"At the five US airports that receive most passengers from the three countries where Ebola is circulating, passengers will be singled out on the basis of their travel records; interviewed by means of a questionnaire; and have their temperature taken, to see if they have a fever."
[0]http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/06/25/why-fever-s...
[1]https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/08/theres-really-...
[2]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/ebola-airport-scree...
Comments like this strike me as textbook examples of making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Why would anyone do that?
I think the Government should go further and embark on enlightenment campaigns. These campaigns would involve listing the symptoms of Ebola, advising people who exhibit such symptoms to visit the nearest hospital, explaining in very clear terms how people can contact Ebola (there is a shocking amount of misinformation about how Ebola is contracted out there) and also listing some of the basic ways people can help prevent the spread of the disease (like washing of hands with sanitizers).
Basically, borrow a leaf from what the Nigerian Government did which brought Ebola to a halt after a Liberian brought Ebola to Lagos, a city whose population is more than the entire population of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone combined (those are the 3 countries hardest hit by Ebola).
There's a thin line between sewing panic and providing the public with constructive information. If they released that kind of stuff right now, people would become super paranoid and expect an outbreak any day.
You'd see people going to the hospital with every single flu, cold, or similar that they have.
We already have forced the moronic security theater of airport security to "protect" against a bunch of yahoos using box cutters as weapons. How worse could it get, anyways?
Aside from that it will likely pick up more false positives than it will actual Ebola cases (e.g. common flu, someone getting too hot after running from the aircraft with a heavy bag to beat the queues, etc), Ebola can go asymptomatic for over a week within which time it will be undetectable.
Keep in mind that several African states are already checking people as they leave. So for this US measure to work someone would have to go from asymptomatic to symptomatic within the time it takes from flying out of an Ebola infected area and arriving at their destination (e.g. 12 hr period).
I already feel bad for all of the people who will be incorrectly quarantined under this scheme just because they have regular flue. They will be caught up in a state overreaction similar to "shoe inspections" and "no liquids above 150mm" nonsense of the past ten years.
To me, this is a great illustration of why we need strong, consistent rights and limitations on government action: it's not just a check on government abuse, or abuse by certain minority movements or even malicious abuse by the majority—it's also a check against popular emotional responses like this. It's a way of forcing ourselves to stop, reconsider and perhaps avoid acting poorly in a knee-jerk reaction.
(Also, thinking about it, it's a solid committment strategy: if these rights and restrictions are clear and unambiguous, we can use that when negotiating both with other countries and within our own government.)
It's about to be flu season. They don't want hospitals to be overcrowded with paranoid patients because that means if somebody actually does have the virus they're less likely to get the proper attention. Etc. Not to mention all the people suffering from other problems. Such a strain on our healthcare system must be avoided at all costs.
This is a good thing, even if it is just a jumping off point.
The fact that this policy is intrusive, expensive and yet demonstrably irrational (at least on the part of the public) is pretty self-evident. The idea that we need some method, whether legal or social or both, to control irrational responses like this is a pretty a pretty natural conclusion after that.
Perhaps the idea that the government should not react due to irrational popular pressure is somehow libertarian, but really, it seems pretty non-ideological. Not wanting intrusions and restrictions on individuals just because a bunch of people are overly panicky is very reasonable.
Long term maybe it's finger print scanning, blood, saliva.
I am getting sick of these submissions merely intended to scrape votes which have no value whatsoever.
Real answer: this is nothing more than security theater. The effective way to fight disease would be health care, and that's the one measure the United States will never take to fight any disease.
Making those kinds of statements just makes you seem like an angry, irrational person with an axe to grind.
What are you trying to say? That the US doesn't do health research? That the US doesn't have the best medical care in the world? That we haven't yet invented the magical cure to Ebola and shipped it to West Africa? Or are you trying to politicize a virus discussion into something about insurance?
I don't think it's unfair to say that there's a percentage of the population that is scared of incurring healthcare costs and that these people will not seek medical attention as pro-actively. With something like Ebola this is very bad news for their family, friends and community.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthca...
Expensive: More expensive than not doing it, sure. There's only about ~150 people entering the U.S. daily from the Liberia+Sierra Leone+Guinea. The screens will be performed using digital thermometers. The cost should be relatively low.
Demonstrably Irrational: It's not really irrational to take the potential for public hysteria surrounding this issue very seriously. If people believe that we're just letting at-risk people travel freely between W. Africa and the United States then things are going to get very nasty the moment Patient 1 shows up (P0 died a few days ago). CDC (Frieden) admits that the checks might make people feel safer but the real focus needs to be on containment in Africa. Everything else is going to be a half measure by comparison.
And having read an article about Eric Duncan in the German "Stern" about how his case had been mis-handled by the U.S. agencies, I cannot blame anyone trying to take it into his own hands, even if I can see why this could be even more irresponsible.
Article, in German: http://www.stern.de/gesundheit/thomas-eric-duncan-erster-ebo...
On the one hand, a highly fatal disease and typical, systemic mishandling. On the other, an indication that travelling to the U.S. won't save you.
I have no evidence that the latter message was deliberately manufactured (implying all sorts of terrible things). But I'm certain there were and are people in positions of authority thinking about this.
I was thinking about that the other day; taking the need for a visa into account, it's unlikely the deceased patient in Texas traveled to the U.S. in response to exposure.
He helped a neighbor thought to be suffering complications from pregnancy -- she was in her 7th month -- getting a cab and perhaps also accompanying her to the hospital or care center; I don't recall the details on the latter part.
The general population will not be making a rush over, on airplanes. But a subset who is eligible and capable might.
Personally, from the reporting, it seems to me that the man in Texas was a good samaritan and deserving of whatever help the U.S. might be able to provide. I further consider the threatened prosecution (by Liberia, and now I read perhaps also by others) not only unkind but counter-productive -- in general, I gather, such actions force further underground and prompt people to hide potentially threatening symptoms and conditions.
Measures and countermeasures were both used back in the days of Ellis Island.
In the modern world, you probably need a different game theory.
I don't know guys. But anything that doubles my survival rate sounds like a big difference to me.
Or are you arguing that additional measures are needed both at the individual and at the social/political level to prevent the worst outcomes. There I agree 100%.