Latest development, per an “NBC exclusive”:
The first trial of an Ebola vaccine in Africa has started, researchers said Thursday, with the vaccination of three health care workers in Mali…
It’ll be months before any vaccine would be available, and even then it will be a small amount, probably used to protect health care workers. But experts say it’s a vital first step to getting doctors, nurses and technicians to even come and help fight the outbreak. Health workers are among those at highest risk of getting infected…
Mali isn’t affected by Ebola but experts agree it’s important to conduct trials in Africa. Another trial is expected to start in Gambia soon…
The vaccine is made using a common cold virus called an adenovirus that does not make people sick. It’s had a little piece of Ebola virus attached – a small part that cannot cause disease, either. In animals, such a vaccine has been shown to stimulate the body’s immune response against Ebola virus.
The trial has been set up quickly. Usually, it takes six to 11 months to get a vaccine trial started because of all the regulatory and ethical hoops. This one got started in two months…
Thomas Duncan has died, so he will not be charged in either Dallas or his native Liberia. The other Ebola-related news out of Texas is more positive, at least for those most intimately concerned:
… Officials on Thursday announced that a local sheriff’s deputy examined for possible infection with the virus had tested negative and was sent home from the hospital.
None of the other 48 people who officials say had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola at a hospital here Wednesday, have showed symptoms of infection. Because no one has been exposed in 11 days, officials say, the likelihood of a new case is diminishing.
But live images on local television of an ambulance racing the deputy to the hospital on Wednesday were enough to convince many here that Ebola was more dangerous than officials were letting on….
Some people in the community have been shunned for their ties to Ebola. Erick McCallum, who owns the company that sterilized the apartment where Mr. Duncan became ill, said he lost a lot of business because of it. He said some of his employees, who also work as local firefighters, have been told not to come to work at the fire station for a few weeks.
“It’s not rational, it’s just a lack of knowledge,” he said. The director of the C.D.C., Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, became frustrated upon hearing that parents were keeping their children out of school.
“Oh, my goodness,” he said in a telephone interview, taking a long sigh. “I sat on the couch of a survivor in Africa holding her hand. Her little child was bouncing off the walls because the neighbors would not allow her to go outside and play with the other children.” He said he expected that type of reaction among uneducated people in developing countries, but not in the United States, adding, “I’m saddened.”…
New screening procedures have been announced:
Federal health officials will require temperature checks for the first time at five major American airports for people arriving from the three West African countries hardest hit by the deadly Ebola virus. However, health experts said the measures were more likely to calm a worried public than to prevent many people with Ebola from entering the country…
American health officials believe Mr. Duncan did not have a fever when he arrived in the United States, a view seconded by his family. “There’s a sense that this is a be-all-and-end-all and that this will put up an iron curtain, but it won’t,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. “At the very most, all we are buying here is some reduction of anxiety.” He added, “That’s worth something because, at the moment, we have a much larger outbreak of anxiety than we have of Ebola.”
The measures will go into effect on Saturday at Kennedy International Airport in New York. J.F.K. receives about 43 percent of the people who fly to the United States from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Next week, screenings will begin at Washington Dulles, which gets 22 percent of such travelers, and at Newark Liberty International, O’Hare International in Chicago and Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta…
The local Boston TV news covered this development last night, and seemed a little torn between relief that “we” weren’t included in the list and the perennial Bostonian suspicion that we’re being unfairly slighted. Meanwhile, per NYMag:
If there’s anything that ranks up there with shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater, it’s probably telling a packed plane full of vacation-bound passengers that you have Ebola. But that’s exactly what one American man did Wednesday on a U.S. Airways flight to Punta Cana. According to reports, the 54-year-old was sneezing when he told fellow passengers that he had been to Africa and shouted, “I have Ebola, you are all screwed!”
The flight was held at the airport upon landing, and a badass flight attendant took control of the situation, as seen in a cell-phone video of what transpired. “It’s gonna look worse than it is, okay?” she said before men in hazmat suits walked onto the plane. “I’ve done this for 36 years. I think the man that said this is an idiot, and I’ll say that straight up.”…
Excellent diagnostic skills, Ms. Flight Attendant! [video at the link]
Maybe we could quarantine Idiot Passenger in a small room somewhere with Dick Morris and his petition?
finally, a surefire way to stop Ebola pic.twitter.com/HKaxtS2gnA
— Ben Dimiero (@bendimiero) October 7, 2014
Corner Stone
Holy.Christ.
