565 said...

This is going to happen again and again until the cut off flights from Liberia until they have the latest outbreak in check.

jr565 said...

"we have very few christian missionaries in our hospitals, so don't expect much by way of care"

jr565 said...

ARreasonableMan wrote:
On what planet is Ebola Obama's fault?


On what planet was Avian flu Bush's fault? On what planet was AIDS Reagan's fault.

jr565 said...

ARM, remember when the dems went after Bush for not doing enough on Avian flu? Remember when Obama went after Bush for the slow response?
We do.
Here's a refresher in case you forgot:
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/10/02/flashback-senator-obama-rips-bush-for-being-unprepared-for-avian-flu-epidemic/

And remember, after the dems asked for tighter quarantine rules, and then Obama eliminated them? We do.
Here's a refresher in case you forgot:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/352214.php

So, shouldn't we hold Obama to the same standard that you dems held Bush?

Michael K said...

"On what planet is Ebola Obama's fault?"

ARM. Read Peggy Noonan, Obama voter, on what is going wrong. The CDC cannot be trusted. Every day, their previous comments are out of date. They just don't care if we think they are incompetent their pensions are secure. None of them will ever suffer any consequences unless they accidentally become a whistleblower.

No question was answered straight and simple. Everything was convoluted and involved extraneous data, so that listeners couldn’t follow the answer and by the end couldn’t remember the question. I am certain government witnesses do this deliberately—the rounded words, long sentences that collapse, the bureaucratic drone—so reporters will fall asleep and fail to file. An hour in Tuesday I expected the TV camera to slowly slide toward the ceiling, with the screen covered in a cameraman’s drool. “Mistakes were made.” “Our security plan was not properly executed.” Yes, you could say that of a story in which a nut with a knife burst into the White House and ran around the ceremonial rooms. Ms. Pierson neglected to mention in her testimony the story that would break shortly after she finished: Secret Service agents in Atlanta a few weeks before had allowed on to an elevator carrying the president a private security man, who reportedly jumped around taking pictures and was later found to be carrying a gun.

They just don't care. They think we don't deserve answers.

“I think ‘handful’ is the right characterization,” said the CDC director to a Wall Street Journal reporter who asked if the sick man had contact with others before he was hospitalized. (That became “up to 100” the next day.) The officials were relentlessly modern-bureaucratic in their language. They have involved all “stakeholders.”

Was the sick man an American or a foreign national? “The individual was here to visit family.” Oh. The speaker’s tone implied he’ll tell us more down the road if he decides we can handle it.


I guess you agree.

David said...

Widespread panic.

Just wait until we have a real plague of something more easily transmitted.

mtrobertsattorney said...

"Ban all fights from West Africa from landing in the USA."

Why that's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. And don't ask me to explain why. Everybody knows it's sheer nonsense.

Balfegor said...

A complete travel ban might interfere with civilian efforts to contain the problem. But we should be coordinating with foreign governments to quarantine the infected regions, making sure we register everyone going in, and track everyone going out. No one from the Ebola zone should be getting into the US on business or tourist visas. Every outgoing civilian passenger from those three countries should be scrutinized for medical necessity. Even govt workers, actually, given that an American working for the Liberian government, someone who knew he was infected, seems to have pulled strings to get past security in Liberia and thereby caused the entire outbreak in Nigeria including the deaths of seven other people. Limit travel to aid workers and medical personnel.

Every article talks about how travel restrictions would make things worse but no one seems to be able to articulate a plausible reason why that would be so.

chickelit said...

Michael K wrote: They just don't care if we think they are incompetent their pensions are secure.

I believe that's the biggest nail I've ever seen hit squarely on an Althouse comment thread.

It's the biggest problem, isn't it? -- Government sinecure. It explains so much. It explains why otherwise decent people don't lift a finger, even though they know in their heart of hearts that doing nothing is wrong.

Zach said...

This was *not* a false alarm.

Right now, the plan for keeping Ebola off of international flights involves keeping people running a fever or showing flulike symptoms off of a flight. Yet here we have a man travelling from Liberia and throwing up on the plane. If the plan was working, this guy wouldn't have been on the plane.

