“Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it. Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat,” said Joanne Liu, MSF’s international president.
“Ebola treatment centers are reduced to places where people go to die alone, where little more than palliative care is offered,” she said, calling on international community to fund more beds for a regional network of field hospitals. She also urged countries with biological disaster response capacity to dispatch trained medical personnel to the hardest-hit areas.
Close the borders. Now.
h/t Kevin B
Yep nothing to see here. Move along. The government has everything under control. These are just false positives currently.
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/09/02/ebola-scare-in-st-catharines
Liberals believe in the Diversity of disease as well as people. To stop this plague would be prejudice not only Africans but evolution.
Looks like the page has disappeared.
Ebola is really hard to catch. The real disease is stupidity. How in hell, in 2014, can there be people in this world that have no education or appreciation of viruses and bacteria?
They could have contained it if they had closed the borders months ago. Some groups of humans are too stupid to survive.
Stupidity and lack of self-discipline. Same as with TB, which might have been eradicated.
As I warned, here, a few weeks ago, as universities increasingly make their budgets by importing ever-more foreign students, who pay three-times the tuition fees, Ebola is almost certainly coming to a university near you.
Air travel is going for a slump.
Correct link: http://www.dw.de/msf-world-is-losing-the-battle-to-contain-ebola/a-17895927
Your link got some gunk in it. It should be http://www.dw.de/msf-world-is-losing-the-battle-to-contain-ebola/a-17895927
Come on now, those witch doctor spells are hard to deal with.
Close which borders? All of them?
Channelling the tinfoil hat I’m wearing, perhaps this is the greenies way to thin the herd. Most environuts believe in population reduction, so maybe this is how they do it? Just a thought!
Contrast the MSM reaction to ebola with their hysteria and demands for action on AIDS when it was the cause de jour. Ebola containment will never be an issue for our governments (who take their definition of “crisis” from the evening news) until it has some sort of sexy correlation with a cause the MSM wishes to advance. Stupidity is just not trendy enough.
Border? What border?
“Border? What border?”
EXACTLY.
Liberals and the government in power should be charged with murder for every death caused by Ebola and any other murder caused by the hand of an illegal immigrant – until the borders are closed.
You guys do realize that “clos[ing] the borders” (which I asked you to define, getting no takers – entitling me to use the literal definition) would cause a worldwide economic collapse, right? (Closed borders = no international trade.) Not only that – but no more Americans vacationing in Canada. No more Mexicans shopping in Texas. And no more Canadians attending dog shows in the US.
Please, try to think before you write.
By,’close the borders’, our members mean,”run for the hills,find a cave”.
It’s much more practical.
And don’t dare close those borders, today’s refugee is tomorrow’s voting block.
That would be “bloc”. (At least to those of us who treasure our native tongue.)
Again, no response to the point. I’m as much for carefully controlling certain borders (e.g., US-Mexico, not US-Canada) as anyone. But if we “close” our borders – to movement of people, goods, and capital, which is the actual meaning of your ill-chosen (for I don’t believe you could be as foolish as to propose this), we will destroy the world economy.
Words mean things.
Quite right. Until “borders” is defined, it’s meaningless cant. Practical policy is a lot more than just shouting slogans.
“Running for the hills” didn’t help with the Black Death and it won’t help now.
Exactly. Does “borders” mean Liberia-Sierra Leone? Russia-Ukraine? Mexico-US? US-Canada? Belgium-Luxembourg? Ontario-Manitoba?
Likewise, does “close” mean “rationally control in proportion to threats” (in contrast to the plain meaning of the word), “make difficult to cross” (again, in contrast to the plain meaning of the word), “turn into a new Iron Curtain” (not quite as much in contrast, but still – I crossed the Iron Curtain a few dozen times), or “render impregnable”, (which pretty much the plain meaning of the word, and, as long as we’re not referring to Liberia-Sierra Leone, would be catastrophic).
I have yet to encounter a person who shouted “close the borders” who had thought through what he was shouting.
Pablo, you mention three things that would be stopped by closing the border, people, goods and capital.
Capital is transferred electronically now so unless Ebola can follow a radio wave or travel along a fiber-optic cable that is not a problem.
In regards to goods, the transfer of goods to the infected area is safe. The virus is spread through blood, sweat, vomit and excrement from infected animals and people. It would be quite safe to send a self-unloading ship full of grain to Africa, tie it to the dock and unload the grain to feed the afflicted. No sailor has to leave the ship and no dockhand has to come aboard. I would bring ropes and throw them from the ship to the dock and leave them behind when I sailed just to be certain. Container ships are unloaded by dockside cranes requiring no personal contact from ship to shore, the world can send medical supplies and food by that method.
