I cannot believe some of these Ebola threads on this board.

[diabeticman]

Last edited Thu Oct 30, 2014, 12:14 AM - Edit history (1)

I expect better from a progressive thinking forum.

We have had health care workers go to Ebola stricten countries FOR MONTHS and have come back and continued with their lives WITHOUT an Ebola Outbreak.

What happen to Mr. Duncan was gross stupidity on the part of the Dallas Hospital to cause 2 nurses to get the disease.

The CDC, WHO and other others have said this.

THE ONLY WAY TO GET EBOLA IS TO HANDLE TO BE INFECTED BY SOMEONE'S: Poop, Piss, vomit, semen, blood.


We are treating heroes like evil villains and let's face it without our health care workers Ebola would be WORSE and not getting as it is in those effected countries.

DAMN IT! we use to be smarter as a country. Now we see something stupid written on facebook and we take it as scientific fact.

I am done shouting. If America want to once again become the joke of the world again go for it.

I am right now in mourning for what once was this countries: Logic, knowledge and search for knowledge as well as our compassion.


Sorry edit: correct spelling.

[seabeyond]

1. agreed. its no less than the stupid of TSA and patriot act. or HIV and torches down ryans street. nt

[uppityperson]

2. Thank you. K&R for a righteous rant. Thank you.

If I could count the number of posts I have written then not posted due to the cuss words, I'd be busy a long time.

Good post. Thank you.

With this great post of yours, I am off DU for a while. Keep up the good posts.

[shenmue]

3. Even here

there are people who like to believe anything.

[truebluegreen]

6. Why would they "like to believe" something like this?

I don't get it.

[PAProgressive28]

17. It's like a movie to them

Or at least they want it to be. Until of course it affects them. Then it's real.

[DocMac]

29. Is there something stopping you from touching people? nt

[SkyDaddy7]

88. Exactly!!

I think you hit nail on the head...People like to ACT like they are under threat & the evil government is lying to them or whatever...They watch too many movies.

Politicians LIE, we all know this, but scientist as a whole do not lie & will NOT LIE ABOUT A DISEASE OUTBREAK!!

Back to FEARBOLA!!!!!!!!

[morningfog]

4. Willful ignorance and authoritarianism abound.

[truebluegreen]

5. +a zillion

We used to be smarter, braver, better...personally I think the country as a whole has gone insane. Not just on this subject, but pretty much everything across the board.

It's as if we picked up a psychosis gene somewhere and introduced it into the body politic.

[Bluenorthwest]

62. The history of HIV/AIDS in the US suggests the US has never been smart or brave and that this is

not at all new, in fact to be blunt with you, the US is behaving far, far more rationally, quickly and with much less horrific bigotry than the reaction the Straight Community had to that last viral outbreak. Remember, Straight America watched more than 20,000 Americans die while Reagan did nothing and his staff laughed about it in public, then they went and voted for Reagan to continue that vile and murderous policy. Elizabeth Warren voted to reelect Reagan with tens of thousands dead and many more infected. Republicans were calling for relocation camps for gay people.
Frankly, this Ebola thing has gone much, much better than that

[Crunchy Frog]

7. Fuck Cuba!

They've got even more stringent quarantine requirements for their returning HCW's.

[kelliekat44]

15. Cuba has always sent its medical professionals to stricken areas of the world..AIDS, SARS etc.

They have a right to be more strict with returning medicos...they are more actively involved and in greater numbers.
I highly respect Cuba's actions in this area.

[Crunchy Frog]

23. I highly respect their actions too.

I think their quarantine protocols are a sensible public health measure.

[neverforget]

8. I'm disappointed in the fear and not listening to the science on this board.

[valerief]

9. Disruptors

[Hekate]

43. Some of the fearful are long-time DUers I respect. But yes, some others are disruptors spreading FUD

Sad.

[polichick]

10. The CDC in Maine recommended the 21-day quarantine.

[diabeticman]

12. because they got pressured by the Governor

[seabeyond]

16. We don’t know a lot about this virus

At a news conference Tuesday, Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew acknowledged that the state’s rules go beyond the federal guidelines. She also said the state could seek a court order to enforce a quarantine.

