Refusing to succumb to panic is laudable and rational, and when the infection rate numbers in the single digits here in the U.S., there’s no reason to freak out. But mainstream media organizations and the government are diminishing their already scant credibility when they downplay the threat of Ebola.
Since a Liberian man appeared at a Dallas hospital and subsequently succumbed to the disease on October 8th, public health officials and reporters have repeatedly stated that Ebola is difficult to catch. Echoing widely circulated information about HIV-AIDS, they’ve told the public that the only way Ebola can be transmitted is through direct contact with bodily fluids.
Technically, this is true.
As with the Bush administration’s 2002 buildup to the invasion of Iraq, in which White House officials’ arguments omitted their lack of certainty about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass instruction, the official line on Ebola is undermined by a lie of omission. Sweat, you see, is a bodily fluid that can carry Ebola. If you touch a drop of sweat left on, say, the armrest of a seat on an airplane, by a carrier, you have been exposed to Ebola.
CDC and Obama administration officials have been reluctant to talk about this.
A rare exception to the perspiration blackout was an October 27th Congressional hearing, during which expert witnesses confirmed that sweat is included among the infected bodily fluids that transmit Ebola. Rep. Thomas Massey, a Kentucky Republican, asked Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary Dr. Nicole Lurie if Ebola could survive in perspiration left on an inert surface, like a bus seat, for at least 15 minutes, and then be transmitted to another commuter.
Lurie confirmed that the answer was yes: “it [the Ebola virus] can survive.”
At this point, there is no reason to shut down schools, much less airlines or mass transit. But the political class and the media that serves it are too clever by half if they think Americans don’t notice the omissions and inconsistencies in their official narrative.
Ebola is an extremely dangerous and contagious disease that kills about 50% of those who contract it. America’s post-9/11 airport security apparatus, obsessed with toothpaste and what’s inside your shoes, didn’t have the slightest screening system in place to deal with passengers arriving from West Africa, and even now contents itself with a half-assed temperature check that doesn’t even use reliable thermometers. Obama told us that he had this thing under control, that his team was prepared, but they plainly weren’t – and now that they’re finally paying attention, they’re imposing quarantines that are unnecessary, counterproductive – or voluntary, and thus pointless.
Given how poorly and dishonestly the government has communicated about Ebola, is it any wonder the public doesn’t trust them?
Government officials repeatedly state that Ebola is not an airborne disease. (Obama: “This is not an airborne disease. It is not easy to catch.”) However, the doctors and health workers who became infected while treating Ebola patients in Africa followed CDC protocol, wearing head to toe protective gear. They didn’t notice any tears or gaps. Yet they got the virus anyway. How? They don’t know. Many respected epidemiologists – not crazy right-wing conspiracy theorists – wonder aloud whether airborne transmission has already resulted from an as yet undocumented mutation. It isn’t an outlandish concern. After all, there was a 1989 version of Ebola which spread from monkey to monkey in the air, and a 2012 version – Ebola Zaire, involved in the present outbreak – documented to have spread from pigs to monkeys via the air.
And in a press release studiously ignored by corporate media, the CDC recently clarified a distinction without much of a difference: while it doesn’t consider Ebola an airborne-spread virus, it does consider it a “droplet-spread” virus: “Droplet spread happens when germs traveling inside droplets that are coughed or sneezed from a sick person enter the eyes, nose, or mouth of another person. Droplets travel short distances, less than 3 feet (1 meter) from one person to another. A person might also get infected by touching a surface or object that has germs on it and then touching their mouth or nose.”
On the New York subway, no one gets a three foot radius to themselves.
Why are major television networks and print newspaper outlets continuing to tell us that there’s nothing to worry about, and continuing to imply that it’s as hard to get Ebola as it is to contract HIV-AIDS? If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s because the government and the media care more about keeping the economy and the Ebola-struck transportation industry humming along than about protecting the American people.
Ironically, there’s no better way to spread panic than to be less than completely truthful.
(Ted Rall, syndicated writer and cartoonist, is the author of the new critically-acclaimed book “After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back As Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan.” Subscribe to Ted Rall at Beacon.)