The plan is not working.

Being lucky is better than being good. But being lucky is not the *same* as being good.

rcommal said...

On what planet is Ebola Obama's fault?


On what planet was Avian flu Bush's fault? On what planet was AIDS Reagan's fault.


On what planet ought anyone pay serious attention to any one of you spittin' bullshittin' sort. (There's no question mark for a reason.) Just sayin'. Sheesh.

I don't believe in the majority of you people's so-called seriousness, either, when it comes to disease (with the possible exception of Pogo's, assuming there are vestiges left of the initial online Pogo--but then, I could be wrong about him, too].

Cut the crap. Either Ebola is enough of a threat to focus on dealing with that disease threat as a public-health problem worth cutting off at the knees *as* a true threat to public health, or it is not.

Which is it?

If you think it's a true threat, cut the crap and replace your rhetoric with an effort to help address the threat.

If you don't, then how about continuing onward while lowering some of the noisiness, just in case, on account of, even on the off-chance, that you're wrong?

bgates said...

On what planet is [the presence of] Ebola [in the United States after carriers passed through ports which it is Obama's responsibility to secure] Obama's fault?

The worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor could have been prevented the same way the entry of Ebola into the US could have been prevented. In both cases, the left made disaster inevitable by placing its exquisite sensitivity to non-Caucasian people from very dangerous parts of the world above the safety of Americans.

Responsibility for Iraq was eagerly claimed by the Obama administration as long ago as 2010. I agree that the ensuing disaster was the result of bad management.

The financial crisis of 2008 was not dismissed as "very unlikely" immediately before it happened by the administration then in power, as Obama did with Ebola.

You support evil, awful, stupid people, you evil, awful, stupid man.

rcommal said...

As a corollary to Fen's Law:

I'll believe that folks believe that there's a real threat when they act like that, and I'll believe that those same folks believe that it's possible to contain such a thing, as a real threat, when they speak as if they think it's possible--without reference to politics, their own or others'--to address and solve a threat within the reality that no such virus will ever give one damn, much less two shits, about any individual much less any sort of party or group.

rcommal said...

Balfegor:

I find your comment to be refreshingly on point, as well as serious. Thanks be!

Emil Blatz said...

I've seen plenty of people vomit on ships, but I have never seen someone vomit on an airplane. I know that between the fine odor of vomit and the experience of hearing the process, that some people are moved to spontaneously vomit in reaction. So, that must have been fun even before those reassuring cards were distributed.

rcommal said...

Emil:

Lucky you.

Hyphenated American said...

" the complete collapse of the neocon project in Iraq "

Weird, but the project collapsed after Obama proclaimed its success. Weird.

Hyphenated American said...

Do you think that if Obama's own family was responsible for meeting and greeting people in airport, he would have long ago cancelled all flights from ebola-infected countries to the USA?

Anonymous said...

An Unreasonable Man wrote;

"You guys need to get your stories straight. It is, it isn't Obama's fault. Which is it?"

Depends on what you mean.

If you mean is Ebola Obama's fault? Then no. It's not. Nor has anyone said it is.

If you mean, is Ebola coming to the United States Obama's fault?

Then yes, clearly it is. As it is within his authority to restrict travel, and he has chosen not to do so.

If you weren't such an unreasonable man, you'd probably understand this.

What's with progressives anyway? ARM insists he's a reasonable guy, when nothing could be further from the truth, and madisonfella insists he is a moderate.

A few things you can be sure of in this life, if someone feels compelled to tell you they are a genius, they mostly likely aren't. If they feel compelled to tell you they are strong, they probably aren't. If they feel compelled to tell you they are pretty, or wealthy, or any number of things, chances are, they are not.

It says a lot about ARM and madisonfella that they feel compelled to tell us that they are reasonable and moderate.

rcommal said...

It's not a new thing for me to say that the two most compelling stories I heard repeatedly and therefore learned from my earliest of life (and make no mistake, this has always been the truest thing I've ever said) were:

The Emperor's New Clothes

and

The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

---

I kid you not.


rcommal said...

Jeebus, you guys irritate me, and you always have, and that's and this is why.

rcommal said...