“We don’t know a lot about this virus but we do know from the experiences learned in Texas that they had some equivocal tests within the first 72 hours of testing their health-care workers,” Pinette said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/29/after-fight-with-chris-christie-nurse-kaci-hickox-defies-ebola-quarantine-in-maine/

and again, for the others in clarity. what does that say, when the health official states, STATES, they do not know a lot about the virus, and they will ignore the federal guidelines that do know a lot about the virus, cause they are afraid

[Crunchy Frog]

24. If we don't know a lot about a disease

then caution is the more prudent course, IMO.

[seabeyond]

26. Plenty of people know a lot about the disease. The ones making the policies admit they are ignoring

Those people and making up policy out of fear and ignorance. See the problem there?

[mountain grammy]

30. Yes, making policy out of fear and ignorance is THE problem.

[Iris]

56. exactly. This disease has been around for a while.

There was an outbreak in the mid 90s. I'm sure the experts have learned a thing or two.

[HereSince1628]

67. I'm not sure it's fear so much as the appeal of overly simplistic logic

People, including policy makers, are drawn to simplicity.

If there is no virus present, the virus can't infect anyone. It's the same sort of logic employed by many DUers with regard to gun deaths. If there is no gun present, no gun can kill anyone. Utter simplicity.

Obviously, protecting the public, responders, and care givers from Ebola infection is the objective. And if you think about it, that really often can be condensed down to keeping susceptible people separated from the virus.

Travel bans, behavioral restrictions, isolation, PPEs clearly look like barriers. The absence of viral shedding in an early infection also keeps the virus away from other people. There is no virus presented outside the infected person before the fever is developed, so the virus can't infect anyone. But that concept is something the general public and apparently politicians don't have much confidence in.

There are problems for policy makers...they can't look like they aren't doing something about events with high visibility. But, they've got to avoid doing the doable just to look like they are doing something. Much of what is needed is already in place for other virulent pathogens. They've got to put in place some adaptations of the rules that don't require burdens, costs, disruptions, etc. for circumstances where those rules contribute no additional protection. And they have to convince everyone (including returning medics from work in the African epidemic, and care-giver contacts within the US) that the rules, if followed, are meaningful, effective and worth the burden--or there will be compliance problems.

[adirondacker]

19. Can Kaci at least be able to go for a walk in her yard if she promises not to kiss anyone ?

Right now they have police making sure she doesn't step foot outside of her house. It's truly Bizarre.

[passiveporcupine]

103. she should wear a plastic bag over her head, tied at the neck

in case she sneezes, or breathes or something.

Sorry...this is probably not something to joke about, but sometimes I really have to laugh to keep from crying.

[adigal]

104. Yes, I can't believe the posters on this board

Believing that one's right to roam freely trumps the health of 300,000,000 people.

[customerserviceguy]

11. The simple reality is this

Americans were content to ignore Ebola as long as it was "over there" and somebody else's problem. Once it got "over here", then mass panic was triggered.

Irrational, yes. Emotional (as opposed to logical), certainly. Unfortunately, reason takes its time to work its way through the American public, and we just didn't have enough time before the election to have that happen. Hence, you have Gov. Cuomo joining hands with Chrispie Cream to annouce a quarantine, even though Cuomo backed away once he saw what happens when the traveler lands in Newark rather than JFK.

In any case, the voters have seen a spectacle where something is threatening, and some politicians (all on our side) defending the threatening thing. I predict it will cost us dearly on Tuesday.

[Louisiana1976]

102. I feel similarly--I predict that Ebola will be the October surprise that costs Democrats the

election.

[customerserviceguy]

111. It's going to weigh heavily on our side, I'm afraid.

My theory is that the folks in the mushy middle, those so uninformed that they really don't know which side represents their interests, usually vote for their choice out of fear. Plenty of that to go around with the Ebola scare.

[mrs_p]

13. In agreement

I was publically shamed by an (ex)FB acquaintance because I was not all pissed off that the ME nurse who has had negative ebolavirus test results was defying her quarantine. Heaven forbid I add my credentials as a virologist in my post. Now I'm just an uppity scientist. Murica.

