The Ebola Outbreak

AssassinsMace said:

The US doesn't need troops to counter China in Africa especially when there are no Chinese troops deployed in Africa. I bet one reason the US is afraid is a terrorist organization getting their hands on Ebola. So many people infected it wouldn't be hard for a terrorist organization to get a sample. The troops are there probably to control containment of those infected which fits nicely with the crisis.

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Imagine if somehow the terrorist org managed to get Ebola virus to the US and spread them (e.g drinking water system, maybe)

Issue one, The US has already aid workers on the ground, in case you missed it the first American cases were volunteers from infected areas.
Issue two, the "Boots on the ground" are less likely to be fighting units. The US Army is composed of a wide variety of units and commands the vast majority are not trigger pullers there logistics services. The three that seem most appropriate US Army corps of Engineers for construction, US Army logistics services for Bio4 gear and operations of shipments and air logistics. And USAMRIID... Oh wait you should know a little about that Balance...
USAMRIID has been on the ground in Africa monitoring this for years. Planning for just such a situation.
Issue three samples of Ebola would not be hard to come by. Surviving samples of Ebola is another matter.Ebola us a biohazard level 4. To understand that. Bio level 1 is not infectious to humans doctors working there just wear gloves and masks are not needed. Bio level 2 demands surgical masks and gloves its not lethal to humans and has a low chance of infection. Bio level 3 is where it gets serious, coveralls gloves and surgical hoods are needed chances of human infections are fair, but controllable. Lethally is possible but steps can easily be taken. Bio level 4 means you don't even trust the air the doctors who work in this area are in virtual spacesuits. Conditions have to be absolutely controlled. Doctors and nurses working have strict limited time to be in contact with the patient even with protective measures. And the measures have to be very precisely followed. That's how the second American infections happened. The Nurses and doctors in contact with the infected patient did not know or follow the protocols. Level 4 means that the medical worker has one hour to be in contact with the infected. They have to follow a precise suit up program that is supervised by a specialist. That suit up can take hours. Once the hour in contact is over the medical worker has to follow a precise decontamination and undressing program. Then if they have to deal with more infected they have to suit up again and follow the same process step for step.
Pulling in the USDOD on this scale is odd but pulling them in makes all the sense in the world.
Finally issue four. Global research has gone out of there way on this to smear. Read the article its got no facts its pure hate. I am no fan of Obama, nor the World Health organization but I feel I should have read that article in a bio level 4 protective suit. Its so partisan it could be run in a political campaign.

antiterror13 said:

Imagine if somehow the terrorist org managed to get Ebola virus to the US and spread them (e.g drinking water system, maybe)

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I don't believe Ebola could survive outside a body or without preservation for a long time. I think I heard like 40 minutes. It would have to be ingested soon after it's introduced. At first it'll be getting someone(s) infected who doesn't know it and no one would suspect and when they get sick it would spread to others before being identified.

AssassinsMace said:

The US doesn't need troops to counter China in Africa especially when there are no Chinese troops deployed in Africa. I bet one reason the US is afraid is a terrorist organization getting their hands on Ebola. So many people infected it wouldn't be hard for a terrorist organization to get a sample. The troops are there probably to control containment of those infected which fits nicely with the crisis.

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How? You might be right. That might be the way of thinking but to me it looks daft.

vesicles said:

I still remember that my heart would skip a beat every time I saw meat for about a month after I took microbiology class in grad school. you would not believe how many different kinds of little critters live in meat and how many of them can survive all sorts of cooking methods. I was particular fond of a picture of a brain of a human who ate some meat contaminated with some kind of worm. His brain literally became scrambled bits and pieces... yummy... At the time, we actually joked about becoming vegetarians. But seriously, if you want to become a vegetarian, looking at a few of those pics will give you amazing motivation to avoid meat once and for all...

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Hi Friend, I understand what you mean and I'm on your side. (I'm a little bit late on this thread). Become a vegetarian? I'd like you remind you that the EU recently warns that vegetables imported from Vietnam contain bacteria that maybe harmful to health. Vietnam ceases its vegetables export to EU. Whatever, even the air you breath contains million of "little critters" and there are uncountable "critters" that live in every corner of your body.