While I have learned a great deal from you all (though I have still not grown the tough skin, as a result of all the teaching, which I ought have grown, I agree), nothing I have ever learned here has ever been more of worth than the morals of those two stories:

The Emperor's New Clothes

and

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

--

So it goes.

Bruce Hayden said...

Michael above pointed out the Noonan article. Very good. I think one of her best in years. If you can't get through the paywall, try the first link here: Google: The New Bureaucratic Brazeness.

The bureaucrats just don't care anymore about what we, the peons think about them and the jobs they are doing. They have their civil service protections and their pensions, and so we, the people paying for them, can just go and take a flying f***.

In response to ARM, the reason that this has become so brazen is because it has not only been tolerated, but encouraged from the top. The Holder DoJ has singularly refused to pursue malfeasance in the govt, and instead seems to encourage and protect it, even going so far as to promote the miscreants behind Fast and Furious, while whistleblowers throughout the govt get demoted, reassigned, and fired. Lois Lerner still has her pension, dozens of hard drives have been crashed, tapes wiped, etc, and the bureaucrats are still playing hide the ball, with the progressive media in full protect mode. When an administration says, with its every action, that it will protect misfeasance and malfeasance in the govt, it should surprise no one that it is now rampant there.

Another factor though is that this Administration probably couldn't do anything about it if they wanted to. Obama himself is clearly the least prepared and competent President in probably the last century, or more. He had never run anything larger than a Senate office before his successful 2008 election campaign. I suspect that the number of people he had fired before then could be counted on his fingers.

But what is important to them is political correctness. As was so vividly shown by the Secret Service scandal, you don't need to be competent to succeed in the federal govt today, just politically correct, esp when it comes to racial, ethnic, and gender issues.

So, now we have bureaucrats brazenly lying to the American people, while they make decisions based on political correctness, and not our safety, and most likely Americans will die. No one believes them any more, but that doesn't matter. The Administration is behind them, because those are their priorities, and spin and the narrative are more important to them than truth and death. Not good, and esp if the pandemic really takes off.

Bruce Hayden said...

Looking back over my last post, one of the thoughts that I may not have completed is that the inmates are now truly running the asylum. The bureaucrats are safe at whatever they do, or don't do, say or don't say, as long as their political bosses see them as furthering the cause. This may mean political correctness, it may mean persecution of Republicans or conservatives, or maybe just pushing the progressive narrative.

This problem has been building for generations, but has seemingly exploded under Obama. The bureaucrats know that they can outlast their political masters, and know how the agencies really operate, and not the fictions told their political minders. And one of the truths is that it is often easier to build an empire in the govt. by being only marginally competent. Rarely has anyone there ever worked themselves out of a job in govt., but it is not uncommon there to keep failing upwards.

I think that this may be where the Dems and their progressive dreams and fantasies finally meet reality. Obama and his people showed themselves masterful at buying votes with taxpayer funded largess faster than people were discovering the fundamental problem that their political philosophy is built on pixie dust and wishful thinking. The reality is that govt. is not the answer to problems, but often is the problem itself. Problems aren't solved by the Best and the Brightest in government, because the Best and the Brightest are never in the govt., but rather, the govt. is filled with the meek, the mediocre, the power hungry, and the ruthless. Big government doesn't work because it can't work, and not because we haven't thrown enough money at the problem.

Rusty said...

AReasonableMan said...
AJ Lynch said...
dumbass incompetents in over their heads

On what planet is Ebola Obama's fault?


The man of straw speaks.

If we still had a constitution this would fall under the "promote the general" welfare part.
One of the few things the our federal governemnt is actually under law obligated to do.
If we still had a constitution

Bobber Fleck said...

Why do I think of Chicago when I read this from Bruce Hayden?

In response to ARM, the reason that this has become so brazen is because it has not only been tolerated, but encouraged from the top. The Holder DoJ has singularly refused to pursue malfeasance in the govt, and instead seems to encourage and protect it, even going so far as to promote the miscreants behind Fast and Furious, while whistleblowers throughout the govt get demoted, reassigned, and fired. Lois Lerner still has her pension, dozens of hard drives have been crashed, tapes wiped, etc, and the bureaucrats are still playing hide the ball, with the progressive media in full protect mode. When an administration says, with its every action, that it will protect misfeasance and malfeasance in the govt, it should surprise no one that it is now rampant there.