[treestar]

14. I have a hard time with all the self righteousness about it

It's DU, yet apparently no discussion is to be even considered without triggering outrage at how someone dare not agree or question certain positions. I can see a little fear of this disease might be reasonable. Because Fox and CNN are overdoing it does not mean we have to overreact the opposite way.

[seabeyond]

18. policies are being made from that fear. that is what the problem is. no different from ignorance

with HIV. or fear creating our TSA and Patriot Act

[adirondacker]

20. +1000. nt

[diabeticman]

22. Thank you. Could not have said it better myself.

[MontyPow]

38. Or appointing a Czar

[BubbaFett]

85. If I were in a similar situation as that nurse in Maine

I would set aside my selfish or self-centered reasons and think more about my neighbors, community, and others first. I understand the science part, but this isn't a question of civil liberties, it's a question of public health.

I notice older generation people who still put others before themselves, younger generation people, not so much.

[bluedigger]

90. You don't think she put others' needs above her own in Africa?

Or don't you want to share the risk, even just a little?

[seabeyond]

93. she is ebola free, not sick, zero risk. thats the too funny about that post understanding the scienc

[seabeyond]

92. if you understand the science, then you understand it is not a question about public health, right?

cause if you understand the science, then you understand she is no threat to public health. right?

[jeff47]

110. No, it isn't a question of public health

It's your fear.

If she's infected, she'll have a high fever. Then the virus will start appearing in her various fluids in sufficient quantities to pass it on.

No fever, no way she can pass it on. And no public health issue.

[liberal_at_heart]

21. K&R

[a2liberal]

25. +1000000

Thank you. What I've been seeing here is sad and ridiculous.

[JohnnyRingo]

27. I'd reply, but...

I'm afraid I might catch Ebola.. Or Avian Flu... Or even AIDS.

Damn it!.. Now I have to quarantine myself for 30 days.
Thank goodness for internet porn.

[seabeyond]

28. You are just inviting the std's. Nt

[diabeticman]

33. But the BIG Brothers of the NSA will enjoy looking at the sites he looked at.

[JohnnyRingo]

49. "Stupid Terror Delusions"?

There's only about 90 minutes a day of "news".
That leaves the cable nets 22½ hours to fill.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

31. Americans are cowardly idiots and Republicans claim to be heroes....

My Native American side wonders how we lost to such idiocy.

[LovingA2andMI]

32. ........

, then...silence....

[mountain grammy]

34. Yes, people have been coming and going from the disease areas for months

and nothing has happened.

While the President remains calm, these governors are behaving like idiots. Once again, I'm ashamed and embarrassed to be an American.

[diabeticman]

35. My Wife has been feeling Ashamed and embarrassed since 2001.

[MontyPow]

37. Appointing a Czar was a bonehead move.

It would have been brilliant if the Czar he appointed was his nominee for Surgeon General.

Oh, well.

[AngryOldDem]

61. "There's a czar for that."

Just like with apps.

How about the GOP setting aside its stupid, political, juvenile game playing and doing ITS job by approving an SG? We NEED a surgeon general, NOT one more czar who is there mainly for window dressing. I'm tired of them holding all of us hostage because they just can't stand the man in the White House. That's a way to hurt -- directly or indirectly -- a whole lot of innocent people.

[MontyPow]

69. I agree with all that you say, but ...

Democratic leadership could eliminate the obstruction in the Senate. And if the Democratic Leadership had propery whipped its members, they could have passed, if not single payer, certainly the ACA with a public option.

It's easy to blame the Republicans only, but there are many bad actors in the Democratic Party and somehow DUers have been convinced that it's perfectly fine.

It's not perfectly fine.

[branford]

47. If he's so calm, why did Obama agree to quarantine the troops that served in west Africa,

who apparently had far less, if any, contact with the virus than the returning civilian aid workers?

If asymptomatic individuals are not a threat to the public, as stated by the president, why are the troops subject to quarantine?

[adigal]

105. So why did the Peesident ok a quarantine for soldiers who had no contact

With sick people at all?

[mountain grammy]

106. He didn't, it was a military decision and not up to him to ok or not..

the soldiers go under orders and return under orders and are quarantined under orders. I grew up in the military, we went where they told us to go. Different from volunteers. What's your problem? Google it.

