Almost a year and half ago I wrote,
In the course of my long career with the State Department, I don't know how many times I had to deal with the impending end of the world as declared by the WHO, the CDC, the media, and a host of "experts" who inevitably demanded (and got) more money for their organizations. By now, of course, we all should be dead from AIDS, SARS, swine flu, global warming, depleted ozone layer, mercury in our fish, etc. It, however, would appear from anecdotal evidence that we're not.
I guess one of these days we might have the real deal. Even the boy who cried wolf eventually got it right, but who (no pun intended) will believe the warnings?Well, the healthocrats of the world are at it, again.
This time the world will end because of the Ebola virus. The only way to save us, apparently, is to give the healthocrats huge amounts of our money.
Look, I don't know anything about the Ebola virus, but the healthocrats at the WHO, the CDC and the myriad other alphabet health organizations around the world don't either. The virus is not airborne, the virus is airborne; the virus cannot live outside its host, the virus can live for several days outside its host; you can only get Ebola from contact with an infected person's bodily fluids, you might get it other ways, as well; it is not coming to America, it is here and poses a great threat to America, etc.
The healthocrats are talking until they think of something to say. They should do us all a simple favor: Shut up until they know that what they say is true.
If this virus is, finally, the big one, the one we all have been expecting, then the government should do some simple things such as admit not knowing how it's transmitted, and shut down travel to and from the infected areas until it does. Enforce our immigration laws and put some security at the borders and other points of entry. These things, naturally, won't be done because they are not politically correct. The growing number of cases in the USA of TB and cysticercosis, for example, is just about entirely explained by massive illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America where these nasty diseases are rampant. Political correctness, of course, forbids us from mentioning that.
It seems the first casualty in these virus "outbreaks" is the truth. The truth is feared more than any virus and is allowed to die or at least go into remission. The WHO, the CDC, and the other healthocrats have proven so inept and so wrong in the past that they have little to no credibility on Ebola.
What and whom to believe?
Would it not be prudent to impose Ebola testing for those who are going to be granted visas to travel to the US from countries with the virus present? Not much to be done about sieve like conditions on the southern border, but at least the state dept could make carrying Ebola into the US at bit more difficult.
ReplyDeleteProblem is the endemic corruption in those countries will prevent such a system from working. Anything like that would be mere theater.
DeleteDip is right, a two way travel ban is the best approach. But the left will tell us that it is overkill and collective punishment and any excuse they can think of because Obama won't tell them it is OK.
Raaaacist !!!
DeleteSo People applying to enter the US in a month or two or six are tested for Ebola. How effective is this?
DeleteNor is any pre flight testing regime effective. You might be given every available test in the boarding lounge, appear in perfect health, and carry the virus into another country for twenty days before symptoms develop.
The approach the Saudis have taken for hajis from the Ebola zone is very revealing. No visas from the Ebola zone at all.
I saw a piece from a virologist on the airport screening in LIberia. The "screeners" don;t know how to operate their equipment. It is a joke.
Deletehttp://news.sciencemag.org/africa/2014/09/confronting-ebola-virologist-liberias-hot-zone
"What and whom to believe?"
ReplyDeleteWell. As the Doc at Presbyterian surely convinced (and my own Dad being also and both an MD and Presbyterian we can surely believe what my Dad said, "When I get to be 75 Arkie, I want you to [or too/two as the case however] ... "
Him always being a joker but then dying at 66 left me kinda dark where Presbyterian MDs was concerned generally speaking - but that was just Dad. He did joke as opportunities presented. Whether a "real joke" or, I've yet to decide. Dad's at any rate.
The Dallas Texas' Presbyterian MD appeared on TV left me a little bit ... belay that ... one heckuva lot more uncertain,
"The patient presented in ER signs of a viral infection. We administered and wrote both a prescription for antibiotics and follow-up."
_________
Well. That's a relief! ... An Anti BACTERIAL scrip FOR A VIRAL INDICATION!!!
"And, Mr.Patient, you say you're from Liberia? That's where exactly, a town - whaddaya mean village oh well, village isn't an option on this here Obamacare questionnaire even though International Flights arrive here (and we don't teach no stinkin' Geography in Texas anyways) ... So you came from Liberia huh?
Can't quite catch your accent Sir. Sounds like it starts with a L? But the ambulance brought you here?
