NIH doctor schools Elisabeth Hasselbeck after she asks him to ‘seal the borders’ over Ebola

[Savannahmann]

14. Perhaps it's me. Perhaps it's a silly question

But how does restricting access in to the US from nations being ravaged by Ebola reduce the help that is sent out to them?

Isolation and Quarantine is public health policy. The CDC operates a number of Quarantine stations.

That's painfully obvious of course. But how does it free up more resources for the fight against Ebola in Africa by allowing it to slip into the United States? Then we are expending vitally needed materials that could be used in Africa, here. Because lets be honest, we're going to take care of our own first, and then if any is left, we might send some to others. I say might because the sense of panic will be so strong as to make people want to stockpile instead of ship it.

Before we can bring Ebola under control, we have to stop it from spreading. Step one is to stop people from flying out of the nations where it is running through the population.

Allow me to quote the CDC website.

Disease is just a flight away
Quarantine station worker interviewing a passenger wearing a mask on a plane
When sick passengers are on a flight, the airline lets CDC know. We evaluate whether they might be contagious to others on the plane.
Some diseases can spread quickly through a community, so CDC works with state and local health departments to evaluate and respond. When necessary, CDC can prevent a sick person from traveling and exposing others to disease.
It's all about making sure 1 sick traveler doesn't become 100 sick people in your community.

So stop the bloody flights from the ebola infected regions. If someone on that flight has been exposed but is not yet symptomatic, that's up to three weeks to get everyone lost on the plane. I know, the theory is that you can only get it by being exposed to the bodily fluids, and only when the person is symptomatic. Guess what. I used theory because the definitive exclamations don't seem to explain everything. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025629458

Because how did a nurse who was specially trained get the disease when only exposed to the patient twice? In other words, I don't think we know everything that we think we do.

If we really want to help those in Africa suffering from this illness. If we really want to stop anyone else from getting sick, somebody better start thinking about quarantine for the affected region, and not letting anyone out. Because I don't think that we help anyone in Africa, by having sick people in Texas, or Spain, or anywhere. Spreading out the available meds to these locations means even less of it gets to Africa.

I was taught as part of my problem solving training. First, don't make the situation worse. In this case, that seems to indicate that we should enact a quarantine for travel from the affected areas.