[MontyPow]

36. We haven't been smart since some of our voters declared themselves Reagan Democrats.

[procon]

39. Well and truly writ, indeed.

Those who add to the fear mongering and the fact less hyperbole provided a whole new depth to the sobriquet, "spineless Dems". We are NOT reactionary, cowardly Republicans. We are pragmatists. We embrace science and disdain ignorance. We calmly seek out the words of experts and shun the mass hysteria tossed out like reeking chum by a media who sole interest is in profit. There is no excuse for any Democrat embracing the Foxnews fever.

[LisaL]

40. How many people with Ebola do you need in this country?

All it takes is one person.
In Africa, outbreak started with one person. Now they have thousands of cases.
We don't want that to happen here.

[seabeyond]

44. The people take care if their sick and dying then prepare them for burial in their death.

Clue you in on the difference?

When the have their explosive vomiting and diarrhea and bleeding, they are approaching death, viral load high. In the u.s. That is healthcare workers. In Africa, that is family and friends.

But I know these differences and all the other facts continually given to you won't matter. So this is my one and only... For you.

[deutsey]

70. +1

[Hekate]

41. I'm with you on this

I am curious about one thing, though: where are the anti-vaxxers on this issue?

Are they perhaps calling for research funding to resume the search for a vaccine? Do they want to seal the borders? Or do they believe that their and their children's natural immunity and vitamin supplements are sufficient unto the need?

Perhaps that is an unkind thought on my part -- but I have been as dismayed as you at the anti-science panic engendered by the media in "the Homeland", when by now two countries in Africa have actually managed to quell the disease (news report tonight).

[whereisjustice]

42. There is some authoritarian shit going on. eom

[Hekate]

45. What. Does. That. Even. Mean?

[whereisjustice]

50. Claiming NSA must spy on your children to protect them, defending a para-military

police force to crush protests over injustice and civil rights, calling to quarantine those who travel to scary places like Africa, making up some bullshit excuses for spying on the press, cheering on deaths of 1000s of Palestinian civilians under siege.

Too many Democrats are advocating extremist measures to maintain control.

Dissent threatens the elite in both parties. As inequity in all areas of life grows, there will those who demand more and more desperate measures to retain control.

It's a pattern played out over and over throughout the history of civilization and it rarely ends well.

Today, they are making the same mistakes.

[barbtries]

46. yeah me too.

it hurts to see hysteria on DU.

[Warpy]

48. You can't reason with ignorant people who have been scared stupid

I've been trying to pour cold water on all that hair on fire for weeks.

We'll have to wait until after the election for any sanity to set in. Right now politicians are grandstanding on their useless quarantine ideas and the media are happy lapping up the ratings gravy that ginning up unreasonable fear among ignorant people gives them.

It's beyond sickening.

It has, however, given me a better understanding of all they hysteria during the Black Death in Europe, complete with religious nuts whipping themselves through the streets and the murder of any Jew they could find.

Ignorance and hysterical fear are our worst enemies.

[vicdoc]

52. Information is lacking

I like to think I'm a scientist, since I'm a surgeon who has an engineering degree.

I have to deal with infection diseases from time to time, but nothing worse than Hepatitis B,C etc or HIV. No big deal when you treat everyone like they have it, but these are all no higher than BSL-2. Ebola is BSL-4, the highest level of Biosafety pathogen.

In training I was operating on a gallbladder patient with Hepatitis B years ago and of course I accidentally stuck myself with a needle. Thankfully, no infection arose from that. But the terror of that moment will never leave me, even 30 years on.

I chose this profession, it's a risk healthcare providers (have to) accept. But I have no experience with BSL-4 precautions and Personal Protective Equipment.

Most of us in the healthcare field don't have any experience with Ebola. It's a scary disease, even for us around the water cooler in healthcare facilities.

I have to say, the information given out, the public re-assurances given from the top on down are over simplifications. Although there is no evidence of airborne transmission between humans with Ebola Zaire, there is the possibility of droplet transmission, which I have not heard anyone talk about. The CDC has a PDF discussing this.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/infections-spread-by-air-or-droplets.pdf

You can get Ebola from an infected Ebola patient through inhalation of their droplets within 3 feet. If they sneeze or cough without covering their airway, you can get Ebola.