Anonymous said...

A few things you can be sure of in this life, if someone feels compelled to slap a label on you, they mostly likely are doing so because they are unable to have a reasonable discussion. If they feel compelled to tell you that you are something you aren't, they probably are frustrated at their own weak argument. If they feel compelled to constantly tell you over and over and over again that you are a lefty lefist leftard, chances are you are not.

It says a lot about Curious BirkEric that he feels compelled to talk shit about someone who hadn't even made a comment in the thread. Hope he isn't expecting any rent for the way I've been living in his head 24/7.

Humperdink said...

@Madisonfella.

"By their fruits ye shall know them".

iowan2 said...

The CDC took a full week to clean the man infected apartment......7 days. This is the reason we need to pay taxes, to have fine experts in their field protecting us.
The Secret Service? Millions because the require the finest trained experts in personnel protection (and whore mongering) in service of our President, thats why we need to raise taxes.
literacy rate in the US has gone down since the invention of the Federal Dept of Education. Thats why re need more taxes
Congress is investigating why Football players slug their baby mommies, so I guess the real work of govt going in the crapper gets a pass.

On this topic. Shouldn't Obama be held to his own standard? Of course talking is easy, taking actions you can be held accountable for, that requires charecter. Nuf said

Anonymous said...

President Obola can't institute a travel ban because that would be tantamount to an admission that immigration controls are effective at reducing disease and other problems.

His ideology rests on the assumption that this country can fully control all problems while maintaining open borders.

He must have open borders to continue importing undocumented Democrats.

Therefore, the border must remain open to Ebola as well. He's banking on the US medical establishment to be able to contain it, because his ideology requires it.

It's that simple. He's gambling with our lives for the sake of his idealism and politics.

Anyone else have a better explanation?

Anonymous said...

Anyone else have a better explanation?

Nope, what you said makes total sense. Obama is allowing Ebola to happen in the US for the same reason Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen. Once again, it is all about political gain and a power grab.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

All this hysteria for one man, not a US citizen, who isn't even dead yet. From the same people who complained about the US sending troops to Liberia to limit the spread of the disease.



Sabinal said...

rcommal said:

I don't believe in the majority of you people's so-called seriousness, either, when it comes to disease .

Cut the crap. Either Ebola is enough of a threat to focus on dealing with that disease threat as a public-health problem worth cutting off at the knees *as* a true threat to public health, or it is not.

Which is it?

If you think it's a true threat, cut the crap and replace your rhetoric with an effort to help address the threat.

If you don't, then how about continuing onward while lowering some of the noisiness, just in case, on account of, even on the off-chance, that you're wrong?
*************
they are not serious. They have Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS)

Notice how they are not talking about buying masks, hand sanitizer, or going to their representatives on what health measures they are planning to keep their communities safe.

I never voted for Obama, but I can tell that with some people, it's never been about health or security in as much as crapping on someone who is not part of their team. We survived BDS, so it's not surprising we see ODS. And with the same results.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

jr565 said...
On what planet was Avian flu Bush's fault? On what planet was AIDS Reagan's fault.


Here is the motivation for this particular ill-considered line of attack. Bush derangement envy.

Bruce Hayden said...

Nope, what you said makes total sense. Obama is allowing Ebola to happen in the US for the same reason Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen. Once again, it is all about political gain and a power grab.

Somewhat disagree there. An argument could be made that a large part of the problem with 9/11 was that the Clinton Administration had treated Islamic terrorist attacks and threats as a law enforcement, and not national security, issue. Remember Jamie Goerlich's "wall" between the FBI and CIA/NSA, etc? (Yes, the same Jamie Goerlich's who went from the DoJ to the Freddie Mac board just in time for them to greatly inflate the housing bubble). Her wall was still in place on 9/11, and the nascent Bush Administration was still finding its feet. We are essentially 5+ years further on with the Obama Administration. They are essentially almost starting to spool down, while the Bush Administration was just starting to spool up. The Bush Administration had been in power for maybe six months, and could realistically blame their predecessor for much of the problem. Obama has been in power for nearing six years and realistically cannot (though he keeps trying).

