I want to know where all the DUers are who were lambasting

[PCIntern]

those of us who were very concerned that the disease came into the country. They include but are not limited to those people who waxed poetic about the wonderful hospital he was taken to, the excruciatingly foolproof sanitary procedures which would be implemented by our oh-so-competent personnel, and our uncannily foolproof ability to track individuals who came into contact with the infected man.
But remember, no matter how many are affected by the virus, no matter how ill they are, and how many die, IT IS NOT AN OUTBREAK. no matter what. Where does that come from? Why I heard it from the head of the CDC himself. On multiple occasions...until recently. I haven't heard him say that in the last few days. Wonder why...?

[YarnAddict]

1. Part of CDC-Dude's

job description probably reads, "Prevent panic, no matter what lies you have to tell the public!!!!!"

I can understand why he says what he says. Don't agree with it, but understand why he has to say it.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. He also said that Duncan potentially exposed "a handful" of people

Which became like 100, in the space of a day.

For months they've been saying "we're ready for it if it gets here". So it gets here, and guess what? We weren't ready.

[cwydro]

57. Yeah, I haven't liked that guy from the get-go.

Last edited Wed Oct 8, 2014, 10:27 PM - Edit history (1)

Too glib. Too smarmy.

And obviously they dropped the damn ball with Duncan.

[7wo7rees]

80. yes, same here.

When i posted "oh for heaven's sake, not dallas, not today" on September 30th.

It seems to have been a real mess every since.
In every direction.

Very sad.

[Egnever]

2. Not sure what you are on about.

Did the TV scare you again?

[Logical]

30. Just a hit and run post. nt

[PCIntern]

88. That's just BS

Why don't you read what many of us hhave been saying for weeks now? I dare you to refute anything which I have stated concerning this issue. Hit and run my tuchus.

[uppityperson]

3. Where in the USA is an outbreak? I assume that you know fever and diarrhea are symptoms of

many diseases and until test results come back, assuming the sheriff has ebola and there is OMG AN OUTBREAK!!! goes beyond common sense.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Making it about DUers is the wrong approach to making your point. nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. On a scale of 0-10 how large do you think the threat is to your average American?

That's my acid test.

[notrightatall]

8. <1

[zappaman]

15. ...

[Electric Monk]

6. Everybody call congress RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!1!

[TheCowsCameHome]

11. Call them what?

[Electric Monk]

14. RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!1!

Hey Congress, you are RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!1!

I sure told them, eh?

[TheCowsCameHome]

22. They're going to hold hearings

as soon as they figure out what witch to hunt.

[giftedgirl77]

101. Obama, duh....

It always leads back to the WH with those fools & he is from Africa one way or the other.

[valerief]

24. they're all in private islands by now

[notrightatall]

7. Scores have died of influenza in the last 18 days.

[liberal_at_heart]

25. +1

[PCIntern]

34. That is a specious, irrelevant point and you know it.

More have died in auto accidents and shootings.

[notrightatall]

45. Okee doke.

[DeadLetterOffice]

46. OK, so why aren't we in a panic about THAT?

[Jamastiene]

79. The NRA said not to worry and so did the government.

Oh, wait, the government said not to worry about this too.

[Ed Suspicious]

81. When fifty percent of people who drive are killed in cars, we'll likely have an elevated

level of concern.

[DeadLetterOffice]

96. Ok, that was a good one.

But numbers can be used to scare people in truly ridiculous ways. It's not just about percentages, but about raw numbers, about actual risk and outcomes.

If something is 100% fatal but only 5 in 100,000 get it per year, do we worry about that? What about something that's 'only' got a 5% mortality but absolutely everyone is exposed to? Which is the bigger problem?

Scientists discover that doing x doubles your risk of dying from y! OMG, that's a 100% risk increase! Everybody flips out, there's newspaper stories, Fox goes just nuts. But your original risk of dying from y was only 0.0005% to begin with, so now it's doubled to 0.001%. That doesn't sound nearly as scary as a 100% risk increase though, so it doesn't get reported that way.

Life is a 100% fatal, sexually transmitted condition.

[Whiskeytide]

64. +1. I just don't understand the argument...

One has zip to do with the other, and I've begun to suspect its just pot stirring.

[uponit7771]

111. +1

[cheapdate]

9. Thank goodness for the FEMA coffins.

[JaneyVee]

10. There are 7 billion people on this planet.

How many have Ebola?