Ebola can "live" for up to 50 days on certain surfaces, depending on conditions (cool conditions increase viability, or in mucous). You can then pick it up and get infected. People don't cover their mouths, or even wash their hands about half the time after going to the bathroom. It's disgusting, but that's people for you.

So I think in their rush to re-assure us, they have not fully informed people of what Ebola can and can't do. Once people figure out that they have not been completely up front, and with this drip, drip, of scares and actual Ebola patients popping up, and no one seems to prepared, then no wonder there is fear and mistrust.

So now the government is in panic mode. Look, even California is putting out quarantine PDFs to reassure the public.

[polichick]

54. Thanks for the info!

[Warpy]

55. Well, the droplets are more likely to come from projectile vomiting

which happens with Ebola.

I was an RN, used to being on the front lines with every bug that came along. I would likely be a little nervous about spending 12 hours with an Ebola patient here, very nervous in the conditions in West Africa. Still, I have never caught a single thing from a patient.

I am not at all nervous at the prospect of being around a newly returned health care worker who is showing no signs of illness.

That is what the controversy is about, putting healthy people on house arrest.

Yes, I can see monitoring people who can't self monitor, it's still a very dangerous disease and the best predictor of survival is early treatment. However, there is no medical reason or compelling public safety issue that would justify the quarantine of healthy people for 21 days.

It will, however, cut down the number of people financially able to fight this thing in west Africa. I am not quite sure if the grandstanding governors have thought about that part.

Viruses know no borders. The early diagnosis and treatment of high risk groups such as medical professionals and family members should be the priority, not shutting healthy people away because they've been in the area.

[seabeyond]

64. and you can also be a family in a small apartment with a person in the throes of ebola and come out

ebola free.

yes, people have that information. we have had threads thoroughly going over both contamination time on surface, and the droplet theory. and the odds are so far out there. once reviewing the info given ends up being more reassuring in facts, than discouraging and frightening.

for a doctor i have to wonder. ebola victims popping up, drip drip drip of info, not completely upfront, no one prepared, ... no wonder the mistrust.

a lot of fearmongering there.

[vicdoc]

108. Family and Ebola

Yes, Thomas Duncan's family somehow survived living with him. We need to know how they did, and why the pregnant girl Duncan helped lost many members of her family.
My speculation (and that's all it is) is they strongly suspected he was infected with Ebola or he suspected, and they were extremely careful.

People have been known to contract Ebola from using the same blanket from an Ebola victim.

Knowledge is power: we need more. I am not sure Ms Hickox needs to have strict quarantine, but let's realize the panic and fear coming after Dr Spencer's New York activities is the reason NY, NJ, Illinois, California and Maine are taking these steps.

They are worried that if they fail to quarantine someone who later falls ill like Dr Spencer or Ms Vinson, they will be pilloried for allowing unnecessary exposure of the public to Ebola.

From the personal freedom standpoint, there comes responsibility, and some compromise should be reached. My "King of the world" suggestion would be to allow her to go Out but to avoid public transportation and eating establishments or other places where large numbers of people might meet (State fair, theater, Church). Better than home confinement.

[seabeyond]

109. she had already agreed to that. and the mess over spencer is again, lack of education.

or even a willingness to be educated. there are people in this thread, that have been repeatedly given facts and they still ignore them. like this one nurse could be the responsible person to the health of 300,000,000 people.

i mean

with thinking like that, how much do we have to adjust policy created, because they are not willing to absorb facts.

[Tarheel_Dem]

51. I know, the site looks like something you'd read on that other site. You know the one I mean.

[adirondacker]

53. Christiebola is Contagious!

[hedgehog]

79. Exactly! Rational people start out thinking rationally, but after a while

they see all the hysterical speculations and start to think that where there's smoke, there must be fire.

[Enthusiast]

57. Yes. We used to be a smarter country.

[TheKentuckian]

58. It is hard to be clear minded when you can't stop crapping your britches as you approach each corner

Cowardice, extreme risk aversion, and slipping easily into panic is one of our "things" now pushed by too many entrusted to leadership.

