When Caring Isn't Enough

Sounds awful, don't it? Liberals have been telling us for so long that as long as you care about something, it doesn't matter what you actually do about it.

Well, Ebola don't care either.  It's a simple form of life, the simplest really - a virus - that  just does what it does by replicating inside a host. By doing so, it tries to kill you. And it's pretty good at what it does.

When you bring it home with you, people get scared.  Because a virus doesn't give a hoot about you. You can't reason with it, you can't plead with it, you can't threaten it. It doesn't look at pictures of your kids and smile lovingly.

It's kinda like Sharia Law. And it's here.

The NY Post lets us in on the Ebola Boy's progress in NYC.

An extraordinary number of Bellevue Hospital staffers called in sick on Friday rather than treat the city’s first Ebola patient — and those who showed up were terrified to enter his isolation chamber, sources told The Post.

“The nurses on the floor are miserable with a ‘why me?’ attitude, scared to death and overworked because all their co-workers called out sick,” one source said.

“One nurse even went as far as to pretend she was having a stroke to get out of working there, but once they cleared her in the ER they sent her back up,” the source added.

Dr. Craig Spencer is being treated by nurses working in teams of two, “with one serving as a buddy watching the other,” said Health and Hospitals Corporation spokeswoman Ana Marengo, who denied there was a sickout.

You perhaps will have noticed, Dear Reader, that the article tells us "Dr Craig Spencer is being treated by nurses working in teams of two..." and not a single mention of doctors getting their hands dirty.

That is because there is a new organization of socially responsible and morally aware doctors forming in America today; they call themselves "Doctors Without Ebola And Want To Keep It That Way."

The Doctors Without Borders volunteer — who is in stable condition — has even been putting his medical skills to use, lecturing the staff about proper treatment.

Lecturing, as in sobbing uncontrollably into a telephone that no one will answer.

“As a doctor, he knows a lot about medicine, so he would call the nurses station all day and going back and forth with doctors on what to do,” the source said.

And it worked so well for him. I'm sure the nurses are faithfully following his incessant, hysterical instructions to the letter while the supervising doctors long ago vacated the premises and are now drinking Chlorox  martinis (microwaved, not stirred) at the club.

Doctors Without Common Sense

The New Look

- Smart Ebola Casual Wear - 

From across the pond we hear of a Doctors Without Borders physician who was so caring that he brought the deadly hemorrhagic virus back to The Big Apple Ebola.

Three people are now under quarantine and "disease detectives" are frantically seeking others who may have been infected whilst Doc Spencer spent a week wandering about NYC happily leaking ebola bugs and enjoying conjugal pleasures with his fiancee.

Hmmm - remember the part about body fluids? Welcome home honey...

New York Ebola doctor's fiancee and TWO friends quarantined amid fears he gave them deadly virus: Potential victims in isolation - and there could be more after medic spent SEVEN days riding the subway, bowling and traveling in Uber taxis

• Dr Craig Spencer, 33, who returned to the U.S. from Guinea, was admitted to Bellevue Hospital on Thursday

• He flew through Brussels, Belgium and arrived in New York on October 17

• The doctor was taken to hospital from his home in Harlem on October 23 after developing an 103F fever, diarrhea and nausea

• Spencer reported feeling sluggish on Tuesday but only developed a temperature on Thursday morning

• On Wednesday night, Dr Spencer, who had been self-monitoring his symptoms, went to a bowling alley in Brooklyn by subway and taxi

• His fiancee Morgan Dixon is being quarantined as a precaution at Bellevue Hospital; His two friends are in self-quarantine at home

• 'Disease detectives' have fanned out to trace the patients' contacts in order to identify anyone who may be at risk

• President Obama is offering federal support to New York as it responds to its first Ebola case

Once again the barn door is shut, but not locked, after the horses are gone. When will they finally start to quarantine everyone who enters the US after spending time in an African shithole?

More here.

How Ebola Is Done

Nigeria managed to stop ebola in its tracks. What did they do?

...there has not been a new case of the virus since September 5. And since September 24 the country's Ebola isolation and treatment wards have sat empty. If by Monday, October 20 there are still no new cases, Nigeria, unlike the U.S., will be declared Ebola free by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

What can we learn from this African country's success quashing an Ebola outbreak?

• Fast and thorough tracing of all potential contacts

• Ongoing monitoring of all of these contacts

• Rapid isolation of potentially infectious contacts

Apparently Nigeria has people who know what they're doing running their disease prevention. Wonder if they'd like to come here...

Ebola - Obama Owns It

That's right Barak, you own it.

"Americans shouldn't be concerned about the prospects of contagion here in the United States, short term," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Because this is not an airborne disease."

Obama stressed that the disease can only be transmitted through bodily fluids. And once the person carrying it is isolated and run through a tight protocol, it isn't difficult to contain. 

He admitted that Ebola is "breaking loose" in western Africa, due to poor quarantines and "people aren't being trained properly."

Quote here.

What's interesting is that the interweb tubes seemed to have been sanitized a bit, "scrubbed" if you wish, for this remark. This quote is from a September 7th posting on The Hill. Most every other quote I can find is about Obama fighting Ebola - but most dated no later than September 16th.

It costs about $1,400 to fly round trip from Liberia to the USA. The number of flights departing from Liberia has recently been drastically reduced.