[seveneyes]

20. How many have Ebola?

That's a function of vector and time.

[cheapdate]

52. And as far as vector go, Ebola is a poor one.

Ebola doesn't spread airborne, it needs close contact. This isn't west Africa. Some people might get infected, but the chance of a widespread outbreak is vanishingly small.

[AverageJoe90]

12. Mistakes were made, yes.....but.....

This was at the local level, not at the federal. The CDC had no reason to automatically assume that authorities here in Dallas would bungle as badly as they did the first few days.

But I can say that the CDC has done a damn good job, local screwups be darned.....despite what we've been hearing from the idiots at FOX News, and various other right-wing spews outfits.

[PCIntern]

32. It doesn't matter who is responsible does it

if you are in the way of the virus? If you're living two doors down from the infected apartment and have the clean up folks spraying such that the vapor travels into your domicile. What a colossal fuckup that was the other day. But here we are going to ascertain who is to blame and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. since we can't do that to the guy who died, we weill find someone else, and quickly…we fix the blame not the problem.

[hedgehog]

75. " If you're living two doors down from the infected apartment and have the clean up folks spraying

such that the vapor travels into your domicile."

#1. All studies of the Ebola virus agree that it isn't airborne.

#2 All studies agree that the Ebola virus is fragile and soon dies once outside of a warm body.

#3. Your example assumes that an Ebola virus survives outside of a human body, survives being engulfed in a disinfectant, somehow that disinfectant then goes airborne and lands on you and you then ingest the disinfectant and the live Ebola within.

[PCIntern]

89. Generalized nonsense in this particular case

It isn't airborne if you take a power washer and spray live virus in droplets. Also. Sneezes and sweat contact is not airborne either. But what the hell, right?

[Bluenorthwest]

103. Bleach kills the virus. Power washers have tanks, that's not just water in those washers...

If you take a power washer full of chlorine bleach and spray, you are killing rather than spreading the virus.

[pnwmom]

60. The CDC should have been proactively working to determine how prepared the hospitals were.

For example, they could have taken a nurses' survey months ago -- like the one where the vast majority of nurses say their hospitals are unprepared.

[arcane1]

13. It's an outbreak now?

[Marrah_G]

16. It's not an outbreak, it might turn into a small one, but it is not one now.

We will know over the next couple weeks.

[DeadLetterOffice]

17. Are you actually hoping for an outbreak...

... so that you can say "Told you so?" Your post feels that way, at least to me.

I have maintained and will continue to maintain that ebola poses much less of a risk to the US than things like influenza, gun violence, and anti-vaxx crazies.

I will wait until they decide if the sick guy in Texas has ebola (unlikely by all accounts) or just a damn stomach flu, before I start yelling that the house in on fire.

I will continue to not buy into the fear mongering and panic being perpetrated by the media.

And I will continue to point out flaws in reasoning when people here at DU are freaking out, making unsupported assumptions & statements, or generally behaving like FOX news reporters.

So -- that's where this particular DUer is. (Although I have tried very hard not to 'lambast' anyone, merely to post actual facts rather than conjecture, because I do understand that fear makes people a little nuts.)

[PCIntern]

31. That's what it sounds like to you...

Jesus…the line in the sand is just being moved and moved and moved and the REASON people like me are so upset is that some of us work around these individuals who are responsible and they are incompetent beyond comprehension on a personal an p[rofessional level often enough that bad stuff happens all the time.

It doesn't matter what today's facts are…they are trending fast towards tomorrow's facts…and it ain't pretty.

I would hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

[DeadLetterOffice]

48. You asked where we were.

I told you where I was.

Sorry if I'm not meeting your desired level of freak-out on the topic. I just fail to see how my panicking about something I have no control over is in any way productive. I'm staying informed, I'm not being dismissive of the potential issues, I certainly don't have blind faith in involved organizations -- I just don't see the point in losing my mind over this. My blood pressure has enough challenges.

If being upset is working for you, or giving you some sense of control over a situation in which you have none, more power to you.

[PCIntern]

90. Oh ok...

So I am not permitted to be angry when it was clear from the beginning that this was being mishandled. This is the New DU, right? Ivan be angry if we invade Iraq to look for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction but not this, right? Please send me a list of allowable topics so your delicate psychobabble existence is not torn asunder.