[Enthusiast]

59. It is despicable, the way the modern Machiavellians are manipulating the citizenry.

It is deeply disturbing.

[FiveGoodMen]

86. It's also disgusting how easily the citizenry can BE manipulated.

Growing up in the 60's and 70's I never realized how fucking stupid my peers were.

Back then, I could never have been convinced we would sink this low.

[Enthusiast]

87. We wouldn't have suspected the media could be quite this complicit.

[Bluenorthwest]

63. When was that? Because frankly to me, the Ebola Tango looks way smarter than the HIV Jitterbug did

Maybe you mean we 'used to be smarter' long before this country watched more than 20,000 of our own die then reelected the monster who took no action at all, whose staff laughed about those deaths in public.

[notadmblnd]

95. We used to be a smarter internet community too.

[TheKentuckian]

98. Attack of the "centrists" aka refugees from an embarrassing TeaPubliKlan party

and witch hunting liberals will reduce group IQ well below room temperature.

[AngryOldDem]

60. Just a microcosm of what's going on in the country.

Such hysteria I've not seen since the early days of the AIDS crisis.

Purely shameful. We as a country are in no way ready **at all** to deal with any kind of emergency, unless it's the equivalent of running out into the street like our hair's on fire. As we've seen, Ebola, over here, is completely manageable. We need to be where it is NOT manageable, and get it contained at its source. We need health care workers for that, and they don't deserve to be put in tents when the come back, out of sheer ignorance.

(What I'm really afraid of is, Chris Christie's blowhard, asshole response to this will give him traction for 2016, because I think he's seeing a ripe opportunity here to look good in front of the sheeple.)

[beerandjesus]

65. Sorry, didn't read your OP. I was afraid I'd get ebola.

[6000eliot]

66. Just checking in to say that I delete EVERY Ebola thread without reading it, except this one.

Too much stupid. Too little time.

[HoosierCowboy]

68. To paraphrase Ben Franklin...

..."Company and fish smell after three days" Of course old Ben didn't have refrigeration in those days.
Today we have the MSM as a refrigerator for old fish and can keep them preserved almost forever. The only problem is the refrigerator begins to smell fishy after about a week.
Looks like Ebola is waning in the MSM for the last few days, it might be time to either cook that flounder or throw it out..

Does the MSM smell fishy to you?

[tclambert]

71. "We used to be smarter as a country." Hmmmm.

Japanese-American internment camps, slavery, VietNam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, segregation, prohibition, genocide of Native Americans--not sure exactly when you think our country was so much smarter. Maybe right at the beginning. The Founding Fathers were a crew of pretty bright Enlightenment types. Still, I think the anti-intellectual streak has run strong in America since the Puritans.

[diabeticman]

80. Yes, we have some bone-headed dumb things...But as a whole we used logic and reasoning far more.

[MisterP]

89. heck, doctors, scientists, and sundry experts and technocrats were deeply involved in all those ...

[VA_Jill]

72. Yes, yes, yes, and YES!!!

This RN (ret.) seconds everything you just said! K&R!

[old man 76]

73. Stupidity

In Strong Maine a teacher went to Dallas Texas for a educators conference at the schools request. When she returned a the parents request she could not return to work for twenty one days because she had been to a Dallas. She had not been any where near the hospital nor on a plane with any one who had been exposed. I live in Maine and at times the stupidity of some people amazes me.

[diabeticman]

74. OMG? I thought my friend was pulling my leg with that story. It is true? Is there any source?

(oops... Sorry I think you better go into isolation for 21 days.)

[mercuryblues]

83. Yes it is true

http://www.pressherald.com/2014/10/17/fearing-ebola-strong-elementary-teacher-on-leave-after-traveling-to-dallas/

[seabeyond]

81. wow. that is stupid. hey,... i am 6 hours from dallas, and a person sneezed. nt

[Nitram]

75. I agree 100% diabeticman!

Let's leave the hysteria to Fox New viewers. Please.