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Obama is allowing Ebola to happen in the US for the same reason Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen. Once again, it is all about political gain and a power grab.

Bruce Hayden said...
Somewhat disagree there.


Once you start spinning conspiracy theories they just always seem to run out of control, don't they.

Dr Weevil said...

Hey, 'AReasonableMan' actually said something reasonable, though not what he thinks he said:

"So, I guess the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor, the complete collapse of the neocon project in Iraq and the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression weren't bad luck but actually the result of bad management. Good to know."

Of course they were the result of bad management, primarily by:

1. Bill Clinton (why are we just now finding out that he bragged about not killing Osama on 9/10/01?) and Jamie Gorelick (wall of separation).

2. Barak Obama, as others have already noted above. He thought it was won, said it was won, and with great effort turned that win into total defeat.

3. Congress, especially Barney Frank - the Bush administration repeatedly warned that stupid policies were going to cause a crash, and Congress ignored him.

Bruce Hayden said...

Is Ebola a real threat in the US? We really don't know yet. The purpose of the Noonan article was to point out that we don't trust the federal govt., any more when they tell us not to panic, that they have everything under control. Reminds me a bit of the flattened ROTC guy at the end of Animal House. The head bureaucrats tell us to not panic, that they have everything under control, regardless of whether they do or not. They lie shamelessly, and we all know it now. They have to lie, and we have to listen. Sure, they might be telling the truth, but there is plenty of evidence coming out that they have bungled it. And the fact that ARM is questioning the danger here makes many of us just that much less confident in what the bureaucrats are saying.

Like a lot of things, if this goes bad, there is likely to be two Americas. One prepared and not very vulnerable, due to where and how they live, and the other one ill prepared and vulnerable. I have my lists of supplies and procedures, and am picking them up as I can, but live right now in a town of 2,000 in an agricultural county of 10,000. We wouldn't starve if things got dire, which they won't with this population density, even if there were a serious pandemic. Contrast this with the density and inability for self reliance of a lower income minority neighborhood in a large urban area. They mostly voted for Obama, and probably trust his bureaucrats to protect them.

I do hope that the left here is correct that there is no viable Ebola threat here, that our bureaucrats are up to the challenge, etc. But I am not about to put all my marbles in that basket. Bureaucrats are quite often incompetent, and lie to cover it. We all know it, so I think it silly to trust them completely here.

Rusty said...

AReasonableMan said...
All this hysteria for one man, not a US citizen, who isn't even dead yet. From the same people who complained about the US sending troops to Liberia to limit the spread of the disease.

Math is hard, isn't it.

Anonymous said...

rcommal: Balfegor:

I find your comment to be refreshingly on point, as well as serious.


Balfegor's comments always are.

Balfegor: Every article talks about how travel restrictions would make things worse but no one seems to be able to articulate a plausible reason why that would be so.

Which tends to confirm one's suspicion that public health officialdom's present idea of what it's there for has little to do with what you and I think a public health bureaucracy is there for, and what it was created for in the first place. (I guess those airlines which cancelled flights on their West Africa routes didn't get the memo that that's impossible to do.)

It's remarkable how much hot air and ink-pissing has gone into attacking the bogeyman of "panic", as if defining and implementing protocols for containing public opinion, rather than disease, were the core mission. Meanwhile, vague (and sometimes embarrassingly stupid) pronouncements about the disease itself are issued, instead of any straightforward info about concrete policies for its control.

Anonymous said...

Obama is obviously letting it happen, because he is letting the travel happen. Other, more sensible countries have already instituted a travel ban.

All this hysteria over 'one guy'?

Do you have ANY IDEA how pandemics work?

Do you know what the first rule of epidemiology is?

Quarantine. That's the first rule.

One man turns into 5-10 or more infections. 5-10 turns into 50-100.

You really have no clue how disease or math works, do you?