[DeadLetterOffice]

94. Right.

Because my existence can be 'torn asunder' by an internet forum discussion.

And for the record, I don't think I've ever told anyone not be angry. And I certainly never told you not to be anything. I simply said that *I* wasn't going to freak out. You're free to do as you wish, obviously.

[PCIntern]

98. Obviously

Noted.

[rjsquirrel]

105. That's what it sounds like

to me too.

FFS get a grip and assess risk rationally.

[Turborama]

73. I was getting that from it as well. It's also disturbing..

...how many people actually seem to want Ebola to become airborne so they can feel like they "won".

Ditto to the rest of your post, too.

[seveneyes]

18. Waiting for confirmation

Then unloading on the rooster big or chicken little begins.

[LawDeeDah]

19. Inrec

What freakin' 'outbreak'? Calm down, have a beer.

[neverforget]

21. Get out the duct tape and plastic and seal your house shut and don't leave. Problem solved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape_alert

[undeterred]

55. you forgot batteries...

[jen63]

87. And MREs, water and teh gunz n/t

[Octafish]

23. One of the today's DU specialties is denigrating anything that goes against official policy.

Right down the line. I miss Jules Bergman.

[VanillaRhapsody]

27. You got that right.....its the hate all govt contingency.....somehow believing that govt can do

nothing right....is all the rage among certain "cool kids" on DU.

[hedgehog]

76. I've noticed that too. People here are starting to sound like

Ronald Reagen - "the scariest words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

[Jamastiene]

82. I am quite a bit more worried about the govt can do no wrong crowd.

I personally think the government can do some things right but can also fail miserably at other times. And no matter what, they almost always lie about both outcomes.

In reality, we are on our own. Do I think I'm going to get Ebola? No, probably not. Do I think I stand a snowball's chance in hell of being treated adequately if I DO happen to get it? Absolutely not. If I do get it, I'm dead, but only after being tortured by the incompetent morons at the local hospital here. That screw up that led to Duncan being sent home with antibiotics? Worse would happen at the local hospital where I live. My local hospital here has hallways lined with bodies on any given day and emergency waiting room wait times of 5 hours or more, and previously suspended doctors (for drug abuse) who ask a patient who has been prescribed antidepressants, "What do you have to be depressed about?" Based on experience, I have zero faith in my local hospital's ability to adequately diagnose anything, much less treat it effectively. I told my family next time I am having a heart attack, either take me to the hospital in the next county over or let me die or both, anything but putting me at the mercy of those incompetent morons at that hospital here in town.

The government doesn't give a rat's ass who lives and who dies. That is not how it works.

[VanillaRhapsody]

97. Oh bullshit.....you are not....there is none of that on Democratic Underground....

Period!

YOU just proved my point....

[Jamastiene]

99. Actually, you just proved my point. n/t

[snooper2]

109. you both just proved my point!

Now here is The Point-

[DisgustipatedinCA]

26. A little too soon (if ever), but you still have a valid point.

There may never be another case of Ebola here. Or there may be hundreds, thousands, or worse. What we do know with certainty at this point is that we could potentially be on the cusp of something big and ugly. We also know there's a certain subset of DU who have a need to be pedantic, preachy, and right about everything. They base all of their claims on science. I love science, and I believe in it. But I also believe in human frailty, human dishonesty, government -and-corporate butt-covering, and just plain bad luck. Put all of those together, and we have the potential for very bad things to happen. They probably won't happen, but probably doesn't feed the bulldog. Ebola is something that should concern (not frighten) everyone.

[Logical]

28. Why am I not shocked to see a "I told you so" thread from you? nt

[PCIntern]

33. Oh OK...

you refused to listen before and now you don't want to hear what people like me have to say again. Brilliant.

[Logical]

44. Don't you have "Life's to save"? :-) nt

[PCIntern]

47. Creative post! Thanks! nt

[Demit]

29. When in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

[PCIntern]

39. I apologize profusely for the profanity

but in no fucking way did I scream and shout. I simply pointed out that it was CLEAR to anyone who had dealt with pathogens that they were screwing up and continue to screw up. Even THEY know they're doing that…thus the obfuscation. But go ahead…thnk what thou wilt. I don't care, neither does the virus.

