Libertarian bloggers, ebola and black death

[piscator]

What do YOU think should be done to put out this conflagration that threatens the very existence of civilization and mankind?

Sit on your ass and pontificate at others on a computer?

Really?

What do I think should be done? We should start by slapping the fuck out of every flippant son of a bitch on the planet who's too goddamn lazy to do arithmetic yet thinks he has a foolproof plan to stop Ebola with 3 1/2 billion armed troops. That's what I think should be done.

[Seth]

What do YOU think should be done to put out this conflagration that threatens the very existence of civilization and mankind?

Sit on your ass and pontificate at others on a computer?

Really?

What do I think should be done? We should start by slapping the fuck out of every flippant son of a bitch on the planet who's too goddamn lazy to do arithmetic yet thinks he has a foolproof plan to stop Ebola with 3 1/2 billion armed troops. That's what I think should be done.

Who are you referring to, pray tell. I've said nothing about "foolproof" or "3 1/2 billion armed troops."

But let's suppose, arguendo, that you somehow survive slapping such a person, what would you do next to prevent a pandemic?

[rainbow]

The way that fuckwit Obama is "handling" the Ebola crisis makes disillusionment with the system a perfectly rational emotion.

So how would you have handled it differently?

I told you. Stand still order worldwide at the first sign that the virus had escaped the hot zone until local outbreaks are identified and quarantined. Absolute travel ban from the hot zone. Military quarantine by NATO of the affected areas with deadly force authorized. Medical and humanitarian support paid for by all nations delivered by trained personnel using military aircraft and assets. All hot zone personnel to be quarantined for 40 days after leaving the hot zone. Double or triple layer quarantine defense around affected areas.

In other words, no fucking about. This is the real deal, it's not a joke and it's not something to be made light of.

Right. And would you do the same with any new outbreak of a virus, like HIV, SARS, influenza, etc?
They have the potential to be far worse than Ebola.
What about if the outbreak were first identified in the town where your family live?

Would you be happy for them to be isolated and effectively left to die so the virus can burn itself out?

What if they were armed and decided to oppose the travel ban?

[Seth]

The way that fuckwit Obama is "handling" the Ebola crisis makes disillusionment with the system a perfectly rational emotion.

So how would you have handled it differently?

I told you. Stand still order worldwide at the first sign that the virus had escaped the hot zone until local outbreaks are identified and quarantined. Absolute travel ban from the hot zone. Military quarantine by NATO of the affected areas with deadly force authorized. Medical and humanitarian support paid for by all nations delivered by trained personnel using military aircraft and assets. All hot zone personnel to be quarantined for 40 days after leaving the hot zone. Double or triple layer quarantine defense around affected areas.

In other words, no fucking about. This is the real deal, it's not a joke and it's not something to be made light of.

Right. And would you do the same with any new outbreak of a virus, like HIV, SARS, influenza, etc?
They have the potential to be far worse than Ebola.
What about if the outbreak were first identified in the town where your family live?

Would you be happy for them to be isolated and effectively left to die so the virus can burn itself out?

What if they were armed and decided to oppose the travel ban?

Depends on the virulence of the pathogen.

Were such a disease to be discovered where I live, I'd be out there with my equipment making sure nobody leaves town until the quarantine is in place. I'm not blinded by stupidity and ignorance and I care about those who will certainly die if an infected person is permitted to spread a deadly virus with impunity, including myself.

I said nothing about anyone being "isolated and effectively left to die," I specified that medical and humanitarian care should be provided and paid for by every nation on earth, since every nation on earth has everything to lose if a pandemic gets going.

The essential element is containment and quarantine and keeping the infected from spreading the disease by forcing them to stay put as they are treated and supported.

Do you have a better idea for stopping a virulent pandemic? Do you have ANY idea how to prevent Ebola from killing 60 percent of the planet's population?

If you don't, I suggest you STFU until you understand the threat a little better.

If you're so intent on helping Ebola victims, why don't you volunteer to got to Liberia and assist in their care, or is that too much like ethical consistency for your tastes?

Sheesh.

[mistermack]

What about if the outbreak were first identified in the town where your family live?
Would you be happy for them to be isolated and effectively left to die so the virus can burn itself out?
What if they were armed and decided to oppose the travel ban?

How much concertina and mines is that gonna take?

