Does this mean we are all going to die soon?

[MikeW]

Oh man. This is SO not good.

Unlike something airborne -- if authorities begin to take this seriously, it *can* be contained. But this isn't funny and authorities *do* need to take it seriously.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Now it comes out that Thomas Eric Duncan knowingly lied when he was being screen for Ebola contacts before he left Liberia. He knew he'd been exposed to the disease and still crossed the Atlantic and exposed others. The president of Liberia say Duncan will be prosecuted when he returns.

But... I know for a fact there have been HIV/AIDS patients who have knowingly exposed others. They've been prosecuted and locked up to protect the public. Should this be done to Duncan to discourage others from doing the same thing he did?

The story I understand it to be is he helped a pregnant woman into a wheel chair and to a clinic/hospital thinking at the time it was an issue of pregnancy making her sick.

Then he learned she had Ebola.

I have no idea what the local News is spreading about 'ebola facts' in Western African Nations. I do know that Western Media is heavily saying you cannot contract Ebola unless you come in direct contact with bodily fluids.

Here is the problem, most of the bodily fluids that people come in contact with is such as small amount one can't see nor feel it.

Take a sneeze or a cough. Bodily fluids shoot out at 100 MPH in a super fine mists. If you are right up in somebody's face you might feel it. If you are 3 feet away you won't - but that doesn't mean you haven't just inhaled virtually loaded mists.

CDC/WHO and everyone else just needs to say 'its airborne' and people will better understand that coming in contact with a person sick with ebola even being in the same space as them is a high risk of infection.

Telling everyone that they have to come into direct contact with bodily fluids means that the common man is going to think he is safe because he doesn't see large amounts of fluid, thus 'I'm ok'.

Clearly with the major spread of this outbreak the connection between people's minds and the reality is not being made.

Can't blame the guy if he doesn't understand the vectors of contagion - that falls to the miscommunication of 'experts' who rare way to busy downplaying to prevent panic instead of educating the public to actually prevent the spread.

[East]

The story I understand it to be is he helped a pregnant woman into a wheel chair and to a clinic/hospital thinking at the time it was an issue of pregnancy making her sick.

Then he learned she had Ebola.

I have no idea what the local News is spreading about 'ebola facts' in Western African Nations. I do know that Western Media is heavily saying you cannot contract Ebola unless you come in direct contact with bodily fluids.

Here is the problem, most of the bodily fluids that people come in contact with is such as small amount one can't see nor feel it.

Take a sneeze or a cough. Bodily fluids shoot out at 100 MPH in a super fine mists. If you are right up in somebody's face you might feel it. If you are 3 feet away you won't - but that doesn't mean you haven't just inhaled virtually loaded mists.

CDC/WHO and everyone else just needs to say 'its airborne' and people will better understand that coming in contact with a person sick with ebola even being in the same space as them is a high risk of infection.

Telling everyone that they have to come into direct contact with bodily fluids means that the common man is going to think he is safe because he doesn't see large amounts of fluid, thus 'I'm ok'.

Clearly with the major spread of this outbreak the connection between people's minds and the reality is not being made.

Can't blame the guy if he doesn't understand the vectors of contagion - that falls to the miscommunication of 'experts' who rare way to busy downplaying to prevent panic instead of educating the public to actually prevent the spread.

Having a lot of us dead would solve a lot of their problems

[StingRay]

On news it looks lips are zipped about the ebola case n Washington DC.

Did you catch they backed off it being software error that sent the Dallas ebola guy back home from the ER? They say now it was "human error" of a doctor not reading what would have been in the top twelve lines of the admission info. Human error would be if the doctor read everything and thought it said Duncan had recently been in Latvia. Human error isnt when someone doesnt read info. Thats dereliction of duty. Either the doctor read it and thought it was bullshit or he didnt read it. Either way his lack of actions are why Duncan is about dead now.

[LONDONER]

Well, it seems that little by little, it is creeping forward:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...78519.html

[Virge]

Yep it does. In another 4-5 months we'll look back at all this and ask, "why the hell did I believe one damned word they tried to tell us back then?"

All of the supposed doctors trying to tell us there's no big threat are just trying to prevent epic panic.