Please, defend leaving the flights wide open some more, lefties. You look more ridiculous by the moment.

Let's hear more comparisons of leaving the border open to Ebola countries with 9/11. Makes you look more sane by the minute.

Yes, the people calling for closing the border to Ebola countries just have 'Obama Derangement Syndrome'. That's why we want to stop the travel from Ebola-ridden countries. Right. Makes perfect sense.

Keep on talking, progs. Just keep it up.

Bruce Hayden said...

ARM - I don't think that I was positing any conspiracies. My point about 9/11 and the financial meltdown is that both have their roots in the Clinton Administration and its people. I don't think either was the result of a conspiracy, but rather their inability to see, or refusal to deal with those threats. In both cases, they had their political correct blinders on, likely similar to the ones worn by many in the Obama Administration, and may cause the loss of American lives through refusal to shut down travel from the African countries with the biggest infection problems.

There is a saying that you shouldn't look for planning (or a conspiracy) when incompetence is the likely cause. And I think that is likely the case here.

Anonymous said...

Notice how madisonfella had no better explanation for why the border is being left open. Just a comparison with 9/11.

Come on, lay that one on us about how closing these flights would 'prevent us from stopping the epidemic over there', as if flights can't be exempted, as if we have to allow all flights or no flights.

Come on, give us a better explanation. Not just comparisons with 9/11 and conspiracy theories.

You have no good reason why the travel ban wouldn't be in place. You just want to take Obama's 'good intentions' at face value. After all, he has good intentions, so all his decisions must be the best decision, and anyone who thinks quarantine is a better idea just has Obama Derangement Conspiracy Syndrome!

Obama says no quarantine, so no quarantine is the best solution, and don't you dare disagree, or you're a CONSPIRACY THEORIST!

Keep talking, progressives. Keep it up.

Anonymous said...

TCom: Do you know what the first rule of epidemiology is?

Quarantine. That's the first rule.


I believe a statement of the complete first rule of epidemiology, revised version, reads: "Quarantine, but only if it doesn't inconvenience or hit the wallets of people who matter, or people who can, with the help of the media, make political hay with hysterical accusations of discrimination and scapegoating".

Anonymous said...

Remember everyone, don't you dare suggest that the President who had unscreened illegals sent to all 50 States might not be concerned about disease transmission.

Science apparently ended in the 20th Century. In the 21st Century, we don't worry about silly sciences like epidemiology anymore, we only focus on the social sciences.

Hard science is so last century, you guys. This is the future, where unscreened 3rd worlders can be distributed throughout the country without spreading disease, where we leave commercial flights open to countries with uncontrolled Ebola pandemics.

And you're a racist conspiracy theorist if you disagree. Probably anti-science, too.

Anonymous said...

We use Progressive Epidemiology now, where good feelings and good intentions allow us to let in innumerable third worlders, and we will just fix the outbreaks after they happen, because we live in the future now, and we have those Star Trek medical tricorders and hyposprays and stuff. We don't have to worry about disease anymore, we just cure it.

Or we'll just let the outbreaks happen, then accuse those who are angry about it of having Obama Derangement Syndrome, and being happy that the diseases are happening.

furious_a said...

FAA suspends flights to Israel: Mission Accomplished.

FAA suspends flights from Ebola Hot Zones: Counterproductive and Racism.

furious_a said...

It's remarkable how much hot air and ink-pissing has gone into attacking the bogeyman of "panic"

Those actually panicking are the top men -- Top. Men. -- whose assurances of control and containment ("in the unlikely event") self-destruct with each revelation of new exposures.

Job One is bureaucratic ass-covering, not protecting public health.

furious_a said...

IRS, Veterans Administration, Secret Service, CDC --the bureaucratic rot is widening and deepening.

jr565 said...

AReasonableMan wrote:
Here is the motivation for this particular ill-considered line of attack. Bush derangement envy.