[Demit]

61. You seem to be suggesting that's what we should do.

I'm not sure what I can do that the CDC can't, except panic.

[PCIntern]

110. That is blatantly false.

Show me where I stated that.

[Marrah_G]

66. We should quarantine Texas :)

Especially Perry.....he should be locked away before he kills more people.

[avebury]

35. I am just not concerned about diseases like Ebola.

Perhaps Ebola and similar diseases are just Mother Earth's weapon against humans for the massive destruction that humans have wrecked upon her planet and other life forms.

[avebury]

49. Humans do not own the sole right to exist on this planet.

Nature has its own way of fighting back when it is under siege.

[zappaman]

36. Can I get ebola from watching the news about it?

This is terrifying!

[Warren DeMontague]

37. Apparently if you worry about ebola in any way, shape, or form, you're an idiot and a panic ninny.

And if you dare to suggest that maybe until this blows over we ought to consider restricting vacation/recreation travel by visa holders from the 3 main affected countries, you are a mean bigot.

[elias49]

40. I'm right here..

and I still think you're over the top with dire warnings.

[Warren DeMontague]

41. Heavens, we don't want to overreact, now.

Which is exactly what the WHO and local authorities said about this shit when it started, back in April, and now they have a giant catastrophe on their hands.

If people don't take it as seriously as they should, folks could very well needlessly die.

If people overreact, it might annoy DU's self-appointed guardians of what is really important.

[uppityperson]

50. Do you mean the giant catastrophe in W Africa?

[Warren DeMontague]

54. Yes.

If people had overreacted instead of minimizing the seriousness of it, if resources had been allocated and it had been treated as a major threat early on, it would have spared many lives.

[hedgehog]

95. I believe your characterization of the WHO and CDC is incorrect

"On 31 March, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent a five-person team to assist Guinea's Ministry of Health and the WHO to lead an international response to the Ebola outbreak"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa

Both the WHO and CDC have been monitoring this outbreak carefully well before it hit the media radar. The group Doctors Without Borders warned in August that much more support was needed to bring the epidemic under control. Unfortunately, it took the fear of the disease spreading outside Africa to get wealthy countries to respond.

If I understand correctly, the CDC never said that there would never be any cases of Ebola in the US. I believe the CDC indicated and continues to indicate that the use of contact tracing and quarantine (as is being done in Texas) would quickly stamp out any outbreaks.

[randome]

43. I'm in St. Louis. Where are you?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[Hekate]

51. I'm no longer feeling quite as jaunty as I was...5th Rec from me.

On the one hand, I still believe we won't have a 1918 Spanish Influenza death toll.

On the other hand, our traditional public health management systems, which I initially described as "degraded" I think -- are having to scramble to get up to speed, and they are the front line first responders to any infectious disease outbreak.

[Hekate]

70. My biggest concern has been the irresponsible way the babblers on tv have handled it

When Jon Stewart played one of his clip-montages the other night it was truly frightening how utterly irresponsible FOX and others were. Citizens need actual facts; they need to be educated.

And instead we had behavior that had Jon Stewart mocking the so-called reporters by shrieking "We're all gonna die!!!!!" Yes, FOX et al. were fomenting rumor and panic with every breath. It will be a great day for the nation when FOX goes off the air. They have gone beyond the limits of free speech -- not just now, but always. It's heinous.

So while the CDC's happy-talk may be a little excessive, I think they may have felt the need to counteract the rumor-mongers.

[Hekate]

74. If we didn't subscribe to cable we'd only get one channel here.

Hence I get to watch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. I wouldn't touch FOX with a 10 foot pole, but Rachel, Jon, and others sometimes post clips to mock them.

I completely agree with you on the desire and necessity for fact-based reporting.

[Jamastiene]

84. Good points.

I wish we could all agree that panic is not going to help anything, but at the same time, get the other side to admit that Ebola is not a harmless picnic, like some on that side seem to want to make it out to be.

[malokvale77]

56. I don't know about much of your OP...

but I do know that whoever "waxed poetic" about Presbyterian Hospital was full of shit.

I don't think you should blame the CDC either. This is Texas, where our so called officials will refuse anything coming from the federal level.

[morningfog]

58. There is no outbreak in the US. What is your point?

There is a pandemic in West Africa. But no pandemic in the US, no outbreak either. There was one person who carried it to the US and he is dead now. As far as we can tell at the moment, it did not spread to anyone else in the US.