We’re all gonna die.
c u n d gulag
So…
What…?
Will we have our heads cut-off by ISIS before, or AFTER, we all contract the Ebola Virus?
FSM,
Protect us from our scared, hateful, and bigoted, conservative loons!!!
Botsplainer
Try and jail the corpse as a message.
/wingnut
Julie
I saw someone refer to the president as ‘Obola’ today. Does that mean we’ve finally reached Peak Wingnut?
Southern Beale
OMG I just about died laughing. “Finally a surefire way to stop Ebola.” OMG.
Always with the damn petitions. Is there ANYONE who hasn’t figured out that petitions are just a scam to generate a mailing list? God, duh.
Howard Beale IV
Yeah, I posted that Gawker link yesterday in an open thread as a PSA.
And as far as Dick Morris goes, drop his ass in the middle of Detroit.
And you want to know why there hasn’t been an Ebola vaccine? It biols down to a single character.
$.
Southern Beale
@Julie:
No. We will never reach Peak Wingnut.
John Revolta
Well, if I get Ebola, I’m gonna go to IRAQ and get captured by ISIS and let them cut my head off and then I’m gonna BLEED ALL OVER THEM and KILL ‘EM ALL!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Southern Beale
Meanwhile, enterovirus-68 is spreading like wildfire but no one has figured out how to blame that on Obama yet.
Botsplainer
@Julie:
No, darling. Peak wingnut is asymptotic – a harmonic number.
In mathematics, an asymptotic expansion, asymptotic series or Poincaré expansion (after Henri Poincaré) is a formal series of functions which has the property that truncating the series after a finite number of terms provides an approximation to a given function as the argument of the function tends towards a particular, often infinite, point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_number
Amir Khalid
I’m trying to work something out. To whom will Dick Morris send this petition?
Frankensteinbeck
@Southern Beale:
Conservatives don’t associate it with Africa.
Southern Beale
Speaking of diseases, I was going to get my flu shot this weekend but I’ve come down with a sinus infection-type cold. Doubtful that it’s Ebola, don’t worry … but you never know!!!
But can I get a flu shot if I’m sick? Or is it better to wait?
g
Signing the petition does the trick, eh?
Sure.
Frankensteinbeck
@Southern Beale:
I believe you can’t.
Southern Beale
@Frankensteinbeck:
Exactly.
What’s so weird about the RW response to this is that a ton of those folks are in Africa right now working as missionaries. At least, here in Nashville which is Bible belt central EVERYONE has a brother or sister or cousin serving some church mission or NGO in Africa. And now you have the RWers saying we need to close the borders? I’m just wondering how that sits with the fundiegelical crowd.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: We’re all gonna die.
That is undeniable.
Violet
Mr. CDC Director hasn’t been paying attention if he expected the reaction in the US to be any different from that of people in developing countries. Our people aren’t educated. They don’t believe in science. They revere blowhards and idiots. Why would American reactions be any different?
Botsplainer
@Julie:
A better expression of Peak Wingnut©, where x is Peak Wingnut©:
MattF
Uh, wow… I didn’t realize Dick Morris was that stupid. Live and learn.
Mike in NC
Last night the TV news reported the latest details on the Ebola “crisis”, and then the ISIS “crisis” (they must like the way it rhymes), followed by — as Dave Barry would write, “I swear I am not making this up” — a story about killer bees.
Mnemosyne
@Southern Beale:
It’s better to wait. No need to overstress your immune system if you don’t have to.
My co-worker got yelled at by the nurse for not telling her that she had a sinus infection that she was taking antibiotics for.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
It’s not Dick Morris who’s stupid — it’s the people who listen to him.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Julie:
Peak WIngnut is a state of perfection; we can never reach it, only approach it.
If the Democrats manage to hold the Senate in November, be prepared for 18 months of never-before-seen ear-bleeding insanity, and not just from the peanut gallery. Be prepared for at least one member of Congress and at least one passenger in the 2016 GOP Klown Kar to openly call for a Presidential assassination. No dog whistles; I’m talking megaphones.
