Friday, October 03, 2014
The usual pattern
It's always interesting in a grim way to watch a "news" story unravel. Most of the time the "journalists" simply walk away when the truth is exposed. With the Ebola story their normal behavior will be somewhat harder, and there's some slight reason to think that even "journalists" are trying to find truth in this case.
All the experts have been telling us that Ebola requires direct fluid-to-fluid contact like HIV. Meanwhile, the heroic doctors who are actually struggling with the disease know this is false, and matter-of-factly state the truth.
Yesterday BBC ran a report from Africa, in which a doctor bemoaned the lack of ambulances. Every ambulance has to carry six to eight people. "If one of those patients has Ebola, all of them will have Ebola by the end of the ride."
That's a description of airborne contagion, not intimate fluid-to-fluid.
This morning a story from Houston quotes another doctor who has been working with the disease:
Dr. Gil Mobley, a Missouri doctor, protested what he calls a lackluster response from the CDC by clearing airport security in Atlanta with a mask, goggles, boots and white-hooded jumpsuit. “Ten thousand people leave West Africa a day, and its just a matter of time before this goes to every third world country, and its just going to devour them,” Mobley told reporters. “Ask your local hospital system how many spare negative pressure rooms they have to whisk the virus out when it becomes aerosolized with hemorrhaging and coughing, and they'll tell you we rarely have spare negative pressure rooms available.”He just said it directly, didn't he? Aerosolized by coughing. So. Do you believe Slithery Snake Frieden of the Centers for Dissident Control, or do you believe heroic doctors who are risking their own lives? ¶ 4:12 AM