COPYRIGHT 2014 TED RALL, DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
7 Comments.
Did you REALLY intend to write “weapons of mass instruction” as a pun? 😀
So between taking temperatures and quarantine, neither of which is considered effective, what is the correct action (besides telling the truth)?
I’d suggest a massive and detailed public health announcement blitz on all broadcast media. But I would fear that the American public, increasingly “immune” to serious thought and hostile to the notion of scientific fact, would truly go stampede-fucking berserk while simultaneously complaining that the government has no right to tell them how to avoid infection by a lethal virus.
In general, the obsession with “keeping the (predatory capitalist) economy humming along” is as lethal a disease as any produced by denizens of the microbiological realm.
Why is nobody also considering Ebola-terrorism? Take 15 Christian/Jewish/Islamic “Jihadis.” Infect them with Ebola. Provide them with the best of care, where around 50% of them survive. Those 50% survivors are now IMMUNE. But they can still perform as carriers, all you have to do is re-infect them. While they won’t display symptoms at all, they will still carry the deadly virus until their bodies overcome it (again). Meanwhile, they get on an international flight. While travelling in that enclosed travel-tube, during the first four hours of an 18 hour flight, they visit all the restrooms and liberally slather their nasal and respiratory body fluids on as many “hight-touch” surfaces as possible. The next yahoo to use that restroom WILL get infected.
At the end of the flight, you have an entire aircraft full of freshly arriving vectors spreading this virus in a most cluelessly imaginative manner. And fourteen days later? A MASSIVE PANDEMIC, all over the fucking country.
DanD
Ted, big fan of yours. Can you clarify what you mean by the following:
I agree a voluntary quarantine is unnecessary and counterproductive. But it seems like you’re saying they are bad in general. Why? You advocated for quarantine of Dallas med staff in a prior article, did you not?
One question I haven’t seen answered, let alone asked (although it might have been both):
Ebola is presented as dire and terrifying. And in third-world countries, where children routinely die from diarrhea, sure, I get it: Ebola is usually a death sentence.. But how lethal is Ebola when the victim has a clean bed, clean water, food, shelter, etc.?
And I loved the one video clip I saw of Idiot-Nurse out on a bike ride. There were, at least, 10 people with cameras (from media outlets) running alongside her. If she was contagious, good work, because those 10 news crews will spread it like wildfire.
I can her Idiot-Nurse because, REGARDLESS of the transmission efficacy involved, she is ignoring the very real issue of the audience. She MUST realize that there are a lot of people in this country who don’t understand germ theory, let alone believe in it. For her to “pish-tosh” a quarantine will be construed by the yokels as a 100% affirmation that the anti-vaxxers are right, evolution is a fairy tale, and teh gays are out to fluoridate the water to turn everyone super-gay.
When ordered into quarantine in our science-illiterate society, one does not turn the issue into a media event. Why? “Well, I had German measles, but I really wanted to meet that actress. Yeah, the doctor said something about contagion, but, oh, you know, that’s just a suggestion. It’s not like quarantines are for realsies. Too bad about her baby …”
Ted, right on, except quarantine isn’t unnecessary or counter productive, or at least doesn’t have to be. The reason given not to quarantine is that it will make it less likely that medical professionals will volunteer, but of course that should all be done by the government. There should at this point be no commercial flights out of West Africa, too many people have been exposed. Medical teams should be flown in and out by the government, with enormous support. Kind of like what Cuba is doing. Part of the drill is quarantine for 21 days after the last contact with patients, they could still be working during that time, just not with patients. As long as the list of people they are exposed to is limited it’s fine. The problem with the nurse is that she’s acting like “testing negative” means something, which it doesn’t – ebola only shows up in your blood right before you become contagious. And you’re right, it could be a nightmare in NYC or anyplace like that, even with modern medical support. One person could infect hundreds without knowing or trying, and once you had even a few dozen people with it in the city, all bets are off.
The lies, just like all the other campaign BS, need only last until the next election’s votes are counted.
Then, if ebola does spread, the good news pushed will be a decline in unemployment because of massive job openings.