“Who will rid us of this turbulent
NegroPresident?”Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid:
To somebody who wants a self-selected list of gullible people.
Violet
@Southern Beale: It’s better to wait and they should ask you if you’re sick.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: To the Virus King. As a humble petition.
jl
There is a sure way to stop an infectious disease outbreak from doing something?
Paging King Xerxes…. paging King Xerxes…
Amir Khalid
@Bill Arnold:
And for how much?
scav
I’m just laughing at the CDC guy who was expecting a different reaction in the US from that shown by “uneducated people in developing countries”. Where’s he been for the last few decades? Our uneducated people are World Class I’ll have him know; they can go toe-to-toe with those from any nation in whatever stage of development they choose and not break a sweat. We’ve a damned deep and exceptional bench of them too.
Violet
Saw this video on the news this morning. That flight attendant was awesome.
Mike J
I don’t think there are any direct flights from Monrovia to Boston. Two stops is the most direct I can find. Accra seems to be one stop, often through JFK where they will have screening.
John Revolta
@Mike in NC: Brother, turn that shit off.
TV News will kill you way before any of those other 3 things.
Frankensteinbeck
@Violet:
A very large number of American white people feel a fear right now that they can’t quite explain.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@scav: ’m just laughing at the CDC guy who was expecting a different reaction in the US from that shown by “uneducated people in developing countries”. Where’s he been for the last few decades?
I’m surprised that belief in guardian angels and Christ-as-my-personal-savior doesn’t make people a bit less fearful
Julie
@Grumpy Code Monkey, @Botsplainer, @Southern Beale: Admittedly, it was more of a hope than a real question. It’s the first time I’ve run into something quite that stupid in the wild, though, so I was like, “Is this it? Surely it can’t get dumber than that, right?”
Though, upside: I learned something about harmonic numbers today. :)
Citizen_X
It’s the toe sucking that spreads Ebola. I heard it on TV.
Violet
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes, it’s a real puzzle, isn’t it? What could be so different now that white people find so terrifying?
Howard Beale IV
@Southern Beale: Wait ’till it clears.
Cacti
@scav:
This.
Americans are second to none in our ability to do ignorant and panicky. The problem in our case is that we also have the world’s largest military arsenal and tend to unleash it on whatever is the bogeyman of the moment.
Violet
@scav: I guess if you’re the CDC guy you hang out with science-y types all day so you think “Americans” are like those people. Must be a real shocker when EBOLA PANIC sweeps the nation after one guy gets the disease, and only then after he’d contracted it in Liberia.
Robert Sneddon
@Southern Beale: What skin colour might these Christian folks in Africa doing the Lord’s work have? That “seal the borders” jazz is for the Others, not for Our Own, goes their thinking.
Anoniminous
Keeps popping into my head.
Time Travelin'
@Southern Beale: They are absolutely blaming enterovirus-68 on Obama. They claim the kids crossing the border all have it and Obama is intentionally spreading it by sending them to different processing centers around the country.
scav
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hey, Omolu’s supposedly got smallpox covered, he’s probably got a cousin with the Ebola brief. Lots of gods running about on that end, over, above and beyond the feathery winged ones largely in favor locally.
Corner Stone
@Botsplainer: It sounds like you’re saying it makes one big fucking frownie face when graphed on a chart.
Cacti
@Time Travelin’:
Yep.
And at the same time, these kids somehow managed to avoid causing major outbreaks in California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas, because shut up, that’s why.
Violet
@Southern Beale: There’s no way that those White Christian Missionary relatives think that “seal the borders” means their nice White Christian Missionary family members over in Africa can’t come back. That is not what it means to them. It means Those People can’t come to the US. It does not mean that Missionaries and White People Doing The Lord’s Work can’t come home. That would be outrageous.
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: Indeed. But I meant all at once.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet:
This has been one of the stupidest stories I have ever seen. I guarantee you 99.666% of people currently fearful of Ebola have no clue what Ebola actually even is, other than “a disease,” with possible addition of “some blackity-black disease.”
