The editors of the Chicago Tribune have entered the lists in support of what they’re calling “an abundance of caution” on the state of Illinois’s response to the question of handling a potential spread of Ebola:
Health officials around the country continue to scratch their heads about how these changing guidelines will work in practice. The public is left to … well, let’s not call it panic. People are not panicking. They are, though, worried and confused because the U.S. response consistently seems to be one step behind events.
Here are the measures they’ve come out in support of:
- But if we’re going to err, let’s err on the side of caution. Given the lethality of Ebola and the virus’ 21-day incubation period, a quarantine rule for medical professionals and others who have had contact with the disease in those high-risk countries seems reasonable.
- Given the high incidence in certain countries, a temporary travel and visa ban on visitors from those nations makes sense too. It could be structured without impeding the movement of health professionals to and from those countries.
but
Halting Ebola at the source — in West Africa — remains the key to ending this epidemic.
That’s my first priority. I think the other measures are somewhat of an overreaction but, contrary to the jibes of some, I think they’re an overreaction to real failings of our healthcare system.
The situation faced in authoritarian countries is ever so much simpler. In a liberal democratic republic like ours elected officials need to respond to political concerns if they want to keep their jobs. Note the number of governors who have put measures in place that go beyond the guidelines that the CDC has found supportable by science.
And “an abundance of caution” is not merely an American disease. The Australian government has imposed a travel ban between Australia and the West African countries in which most of the Ebola cases have occurred.
Let’s not take our eyes off the ball. Either this Ebola epidemic will burn itself out after killing who knows how many people as Ebola outbreaks have in the past or it will only be checked with help from developed countries. My own sense of prudence tells me that we should be taking more energetic efforts towards helping Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone deal with the epidemic.
Which means efforts on the part of our government, i.e. the American military, rather than relying on volunteers.
Looks like California is also moving towards a quarantine rule for professionals, like Illinois. But let’s talk about Chris Christie . . ..
PD, I had a ‘discussion’ with someone on Twitter earlier this week about this. Her contention was that Christie, like all Republicans, was being “anti-science” because of his quarantine stance. I asked how that worked with Gov. Cuomo in NY. She said, “That’s only politics, he doesn’t really believe it.”
(This seems to be common practice among libs: “Our candidates don’t really believe what they’re saying. They’re just saying that to get elected.” Reynolds said that repeatedly about Obama and gay marriage, Obama and religion, etc. I don’t know why they admire people for lying, but it is typical of the mindset that likes seeing their opponents children get punched.)
Anyhow, I asked if Cuomo REALLY needed to do this to win election in NY. And I asked about why Obama was quarantining troops in that case. (Given rationales are too stupid on the face of them to argue about.) She went into some sputttering about how I needed to die and everyone that knows me etc at that point. Also typical of liberals these days. I haven’t bothered to go back and mention Gov. Moonbeam but I’m sure she’d have a typically thoughtful response to that question, too.
And the CDC is backing off earlier claims yet again.
CDC admits droplets from a sneeze could spread Ebola
Why are these clowns collecting salaries again?
Elipses, I mentioned in an earlier thread that public health policy decisions in this country are made by at least 51 entities, because states have broad police powers to take coercive action in the face of dangerous, infectious disease. Here is a summary of the statutes in all 50 states. They generally describe the legal authority of state and local health officials to detain people and close-off places, and what procedural protections individuals have.
So, I tend to interpret these events differently. The policy announcements by the governors are not the law, nor are they required to quarantine an individual coming back from high-risk countries. States that have not announced a policy actually have an ad-hoc policy in place, and on an ad-hoc basis it may or may not conform to federal policy. States that have announced a policy might actually be constraining local public officials from taking actions even more at variance from federal policy.
The AP has reported on the readiness of the US healthcare system to handle even a small outbreak of Ebola. The results are not good.
The Racantuer blog provides the TL;DR version here.
In short, the system is already strained, and ANY unforeseen outbreak of something serious has the realistic potential to crash significant parts of the US healthcare system. Redundancies aren’t really built in, for the obvious reason that we couldn’t possibly afford it.
That’s the reason I immediately launched into a discussion of the costs of treating Ebola a week or so ago. Treating it is very expensive. That’s a reason to want to mitigate the risk.
I realize that there is an active disinformation campaign going on, but there is this thing called Google you can use to fact check. The CDC and WHO have long acknowledged that transmission by large droplets, like a sneeze is possible. Yet you get really stupid stuff like Ice links to that claims CDC is hiding stuff, or something.
“Common sense and observation tell us that spread of the virus via coughing or sneezing is rare, if it happens at all. Epidemiological data emerging from the outbreak are not consistent with the pattern of spread seen with airborne viruses, like those that cause measles and chickenpox, or the airborne bacterium that causes tuberculosis.
Theoretically, wet and bigger droplets from a heavily infected individual, who has respiratory symptoms caused by other conditions or who vomits violently, could transmit the virus – over a short distance – to another nearby person.
This could happen when virus-laden heavy droplets are directly propelled, by coughing or sneezing (which does not mean airborne transmission) onto the mucus membranes or skin with cuts or abrasions of another person.”
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/06-october-2014/en/
As to costs and preparedness, hospitals have cut beds back to minimums. We already have trouble finding enough beds during flu season. However, what is missed is that a lot of these beds are occupied by people recovering from elective surgery. We could, if we wanted, delay elective knee and hip replacements and create a lot of “beds”. But, what you really need are ICU beds capable of isolation. That is limited.
Steve
The disinformation campaign has tentacles.
CBS News, August 6, 2014
University of Connecticut, August 13, 2014
IFL Science, August 7, 2014
VOX, July 30, 2014
Washington Post, To Your Health column, August 1, 2014
My comment is awaiting moderation . . .
PD, my conspiracy runs deep and reaches into all corners.
More seriously, my problem is that the way the CDC hasn’t been up front and honest about things. All these conflicting messages have deeply hurt their credibility at a time when that credibility is needed. Of course, the credibility would be best rooted in competence….
One more before I retire:
USA Today, July 26, 2014
DEEEEEEEP-uh!
Of course everyone of these is someone’s interpretation of what CDC or WHO said. You could use this thing called Google and find out what they actually say.
Steve
Steve, if you do that you’ll find the CDC contradicting itself.
And if what they’re saying is that confusing to the reporters and editors of the MS press, then the CDC can’t communicate worth a shit.
Loook around and you will see that they’ve already reversed themselves on sneezing and such. Again.
steve, you are the one that attributed the belief that sneezes couldn’t transmit the virus to a “disinformation campaign,” which I take to mean ill-motivated and purposeful. Countless media sources have described sneezes as harmless, and like CBS have linked to CDC pages as sources. Those links no longer go to a valid webpage, I believe because CDC overhauled its internet presence on this issue, not because of scrubbing, so I don’t know what the original CDC page said.
I assume it probably said ebola cannot be transmitted “airborne,” and a number of news sources and doctors repeated that as not by sneezes. And weeks and months go by and CDC allows this “disinformation” to exist, apparently because it does not understand the basics of public relations, or it likes the calming effect of this disinformation that it can subsequently deny.