Ebola is a worse threat to the world than ISIS

[cali]

and the world hasn't done nearly enough- kudos to President Obama on addressing this threat vigorously. And no, I'm not talking about ebola coming to the U.S. The threat is to African countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia. Is it worse than has officially been reported? Almost certainly.



In what appeared to be an acknowledgment that official statistics had so far been misleading, the government said the country’s plight was “worse than what was being reflected in reports,” adding that there was a “desperate need to step up our response.”

A Western diplomat here called Mr. Koroma’s newest restrictive order, coming after a three-day national lockdown that required every citizen to stay inside, “a mitigating measure reacting to a worsening situation.” The diplomat added, “The numbers are not getting better.”

The government set up official corridors for traveling through quarantined areas, and movement through them is now restricted to the hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Passengers were told not to leave their vehicles while passing through quarantined zones. And in individual infected chiefdoms — traditional administrative units — within the newly quarantined districts, Mr. Koroma took the extraordinary step of warning citizens not to “travel to any other chiefdom until further notice.”

The World Health Organization, echoing the government’s increasingly worried tone, said Thursday that the “situation in Sierra Leone continues to deteriorate,” noting a “sharp increase” in new Ebola cases in Freetown, rising to more than 80 for the week ending Sept. 21.

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/world/africa/ebola-epidemic-sierra-leone-quarantine.html?_r=0

President Barack Obama criticized the international response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as falling short of what is needed to combat a crisis "spreading at alarming speed."

Mr. Obama, in remarks during a high-level United Nations meeting on the outbreak, said the disease could kill hundreds of thousands of people if global institutions and individual nations don't quickly commit more resources to fighting the epidemic.

"It isn't enough," Mr. Obama said of the response so far. "There's still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be."

<snip>

http://online.wsj.com/articles/world-falling-short-in-response-to-ebola-obama-says-1411659980

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Well, yeah. But fighting disease is never...

as exciting as fighting imaginary terra'ists.

Think of what the cost of just one lousy F-35 could do if spent on fighting ebola. Or on anything else worthwhile.

[badtoworse]

2. Imaginary beheadings?

[Dr. Strange]

3. Yes.

James Foley is still alive, hanging out in a government bunker with Elvis and Ken Lay.

[cali]

5. clearly the beheadings aren't imaginary

but ISIS and foreign terrorists pose no existential threat to the U.S. The existential threat to the U.S. is how we respond to ISIS, etc.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

7. If we don't get this under control

It's going to get very ugly, and we will have to put troops on the group in their capacity to defend and not just build temporary hospitals.

Already, health workers and gravediggers have been attacked, and they must fear the actual attack as well as getting ebola from their attackers.

We need to do something on a grand scale NOW.

[deathrind]

4. Very True.

The lack of a coordinated international response above the NGO level is alarming. Not nearly enough is being done. This could very easily spread to a global scale.

[gblady]

6. totally agree.....

I wonder, too, as a medical person, why the lack of attention...these things can spread very fast.

I wonder if it is intentional....

[progressoid]

8. And global warming is a bigger threat than ebola.

Let's talk about the Kardashians and Bieber instead.