I tend to react to the Ebola scare with the following:
A recent article from The Washington Post provides further reasons to react in such a way:
The long history of associating immigrants and disease in America and the problematic impact that has on attitudes toward immigrants should make us sensitive to the impact of “othering” African immigrants to the United States in the midst of the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Scare-mongering about infinitesimally small risks in one context serves no purpose to the greater good of trying to curb disease transmission and relieve people’s suffering in another context.
The article is full of links to various studies on colonial history, political history of immigration, Ebola breakouts, etc.
An excellent read. Check it out.
You do realize that Ebola has a 50%+ casualty rate?
You’re just reposting liberal nonsense that advocates against self-protection. Not-wanting-to-die is a good instinct to have, especially when it seeks to protect 300+ million people against a disease with an exponential growth curve. I guess potentially killing off 150+ million is a worthwhile sacrifice on the alter of liberal political correctness.
Not so far in the US: The Ebola Number You Haven’t Heard: 80% Of U.S. Ebola Patients Have Survived The day after that article, another patient was released, taking the survival rate to above 83%.
These are small numbers, obviously. We’ve got a sample size of 6 so far. But the point is that the fatality rate varies widely based on available treatment, and that in the US the rate appears to be drastically lower than in Africa.
The real problem is not Ebola as-is, but the possibility of a mutated version that is truly airborne.