More Ebola happy thoughts

This guy has it down about the same way I see it.  As they say, read it all.

4) Numbers One, Two, and Three, lead inexorably to Number Four: Duncan was merely the FIRST Ebola patient we'll be getting (as long as the jacktards in charge keep the pipeline open), rather than the LAST.
Duncan's problems are over, and even the 50 people in Dallas sweating bullets until the 20th aren't the major concern.
The problem is the next 1, or 5, or 20 Duncans who get off of planes in NYC, DC, Boston, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, etc. Not if, but when, exactly as the CDC told every hospital in the country two weeks before Duncan walked into Texas Health Presbyterian, and started the party.
Flight crews on commercial airplanes are no better trained nor equipped, the "screenings", there, here, or anywhere, will do little to catch infected people, and nothing at all to stop those like Duncan in the latent incubation stage of Ebola.
Like TSA screenings of your shoes and cavity searches for underwear bombs, it's kabuki theatre to simulate action, with no real effect.
Hospitals are mostly no better off, and will respond, each time, exactly as THP did: poorly, clumsily, and while endangering the health of everyone concerned.
Everybody has to burn their hand on the stove before they really get what "hot" means.
So our troubles aren't over on Oct. 20th, or whenever the last Duncan-related contact passes from quarantine isolation precautions. They've just begun, until the last patient anywhere in the world passes out of quarantine.

5) All of this completely ignores the people who WANT to bring Ebola here.
Anybody willing to strap 40 pounds of Semtex and hardware parts to his chest, walk into a pizzeria or schoolyard, and be a not-so-smart bomb for Allah, will have no compunction whatsoever about deliberately infecting themselves with Ebola, waiting until they turn symptomatic, and then going for daily walks at malls, movie theatres, swap meets, shows, conventions, amusement parks, sports events, concerts, or just ride all day on a commuter train, and anything else they can manage, and lying about all their contacts and visits after they collapse, because 72 virgins. That's just how they roll.
The gist of the entire asinine "Ebola isn't that big a deal" mindset depends entirely on honest and accurate contact tracing from the infected. When those who bring it here don't give a damn about helping, and actually lie about their whereabouts, it's too late for some governmental jackass Inspector Clousseau to slap his forehead and exclaim "Aha! We never thought of that clever gambit!!" (But that they will anyways is a good reason to bring back the rack, thumbscrews, hot pincers, and burning at the stake as part of the government bonus negative reinforcement plan for that sort of official stupidity.)

6) One through Five inclusive lead to a high likelihood that somewhere, sometime, a city or larger locale will be stricken and overwhelmed by Ebola. Dallas could still get there if 5-10 of those contacts become symptomatic in rapid succession. The same would be true if a dozen or so cases cropped up anyplace. Imagine someone infecting 50-100 contacts, and then not conveniently calling the CDC to alert the Usual Suspects to get cracking. Like if they just sat in some little squalorous dive and quietly died, and nobody found them for a few days, by which point patients 2 through 20 all showed up with symptoms before anyone knew there was a Reference Patient. That city would be so far from screwed at that point it would be hard to see it from where they were. And it could be my town, or yours. Tracing 2000-10,000 contacts a week later is a total fantasy.
And don't even try selling me how the crack CDC/DHS/FEMA/.GOV juggernaut would leap into action to save the day.
They're the reason Duncan got here in the first place, and there's little the government ever does right, even on their best day. Anybody trying to sell you anything else is running for office, or lobbying for a government contract, either way, entirely at your expense.
If they do anything that helps, it will be secondarily, and accidentally, as a near-certainty.

Already, we have the folks that clean airplanes at LaGuardia going on strike because they aren't being provided with protective gear.

Once there is a truly serious outbreak, imagine how many folk stop riding planes, public transportation, or otherwise stop participating in the economy because they are scared.  Imagine what hospital workers are likely to do if there are more than a few Ebola patients coming in.  Would you work in a hospital overwhelmed with patients dying from infectious Ebola?  Let's hope no hospital workers in Dallas come down with it, as that would surely set the panic going.

Flu season is coming up, and flu symptoms mimic Ebola.  How many will go to the doctor and want to be tested to be reassured?  What will a doctor do in that situation?  What if someone really has Ebola yet is sent home because he isn't in a recognized risk group?  The situation intensifies even without a big outbreak, and it becomes immediately unmanageable if there are multiple unexplained Ebola infection sites at the same time flu season hits.

All of this is another reason why travel to West Africa should immediately be halted.  What do the authorities say to the people if Ebola gets loose, and they let it happen by failing to stop the most common and foreseeable way the virus gets here from there, due to political correctness?

Add in the fact that the vast majority of modern Americans have no real experience with a truly dangerous epidemic.   I recall an acquaintance telling of their  family in the 1800's losing nine of ten children to a diphtheria outbreak, in a matter of a couple of weeks.  Ebola isn't yet that dangerous, but imagine how normal people would react to the sudden realization that true, unpredictable and fatal danger was potentially everywhere.  Not gonna be pretty.

Thus, the politically motivated failure to take recognized and simple steps to keep Ebola out is criminal. The disease might never really get going here, but it might not have to to spook everyone into actions that tank the economy and roil society.

It is time to get ready for the worst.  If nothing happens, no real loss, but if not…

Update: Some good news for a change.  Texas sheriff tests negative