PurpleGirl
@Julie: Peak wingnut is an asymptotic function. For the non-mathematical, here’s a way to visual it:
You have a graph with an X and Y axis. You have a data curve starting at the top of one axis and going to the other axis. This curve will not cross the second axis, it approaches it, closer and closer to it but is doesn’t and won’t cross that second axis. The distance between data points become smaller and smaller but they never cross the second axis.
(I used to type mathematical papers at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences; I typed advanced mathematics without understanding it. This was how one professor explained asymptotic to me. Most of the researchers were convinced I did understand the mathematics because I made it look so good.)
Corner Stone
Joni Ernst spooks me right the fuck out.
Iowa Old Lady
@Violet: Also indicated by the fact that there’s no move to seal the border between Texas and the rest of the country. Those folks aren’t the ones we fear.
FlipYrWhig
@Time Travelin’: This, by the way, is the entire story of American politics since the summer: “Obama’s letting ’em in.” Central American children, White House crazies, Ebola patients, Mexican ISIS operatives, all one phenomenon.
Violet
I love this part in the Dick Morris petition is “It’s almost too late now, but not quite.” Pretty sure that means, “It’s totally urgent but there’s still time to give me money!” Wignuttery in a nutshell.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Yeah, I find her alarming, almost on the Joe Miller level.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Steven King’s The Stand ?
Violet
@FlipYrWhig: I’d bet money that what people know about Ebola is the blackity-black part. After that they might know it’s a disease.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: It’s the Devil’s disease.
bemused
@Frankensteinbeck:
And they keep watching Fox news for more fear mongering.
Citizen_X
@Corner Stone: There’s rats in the corn!
Bill E Pilgrim
Hey, I mean the man allowed a professional prostitute to listen in on Presidential phone calls, it was hard to forgive him for that.
Bill Clinton, I mean. He let Morris listen in any number of times, I seem to remember. Why, who did you think I meant?
Redshift
@<a href="#comment-5138428"Southern Beale: I would imagine they’re sure it wouldn’t apply to them, just like proposals to cut to government services will only affect the undeserving. The disease-ridden people are poor brown immigrants, not good white Americans, so they’re the only ones you need to keep out.
In fairness, if Republicans were in power and able to implement this scheme, that’s probably exactly what they’d do – ban direct flights from Africa, but not ones connecting through Europe, and assume (incorrectly) that only white people are capable of figuring it out. It would fail to do anything to stop the spread of disease, but since the purpose of the proposal is to stoke fear and bigotry, that wouldn’t matter.
Anoniminous
@bemused:
And Fox News makes damn sure their viewers are kept ignorant.
Betty Cracker
Why wasn’t traditional airline protocol deployed to quell the fake Ebola dude’s hysteria? I’m sure his fellow passengers would have pitched in.
The Dangerman
@Violet:
Couple that with ISIS PANIC because one woman gets killed in OKC (or exactly 1/168th as when the Federal Building was bombed) and FOX News is even more unwatchable than typical; I guess they have to stir the shit because the election is coming up, but, good fucking grief.
Thoughtful David
@MattF:
That’s Dick Morris on a day when he took a double dose of smart pills. The man is actually, truly, dumber than a bucket of rocks, and this was most definitely not one of his dumber thoughts/actions.
StringOnAStick
Even before Mr. Duncan came to the US, I had a wingnut doing the paranoia dance for me, freaking out enterovirus and ebola because he has a couple of friends who’d been sick for a long time with viral stuff. His contention is that “something’s going on; look at ALL these diseases!”. I have no doubt he saw the stories about Mr. Duncan as confirmation that all the paranoid shit FAUX has stewing in his head is OMG, completely true, head for the hills!
Funny thing is, he couldn’t survive by headin’ for the hills since years of a crap diet/lifestyle have left him unable to control his blood sugar. It’s a bit hard to shout “Wolverines!” when lack of a functional p*h*a*r*m*a*c*y will doom your saggy, near-morbidly obese, type 2 diabetic ass. His biggest health risk is his inability to change to a healthy diet/lifestyle, something he’s been promising to do since his best buddy dropped dead at age 42 four years ago from being a saggy, completely morbidly obese type 2 diabetic, and most recently when he went from being a metabolic syndrome patient (triglycerides at 600) to a full-blown diabetic. As usual, wingnuts freak out about the outlier cases while failing to recognize or respond to the completely obvious stuff.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: One time I was at the pharmacist waiting for my prescription, and there was a couple at the counter talking to the pharmacist about how glad they were that after praying a lot to Jesus that he had delivered the medication they needed in time for their travel. I thought “That wasn’t Jesus that delivered your stuff in time, that was FedEx.”
