Ebola & "Porous Borders"

[Zam-Zam]

An excerpt from a piece in the NY Times:

“Ebola doesn’t permit a halfway engagement,” said Walter Lorenzi, the chief of the Doctors Without Borders’ mission here. His group, which has been battling the disease on the front lines, declared the Ebola epidemic out of control in Sierra Leone and its West African neighbors.

“It’s not astonishing that it is spreading,” Mr. Lorenzi added, criticizing the local effort to fight it. “You’ve got to attend to the smallest details.”

The outbreak was first identified in March in Guinea’s remote Forest Region. Since then, it has spread with a deadly swiftness, spilling over porous borders in one of the poorest parts of Africa. The epidemic also leapfrogged by air after an American working in Liberia flew to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and died there last week. On Monday, Nigerian news media reported that a doctor who treated him had contracted the disease as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/w...ine-undercuts-ebola-fight-in-africa.html?_r=1


It would seem any nation having a "porous border" is inviting disaster.......

 

[Barbella]

With the way illegals are pouring across our borders, I believe it's only a matter of time, Zam...

 

[Zam-Zam]

With the way illegals are pouring across our borders, I believe it's only a matter of time, Zam...

I pray you're wrong. I fear you're right.

 

[Barbella]

I pray you're wrong. I fear you're right.

Sometimes, I love being wrong... and this is one of those.

 

[as seen on tv]

i think you nailed - all we need is one hispanic immigrant who tests positive for ebola and watch what happens to public opinion and the media.

 

[Arkady]

An excerpt from a piece in the NY Times:

“Ebola doesn’t permit a halfway engagement,” said Walter Lorenzi, the chief of the Doctors Without Borders’ mission here. His group, which has been battling the disease on the front lines, declared the Ebola epidemic out of control in Sierra Leone and its West African neighbors.

“It’s not astonishing that it is spreading,” Mr. Lorenzi added, criticizing the local effort to fight it. “You’ve got to attend to the smallest details.”

The outbreak was first identified in March in Guinea’s remote Forest Region. Since then, it has spread with a deadly swiftness, spilling over porous borders in one of the poorest parts of Africa. The epidemic also leapfrogged by air after an American working in Liberia flew to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and died there last week. On Monday, Nigerian news media reported that a doctor who treated him had contracted the disease as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/w...ine-undercuts-ebola-fight-in-africa.html?_r=1


It would seem any nation having a "porous border" is inviting disaster.......

We've had porous borders for our entire history as a nation. People fly into this country by the millions, every year, just as that doctor flew to Nigeria. Yet, in all that time, how many people have contracted Ebola in the US? Any guesses?

 

[Zam-Zam]

We've had porous borders for our entire history as a nation. People fly into this country by the millions, every year, just as that doctor flew to Nigeria. Yet, in all that time, how many people have contracted Ebola in the US? Any guesses?

So then all that stuff about porous borders in the NY Times is bovine excrement.

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[ITALIA]

Sometimes, I love being wrong... and this is one of those.

You must be constantly feeling love.

 

[marvin martian]

i think you nailed - all we need is one hispanic immigrant who tests positive for ebola and watch what happens to public opinion and the media.

That individual will be given protected status, and any attempt to isolate or remove him will be perceived as an act of racism by our government (which, to them, is worse than contracting a deadly disease)...

 

[JuliefromOhio]

An excerpt from a piece in the NY Times:

“Ebola doesn’t permit a halfway engagement,” said Walter Lorenzi, the chief of the Doctors Without Borders’ mission here. His group, which has been battling the disease on the front lines, declared the Ebola epidemic out of control in Sierra Leone and its West African neighbors.

“It’s not astonishing that it is spreading,” Mr. Lorenzi added, criticizing the local effort to fight it. “You’ve got to attend to the smallest details.”

The outbreak was first identified in March in Guinea’s remote Forest Region. Since then, it has spread with a deadly swiftness, spilling over porous borders in one of the poorest parts of Africa. The epidemic also leapfrogged by air after an American working in Liberia flew to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and died there last week. On Monday, Nigerian news media reported that a doctor who treated him had contracted the disease as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/w...ine-undercuts-ebola-fight-in-africa.html?_r=1


It would seem any nation having a "porous border" is inviting disaster.......

I'll be careful not to exchange any bodily fluids with infected Canadians. you should, too.

 

[RickWA]

An excerpt from a piece in the NY Times:

“Ebola doesn’t permit a halfway engagement,” said Walter Lorenzi, the chief of the Doctors Without Borders’ mission here. His group, which has been battling the disease on the front lines, declared the Ebola epidemic out of control in Sierra Leone and its West African neighbors.

“It’s not astonishing that it is spreading,” Mr. Lorenzi added, criticizing the local effort to fight it. “You’ve got to attend to the smallest details.”

The outbreak was first identified in March in Guinea’s remote Forest Region. Since then, it has spread with a deadly swiftness, spilling over porous borders in one of the poorest parts of Africa. The epidemic also leapfrogged by air after an American working in Liberia flew to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and died there last week. On Monday, Nigerian news media reported that a doctor who treated him had contracted the disease as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/w...ine-undercuts-ebola-fight-in-africa.html?_r=1


It would seem any nation having a "porous border" is inviting disaster.......