Okay Sir, let's go down ... mind not pukin' 'nsweatin' so much? ... anyway since you came in an ambulance you just nod when I get to the county. Can you do that Sir?
Limestone?
No.
Llano? Sir, I have to remind you we've got a lotta boxes to check before we can get you in. Please try to be helpful. ... Liberia. Liberia ...
Oh heck Sir ... now do try not to sweat so much ... You're from Liberty!! Liberty County!! Just south of Poke, north of Chambers!!!
See what a little less pukin' an' sweatin' an' gettin' all teary-eyed can get 'complished?"
CandyStriper! Yeah you doin' yore Community Service sentence! Change this man's diaper. An' watch you mind he don't keep pukin' all over the place!"
"Special care Missus?"
"Nah. Looks like he just got a virus or something - I just tell the wing-nurse he's from Houston, we'll give him some sugar pills an' never hear from 'im again."
"Mind, he got a speech impediment - if he tell you he from Liberia that jes bullshit."
" as declared by the WHO, the CDC, the media, and a host of "experts" who inevitably demanded (and got) more money for their organizations."
ReplyDeleteIt shouldn't be called the UN, rather a Beggars Banquet.
Somehow I knew the Rolling Stones would make an appearance! I get the odd feeling that America is just rerunning the 1960s all over again. This time with the wrong people in power and world ending disasters at our door step. Instead of Communism disease and Liberalism, we have terrorism disease and Liberalism.
DeleteWe're rerunning the 60s and yet worse, the Stupid Seventies all over again because the arrested-development, aging hippie, acid heads who made those eras so much fun are now older, richer, stupider, and in power.
DeleteNotice all the radio stations which play those great hits, all three of 'em, from the late 70s? No coincidence, part of the culture war, to remind us of the Golden Era before Reagan the Terrible came and ruined everything for the little commie rats.
As with the Bourbons, this pack has forgotten nothing - no one holds a grudge like a Leftist, no one - and learned nothing.
PVZ...I hear you! "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...we won't get fooled again". Well, oops.
DeleteSorry, the needle got stuck. Bad spot in the vinyl.
DeleteHeh!
DeleteJames the Lesser
If you like your ebola you can keep your ebola! As Instapundit says, the country's in the very best of hands.
ReplyDeleteFunny exchange from MOTUS:
ReplyDelete"Tiger184 • 19 hours ago
O/T:
Farrakhan just declared that Ebola was developed by the white man to kill blacks.
I'm surprised it took him - or anyone for that matter - this long to "figure it out"...
6 • Reply•Share ›
Avatar
SSDD Tiger184 • 17 hours ago
He said the very same thing about AIDS....ignorant racist trash that he is.
4 • Reply•Share ›
Avatar
thelantern SSDD • 16 hours ago
Both protected diseases. Now if the Mussies came up with one to match the gay AIDS and the black Ebola; Obama would have a Trifecta."
They have, it's polio. aka Muhammed's Paralysis.
DeleteChart towards the bottom of this wikipedia page looks vaguely exponential. If this is legit and it continues such growth, humanity either doesn't know how to contain it or is unwilling to contain it.
ReplyDeleteENT-68 is a bigger concern to me... easy to scare me into being more protective of my children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa
- reader #1482
In nature there is a generally inverse relationship between lethality and communicability of disease. The more lethal it is the harder it is to transmit.
ReplyDeleteWhen the "big one" comes the hand of man will likely be involved, breaking that inverse relationship.
Thworg
The halfrican's Africanization of the USA proceeds apace.
ReplyDeleteShow me the difference between USA and any number of socialist African countries of 1960's and 1970's. Of course that includes placing your tribes members at the head of large once-respected organizations no matter what their "qualifications" are.
Welcome to ZimbUSAbwe.
Wait a minute! Has everyone missed the point?
ReplyDeleteWhat we need to do as a group is to identify some nearly nonexistent possible threat, like bird flu, and agitate for money to prevent the disaster. We could all be rich! Or at least, we could have extended vacations somewhere interesting at United Nations' expense ...
Lets see ... what about Kuala flu? We set off on a billion dollar investigation, inspecting the quality of care available at Australian bars and beaches ....
Green Bear
Hey Green Bear, come on down!
DeleteThe biggest threat from Koalas is if one falls out of the tree it is stoned in and you happen to be between it and safety back up the tree. Then it transforms from the cute cuddly little bear that every child should have as a pet into a physcopathic homicidal buzzsaw of flailing claws which will tear you a new one in the twinkling of a bloodshot eye.