StringOnAStick
In moderation for a banned word, even though I tried to fix it with edit. Oh well.
Violet
@Calouste: FedEx, Powered by Jesus.
Thoughtful David
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
You’re correct, but I’m guessing (or maybe just hoping) that Democrats holding onto the Senate will finally precipitate the oncoming split in the GOP between the Tealiban and the Koch Suckers. The Tealiban will be outraged, and will feel that they’re just not being heard in the GOP leadership, that all that is needed is to have further and further wingnuts running and then some magic happens and they win! They’ll want to have everything their way in the party, and I’m really hoping it causes the Tealiban to split and form their own party.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Calouste:
That must be where “Deliver us from evil” comes from.
maya
Wouldn’t Ebola move our winged brethren closer to the rapture?
Corner Stone
Listen. I’m just going to say this.
Ivanka Trump looks just like the woman with the British accent that does the Viagra commercial.
I’m not saying, I’m just sayin’.
Corner Stone
Godst damm moderation for ED drug mentions.
bemused
@Calouste:
It’s funny how we don’t hear about all the times Jesus failed to deliver despite all their prayers.
Karen in GA
@Violet: I was just going to comment about that. What rock has this guy been living under?
Corner Stone
@StringOnAStick: Solidarity!
Redshift
@Julie: A lot of wingnuts probably came up with ‘Obola’ simultaneously, but it got spread wide by Michael Weiner aka Savage. Thom Hartmann, on a recent show, played more clips than from his show than I could stomach, ranting about how “the border is completely open, and these people can just walk in here” and the CDC, or as he called it “the Center for Disease Dissemination” is populated entirely by political hacks who know that Ebola is airborne and they’re lying to you for political reasons. There definitely is no Peak Wingnut.
Corner Stone
God, you kind of have to feel for Manchin. He is so trapped by Big Coal.*
*Not to be confused with being trapped under Big Cole.
***Shutters***
Baud
@bemused:
“Praise Jesus and blame Obama.” — Wingnut 3:16.
Elie
We are laughing now but mathematically, things better start improving on the infection numbers in Africa. The rate of growth of the infection is just way outstripping our basic supplies and manpower. There seems to be no way to convince a bunch of countries to send more supplies and people, so I guess we are going to have a lot more Ebola round the world…Honestly, there has also been enough stupid by various health care providers to make you wonder how some managed to get through training… In Texas, poor Mr Duncan’s first temp (the first time he went to the hospital) was 103! The man was from Liberia, had traveled recently (though denied being exposed to Ebola), and they still sent him home? Huh? And if it was just ONE person, then you could attribure it to their having a bad day. But the whole team! And I won’t even address Spain, where it was even worse and more clueless.
We are going to be fucking lucky if this is under control in six months.
bemused
@Baud:
Yes, the one and only answer to everything.
Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid:
Interesting question. I’m deliberately far removed from such businesses (overactive conscience). Here’s a NYTimes story Bilking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist that talks about some lists, in particular
I think Morris’s list would be a lot more valuable than 8.5 cents per name, but don’t know.
MomSense
I swear all the right wing have left is race stoked fear. The Enterovirus D68 outbreak is a much bigger threat than Ebola but it doesn’t come from a scary place with scary blah people so it is ignored.
Julie
@Redshift: This makes me glad that it’s Friday and that I have wine. I thought I was pretty immune to how stupid and LCD that kind of humor is, but that’s just depressing.
Botsplainer
@Corner Stone:
I hate you.
SatanicPanic
Ebola vaccine, eh? So you’re saying I now have a choice between Autism and Ebola. Great.
Bill Arnold
@The Dangerman:
One can safely assume that anything on Fox News for the month or two before major elections is determined to be neutral or helpful to Republicans.
(This bias could be measured, but why bother?)
suzanne
@SatanicPanic: I fully admit that this is horrible, but on some level, I want to encourage assholes not to get vaccines. Survival of the fittest. Dumbassery needs to be selected out of existence.