[tkmorris]

67. Pretty much sums it up

I can understand people being concerned, but this OP? Pffftttt.

[seabeyond]

62. one person came in with it. he died. no one else has shown symptoms. half way thru the waiting

period. it appears as if it has been contained, seeing symptoms generally show up within 10 days, yet up to 21 days.

what is your question?

[jeff47]

63. Should we put out your hair, or do you want to run around a little more?

Perhaps a little less cable TV news would be a good idea.

[Barack_America]

65. Is this about Nigeria officially being Ebola-free?

[hedgehog]

78. Beat me to it!

and Nigeria shares a very open land border with the countries under siege.

Edit - I was wrong - Nigeria does not share a border with these countries.

[customerserviceguy]

69. I wasn't one of them

I always thought from the beginning that this was not good. I've voted in a poll here for travel restrictions, and I've maintained that this could really go south for the President if all did not turn out well.

Glad to see you post this.

[saltpoint]

71. Not seeing an "outbreak" decimating

whole cities.

I guess it's possible. But not seeing it now.

[Jamastiene]

77. K&R

"It could never happen here in America, because..." are famous last words akin to "Hey, Y'all! Watch this! Here, hold mah beer."

[ZombieHorde]

83. How many cases in a region are needed for the use of the term "outbreak?"

One? One hundred? Seems subjective to me. Five seems like a good number to me to use the phrase "small outbreak." Maybe instead of trying to figure out if the number counts as an "outbreak," we could just say about how many people were infected in the area of the world we're talking about. So instead of saying "there was a small outbreak of Ebola in Montana," we could say "six people in Montana tested positive for Ebola." Please note that the Montana example is made up and has no factual basis.

[Live and Learn]

85. And I want to know where all the Duers that weren't lambasting Congress

to do something about the privatization of pharmaceutical research and what it meant to health care in general were. Oh yeah, most on DU have been lambasting that since DU began, unfortunately, extremely few politicians have been willing to take it up.

Ebola has been known to us since 1976. That gave us friggen 38 years to do some research but apparently it wasn't a priority because it wasn't a money maker and for some unknown reason the private pharmaceutical company CEO's never expected it to make it this far.

And now, you want to glory in the fact that once it came here at all, you set off a panic alarm. Good gawd. the people in Africa have been suffering and literally dying from the disease for decades. Did you raise an alarm for them?

Panic and fear-mongering have never solved anything but using some logic and problem solving skills (even now) will go along way. Gather the scientists and put some public research money toward the disease and they will find the way.

[Crabby Appleton]

86. Hysteria is much more contagious than ebola

it seems.

[PCIntern]

93. Since when is discussion

Hysteria? I did not say we would be inundated. I simply questioned the verbiage and competence of those in charge or pretending to be in charge. Your knee jerk response is duly noted.

[Logical]

102. How about when people are already keeping kids out of school? Nt

[geek tragedy]

91. Maybe we can bring back the color-coded terror alerts just for ebola nt

[ileus]

92. aren't we concerned about saving the planet? fewer carbon footprints is a plus.

am I not right?


For the earths sake we should welcome an "outbreak", of course it would only help if Asian countries are also affected.

[Paladin]

106. Don't you have a gun you need to be cleaning? (nt)

[ileus]

108. Naw man, they're all clean.

Shot Tuesday evening (shield and p09) cleaned them Wed night after my sons Football Practice.

[Orsino]

100. It seems we're here, rolling our eyes.

It might help, though, if you made clear what you consider to define an outbreak.

What has happened in the US is certainly cause for concern, even if it's a few isolated cases. I'm rather hopeful because despite what seems to have been major bungling for many days in the handling of the first rogue patient, the entire apartment complex wasn't infected.

Ebola in the US is well under control at the moment. "Outbreak" is a loaded term that doesn't describe our situation.

[rjsquirrel]

104. Panic!!!!!!!

Lol

[La Lioness Priyanka]

107. are people dropping like flies here?

if not, i continue to remain unconcerned

[Cal Carpenter]

112. Test results are negative for Dallas County deputy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025644049

[Blue_Tires]

113. As far as I can tell

only ONE person entered the country (unknowingly) infected...

Am I missing something?? AFAIK, every other "possible ebola" story in the news was a false alarm...