This is more troubling to me than it appears to be to the CDC. They say this man had potentially infectious contact with some 80 people; all of whom are now being “monitored” (whatever that means). But suppose, over time, 80 infected people come here. There doesn’t seem to be anything to prevent it. And perhaps, over time, 800 from west Africa or other places to which people who have been in west Africa go next? Maybe more? Imagine where we would be if Ebola had become widespread in Central America or even in northern Mexico a few months ago.
What, one wonders, does it really take to get a serious public health menace going? Numbers of exposures and difficulty of treatment and prevention. Those seem to be the main ingredients.
When one thinks, for instance, of AIDS, for which no truly serious preventive measures were ever taken, it is believed that about 1.1 million people in the U.S. have it. Now, of that number, virtually all would have known they were at least potentially self-exposing; something that surely limits the spread all by itself. With Ebola, that’s not the case. Some exposed people would know they have been exposed, but possibly the majority of them wouldn’t. And how would anyone take preventive measures other than to avoid contact with someone who is floridly ill with it?
Hopefully, this terrible disease will be contained and then beaten back into the jungle from whence it likely came. But one suspects it will all get worse before it gets better.