Calouste
@bemused: The postman always delivers. Jesus, not so much.
Baud
So how do we persuade Republicans that polling stations are ebola petri dishes?
Violet
@Baud: Put scary black people in African outfits outside. Better if the scary people speak a language, or English with an accent, that wingnuts might think is typical of someone from an African country.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: New Black Panther Party?
Calouste
@The Dangerman: Talking about influencing elections, I’ve been wondering whether the Supremes’ decision not to hear the same-sex marriage cases is a tactical ploy to influence the elections. Probably some liberal voters are less likely to vote now that things are “in the bag”, and the gay-hating contingent is more likely to vote because of well, teh gheys are coming.
Redshift
@Baud:
Ask black people to stand outside them and cough.
Violet
@SatanicPanic: So long as they might be construed as having recently visited West Africa. Better yet if they’re coughing or sneezing.
Elie
More than anything, we are confronting tough issues in our country and the world. These are all issues without clear answers — in fact, the best answers may be very unsatisfying.. Americans don’t like that. But its something we are effing going to learn more, though its going to be a massive pain in the ass to deal with cause we have had so many crazy people saying and doing crazy things for such a long time. The Republican party is particularly dangerous because of its propensity for pumpiing up the crazy.
I tip my hat toe President O and wish him massive intestinal fortitude
Felanius Kootea
@bemused: I wish it was just Fox news. Pretty much all the US TV news media help to fan hysteria. I realized something was up when I noticed that the news on BBC World News is a bit different from BBC America (the same way CNN International is actually quite reasonable in a way that CNN is not). There’s just something terrible about the way the news media help to obfuscate and/or cause panic rather than provide context, analysis, clarity or informed opinions from people with scientific or other expertise. And no one is calling them to a higher standard, so it will persist.
JPL
@Elie: That’s what I think although, the Dallas situation if monitored properly, should be over in a month or two. Incubation period is twenty one days and I assume those quarantined are following proper protocol. It would be a miracle if one of his caretakers didn’t get it.
Elie
@Felanius Kootea:
This.
Elizabelle
@Julie:
I have been seeing Obola and President Ebola, etc. from rightwing flying monkeys on comment boards. They think it’s clever.
debbie
@Baud:
Tell them an African licked the buttons on the voting machines.
Elie
@JPL:
I think his caregivers at the hospital are likely to be ok. I pray his girlfriend and family who had more extensive contact with him stay healthy. Every day that goes by is great and even if one or two develop symptoms, they will be treated early which has the best prognosis. I think we can get on top of this (fingers crossed). Don’t forget we also have the cameraman and I think another dude at the NIH hospital who they never talk about but I remember being admitted or treatment a couple of weeks back.
JPL
@Elie: I heard that the cameraman was in stable condition.
He received a blood transfusion.
GregB
@Elizabelle:
With the O replaced with the Obama iconic O.
Run fer yer lives there’s Zombie Ebola on the loose!
Elie
Just read that the NIH pt was released yesterday– he had a high risk exposure but is ok though will be watched for a time:
WereBear
Like we don’t have uneducated, easily persuaded, and quick-to-panic folk in the US….
Elie
@JPL:
Fabulous! Hope that continues….
bemused
@Felanius Kootea:
True. The other news channels are only somewhat less bad. If I am having a can’t get back to sleep issue, I will turn on CNN International and wish the daytime channel was as professional.
Elizabelle
@GregB: I’ve missed that. Happily.
shelley
Dick Morris, good Lord. What more can he do to live up to his first name?
Elie
A little bit on this pretty nice official in Dallas — Clay Jenkins.
I appeciate his attitude. We will need a lot more folks like him than Dick Morris
lamh36
@Elie: I saw that. Texas Presby really did drop the ball on Mr Duncan’s care in that initial encounter. But I’ve worked in DFW in both the private hospital and public hospital. Presy Dallas has a reputation, so let’s just say finding out they did drop the ball on this one, doesn’t surprise me at all
Howard Beale IV
@bemused: I’ve given up on domestic journalism entirely. I have BBC World Service on SiriusXM, and that’s it.
JPL
@lamh36: I lived there decades ago after Perot opened the Margot Perot Center and at that time they had an okay reputation. The only hospital that I had first hand knowledge of was Children’s Hospital though.