Really, to me the most bothersome thing here is that even stinking Ebola has become politicized by the left/right. One can't freaking brush his teeth without it erupting into free trade bristle harvesting and the conspiracy of fluoridating. Let's just take the shortcut and break up our nation now...why sit through years of the ongoing Balkanization and hatred?
:-/

Sad stuff.

 

[Barbella]

I'll be careful not to exchange any bodily fluids with infected Canadians. you should, too.

Better start wearing on of these: Dr. Lahey:
Even sitting next to a person with Ebola is thought not to be enough to transmit the disease, you need contact with body fluids. If that person sneezes on you, or bleeds on you, or a lot of sweat gets on you, then there is risk of transmission because body fluids have transferred from one person to the other, but Ebola is not airborn. So it requires those visibly obvious things to happen for transmission to occur.

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/ebola-virus-questions

You're welcome.

 

[Barbella]

You must be constantly feeling love.

I do, in fact.... but not for that reason.

I'm apparently just... loveable!

 

[ChloeFlora]

Ebola is a very awful disease, killing about 70% of infected.
But as far as it hasn't spread far from African continent since it's been discovered 40 years ago, it seems to me that our media is just creating a new news-break for us to worry about something when there're more important subjects like the illegal crisis or the unstoppable wars in the Middle East.

 

[Arkady]

So then all that stuff about porous borders in the NY Times is bovine excrement.

Thanks for clearing that up.

No. Certainly porous borders make transmission of disease from one country to another more probable. If there were another "Spanish Flu" like 1918, for example, it's pretty much certain that it would show up in the US quickly and spread widely, because we have huge numbers of people coming into the country on a regular basis. If I had to wager on any country in the world being spared such an epidemic, it would probably be North Korea, since they control access to their country so very tightly. Other places that might dodge the infection are those that are remote and infrequently visited by outsiders. It would be a good time to live in Tristan da Cunha.

But unless we're honestly looking to lock down the country the way that North Korea has been locked down, we'd be wiser to focus on issues other than border permeability when dealing with public health. I realize that infectious disease is getting linked to illegal immigration across our southern border by the right-wing press, but that's not where the big risk is of disease transmission. We have 32 million foreign arrivals in the US per year and probably even more US citizens arriving back in the US from foreign visits. They come by the millions to international airports like New York, Miami, and LA. Their transit is so fast that often they can be carrying infectious diseases that haven't even incubated long enough for them to feel sick (unlike with the slower process of coming clandestinely by land from the south). Those are the vectors that epidemiologists worry most about, for transmitting foreign pathogens to the US. If something like Ebola shows up in the US, it's most likely it will come by way of an American hopping a transatlantic jet back from Africa, not some poor kid making his way through a slow and arduous crossing of our southern border.

 

[Arkady]

Ebola is a very awful disease, killing about 70% of infected.
But as far as it hasn't spread far from African continent since it's been discovered 40 years ago, it seems to me that our media is just creating a new news-break for us to worry about something when there're more important subjects like the illegal crisis or the unstoppable wars in the Middle East.

It's the August "silly season" for the news media. In August, there usually isn't much of great importance going on, so the media focus on sensational stories that have little real importance. Do you remember the Summer of 2001? It's called the "Summer of the Shark" because that year the media decided to obsess, especially in August, about a supposed epidemic of shark attacks (there was no statistically significant increase in attacks, but it grabbed the viewers). Then September 2001 came around, and gave the media something of actual importance to cover.

 

[Arkady]

Really, to me the most bothersome thing here is that even stinking Ebola has become politicized by the left/right. One can't freaking brush his teeth without it erupting into free trade bristle harvesting and the conspiracy of fluoridating. Let's just take the shortcut and break up our nation now...why sit through years of the ongoing Balkanization and hatred?
:-/

Sad stuff.

Do you see an effort on the left to politicize it? I've seen attempts on the right to link it to border security or to some supposed neglect on the part of Obama, but I haven't seen politicization from the left. Have you?

 

[ChloeFlora]

It's the August "silly season" for the news media. In August, there usually isn't much of great importance going on, so the media focus on sensational stories that have little real importance. Do you remember the Summer of 2001? It's called the "Summer of the Shark" because that year the media decided to obsess, especially in August, about a supposed epidemic of shark attacks (there was no statistically significant increase in attacks, but it grabbed the viewers). Then September 2001 came around, and gave the media something of actual importance to cover.

We can't call Ebola is unimportant, cause it's killing lots of people. But the news publishers use Ebola to cover the failures of our government in internal and foreign affaires!

 

[RickWA]

Do you see an effort on the left to politicize it? I've seen attempts on the right to link it to border security or to some supposed neglect on the part of Obama, but I haven't seen politicization from the left. Have you?

You're joking, right? This forum already has folks at odds over this virus. Do we import it via bringing infected Americans home or do we not? The administration favors bringing them home, all lefties hop on board. In response, most righties here reflexively oppose it (most, not all - personally I'd bring these folks here for treatment as well).

Nothing can be extracted from political "us-them".

 

[marvin martian]

Do you see an effort on the left to politicize it? I've seen attempts on the right to link it to border security or to some supposed neglect on the part of Obama, but I haven't seen politicization from the left. Have you?

You "haven't seen" the post mocking conservatives over the fact that the two Americans who contracted the virus were working for a Christian missionary group in Africa?

What am I saying, of course you didn't see it! Yyou still have the reality filter turned on in your browser. You really should take care of that, it's making you look increasingly foolish...