Apparently the concertina would somehow help. I'm not sure how, but lots of things are a mystery to me.
Here are two of my distant cousins playing. Maybe music stops people getting restless, when they are penned in?

[Sean Hayden]

[rainbow]

The way that fuckwit Obama is "handling" the Ebola crisis makes disillusionment with the system a perfectly rational emotion.

So how would you have handled it differently?

I told you. Stand still order worldwide at the first sign that the virus had escaped the hot zone until local outbreaks are identified and quarantined. Absolute travel ban from the hot zone. Military quarantine by NATO of the affected areas with deadly force authorized. Medical and humanitarian support paid for by all nations delivered by trained personnel using military aircraft and assets. All hot zone personnel to be quarantined for 40 days after leaving the hot zone. Double or triple layer quarantine defense around affected areas.

In other words, no fucking about. This is the real deal, it's not a joke and it's not something to be made light of.

Right. And would you do the same with any new outbreak of a virus, like HIV, SARS, influenza, etc?
They have the potential to be far worse than Ebola.
What about if the outbreak were first identified in the town where your family live?

Would you be happy for them to be isolated and effectively left to die so the virus can burn itself out?

What if they were armed and decided to oppose the travel ban?

Depends on the virulence of the pathogen.

...which you wouldn't know until it had actually broken out.

[rainbow]

I said nothing about anyone being "isolated and effectively left to die," I specified that medical and humanitarian care should be provided and paid for by every nation on earth, since every nation on earth has everything to lose if a pandemic gets going.

How are they going to do this? By telepathy?

Absolute travel ban from the hot zone.

You do know the meaning of "absolute" surely. How would they get in and out?

[mistermack]

[laklak]

Thing is, containment and quarantine work. Might not be pretty, but they're effective. If there had been a mandatory quarantine in place Ebola would not now be present in the U.S., Spain and Germany. I don't see how you can argue that point. I understand that even the most rigorous quarantine can be broken, but to do nothing at all seems incredibly short sighted to me. Actually, it's frankly stupid. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the medical professionals putting their own asses on the line in Africa. They should be supported to any degree necessary. However, I'd like to see a 3 week quarantine before they return home.

Sure people could travel on multiple passports to avoid the quarantine, but seriously, how many people actually have multiple passports? The airlines know who is flying from West Africa, it's hardly a train smash to track them as they board another flight. That's only necessary if the quarantine isn't instituted IN West Africa prior to getting on the plane. The cost of doing that is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of an Ebola outbreak. The fact that we've seen at least three transmissions in supposedly modern hospitals under strict isolation procedures (and this over just a few weeks) should give everyone pause.

We can castigate everybody for racism or whatever after we sort this out. At least we'll be alive to do so instead of tending the smouldering fires of mass graves.

[Tero]

Quarantine only works with leaving Africa. Within Africa, people just walk across borders. So the epidemic would go on for decades. With NO outside help and supplies.

[laklak]

Why no outside help or supplies?

[Tero]

If we were to cut off connections or make it difficult for doctors and others to get there or get out of there. They would all need to spend 30 days in quarantine getting out.

[laklak]

They could set up direct flights to a quarantine center in the states or Europe. Yeah, they'd have to sit in quarantine for 21 days when they get back, but that's a small price to insure we don't have infected people wandering through immigration and spreading the disease all over the country. The cost of that would be far less than the cost of dealing with Ebola spreading through major cities. There is no quarantine requirement if you bring in supplies, it's only for people who have direct contact with Ebola victims. That wouldn't include flight crews, cargo handlers and the like, but would certainly include medical personnel.

[piscator]

A quick glance at the map shows that a military cordon around the current Ebola outbreak would stretch along a line from about Brownsville, Texas to about Bellingham, Washington in the map above. Fortunately, the Atlantic Ocean blocks the western side of the outbreak, and a naval blockade will, while vast, likely be much less resource-intensive than a linear land effort through the Heart of Darkness.

Who's going to ensure this isolation cordon is less porous than the US/Mexico or Afghanistan/Pakistan borders? No one seems to have been effective at this sort of thing in the past as North Korea and Myanmar, maybe the Chinese. Should the Chinese be running this?

I'm sure the Private Sector would have already handled this, were it not for the heavy burden of regulation and taxation, but Who's going to pay for this shit, citizen volunteerism under a night watchman Libertarian government?