Thread: Ebola Isn't Really a Threat to America, but Your Paranoia Probably Is

Ruth Marcus: Actually, flu is the virus you should really be worrying about

By Ruth Marcus Columnist October 14 at 7:36 PM
If you are worried about contracting Ebola, I have two suggestions.

First, stop. Second, get a flu shot.

On the first: If you live in the United States, your chances of getting Ebola are vanishingly small — even if you are a health-care worker, or a journalist who travels to Africa to report on the epidemic.

That is not to diminish the significance of the problem. For Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the virus represents a public health catastrophe, one with dire implications for the continent and beyond.

For the United States, it represents a serious challenge to public health protocols — a reminder about the interconnectedness of the planet in an age of jet travel and a wake-up call about the perils of laxity in the face of a deadly disease.

But as Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health usefully tried to point out on numerous talk shows, there is an important distinction between stopping an Ebola outbreak and preventing an individual infection.

“We’re still quite confident, because of our ability to reach out, do the contact tracing and isolate people who are infected, that we won’t have a public outbreak,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“That’s a different thing than an individual health-care worker unfortunately getting infected.”

It is human nature, reinforced by journalistic instinct, to ignore this context. We worry about the plane crash and suppress the far more likely, and therefore far more terrifying prospect, of the bad driver down the block. We ignore the mundane tragedy of predictable and, in many cases, preventable deaths — from smoking, from gunshots, from the side effects of obesity — in favor of the newer, newsier threat.

This may have been good statistics and bad parenting, but when my children worried about being killed by terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11, I advised them to fear drivers on the Beltway. Being alert to the possibility of the black-swan event doesn’t mean ignoring the far more likely reality.

My profession, to put it mildly, doesn’t help matters. This is both ingrained response and business imperative. The news is the man who bites the dog. There are no viewers for the plane that doesn’t fall from the sky. The adage, “If it bleeds, it leads,” is terrifyingly apt when it comes to hemorrhagic fever. So we swarm to Dallas, interview neighbors, tweet breaking-news bulletins. We are serving the public but also disserving it.

People get riled up, for little rational reason. They and some of their politicians clamor to restrict entry from Ebola-infected countries, which could be counterproductive, and to step up screenings of travelers, which makes people feel safer without being much safer.

Which brings us to your flu shot — something that could actually protect you from a serious illness.

There is an interesting debate about how many people die of the flu each year. The standard, prod-the-masses-into-getting-shots figure is north of 30,000. In fact, the numbers are dodgy — flu is not necessarily listed as the cause of death, even when it is — and vary widely from year to year.

A 2010 analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of 31 influenza seasons, from 1976 to 2007, found annual numbers in the United States ranging from 3,349 to 48,614. The World Health Organization estimates that annual flu epidemics “result in about 3 million to 5 million cases of severe illness, and about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths” worldwide.

Even so, a disappointingly low percentage of Americans get flu shots each year, even as the availability of vaccinations increases and the cost drops. By the end of flu season, the share of those who have received shots tends to be less than half, according to the CDC. “I don’t need it,” people tend to say (28 percent, in a 2011 RAND Corp. study), or “I didn’t get around to it” (16 percent).

I write this with some sheepishness, as someone who hasn’t managed to get around to it in the last few years — and, even worse, hasn’t managed to rouse herself to get around to it for the kids either.

That was dumb. The vaccine isn’t foolproof, but it can prevent you from contracting the flu and perhaps make your case milder if you do get sick. I’m marching us to the drugstore this afternoon.

You should, too. Stop fretting about the unlikely. Do something about the predictable.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z3

By Thin Margin, Most Think US Is Prepared for Ebola Virus

Wall Street Journal

- ‎17 minutes ago‎

Only slightly more than half of Americans think the U.S. is prepared to handle an Ebola outbreak despite efforts by federal health officials to reassure the public the country can contain the virus, a new survey shows...

The flu kills about 36,000 people a year in the United States...


http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/11/health...ions-answered/

. . . We could all rest easier if there were an anti-Ebloa vaccine.

That is something that could protect people far more effectively than any tightening of security at airports or along the border.

Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health said the NIH has been working toward that goal since 2001 and would have gotten there, if not for one thing.

“Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this [outbreak] that would’ve gone through clinical trials and would have been ready,” Collins told the Huffington Post.

Why, you may ask, did the NIH not have the money to do the work that, Collins, said, “would have made all the difference?”

Easy answer: Republican budget-cutting in Congress has held down funding for the NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a more than a decade.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topof...014-story.html

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f9/5-diseases-m...-ebola-312841/

The Craziest Things People Are Saying About Ebola

By TARA HAELLE
October 17, 2014

Along with the onslaught of news stories about Ebola have come the inevitable conspiracy theories, some half-baked and nonsensical and others thoroughly researched—laid out to reel in even reasonable folks.