Are you admitting that the attack on Bush was based, not on merit, but Bush Derangement SYndrome?
It's ok, you can tell us.And, no it's not Bush Derangement Envy, I just want you guys to live by your own rules. Especially when you make what Bush did or didn't do vis a vis the Avian flu a political weapon. As such, you shouldn't be surprised, or even complain when events are used against you in the same manner.
ANother difference, is that Obama promised there would be no ebola in this country. And yet here were are, and we're looking at an organization that doesn't appear to have its head in the game when it comes to dealing with the threat. So many mistake after mistake, and they dont' really have an answer.
What would be the problem with stopping flights from those coutnries until they get the latest outbreak under control?
Do we need to have ebola scares on flights like we did yesterday because someone gets sick and everyone thinks it's ebola and they have to drag people off in hazmat suits? Clearly, if the guy is on the plane, he got too far. Luckily it wasn't ebola, but it could have been. And then everyone on that flight was at risk.
Just be cautious and stop the flights for a short period of time.

dreams said...

"Ebola Yes, Bagpipes No"

http://www.steynonline.com/6586/ebola-yes-bagpipes-no

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

jr565 said...
Luckily it wasn't ebola, but it could have been.


Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Come on, you are really scraping the barrel at this point.

Why not just admit that this is just another nutty partisan attack without any rationale? You know it is.

cubanbob said...

The problem for the Administration is if it can institute an effective quarantine and prevention of Ebola infected people or those exposed to Ebola from entering the US then it can't explain why it can't stop importing new potential Democrats from Mexico and Central America and beyond.

The virus is here, lets hope it has been contained for now and that the experimental treatments work and can be mass produced if need be.

Anonymous said...

Why not just admit that this is just another nutty partisan attack without any rationale? You know it is.

The words of a desperate man who's got nothin'. Protesting a lack of quarantine against Ebola is a nutty partisan attack? That man who got all the way over here couldn't have caused harm to anyone else? It couldn't happen on another flight?

One man with Ebola who could have infected others, who cares?

Trayvon Martin gets shot: END OF THE WORLD.

I guess how important '1 man' is differs depending on the political hay at risk, eh?

Your chili is weak, son. So very weak.

Anonymous said...

ARM is one to talk about 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' when it's already happened. It's not a hypothetical at this point.

There are just no words for his level of obstinacy.

Fred Drinkwater said...

"defining and implementing protocols for containing public opinion"
I am so totally stealing this.

Fred Drinkwater said...

"not talking about buying masks, hand sanitizer"
That's because they are buying instead of talking. Check out Amazon's sales ranking changes over the last week for such items - very dramatic.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

TCom said...
The words of a desperate man who's got nothin'.


Projection. And, if you want to find fault with any one it should be with the Texas hospital and their misdiagnosis. It has nothing to do with the Feds. Thanks to the Feds Ebola is a manageable problem in the US, assuming that people on the front line manage to recognize it.


cubanbob said...

AReasonableMan said...
TCom said...
The words of a desperate man who's got nothin'.

Projection. And, if you want to find fault with any one it should be with the Texas hospital and their misdiagnosis. It has nothing to do with the Feds. Thanks to the Feds Ebola is a manageable problem in the US, assuming that people on the front line manage to recognize it."

Thanks to the Feds an Ebola infected person entered the US. That doesn't absolve the Texas hospital from it's misdiagnosis but the that wouldn't have occurred if the Feds had done their jobs right to begin with. Airlines and hospitals don't run passport and immigration control, the Feds do.

iowan2 said...

furious_a said:
RS, Veterans Administration, Secret Service, CDC --the bureaucratic rot is widening and deepening.

This

We will be voting in just over 6 weeks. big picture difference between candidates is, those who DEMAND that the federal govt grows and expands into ever larger part of our lives. with ever increasing bureaucratic incompetence, or those that will work towards a more constitutional govt of limited and enumerated powers.

jr565 said...

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Come on, you are really scraping the barrel at this point.

Why not just admit that this is just another nutty partisan attack without any rationale? You know it is.


We're actually witnessing Ebola in America. And it seems like the Cdc does t know how to respond. How is this a nutty partisan attack. Would YOU want to be one of the people exposed to this guy? Let's see you get quarantined and then say its partisan to have the CDC be on the ball.