The thing to remember about Australian wildlife is that in 99 out of 100 cases if it jumps, hops, crawls, walks, slithers, swims or flies it will do its best to kill you, given the chance. Then it will escape at lightning speed, thus denying your friends any chance of blowing it away in retaliation.
"99 out of 100 cases if it jumps, hops, crawls, walks, slithers, swims or flies it will do its best to kill you, given the chance."
DeleteAnd they are just the cute and cuddly ones. The others are real nasty.
My Grandfather, bless him, used to tell me a story when I was just a nipper about how God created the Earth and how he stocked various continents with animals i.e. deer and bison for the Americas, lions, rhinos and hippos for Africa, bears for Europe, tigers and elephants for India and so on. After he had finished he noticed that he had a big box of really nasty stuff left over so he thought "nobody lives in Australia so I'll just dump all of these Down Under".
DeleteAnd THAT is why we have Blue-Ringed Octupi, Great White Sharks, Bull Sharks (even more aggressive), Redback Spiders, Funnel Web Spiders, White Spiders (all lethal) Red Bellied Black Snakes, Taipans, King Brown Snakes, Coral Snakes - you name it, we've got it.
mark my words.. asteroid impact is going to be the next pseudo-science hysteria with *tons* of taxpayer $$$ on the line.
DeleteIt's already starting. There have been reports of new 'models' in the works.
This is basically the financial services guys who brought us the housing meltdown moving on to asteroid impacts after running through global warming money.
When they say "model", they don't mean "physics", they mean stochastic model, which is just basic probability theory misapplied to data which wasn't that useful to begin with...
After thirty years and trillions of taxpayer dollars, the result will be that there's no elevated risk.... it was just a few people cooking the books.
- reader #1482
You don't need to stop air travel, but just impose quarrantine for those coming from certain countries. Ten days at a Holiday Inn, with nurses checking your temperature twice a day would be cheaper than an epidemic.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds eminently sensible to me which is why the Department of Public Health won't do it. If they do however, don't forget to include a reinforced company of US Marines, locked and loaded covering every exit at every facility just in case anyone decides to go 'walkabout'.
DeleteWho is friend,
ReplyDeleteAnd who is foe?
I've no clue,
Nor does the O.
"In nature there is a generally inverse relationship between lethality and communicability of disease. The more lethal it is the harder it is to transmit."
ReplyDeleteA virus being quick and lethal is not a recipe for its survival, you can't go anywhere if you incapacitate your host almost immediately, and if you don't incapacitate your host almost immediately, then you're almost certainly not 100% lethal.
For this reason I think the whole concept of a deadly pandemic is complete rubbish, the truly lethal viruses will never get to go anywhere!
In any case, I put my money where my mouth is and travelled to West Africa recently. Based on the information available, frequently washing hands with antiseptic, not touching your face without having washed your hands and not touching dead people seemed like a recipe for not getting ebola.
Why do these things take off in Africa? It's hard to comprehend the shoulder to shoulder humanity, appalling personal hygiene, appalling sanitation and appallingly unhygienic cultural practices unless you've seen it first hand.
Almost only in Africa.
ANonymous, you may have a point.
DeleteI remember the Bird Flu Scare. I was temporarily working in Taiwan at the time, where a whole hospital in Taipei was quarantined. The first fatality in the city where I was working happened in a hospital about three blocks from my office. My wife called me from the States to be careful, avoid using the bus, etc. etc. Of course I assured her I was complying--as I was riding a crowded bus (we were on cell phones). At the end of the day, I knew nobody who got bird flu, and nobody I knew knew anybody who got bird flu.
Now, Taiwan was (and is) an extremely crowded country--although people are generally fairly health conscious and practice a reasonable standard of personal hygene. Could that be why a lot of us there were spared at least the most dangerous kinds of flu?
However, apocalyptic scenarios always sell. I'm a Christian of the biblicist sort myself (albeit with Jewish ancestry), and note that in our history a lot of groups that loudly proclaim that the last judgment is just around the corner often attract a lot of people. Secularize it, and you get the eco-disaster or global pandemic scares.
yup... when you extract religion from the people, they'll just make it up as they go along... and we wind up with exactly what you said, sacred cows and all.
Delete- reader #1482
I saw that. I guess white missionaries in Africa didn't get the memo?
ReplyDelete