In one corner of the Internet, we learn that President Obama created the Ebola virus—or Obama-Ebola—to “infect the DNA of Christians and to destroy Jesus so that a New Age of Liberal Darkness can rise in America.” Obamacare, we are told, is the cover organization to find the cure, and the virus will infect all Americans in the next month.

In another corner, we learn that Ebola doesn’t actually exist at all. The disease currently raging through West Africa was brought there by the Red Cross, who injected people with an illness so that American troops could be sent to steal Nigeria’s oil and Sierra Leone’s diamonds. Another explanation is simple: All the negativity and selfishness in the universe caused Ebola. Yet another tells us that two women who died from Ebola have risen from the dead and that the zombie apocalypse is beginning (nope, not true).

It would be impossible to catalogue every single crazy idea flitting about the Internet, but they do have something in common: They’re all attempts to regain control of a situation in which people feel helpless, as the research of cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky reveals. With no vaccine or cure for Ebola, the disease’s high death rate and uncertainty about whether or when they might encounter someone in the early symptomatic stages of the illness, people construct narratives that makes them feel better, as Maggie Koerth-Baker explains in the New York Times.

Although the ideas sound crazy, the people perpetuating them don’t have to be. “Perfectly sane minds possess an incredible capacity for developing narratives,” Koerth-Baker writes, because we all have an amygdala, a part of the brain that compels us to constantly reassess “information in an attempt to create a coherent and understandable narrative, to understand what just happened, what threats still exist and what should be done now.”

And with Ebola stories permeating the news right now, there’s a lot of information to reassess.

Here’s just a handful of the crazy theories likely making it into your social media streams or being passed along in the bleachers at your kid’s soccer game.

***

Is Ebola airborne? Will it go airborne eventually?

Ebola is not an airborne disease. Ebola can only be transmitted through direct contact of broken skin or mucous membranes with bodily fluids of the infected patient: blood, sweat, tears, saliva, vomit, stool, urine, breast milk and semen.

But, could it become airborne? Nothing is ever 100 percent in science, but it’s very unlikely, according to Kent State infectious disease specialist Tara C. Smith. “To my knowledge, we’ve never seen a human virus change transmission routes in that manner,” she says. “It would involve major modifications in how the virus binds to, replicates in and is released from host cells.” Some have expressed concerns about Ebola being transmitted in droplets that can be “aerosolized,” but these concerns have generally been misinterpreted and blown out of proportion.

Should I should avoid air travel in the United States lest I risk catching Ebola?

It is possible to contract Ebola on a plane, but it requires more than just being on the plane with someone else who has Ebola. Again, transmission requires direct contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids while he/she is symptomatic. Even though the CDC is contacting and monitoring all the passengers on the flight infected nurse Amber Vinson took, it is doing so out of an abundance of caution.

Even if Vinson had been sweating profusely on the flight, it is unlikely she would have transmitted the virus. A person’s viral load, and hence his/her infectiousness, correlates with the severity of his/her symptoms. Vinson’s temperature was only 99.5, below the 100.4 threshold set by the CDC—which it has recently lowered from 101.5—to be considered symptomatic. By the time someone’s fluids contain significant amounts of the virus, that person is too sick to be up and about.

Will Ebola kill millions in the next few months?

One story going around is that five million people will die from Ebola in the next two months. That calculation is implausible. Ebola has a basic reproduction number, or R0, of approximately 2, which means a currently infected person will infect two others. While that does mean cases can double with each infection, Ebola is still not nearly as contagious as many other infectious diseases, such as measles and whooping cough, and simply cannot spread to millions of people quickly. The highest estimate comes from the CDC, which estimates that anywhere from 550,000 to 1.4 million cases could occur by early 2015 in West Africa. But that’s only if no “additional interventions or changes in community behavior” occur, and these kinds of changes are already taking place.

The most recent update from the World Health Organization puts the number of Ebola cases worldwide at nearly 9,000 and the number of deaths at almost 4,500. A report from the World Bank presents two possible scenarios, one with cases reaching 20,000 with containment by early 2015, and one with cases reaching 200,000 and lasting into mid-2015. Similarly, a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine projects that cases and deaths will grow into the thousands per week without better containment. These are deeply concerning numbers for West Africa. But neither forecast involves millions of deaths.

Will ISIL use Ebola as a bioweapon?

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin recently expressed his concerns that Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria might intentionally infect themselves with Ebola and then hop a plane to the United States to infect us all. It’s “a real a present danger,” he said, echoing fears reported even in otherwise credible publications.

So, should we be worried? No, according to both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, who say there exists “no specific credible intelligence” that ISIL fighters are trying to use any form of bioterrorism with any virus or other disease. And neither is Hamas—as Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) suggested in a speech today—or any other terrorist group or lone wolf.