JPL
So gay marriage is now legal in Idaho also. Good and may the good news spread to GA.
Sorry they lifted the stay for Idaho
Elizabelle
I cannot imagine living in Western Africa, no good health facilities, and my loved ones and neighbors are sick and dying and there’s so little to be done.
Eric Duncan contacted Ebola when he helped to take his landlord’s pregnant 19-yr old daughter to a hospital for care. She was turned away. The girl’s 21-yr old brother died; Eric died later, in the US.
It’s a horror show, happening in real time, and NBC and other networks want to sell us a fresh desert war against the beheaders.
We can do better, and we must do better by Africa. I am proud of President Obama for committing more resources, and our military to the effort to eradicate ebola. Although it’s slow ramping up.
HIs helping Africa is probably what got him dubbed “Obola” by the rightwing flying monkeys. Cruel people who call themselves Christians.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Free enterprise means that pharmas can decide to ignore ebola until they are able to see a profit. At least now it has the attention it deserved decades ago.
Mike J
@JPL: Experts: Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away
JPL
@Mike J: If a vaccine was available, twenty seven percent of the public would line up now. They might not get the flu vaccine, but they would stand in line for the ebola. This is what pharma has been waiting for.
Anoniminous
Good Lord.
The GOPers have unearthed Phyllis Schlafly who claims, “President Barack Obama is allowing people infected with Ebola to enter the United States in order to make the country more like Africa”.
And, not be outdone, Louis Farrakhan is claiming Ebola is a bio-weapon intended to kill off blacks to reduce the global population.
We have GOT to get a handle on the pandemic of paranoid narcissism sweeping o’er the land.
BGinCHI
Top two articles on TPM right now:
Can anyone tell the difference?
Mike J
At least the US is beating Ecuador in the friendly.
JPL
@Anoniminous: Andy Borowitz wrote a column in the New Yorker about the real pandemic. link
I posted it before but in case you didn’t see it, read it and pass it on.
Violet
@Anoniminous:
That is fantastic. I hope more like her keep saying that stuff. Let their freak flag fly! From the article:
Yep! That’s his job! Keep diseases out! The all-powerful President can keep diseases out if he just wants to bad enough. It never fails to amaze me how President Obama is both all-powerful and completely inept in their eyes. Which is it, wingnuts?
This is also excellent:
Wingnuts are all about abuse, aren’t they? This kind of thing is clinical in its pathology.
WaterGirl
@Mike J: That would be funnier if it wasn’t true.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I hadn’t seen that – it’s very funny. This was my favorite part:
keestadoll
Alan Grayson wants a travel ban. Thoughts? He is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
tsquared2001
@Mike J: And Landon just missed the capper on a hella career. Stupid post with its stupid being there taking away goals.
JPL
@keestadoll: What about Spain? Does this mean that we can quarantine Texas?
Elizabelle
@Violet:
The cognitive dissonance gives me a headache.
Elizabelle
@JPL:
Quarantine for Texas. Now you are talking. Doesn’t Nebraska have a few cases too?
Elie
@Elizabelle:
Well said.
Article in the NYT today — heartbreaking read but important to “bear witness” as human beings… the lines we live within and do not cross, do not understand..
This is a call to us from God – or the spirit of the universe, however one sees it. We must stand up to this. I know we can do it..
keestadoll
@JPL: I get what you’re trying to do there, but I really was just asking the thread what they thought about Grayson wanting a travel ban from highly infected parts of West Africa. If he wants a travel ban from Spain at some point, I’ll ask about that as well.
Elie
@lamh36:
Still — as individuals — I know I have a lot of pride in myself as a nurse. I would be MORTIFIED to miss something like that… has NOTHING to do with the hospital. It would totally fuck ME up. That is what professionalism is supposed to mean.. its not the check out line at the Walmart when someone doesnt show up for their shift. Its about an awareness and self respect that can sometimes be affected if you are sick or very tired — but its pretty ironclad otherwise. Believe me, in nurses training you get it pretty directly and are weeded out if its not observed — every professional takes responsibility for their own care and decisions. That.is.all
Elie
@keestadoll:
Ridiculous
We just sent a few thousand military and care givers to west Africa. Presumably we would let them back in? And how does that get framed? If you are black and poor, you don’t get in? I suppose he would let the white missionaries return, right? How about the white businessmen doing oil and resource trading? Oh, well thats ok,right?
