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Ebola Has Made It To the United States
An anonymous reader sends news that the CDC has confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed on U.S. soil.
An unnamed patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas was placed in isolation while awaiting test results for the dreaded virus. Apparently, the patient had traveled recently to a West African country, where the disease is spreading, and later developed symptoms that suggested Ebola. A blood specimen from the patient was sent to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, a testing process that can take 24 to 48 hours to confirm an Ebola infection — or not. The results came back about 3:32 p.m.
In other Ebola news, outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal appear to be completely contained.
Why are you telling us? I'm sure the nincompoops at CDC are standing around by the water cooler trying to figure out what to do and they're certainly not reading slashdot! Quick! Get on the phone and lend them your expertise in this area!
Why SHOULDN'T first world countries get to share the misery of their less fortunate bretheren, anyway?
Because they bring it on themselves. By tolerating corrupt government, they squander resources, and have nothing left to spend on healthcare infrastructure. Corruption also leads to poverty, since people don't work hard if their property will be stolen. It also leads to deep distrust of government and authority, which leads to distrust of health care providers, which leads to looting of clinics.
Because why shouldn't people that manage their society's competently be punished for less competent societies failing?
Lets say your country works really hard and does everything right. They keep a reasonable budget, work hard, enact sensible policies, and generally just do a good job.
Then lets say your neighbor is full of complete fucktards that spend more money then they have, slack off doing nothing half the time, enact dumb counter productive laws, and generally make every mistake possible one after the other...
Should country A1 be punished for the incompetence of country B1? I would argue not since the people in the first country had no control over what the other country did.
Now you seem to be suggesting that all countries are responsible for all countries. That is interesting because responsibility and power/rights go hand in hand. So if I am responsible for how other countries act and perform... then I must likewise have the right to dictate policies in those countries. In effect, for your argument to make any sense, we'd have to have a global government and it would be that global government that would be responsible for everything.
No such global government exists. The UN is a diplomatic institution and not a governing body despite their aspirations. Their authority comes with the consent of member nations and is precisely limited by treaties that would be binding with or without the UN. So the UN is not a governing body.
And that means I am not responsible for the failures of other countries. Not my fault.
If they want to give up their domestic freedoms and make their nation subordinate to another... and that other nation agrees to take responsibility for them... then fine. Lacking that... obviously we are not responsible for them.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Because why shouldn't people that manage their society's competently be punished for less competent societies failing?
Yeah, sure, because the US has *zero* responsibility for Liberia's current state of affairs.
Learn your history.
Wow - comprehending the naivete of such a simple-minded and non-integrative worldview which is, unfortunately shared by most and probably one of the largest contributers to the mess we're in and only making bigger every day makes me remember that I sometimes wonder why oh why didn't I take the BLUE PILL!!
I'm not sure what you're asking. Texas is obviously a 3rd world country. That's where Ebola has the best chance. The absolute worst healthcare for the poor, superstition supersedes science, public "schools" that teach fairy stories, byzantine legal structure, corrupt governance... Nope, no surprises here. Ebola's a perfect fit with Texas.
If Ebola cross-mutates with the rabies virus,
The probability of which is less that that of a world killing asteroid hitting the earth tomorrow. There are a lot of "ifs" that can be speculated about but almost impossible one like that don't need to be advertise. Your scare tactics propably won't cause a panic in the type of people who read this site. They are generally more intelligent and scientifically minded for that.
Because why shouldn't people that manage their society's competently be punished for less competent societies failing?
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that each of the various countries of the world are hermetically sealed off from one another. It is not true, of course. What we do in the USA does have an affect on others around the world, just as their actions have an affect on us.
Lets say your country works really hard and does everything right. They keep a reasonable budget, work hard, enact sensible policies, and generally just do a good job.
Seriously?!? You are claiming that we in the USA are doing everything right?!? Are you really making that claim? Have you been paying attention the last few years?
Then lets say your neighbor is full of complete fucktards that spend more money then they have, slack off doing nothing half the time, enact dumb counter productive laws, and generally make every mistake possible one after the other...
And this is a pretty apt description of the US Congress of the last few years, at least.
Should country A1 be punished for the incompetence of country B1? I would argue not since the people in the first country had no control over what the other country did.
There you go, again, suggesting that all the countries of the world are hermetically sealed off from each other. Clue: you can find an American expatriate in just about every country, just about every continent of the world. These expats do in fact exert (sometimes greater, sometimes lesser) control over what goes on in those other countries.
Now you seem to be suggesting that all countries are responsible for all countries. That is interesting because responsibility and power/rights go hand in hand. So if I am responsible for how other countries act and perform... then I must likewise have the right to dictate policies in those countries. In effect, for your argument to make any sense, we'd have to have a global government and it would be that global government that would be responsible for everything.
Readjust your tinfoil hat! It seems to be cutting off the oxygen supply to your brain.
And that means I am not responsible for the failures of other countries. Not my fault.
If they want to give up their domestic freedoms and make their nation subordinate to another... and that other nation agrees to take responsibility for them... then fine. Lacking that... obviously we are not responsible for them.
Grow up, little man! If you want to go live on a deserted island where you can create your own libertarian utopia, then go! No one will stop you. But here in this modern world we all have connections with each other. Some are intended and wanted, some are not. If you want to debate what the extent of our responsibility to others in far away places is, then fair call. But to pretend that we who live in a modern society don't have any responsibility for anyone else is just plain asinine.