There is very little that the first and new worlds import from the west coast of Africa. If you google “cia world fact book” and research the six countries affected you will find that they export nothing that the rest of the world needs that badly and it is a tiny fraction of world trade. Nigeria exports oil but tankers are loaded by machines. If we really, really, really need to bring something from the infected zone out we can irradiate it, heat it, blast it with UV or soak it in disinfectant. See “Susceptibility to Disinfectants” & “Physical Inactivation” here
http://www.msdsonline.com/resources/msds-resources/free-safety-data-sheet-index/ebola-virus.aspx
That means only people leaving the infected areas are a threat to our health. People do not have to travel to conduct business in the internet age. If someone in New York needs to make a deal with someone in Lagos they can use an encrypted internet connection and only the NSA will know what they’re doing.
The only sure way to prevent the spread of Ebola is by quarantine. Yes it is callous and cold-hearted, but compassion could cause millions to die unnecessarily.
A thought – Backwards corrupt countries in Africa struggling to contain a nasty killer virus plus Western governments mired in political correctness ,and foolish niceties seeming to have a harder time each year doing the right thing. Well it would seem shouting CLOSE THE BORDERS might be the wisest thing to shout.
Let the people that split hairs worry about what it may really mean when it seems quite obvious.
When your heads shoved in the sand , a thesaurus , or your on-line banking – do you notice every orifice in your body bleeding?
Most people know that “close the borders” means quarantine in this context.
> Capital is transferred electronically now so unless Ebola can follow a radio wave or travel along a fiber-optic cable that is not a problem.
Okay, so that’s one way “the borders” are not “closed”.
> There is very little that the first and new worlds import from the west coast of Africa.
> The only sure way to prevent the spread of Ebola is by quarantine.
So you’re saying that “the borders” to be closed are only those around the Ebola outbreak. Fine – so just say so. Don’t just say “close the borders”. At least – please – specify which “borders” (among the thousands worldwide) you mean. Is that specificity really too much to ask?
> Well it would seem shouting CLOSE THE BORDERS might be the wisest thing to shout.
I don’t know about you, but I live quiet close to the US-Canada border, and cross other borders dozens of times a year. And my livelihood depends on buying and selling selling stuff across borders. So, yes, I do think a proper definition of “close the borders” is in order here.
> Most people know that “close the borders” means quarantine in this context.
Okay. Please indulge my ignorance and specify 1) the borders to be “closed”; and 2) if they’re to be “closed” to 2a) capital 2b) people, or 2c) goods. (Feel free to discern further among various people and goods, and to explain how such discerning still allows you to say “closed”.)
Once again, I have no problem with controlling threatened borders. I also have no problem with restricting movement to prevent disease transmission. I do have a problem with shouting “close the borders” with no actual definition of what that means (I’ll assume that the shouting person is sane so doesn’t really mean what he says). Words mean things. If you want to stop people from traveling between Liberia and Sierra Leone, say that. Don’t just shout “close the borders”.
As noted, I treasure my (our) language, and its ability to specify. Don’t throw that away.
This sounds like a Tom Clancy novel. “Rainbow Six.” Manufactured Ebola type virus.
Plans to infect the whole world.
mid island mike
@Pablo “Please indulge my ignorance”
No thank you.
“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
Now that’s a reasonable policy. Quarantine may be ruthless, but it works. It stopped the Black Death second outbreak in 1385, it stopped its last one in Marseilles in 1710, and it greatly restricted tuberculosis before the advent of modern sanitation and antibiotics.
But it’s not “close the borders” as some would suggest.
Pablo, perhaps you should use your google-fu and read this
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28893835
and this
“Authorities have cordoned off entire towns in an effort to halt the virus’ spread. Surrounding countries have closed land borders, airlines have suspended flights to and from the affected countries and seaports are losing traffic, restricting food imports to the hardest-hit countries. Those countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — all rely on grain from abroad to feed their people, according to the U.N. FAO.”
from here
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/4819348-world-is-losing-the-battle-against-ebola-doctors-without-borders/
The big problem is the 21 day incubation time. In 21 hours you can fly from Africa to Europe and then head east to China or west to North America.
“close the borders”
For those who are too young to know or don’t understand the lessons from history, a quarantine means if you have visited an infected region, then you spend the incubation period for that plague in a secure isolated facility.
Simple, easy, effective.
People too stupid to take appropriate measures will die, life is harsh not fair.
and your problem is what? compared to 50% death rate of course. the vaulted north american health care system will be able to care for the first 100,000 cases but them be destroyed by the next 100,000. no nurses or doctors available!
PabloNH >
“You guys do realize that “clos[ing] the borders”……….would cause a worldwide economic collapse, right?”
And, what’s your point?
A global economic collapse would most definetly clean out the rats nest.
Real “hope & change” that you can believe in. Cheers.
“Ebola is really hard to catch. The real disease is stupidity.”
You’re referring to Kate, right? ‘Cause she’s the one calling for the Canadian borders to be closed, even though Ebola is “really hard to catch.”