Asshole. Panic peddler.
Anoniminous
@JPL:
Saw it when you posted it and passed it on. Brilliant stuff.
@Violet:
It is clinical. And scary. (IMO YMMV) And it’s not just the US.
Elie
@BGinCHI:
Accuser: GOP Candidate Masturbated ‘Penis In His Hand’ In Front Of Me
WATCH: Chuck Todd Plays A French Horn
Can anyone tell the difference?
LOL–
Violet
@keestadoll: It’s not just Alan Grayson who wants it. Other Dems are calling for it too. Along with a bunch of wingnuts of course.
@Elie: He’s saying exceptions for aid workers, military, those kinds of folks. He’s calling for a ban on “family visits”, which is probably code for black Africans. He is couching his call for the travel ban in terms of costs–for decontamination of schools, hospital, quarantine costs, etc.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anoniminous:
What is she doing still alive? She was ancient in 1964, which is when I first heard of her.
Elie
@Violet:
I dunno… I guess I have to say that I understand it at some level. The CDC and WHO docs interviewed are against it but I haven’t read definitive arguments on both sides. Maybe its time for that argument to be presented. Clearly, it would crush commerce in much of Africa and maybe have other unintended consequences. I truly would like to know the arguments both ways for the travel bans you describe.
Elie
@Violet:
Of course,the majority of people who came back to the US with active disease are 1) White missionaries and caregivers 2) one journalist (cameraman) – also white. We didn’t hear closing the gates until the poor black guy gets in and he’s the one who also dies.Hmmm… something smells fishy
Bill Arnold
@Elizabelle:
If the president was Republican (and almost certainly white), we be “fighting Ebola there, so we don’t have to fight it here”. Sigh.
Elie
@Elie:
that said, we need to consider all sides but open and with intellectual honesty worthy of our values
Villago Delenda Est
The GOP platform, in a nutshell.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
Actually, the panic started brewing when they first brought back that first (white) missionary doctor who was put into quarantine at the CDC and given the experimental drug. I definitely saw a bunch of online and offline conservatives saying that the doctor should not have been brought back to the US for treatment.
I think the sad story of Mr. Duncan is just giving them a chance to say, See, we told you so!
Gretchen D
@Southern Beale: Not recommended to get a flu shot while you’re sick. Better to wait til you’re well.
Xenos
@lamh36: I explained to a German coworker that Duncan had showed up at a hospital in Texas and been sent home with a few antibiotics in spite of being quite sick and just arrived from Liberia, and she did not think it possible. This utter disregard of public health as a key role of government and civil society is really unthinkable in most of the developed world.
Then I had to explain that there really are privately owned hospitals – not clinics, but hospitals, with ER rooms and everything. Blew her mind.
Carolinus
@Anoniminous:
Schlafly probably cribbed that from Fox’s Dr. Keith Ablow:
Keith Ablow: Obama May Want America to Suffer, So He’ll Let Ebola Flow Through
g
@MattF: Dick Morris isn’t stupid, he’s venal.
g
@Elizabelle: The saddest thing about this disease is that it strikes people who have compassion enough to care for the stricken.
The most likely victims are caregivers and family members. I’ve read things about Liberia that makes your heart break. A couple of Medicin Sans Frontieres staffers were interviewed on NPR, and told a story of a woman who died of Ebola in a hospital, leaving behind an orphaned baby they kept in a cardboard box. But the nurses couldn’t bring themselves not to touch or comfort the baby, so they cared for it, and after it died, so did seven of the ten nurses.
If your child is sick, how can you not care for her, clean her mess, wipe the sweat from her brow? Would you abandon your husband, your wife, your brother if they were ill? Thomas Duncan died because he was a compassionate man who helped a family care for their daughter.
The wingnuts are terrified that they’re going to catch Ebola from the cashier at the convenience store, but if they are ever in danger of it, it’s their own loved ones they should fear.
Sherparick
@Julie: Peak Wingnut is an ever receding event horizon. It is mathematically impossible to reach:-)