And again, opif you think this is scraping the bottom of the barrel, you must really have commentary about the dems going after Bush on avian flu. (Including our current president). Yet I bet you were amongst the liberals at the time saying Bush was negligent and that it was a perfectly valid argument to say he was t acting quick enough.

Or are you going to go after Obama and the libs for playing politics with avian flu and scraping the bottom of the barrel with their partisan attacks.

jr565 said...

"Thanks to the Feds Ebola is a manageable problem in the US, assuming that people on the front line manage to recognize it."
Why is it in the US at all? Because the govt dropped the ball on blocking flying from Liberia, thus allowing people who could be infected to come here. We shouldn't be dealing with Ebola in America at all.

Hyphenated American said...

"Projection. And, if you want to find fault with any one it should be with the Texas hospital and their misdiagnosis. It has nothing to do with the Feds. Thanks to the Feds Ebola is a manageable problem in the US, assuming that people on the front line manage to recognize it."

Factually inaccurate.
Because of Obama and CDC the patient was allowed in the USA. And even funnier, he did not meet the standards of CDC to be quarantined.

During his first visit to the Emergency Room of Texas Presbyterian, Duncan’s condition was such that he “presented with low-grade fever and abdominal pain. His condition did not warrant admission. He also was not exhibiting symptoms specific to Ebola.” Accordingly, Texas Presbyterian sent Duncan home with antibiotics.

When the hospital sent the Ebola-infected Duncan home, it did so because it chose to comply with CDC policy guidelines. Those guidelines were such that even patients who had “traveled to Africa” and who had abdominal pain accompanied with fevers less than 101.5 degrees (i.e., “low-grade” fevers) were to be considered, for purposes of Ebola isolation, essentially “asymptomatic.”

furious_a said...

Why not just admit that this is just another nutty partisan attack without any rationale?

Hazmat suits sterilizing a Dallas apartment after children at four different area schools exposed.

Nothing to see here. Trust us. Top Men. Move along.

Peter said...

You'd think the public health establishment would be exited to actually have a threat to the public health to deal with.

Ever since infectious diseases such as typhus, yellow fever, smallpox became rare or non-existent, the public health apparat has been looking for a mission: so "gun violence" is declared to be a public health problem (rather than a criminal justice or social problem), "poverty" is a public health problem, "mental health" is endemic one-in-four, etc., etc.

And now there's an actual, classic, public-health problem: a deadly infectious disease that simply must be contained. Yet when faced with the threat they exist to protect us from, they find they've forgotten all the low-tech, yet effective methods that were once used to contain deadly, contagious diseases?

CWJ said...

"You'd think the public health establishment would be exited to actually have a threat to the public health to deal with."

More likely irritated that the general public would have actual evidence against which to measure their performance, rather simply accept their pronouncements.

Bad Lieutenant said...

"Thanks to the Feds Ebola is a problem in the US"

FIFY

jr565 said...

On Drudge Today "Ebola Europe Outbreak "Unavoidable"

How is something contained in Liberia unavoidable in Europe unless it's not in fact contained. And why is it not contained? Because people who may have been exposed have access to travel and there is no adequate way to screen them.
So, until you have a way to do so, don't let people board planes. Then you won't have outbreaks in countries half a world away.
People are going to die needlessly, or be scared shitless because this govt and govts around the world can't take basic safety measures.
Ban flights from Liberia AS A FIRST STEP.

jr565 said...

"Hazmat suits sterilizing a Dallas apartment after children at four different area schools exposed.

Nothing to see here. Trust us. Top Men. Move along."

A homeless guy who drove in the ambulance after patient zero was driven to the hospital may have been exposed.
Now think about a homeless person and the people HE may have exposed. First of all, think how hard it is to find that person. And then, because he lives in the open, how would you even necessarily know that you were near him to be exposed. Maybe he was the guy you gave money to on the way to work. And now are exposed to a disease that will melt you from the inside.
I'm currently suffering from a serious case of bronchitis and coughing. Two of my coworkers were out for days due to walking pneumonia. One of them just came back to work after being in the hospital for 4 days.
So exposure to routine disesases is common and people can get sick from exposure to people they are near. The last thing we need is people exposed to ebola walking around a city of millions.