NOTE: These posts are not an attempt to be comprehensive in coverage of the Ebola story. They just contain some items that have caught my eye [which is still not hemorrhaging blood, I'm happy to report — that only happens when I look at Debbie Vassermann Schultz].
-A Dennis Miller double-shot:
I know laxity is the new coin of the realm but I think it would be best to not treat this virus like a fence jumper at the White House.
— Dennis Miller Show (@DennisDMZ) October 2, 2014
And…
It’s one big Barney Fife Nation! — Dennis Miller Show (@DennisDMZ) October 2, 2014
-GeoffB’s remarks in the Comments section of my last Ebola-related post are worth a read and your consideration:
A few more things to ponder together.
Ebola is extremely infectious but not extremely contagious. It is infectious, because an infinitesimally small amount can cause illness. Laboratory experiments on nonhuman primates suggest that even a single virus may be enough to trigger a fatal infection.
Instead, Ebola could be considered moderately contagious, because the virus is not transmitted through the air.
Except as noted the comment by Bob above it is at short range by coughing/sneezing. A fully symptomatic patient will have about 100 million virus copies per milliliter of fluid.
Taking a page out of the Borgia book for poisons that can be absorbed through the skin, Ebola can transmit through people’s skin. It’s not enough to keep your hands away from your nose and mouth. If someone’s infected blood, vomit, fecal matter, semen, spit, or sweat just touches you, you can become infected. Even picking up a stained sheet can pass the infection. Additionally, scientists do not know how long the virus will survive on a surface once it’s become dehydrated. The current guess is that Ebola, unlike other viruses, can survive for quite a while away from its original host.
Humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms. First symptoms are the sudden onset of fever fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.
[...]
It can be difficult to distinguish EVD from other infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever and meningitis
Now this said the body does fight this virus, somehow, because people do survive and develop resistance. Being infected by a single virus particle landing on bare skin from a person who appears to have the flu coughing behind you in the elevator is to be thought of as almost impossible and that’s true.
But the fact that it is so infective, that the early symptoms look like other common infections, that even later ones look like some other not quite so dangerous infections, that it can pass through unbroken skin, that the fluids expelled by an infected person contain so many viral copies. These things taken together say that this is a disease that must be dealt with by serious people who are not looking at poll numbers to see how effective their efforts are.
Dead solid perfect.
Pardon my French, but this is the kind of disease you don’t fuck around with. You come down hard on it when it rears it’s ugly head and you remain vigilantly relentless in seeing that it does not spread within your country — that is, if you give a good Goddamn about the people who put you in a government position of responsibility. The current Administration and all the Leftists ensconced in the Bureaucracies of government at all levels don’t. Being the good little Ideologues they are, they see us as eggs for their Utopian omelet.
-As for these kind of diseases being dealt with by serious people, we learn of this:
Woah, talked to brother-in-law at CDC who said agency’s biggest fear is Ebola hysteria. Then I saw Drudge. Too late! pic.twitter.com/BM8otCzxHC
— Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) October 4, 2014
Twitchy commentator Legalize Shemp knows the type we’re dealing with here:
No surprise, leftists are far more fearful of scrutiny of government incompetence and horrible decision making than they are of actual threats to US citizens. What they fear the most is that people will find out they’re driven by political considerations, not practical considerations.
I know the type too, since I’ve been working with [and struggling against] them for over three decades — poster children for The Banality Of Evil.
… It is not only deliberate government actions, and PC-originated incompetence that will cause an outbreak. Leftist stupidity, arrogance, and belief that they are above reality is going to make it worse.
Darwin gets his licks in, too.
NATIVE LIBERAL TEXAS JUDGE ENTERS EBOLA APARTMENT WITHOUT PROTECTION
All the waste from Duncan, plus the by now surely infected 4 family members, were in the apartment which had not been decontaminated in any way. He wanted a photo op. I suspect he got a death sentence for himself, his two workers, and their families.
I would urge all and sundry in the Dallas area to avoid contact with the County Courts in general, and anything to do with Judge Clay Jenkins in particular. And that includes his court staff.
Note that YHS is by nature a cynic about the incredible stupidity of the members of our species, especially those in power. And I have a fairly large vocabulary of invective. I have access to the compact Complete Oxford English Dictionary within 15 feet of where I sit.
And words freaking fail me.
You too, huh? I hope, unlike me, you don’t have high-blood pressure, because mine’s been spiking a lot recently.
In response to Mr. Bahadur’s comments, offers some remarks that show he or she understands the Leftist Mindset:
How insane is it that I’m not completely ruling that out as a martyrdom operation? It sounds like a stupid theory, especially for someone in a position of power like that, but what’s the other alternative? Have we really gotten so deep into King Canute land, where people like that think they can repel a highly infectious contagion merely by the aura of their progressive awesomeness?
Like you, I am a cynic about the limitless bounds of human stupidity, and yet I am at a complete and utter loss to explain this. But this does give me a sense of foreboding…something awful.
Me too — dammit.
-As for a possible return of Polio to America, we have this report from Sharyl Attkisson [tip of the fedora to Instapundit].
A highlight:
The CDC reports that in the past month and a half, at least 538 people in 43 states and the District of Columbia have become ill with EV-D68. Most of them are children and some developed limb paralysis. Polio, which can cause paralysis and death, is a type of enterovirus. EV-D68 is one of more than a hundred “non-polio” enteroviruses.
The actual number of EV-D68 infections is likely significantly higher than reported since some state health officials are not testing every suspected case.
Link to Illegal Immigrant Children?
Enteroviruses commonly circulate in the U.S. during summer and fall. EV-D68 was first identified in California in 1962. Over the past thirty years, only small numbers were reported in the U.S.
The CDC hasn’t suggested reasons for the current uptick or its origin. Without that answer, some question whether the disease is being spread by the presence of tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children from Central America admitted to the U.S. in the past year.
The origin could be entirely unrelated.
However, a study published in Virology Journal, found EV-D68 among some of the 3,375 young, ill people tested in eight Latin American countries, including the Central American nations of El Salvador and Nicaragua, in 2013.
Though the U.S. government is keeping secret the locations of the illegal immigrant children, there are significant numbers of them in both cities in which the current outbreak was first identified, Kansas City, Missouri and Chicago, Illinois, according to local advocates and press reports.
Do click here to read the whole of her report.
-I Can Feel The Fear In The Western World.