If it gets bad here I'd be in favor of rounding up everyone who told us not to worry about ebola or air flights out of western africa and make them get named and clean up ebola vomit with their hands.

[Steve]

When exactly are we supposed to start trusting what the CDC, or many other doctors, have to say about Ebola or the Enterovirus D68 disease? The response times in either outbreak were pitiful. As each week passes the public gets a little more spin about why we shouldn't panic. A new painting about how responses from hospitals, families quarantined (imprisoned) in home without adequate safety procedures (or food), how children are mostly recovering from paralysis, and the list goes on and more lipstick is applied to the pig daily.

The dissemination of accurate news was especially bad in the case of Enterovirus D68. Every week that story's gotten worse for kids. Now there's the little boy from Hamilton who was asymptomatic and died overnight three days ago, and it has been confirmed as Enterovirus.

Remember the days when people were sick and you told them to go see their doctor? Do you really want to go to the doctor's office or worse, a hospital, now?

[princealbertofb]

But sincerely, guys, how does it help for anyone to go on a viral panic? With all the information and lies going around these days, every piece of information is to be taken with a pinch of salt... so? Let's take these diseases seriously, but we also need to keep a sense of proportions, while being vigilant. But that also goes for all sorts of other news or events.

[Beaux]

But sincerely, guys, how does it help for anyone to go on a viral panic? With all the information and lies going around these days, every piece of information is to be taken with a pinch of salt... so? Let's take these diseases seriously, but we also need to keep a sense of proportions, while being vigilant. But that also goes for all sorts of other news or events.

I agree, but yesterday Dr. Gupta slipped up and said that the US has a media blackout on news concerning Ebola. I am of the opinion that hiding news of the disease from the public only endangers us more. It really disturbs me....
~Beaux

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I started this thread...

For: reasons.

As I pointed out the experts are not very expert on the subject.

I can pinpoint exactly when they lost control of the situation, and that was when President Obama went to the CDC for a briefing. Immediately after the briefing the president called the military in on this, and the immediate response was to send 3000 to Western Africa to 'help'.

And the Military take on this?

Odierno: Ebola largest medical emergency since plague

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Sept. 22, 2014) -- The Ebola outbreak is the largest medical emergency since the plague, and the Army is assessing how to respond to this "dire situation," said the Army's top general.

"It is a very bad situation," Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Ray Odierno said today, at Google's office in Washington, D.C., during his first Google hangout, a virtual town hall that lasted more than an hour.

"We just got a team on the ground over there doing an assessment of what is needed," he said. "It is a medical emergency of proportions we haven't seen since the plague centuries ago."

A rather large statement to make since the plague ended up wiping out 30-50% of the population of Europe during its few years of existing.

Going from a few thousand dead to several tens of millions at this early stage of the game is at best a wild overstatement based on what facts the Media is given by the WHO, CDC, governments.

Unless this General was briefed with the same information that the President was given.

The presidents reaction with calling the military this soon to lend 'aid' to Africa is a bit odd. What is odder is that his request for 84 million was negotiated down to 40 million by the congress.

If its any comfort to know, the Congress are being kept out of the loop. If they were in the loop that 84 million dollar aid package would have been signed with no complaint.

I won't even touch on the Enterovirus 68 which appears to be rapidly mutating and learning new tricks and popping up across the country in a rather odd pattern and spreading rapidly, leaving patients with polio-like symptoms. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Ent...death+rate makes for interesting read.

I have told others to go back and study the history of the Swine Flu outbreak and spread and how the WHO and CDC acted. Whilst H1N12009 turned out to be a dude on the deadly aspect, it did reveal a lot about how ill prepared medicine is in the 21st century to deal with an outbreak of anything, it also revealed just how CDC/WHO et al are unable to cope.

With this Ebola, we are seeing similar patterns of failure of these organizations to do their job just like the failed in the early days of the initial outbreak and spread of H1N1 2009

I suspect that we are entering into an interesting frame of time.

PopSci did a good job of explaining how hard it is to guess or estimate where any Ebola is going to go http://www.popsci.com/article/science/wh...y-february

No doubt by Christmas the world will be in a much different place when it comes to disease and how it is responding to Ebola and Enterovirus 68. Let us just hope they guessed the strains of flu correctly this year. If flu season turns out to have a novel flu then things are not going to end well.