Finally, a rational article on Ebola! Even if Ebola-infected people started arriving here in large numbers, it would be unlikely to spread very far. The United States has one of the most robust infectious disease monitoring and management systems in the world. We have the dedicated resources and infrastructure to contain a disease like this. Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea do not, thats why they have been having such a difficult time controlling the outbreak. We have almost (in some areas, much more than) 100 times the number of physicians per person that Liberia has, we have an even greater relative density of infectious disease specialists. And our hospital systems are, by and large, much better equipped to safely handle infectious disease patients. By the time somebody in the United States became contagious, theyd generally be sick enough to go to the ER. Even if they failed to do so right away, Ebola is not contagious enough to spread efficiently anyway. The hyperbolic fear-mongering is maddening. I know, the story has all of the right elements to get the right wingers frothing at the mouth, that is, an infectious disease primarily affecting poor black foreigners, but the sensationalism is utterly ridiculous.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 19:19:10 +0000