[still_one]

76. doesn't surprise me. We have our share of anti-vaxers also

[Phlem]

77. I can't believe some of the threads on this board period.

Last edited Thu Oct 30, 2014, 01:08 PM - Edit history (1)

It's like talking to a bunch sugar addled 3rd graders sometimes. The reasoning and the logic (or the lack of) just blows me away. Your right "we use to be smarter as a country." but the stupid has permeated into our party big time! One can fix ignorance, but the stupid?

[Travis_0004]

78. What if Obama met with the nurse to show there is no danger?

[jwirr]

82. One of the news shows asked if we should also quarantine all the workers at the hospitals who are

taking care of the 9 ebola patients that we have here in the USA. They are right. Traditionally quarantine was used for people who already showed symptoms of the disease.

Think about the polio epidemic - if we had quarantined all people who were exposed they would have had whole schools in some kind of hospital. Our school did close down when my best friend died but they neither left it closed nor did they quarantine anyone but the family who was taking care of her.

[diabeticman]

84. VERY GOOD POINT!!! I wish I had thought of that question.

[seabeyond]

94. i have been asking for five days, and everyone backpedals. do we quarantine after each

shift? on paid 21 days. or do we hold the medical staff hostage until patient is virus free or dead, and then quarantine for 21 days.

how much rights do we take away?

and if you are gonna quarantine the doctors coming in, you had better damn well advocate the same for u.s. medical staff and supporting roles.

crickets

[Ineeda]

91. We've become scaredy-cat stupid knee-jerk reactionaries...

in what was once 'land of the free, home of the brave' common sense U.S. of A. Thank you Fox.

[Mojorabbit]

96. Here is a wonderful article on why it is ok to be worried

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/30/359843440/why-its-ok-to-worry-about-ebola-and-whats-truly-scary
Why It's OK To Worry About Ebola, And What's Truly Scary
snip
There are lots of reasons to think that the United States can put out those sparks. But putting out the spark in Dallas was harder than we thought. It's not easy, it's not cheap, it's not pain-free, but if we have 10 Ebola cases a month we can do it.

But if India has 10 a month, Nigeria has 10 a month, very few people feel they can do it. If the epidemic in West Africa continues, it's hard to imagine that it isn't going to spread. And many of the places it would spread to have health-care systems that won't be able to cope.

It's one thing to argue that we should close the border to travelers from West Africa. But imagine trying to stop people coming in from India. Or worse yet, imagine trying to stop stuff coming in from India. Imagine India in chaos and what that would do to the United States. Now imagine Mexico in chaos. That's what people should be worried about.

(Sandman gets more deeply into pandemic Ebola risks in this column.)

If that's the true risk, why so much commotion over Ebola at home?

When people are coming to terms with a new worry, it's very normal to worry about the wrong things for a while. You personalize it; you localize it; you imagine it's happening here rather than there and now rather than later and to you directly.

How Rational Are Our Fears Of Ebola?
I'd like to see Americans shifting their focus from the risk that's small to the risk that's huge, but thinking the small risk is huge isn't a stupid place to start.

The people who are trying to say stop worrying about Ebola in New York, stop worrying about Ebola at Newark airport, what they're trying to do is lose the teachable moment. If they succeed in getting people to stop worrying, they will regret it, because there's a lot to worry about it.

Calming us down shouldn't be a goal. It would be different if people were panicking in the street.

[diabeticman]

97. NPR has been controlled by the Republicans for years.. And let's see... we give into the fear and

guess who wins Nov 4th

[Mojorabbit]

100. This is Sandman's line of work. He is an expert in his field.

it would be nice if you read the piece and had constructive criticism of it. This IS a teachable moment and we are blowing it.

[we can do it]

99. Thank you for saying this. Sadly, we used to be smarter.

[merrily]

101. I saw a few "scary ebola" threads. Those I looked at had been started by posters who joined

within the last few weeks or by posters who joined years ago, but had not posted much during that time.

So, candidly, I got suspicious and just stopped looking at those threads.


I do look at threads involving health care workers who got sick, but not at threads that want me to panic about ebola or those saying Obama messed up, etc.

[Curmudgeoness]

107. This is the first Ebola thread that I have opened since the first one I opened

because I agree completely with you. I am shocked and disgusted with some of the posters who are falling for the fear-mongering and spreading it around.....as if we need more of that.