Yes, the point has came up again and again that ebola has mutated to an airborne form before. In 2012 Canadian researchers showed that Ebola Zaire could be transmitted in an airborne fashion from pigs to monkeys. Being transmitted between humans that way doesn't seem like a very large leap.
My thoughts are that it wouldn't exactly have to "go airborne" to become a catastrophe. MRSA isn't exactly airborne, but its nasty, sometimes fatal, and endemic to hospitals and health clubs all over the pretty sanitary (compared to Liberia) United States. Replacing MRSA with something that is essentially untreatable except for supportive care and is 80 percent fatal would be pretty damned heinous.
Past ebola outbreaks tended to burn themselves out pretty quickly. This one hasn't. Maybe that is because ebola finally got into an urban area. Maybe it is because all three of these countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea) have dysfunctional health care systems and are recovering from horrific civil wars -- on the other hand, that sounds a lot like The Congo and Zaire before it. Something sure seems to be different this time. That should keep people up at night. I'd feel better if some smart people from the CDC or WHO or USAMRIID were trying to figure out what us different this time.
Another thing that comes to mind is that quality, up-to-date information about this outbreak is hard to find. About the most reliable source is the wikipedia page on the outbreak. I am kind of worried about the bland reassurances that we have nothing to worry about, and then reading opinion pieces like this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09... ... which to me, translated from epidemiologist-speak, seems to be saying, "run for the hills."
Tolerating? They don't really have a choice, unfortunately arms merchants, manufacturers and other countries (incl. the USA) have long been supplying these "corrupt governments". This isn't the 1800s where the army and the individual have the same weapons.
Or the person traveled there on vacation and came back with it.
Vacation? In Liberia? In the middle of the biggest Ebola epidemic? Is that person batshit insane?
Most of these governments are democracies.
In not much more than name. Your view of africa is exceptionally myopic.
Africans have a long tradition of "The Big Man" as leader,
While it is true that the only people who can effectively change a country's government are the citizens themselves, your reductionism to the point of condescension disqualifies you from having a meaningful opinion.
No, but definitely the time to enact common sense, and if anybody says, "but that's offensive to..." give them a good punch in the mouth. Good common sense, like not allowing people to fly from those countries.
Except that if you cancel all the flights, medical personnel and drugs and equipment have no way to get there. Which means that the disease can't be contained. Which means that it spread to places that there are still flights allowed, before you are aware of it, or have countermeasures. What do you do then? Cut off all flights to that country, rinse and repeat?
The people who actually do disease control are warning, based on science, that the douchebag reactionary approach to this is going to kill hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people, and put even First World countries at risk. Sorry, America isn't going to shoot its way out of this one.
So the US is responsible for the fuck ups of every country we've ever had contact with for the rest of time?
Tell you what, if the US must pay for countries we had contact with that are doing badly... does that mean we get paid or some sort of compensation for the countries that did well? South Korea for example... do they owe us an ongoing tax for not being like north korea? Or does your little line of logic only flow in one direction? Is the US only expected to pay other people but no one has to pay us for good things or hey... why not pay the US for bad things done to it? I mean... there are countries that harm the US on occasion... can we expect a payment there?
See, you're just very comfortable with drawing on the national account because you think it is infinite money. People have a hard time with very large numbers. They tend to see them, go cross eyed, and just identify it as a number too large to be bothered with... which tends to mean that many see large numbers as infinite numbers.
Well, the US treasury is not infinite. The numbers have to be balanced at some point. So despite there being a lot of money in there, it does not mean that you can draw upon it infinitely without feeding more into it. Here again, people will say "just raise taxes"... well, okay... are YOU going to pay those taxes? Most people that say such things don't mean raise taxes on them. They mean raise it on someone else. Which is very cute. I'd be very happy with doing all sorts of things if I didn't have to pay for it. Mind if I push some policies and you pay for it while I don't? See how annoying that is?... If you're at all capable of breaking out of your cognitive dissonance then you've joined the conversation and have begun to understand. If you haven't... oh well. For some... sail boats will always be clouds on the horizon.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Even domestically it doesn't work. Lets say the government prints lots of money. What are they spending it on? Even if they just use it to pay employees those employees will then go out into the economy and exchange those dollars for goods and services. if the currency is inflationary then the prices will creep up in proportion to the decrease in the scarcity of the dollars.
If any beggar can throw 100,000 dollars on the table then that means prices for a lot of things go up. And the faster they print money... or add zeros to bank accounts... the faster the currency inflates.
Even if you try what Roosevelt and Chavez tried with price controls, you then run into a problem with goods and dollars being valued differently in and out of the country. if these differences become extreme enough then you'll get smuggling. People will either smuggle under priced goods out of the country to make a profit or smuggle over priced items into the country to make a profit. Any big price difference or lack of legal limit on supply is going to trigger a black market. The soviets couldn't shut the black market down so ... good luck trying in the western world.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If my life is on the line, I don't have to worry about how much it costs.
I call BS. If your life is on the line, you *won't* worry about how much it costs, unless it actually happens to save your life, in which case the cost will probably leave you financially crippled for whatever life said treatment left you with. Also, aren't there a number of cases where people didn't get treatment solely because they couldn't afford it?
I'm not so sure of near-communist countries where beaurocrats are in charge of these things.
Sounds like you've been reading too much Sarah Palin propaganda. I'm not aware of any public health care systems where decisions for treatment are made by anyone but doctors. It's the US where insurance bureaucrats make life or death decisions. Keep drinking their kool-aid.