We have no way of knowing what Ebola will do in North America, other than killing people. Right now the world reads like the 5th chapter in a Stephen King novel. Who knows what will happen when the disease is unleashed on a populace raised on McDonald's. What if rats can carry it? No one knows.

sharke..It's not that i think it' no big deal.  I'm just not ready to freak out over it until i see a shred of anything beyond speculation. If ebola mutated into a true airborne pathogen or found a way to be transmitted via carrier or could survive for days in open air, i would be absolutely horrified. At the same time, a mutated flu could spread and kill even quicker in theory.   we live in too reactionary of a society for ebola, in it's current form, to be a pandemic imo. Neither of us can prove differently unless your nightmare scenario came soon.  I agree with most of what you say.  I do think quarantines should  be stronger and more strictly enforced.  i do happen to feel people with serious, contagious disorders are horribly irresponsible, bordering on criminal. I just happen to feel that the result for it going bad is not as severe as you do.  our experiences shape our responses to things and i have seen how what i feel is hysteria can go horribly wrong.  I recall similar panic about AIDS and working in hospitals and seeing some pretty foul treatment of AIDS patients.  no one would dream of treating them that way now, but it took a bit for rationality to win out.  in any case we could go around and around in circles and various forms of semantics and speculations repeatedly without either of us proving a thing except re-asserting how we feel.  We can throw around terms like "rational" all we want because most people feel their position is the one and only rational one and that anyone else is somehow irrational.

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I've heard the AIDS comparison a few times as well, but again I think it's apples to oranges. HIV can be completely avoided by abstaining from certain activities (or at least practicing those activities safely). It cannot be transmitted by mucous or sweat. Since sneezing and sweating in public is commonplace, there's your risk of Ebola epidemic. To be honest I'm not freaking out about it either. I think it can be contained to a few cases by actively tracking everyone who is infected and treating them in quarantine. But look at the cost and effort of treating one person in an isolation unit. Imagine the logistics and expense involved in treating 1000 cases in one city, not to mention tracking and perhaps quarantining everyone they've been in contact with. Which is why it's 100% important to keep the number of cases to a manageable level and avoid it getting to the stage where people are spreading it unwittingly because they don't even know they have it until it's too late. 

sharke
I've heard the AIDS comparison a few times as well, but again I think it's apples to oranges. HIV can be completely avoided by abstaining from certain activities (or at least practicing those activities safely). It cannot be transmitted by mucous or sweat.

That's just my point about AIDS.  It took quite awhile for people to accept these things about AIDS that everyone now knows.  Prior to that, similar  overreaction (and i stress in my opinion) occured and people wit hAIDS were given leper treatment.  i realize they are very different types of diseases, but my point was tha tteh reaction to the unknown was similar to me.  i heard similar type of language

In any case, i will just let you have the final response so that we don't keep going in circles whe nwe are not really on opposite sides :)

If quarantining is an over reaction, then why is the government quarantining the military personnel that has come back and had direct contact with Ebola patients? Why did the CDC search out everyone who had come in contact with all three patients that had Ebola here in Dallas? They must have been concerned about something. Again, no panic on my end, I continued to go to the health club, even though there was at least a 50% drop off in business at the club for 3 weeks. The disease could have been in the sweat of the person who just got off the machine before me and live up to hours afterwards, days in some bodily fluids.

Was the CDC overreacting? Dallas has now been declared Ebola free, since they passed the quarantine period with the hospital staff and family members that had come in direct contact with the patients. None of the people quarantined here put up a fight about it, and there were a lot of people that had to comply.

Makeshift..did I say even once that quarantine was an overreaction? In fact I recall saying I supported strong quarantines for this.

For the record, I was mouthing off about using bullets instead of fences... not serious, at least not yet.
 
I am not scared of an Ebola outbreak here, I don't think that there is a remote possibility of that happening.
 
THIS is what REALLY disturbs me: the flippant disregard of the economic impact these people who may be infected with Ebola (like the nurses and the doctor) have had and may have on other people... like the bowling alley owner (all all the employees), all the people whose cruise was messed up (and the cruise line), the bridal shop (who would want to go there and try on dresses? I have no idea if they managed to stay in business). It is just wrong to put other people's livelihood at risk for your pleasure or convenience. I forgot the airplane that the would up having to change seats and carpet in.... but who can be bothered with a 21 day quarantine? Obviously not anyone as important as these people.
I don't go out with the flu unless it is to the doctor, then I use hand sanitizer before I enter or leave. It ain't that hard.
 
BTW, Nigeria is now Ebola free, they mandated a 45 day quarantine.
 
J

Exactly Julien,

It hit businesses pretty hard here. My wife lost 2 after school programs as a direct result of schools pulling out of the programs for the conceivable future. The nonprofit company she works for, had to completely cancel both programs because they would loose funding for them. All because people who had come in contact with the 3 people here, continued to interact with the public when they were still within a possible incubation period.