We see about 36,000 deaths in the United States per year for the flu. The CDC estimates that, at most, 20% of the U.S. population becomes infected with the flu virus every year (about 63.6 million people). That comes out to a mortality rate of .05%. If 63 million cases of influenza every year with a mortality rate of 0.05% doesn’t scare people into grounding flights and quarantining people then I don’t see why 3 cases of Ebola with a mortality rate of 0% should.
Well, I think your points are level, I would only suggest a couple points to consider. I’m not positive flights ought to be grounded coming from the area yet. There are Congress members asking why they are not though, such as Rand Paul. The response and push back is they see no reason “yet” as the “precautions” are in place.
This patient in Dallas flew to Brussels, DC, then to Dallas, at home he came into contact with at least 20 people “positively” in his own family including 5-children and a couple elders. They are “now” in a complete rush searching for everyone of them. Now, today also a case is being checked in Hawaii, who was in Africa and is symptomatic. In Africa its not just being a dirty place, its a failure to stick religiously to the precautions. The issue in Dallas same thing. failure to abide by the precautions. In fact they were ignored and frankly you have to wonder just how ready the USA is for this. The CDC reported there is absolutely zero chance of anyone on the flights contracting the disease. But the non re-active to reactive to infectious area is an observed theory, not a fact, we can’t p(name removed by moderator)oint the time the virus turns reactive and contagious. Further the mortality rate rests on the precautions which they failed at in Africa and we failed with here so far with protocall and procedure in Dallas.
A zero mortality rate depends on what we already failed to do. So the next phase is aggressive consistent treatment. We are counting now on our ability to aggressively treat and educate people, and more importantly that people are intelligent enough and cautious enough to actually apply the knowledge we do have, so far thats not true.
However consider HIV, we literally send vans to the streets in NYC to freely hand out precaution and medical information kits, then consider how many just ignore this. And if the medical area does what they did in Dallas, we have a issue. And further when and if this gets out of hand the quality of the aggressive and consistent treatment becomes quantity and quality suffers.
So we have a few issues at hand. The idea its not infectious till we literally know someone is sick is a boundary we cannot p(name removed by moderator)oint. We don’t know the moment someone is actually sick. It certainly not “when they know by self diagnosed symptoms”
Further since the Ebola symptoms cross reference other not fatal virus’s, then we would be checking and testing everyone with the Flu for Ebola. Again here quality is subjected to quantity.
Today if we were to honestly ask at this moment; Are we ready in the USA for Ebola, we would have to say no.
To me its not a matter of panic, its a matter of application of cautious procedure and religious application. Just saying.
Theoretically we are ready but not in practical application and country wide communication. And medical disaster funding was cut 50% in the states.