The problem is this, how many people have already entered the country from this festering dump of a nation? Now  that five airports are being heavily monitored (we hope!), will desperate Ebola victims find other airports for entry?
From the above chart you can see that Atlanta, Miami and San Jose have the most flights from Liberia. International travel is not easy to monitor. This past August alone, Miami Airport processed 933,219 international passengers, over 12 million for this year so far.

While it is difficult to get 2014 West African native-born immigration statistics into the US, there are other sources that supply the number of immigrants from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - the three countries where Ebola continues to spread uncontrollably. Between 2008 - 2012 the US Census Bureau reports that there were a total of 117,000 immigrants from these countries into the US. That's an average of 23,400 immigrants each year - almost a thousand a month from these three countries.

CDC - Do You Believe Them?

The CDC recently released the above chart that allegedly shows just how contagious Ebola really is.

The problem is, do you trust the CDC?

Every government agency has become politicized by the Obama administration. First there was no danger of Ebola coming to the US (right from Obama's mouth); now there's at least 100 people exposed to the disease and an entire family under armed guard for violating quarantine orders.

I haven't seen a single instance of anyone under armed quarantine because they were exposed to Hepatitis C, have you?

Another Gift From Dear Leader

From Powerline:

Twin Cities internist Chris Foley is a faithful reader whom I know in his professional capacity. Today he writes to address the case of the mystery virus:

It might be worth a short commentary re the connection between the sudden “mystery” virus that is hospitalizing children all over the US and the indiscriminate distribution of illegal alien kids “all over the US.” To wit: “Human rhinoviruses and enteroviruses in influenza-like illness in Latin America.”

‘Tis anything but a mystery, yet the MSM appears utterly blinded.

In a follow-up message, Dr. Foley writes a little more tentatively:

This is basically the same virus commonly seen in the equatorial Americas and South America. The very odd emergence of this virus at this time – especially just prior to the new school year and now fueled by the congregation of children in schools – demands an explanat

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warning hospitals and doctors that “now is the time to prepare,” has issued a six-page Ebola “checklist” to help healthcare workers quickly determine if patients are infected.

While the CDC does not believe that there are new cases of Ebola in the United States, the assumption in the checklist is that it is only a matter of time before the virus hits home.

ion. The only plausible one is that this has been brought here from south of the – now non-existent – border.

Of course no one in the MSM wants to speculate where this virus is coming from:

A respiratory illness that has already sickened more than a thousand children in 10 states is likely to become a nationwide problem, doctors say.

The disease hasn't been officially identified but officials suspect a rare respiratory virus called human enterovirus 68. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus is related to the rhinovirus, which causes the common cold.

According to Mark Pallansch, director of the Division of Viral Diseases at the CDC, similar cases to the ones in Colorado have been cropping up across the U.S. At least 10 states -- Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Georgia -- have reported suspected outbreaks of human enterovirus 68 and requested CDC support.

It's a mystery doncha know. And this isn't the only disease that's ramping up. The Center for Disease Control is advising us to tighten our lugnuts because the Ebola hemorrhagic fever bug is our next pit stop.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warning hospitals and doctors that “now is the time to prepare,” has issued a six-page Ebola “checklist” to help healthcare workers quickly determine if patients are infected.

While the CDC does not believe that there are new cases of Ebola in the United States, the assumption in the checklist is that it is only a matter of time before the virus hits home.

And why stop there? Under Obama's administration we'll all enjoy the return of the Black Plague and leprosy.

The Top Ten List

Today's TOP TEN leading causes of death in the US are...

• Heart disease: 597,689      (24.2%)
• Cancer: 574,743      (23.3%)
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080      (5.6%)
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476      (5.2%)
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859      (4.9%)
• Alzheimer's disease: 83,494      (3.4%)
• Diabetes: 69,071      (2.8%)
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476    (2.0%)
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097      (2.0%)
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364      (1.5%)

Source:
National Vital Statistics Reports
Volume 61, Number 4
May 8, 2013
Deaths: Final Data for 2010
Table B, page 58

Buried in these numbers is another cause of death that is not so apparent and does not receive as much attention; alcohol abuse. The CDC reports that:

People who drink too much cost the U.S. economy $223.5 billion a year, and governments pay more than 60 percent of their health care costs, federal health experts reported on Monday.

Alcohol abuse kills 79,000 people a year, the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Most of the costs came from binge drinking, which the CDC defines as four or more drinks per occasion for a woman, and five or more drinks per occasion for a man.

“It is striking that over three-quarters of the cost of excessive alcohol consumption is due to binge drinking, which is reported by about 15 percent of U.S. adults,” the CDC’s Dr. Robert Brewer said in a statement.

That would put alcohol abuse at #7 on the top ten list. And it is an entirely preventable cause of death. The treatment is simple but, oh, so very difficult for so many.

I lost my dad and a sister to alcohol abuse. My dad died in 1990 at the age of 64. My baby sister died in 2004, she was only 46.

Sometimes the numbers can smack you right in the face. For other others, not so much. There were only two real comments on the CDC article, both of them disparaging the loss of productivity figures.

The CDC uses the Cost of Illness (COI) index to determine economic costs for any particular disease. The methodology for determining COI is detailed here for those who are interested.

So, ever wonder why doctors and hospitals have all that paperwork to do? This is one of the reasons.