What would it take for a self-infected suicide Ebola-“bomber” to infect others? Walking around vomiting on people or spitting in their eyes isn’t the most efficient way to kill a bunch of people. And by the time the Ebola-bomber would be infectious enough for that to be even remotely effective, he/she would likely be too sick to walk.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...#ixzz3GRyFGase

Rush Limbaugh Admits He’s Causing Panic Over Ebola To Help GOP Win Midterm Elections

By: Justin Baragona
Thursday, October, 16th, 2014, 6:06 pm



While on the air Thursday, conservative gasbag Rush Limbaugh took exception with Fox News anchor Shepard Smith’s plea on Wednesday for pundits and politicians to pull back on their hyperbole over the Ebola cases in Texas. Smith utilized a few minutes of air time on Wednesday to provide only the facts on the Ebola virus and point out that America is not dealing with an outbreak. He asked that those in the media be more responsible in their coverage of the story and that radio and television personalities stop fear mongering in an effort to stir up panic for political gain.

Well, this didn’t sit well with El Rushbo on Thursday. Ever since the story broke that a man in Texas had contracted Ebola while in West Africa and carried the disease with him to the United States, Limbaugh has made it his mission to blame President Obama for it and stoke as much fear as possible.

While Limbaugh has definitely not been alone in this endeavor, his megaphone is one of the largest around, as despite sagging ratings, he still has the #1 radio program in America.

Limbaugh first claimed that he wasn’t trying to cause panic. Instead, he was just displaying concern because of the incompetence of the Obama Administration and other government departments.

Below is from the transcript of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

There is no desire here to spread a panic, and I am not secretly harboring a belief that we have a wide outbreak and they’re not telling us. I don’t believe that. Not yet. My concern is what it always is. One thing you can count on. Whether you’re a new Article here, whether you’re a veteran, one thing you can count on from me is consistency.If there are people who are fearful of a panic out there, or if there are people who think they’re not being told the truth, it’s because we have a level of incompetence I have yet to see in my life prior to this. The point that I’m trying to make with all of these things I highlight is the utter incompetence of the people that you think are trustworthy in these institutions that everybody counts on.

Limbaugh then proceeded to induce panic in his audience over an upcoming epidemic by claiming the government isn’t going to do anything about it. They won’t try to contain the virus on West Africa. Instead, they will just allow it to spread further. They will continue to reject ideas from good, God-fearing conservatives who truly care about America for purely political reasons.

Therefore, per Rush, he is just “trying to alert” the audience in anticipation of the upcoming elections so they choose wisely. They can either stick with the incompetent leaders currently in charge of certain institutions who are going to bring death and destruction to our country via a deadly virus, or they can elect more Republicans who will fix everything.

My point to you is, just like with Obamacare, and just like with a number of other things with this administration, the election coming up in November is crucial, and whatever is really known about this is not going to be shared with us until after that point. But more than that, I’m just trying to alert you to be curious and to question some of these things that you’re hearing, because it’s nonsensical.

I think it’s not too powerful to say it’s tragic that we have such levels of incompetence in positions of leadership that are really important.

Now, I know why we have such a high degree of incompetence. It’s because the people that are choosing those to lead these institutions are themselves incompetent and have never really done anything. They’ve not accomplished anything.[/COLOR]

Anyway, one other thing, folks, about the criticism here. I just want you to understand, the same people who are illustrating their blatant incompetence in all of this, they’re the same people telling you that there is global warming. They are the same people telling you you’re not paying enough in taxes. The same people that promised you shovel-ready jobs and stimulus spending. These are the same people that told you you could keep your doctor. The same people told you you can keep your insurance plan if you liked it, lied to you about that, same people.

Obviously, Shep Smith touched a nerve with Limbaugh. In Limbaugh’s mind, he sees Fox News as kindred spirits if not direct allies. While he occasionally will criticize the network, he only does so if he feels they aren’t pushing the conservative narrative enough regarding a specific subject.

When one of the network’s most visible anchors blasts the Conservative Entertainment Complex, it feels like a direct betrayal. Sure, Smith is perhaps the only one that has any credibility left at the network, but he still works for Roger Ailes and needs to toe the company line. Limbaugh is essentially telling those at Fox News that Shep needs to be put in his place.

While it was genuinely refreshing to see someone at Fox News, of all places, call out the right-wing noise machine for being irresponsible, it isn’t going to stop Limbaugh and others. It will only embolden them. Expect non-stop fear mongering and Chicken Little declarations for the next three weeks, minimum.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/10/...elections.html

1. Ebola by the numbers
   
   Ebola deaths in the US:1.
   
   Ebola cases diagnosed in the US: 3.
   
   10/17/2014

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