Sanity Begins To Sink In - Despite Their Best Efforts To Avoid It

The CDC has decided that it needs to rethink how Ebola is handled in the US.  Dr. Frieden has overcome his cranial rectosis after questions were raised when Nina Pham contracted the virus while caring for Thomas Duncan, the infected Liberian national who was allowed entry into the US.

"We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control. Even a single infection is unacceptable," Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters. "The care of Ebola is hard. We're working to make it safer and easier."

What took you so long, doc?  The fact is, they really don't know what the "unknown protocol break" was.  They don't really know if there was a protocol break.  They have no idea what the transmission method to Nina Pham was.  The CDC is blowing smoke.

The larger issue surrounds how the US deals with travelers.  Last night on his regularly scheduled TV show, Bill O'Reilly unloaded on Frieden, calling him a propagandist.

Talking Points has said from the beginning there is no compelling reason why West Africans should be admitted to the U.S.A. when there is an Ebola epidemic raging in that region. Think about it! Think about it! This is a national security issue, is it not? What reason is there on this earth not to suspend visas from that area? The truth is, there is no reason, just a bunch of excuse making.

What reason indeed. On another show, Dr. Marc Siegel attempted to rebut this point of view.

This is a very hard virus to spread. With one case in the United States, we should not cut off all air travel. …We don’t need widespread panic here. We don’t need it there. We need science.

 Seriously, Dr. Siegel?  Can you guarantee that Ebola is a hard virus to spread?  Are you willing to go to Liberia and treat the victims?

And then, there is Dr. Anthony Fauci with his convoluted logic.

From a public health standpoint, that really doesn't make any sense. It’s understandable how people can figure that that might help but when you completely seal off and don’t let planes in or out of the West African countries involved, then you could, paradoxically, make things much worse in the sense that you can’t get supplies in, you can’t get help in, you can’t get the kinds of things in there that we need to contain the epidemic. And the best way to protect America is to suppress the epidemic in West Africa and if we completely isolate them… we know from experience with public health, that marginalizes them and you could have civil unrest, the governments could fall and then you wind up, could having spread of the virus to other countries in West Africa, which would only compound the problem.

Fauci is projecting here. First of all, nobody is saying anything about not letting people and supplies into West Africa.  In fact, I have heard no one say anything about that.  What I have heard is many smart people with common sense saying that we shouldn't be letting people from the hot zone leave West Africa.  And that includes people who go over there to provide help.  If they are compelled to go to the hot zone, then they should stay over there until the danger is past.

Secondly, Fauci is so concerned about civil unrest and governments falling in West Africa, events that are quite common in that region of the world, but what about in North America?  Does he not think that if Ebola gets loose in North America that stability will not be threatened?

There are successful protocols which can prevent the spread of the virus.  Firestone, the company that makes tires, has developed one in West Africa.  They have assumed that the virus can be transmitted by vectors other than contact with body fluids.  They are operating in the hot zone.  They are successful and the CDC is not.  What does that tell you?