SteelBird said:

Hi Friend, I understand what you mean and I'm on your side. (I'm a little bit late on this thread). Become a vegetarian? I'd like you remind you that the EU recently warns that vegetables imported from Vietnam contain bacteria that maybe harmful to health. Vietnam ceases its vegetables export to EU. Whatever, even the air you breath contains million of "little critters" and there are uncountable "critters" that live in every corner of your body.

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Well, what I was trying to say is that sometimes ignorance is a bliss. Very few people get sick from eating raw meat (beef and fish, etc) in the States as long as the cook takes care of the meat properly. Most of the time, we don't even think about all the little critters that could potentially live happily in the food we eat. We happily put them in our mouths. My preferred temperature for my steak has always been and always will be medium rare. I don't actually mind my steak gets a little blue. However, as soon as you become aware of the fact that stuff live in your food, all of a sudden everything looks terrifying and disgusting. That was my case when I took the microbiology class, which opened my eyes to all sorts of weird stuff that could live in meat and what would happen to a human being when that stuff starts to grow inside of you... That phase went on for a couple months for me. Even during the phase, I had no problem eating a steak, just having that little hesitation. that's all.

Similarly with Ebola, we can get scared and begin to change our daily lives to avoid it. or we can take precautions (wash your hands often and don't touch your mouth/face with your hands and don't rub your nose/eyes and try not to go to public places too often) while at the same time get on with our normal lives. It's always good to know that we constantly live with critters much more deadly than Ebola. No need to be scared, but at the same time don't go around and kissing people who just get off an airplane from Liberia either.

delft said:

How? You might be right. That might be the way of thinking but to me it looks daft.

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You mean they're probably too late? Yeah.

Why not? Al Qaeda is in Africa. That's one of the purposes of why the US military has a presence in sub-Saharan Africa. It's the prefect fear weapon because the Western media has built it up as so. If you have people willing to blow themselves up, they are probably willing to get infected and fly to a Western country and spread it around very easily. And the thing is if the infected person doesn't tell anyone they have it, it'll spread around a lot before someone can identify it. All they have to do is go to public area and place their infected mucus on a door knob that a lot of people touch.

AssassinsMace said:

You mean they're probably too late? Yeah.

Why not? Al Qaeda is in Africa. That's one of the purposes of why the US military has a presence in sub-Saharan Africa. It's the prefect fear weapon because the Western media has built it up as so. If you have people willing to blow themselves up, they are probably willing to get infected and fly to a Western country and spread it around very easily. And the thing is if the infected person doesn't tell anyone they have it, it'll spread around a lot before someone can identify it. All they have to do is go to public area and place their infected mucus on a door knob that a lot of people touch.

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Besides the Al Qeada and more or less similar organisations only started to grow serious after Africom was set up and really fast after US with NATO help destroyed the Lybian state .

Miragedriver said:

My intent in the example was to stop the people form those nations infected from boarding an aircraft and traveling to my nation and spreading the infirmity. Either that or place them in quarantine upon arrival.

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I guess that only works if all nations uniformly adopts the same policy. Say if country A blocks people from country B from arriving, but not C, and while C doesn't ban people from B. Then people in B gets infected and moves to A and...It very quickly loses track.

Wonder if Europe is worried about Illegal immigrants and trafficked people that crosses the Mediterranean. Or say you get a case in Mexico then it will be fun for US border patrols.

no_name said:

I guess that only works if all nations uniformly adopts the same policy. Say if country A blocks people from country B from arriving, but not C, and while C doesn't ban people from B. Then people in B gets infected and moves to A and...It very quickly loses track.

Wonder if Europe is worried about Illegal immigrants and trafficked people that crosses the Mediterranean. Or say you get a case in Mexico then it will be fun for US border patrols.

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Infected people being trafficked by way of the Mediterranean will likely get ill before they even reach the sea. Besides the weather will deteriorate soon so that flow of people is about to dry up.
But now that you mention it Europe is indeed likely to get worried anyway.
The real danger in US is clearly the lack of adequate training in their hospitals but a case of ebola in the South of Mexico might well give rise to more fear mongering in the media.