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| Beaumont, Texas, September 19,2008--Base camps such as this one in Beaumont, TX are used to provide temporary housing for first responders, FEMA personnel and other agencies who are working in areas affected by Hurricane Ike. Photo by Patsy Lynch/FEMA - |
This is gonna be controversial. This is gonna get me alot of hate but the question needs to be asked.
IF we're gonna get serious about containing this outbreak, then we need to quarantine the infected and even those that had contact with them.
We can't do that with hospitals. We can do that with FEMA camps. Yeah. I know. Controversial. The thing that many outside some of the communities I dabble in call urban legends, but I know that facilities exist.
But lets look at the stark reality of this outbreak in Dallas.
1. The hospital that is the focus of all this has 3 infectious disease beds. 3. Currently two are occupied.
2. These patients require around the clock care. This hospital is on the verge of a shut down because these patients are requiring so much care.
3. The CBRN specialist in the US military are part of the National Guard and Reserves. They have the training to deal with this outbreak.
4. We don't know what we don't know. Travel is still being allowed. Even if we stopped it today, we can expect others to come down with this disease and that will have a ripple effect around the country, basically shutting down medical services to the wider population.
But I'm just spit balling here.
We have an election in about 3 weeks. The President would have to declare a medical state of emergency to make it happen and if he did that the Democrats would almost certainly lose the Senate (although if this gets worse they will anyway).
So what are we left with?
Another tool in the tool box remaining unused because people in leadership are so focused on maintaining a state of normalcy instead of working a problem to the best of their ability.
This will get worse. Its almost guaranteed.
MAJOR HAT TIP to Tony for sparking this post.
NOTE: Aesop pointed out something I need to clear up. Camp is a generic term in the way that I'm using it. I could see something a bit more organized being used. First we have plenty of trailers to house family units in. Second, the definitely infected would be housed in a medical facility with National Guard/Reserve medical personnel treating them. Third, we would have a separate area, again with trailers for family units that came in contact with people that were infected...if its a family then they can be together. Individuals would be housed in separate trailers. The point here is that we can segregate these at risk/or sick people from the general population and DO REAL PROBLEM SOLVING ON KEEPING THIS FROM GETTING OUT OF HAND! Like I said, I'm spit balling but organizing a proper camp is child's play. Give me real parameters on the disease, give me a proper personnel roster to handle sanitation, food etc...an adequate number of vehicles and a security detail to keep order and I could do this on a napkin. And I'm not part of a planning staff. Oh and make sure the Camp Commander is a no-nonsense guy or gal and we could nip this in the bud.
We better do some rigid ass quarantine efforts real soon!
ReplyDeleteThey fucked up so bad in Dallas it's unbelievable there aren't more people dying as we speak.
The sad part is the Hospital personnel who were left to hang out and dry then blamed by their leaders will be doing the dying first, the happy part is the administration that dropped the ball and allowed them to get sick then heaped blame on them may just get to do some hands on first person looks at Ebola as it kills them.
If this is not rigorously contained now...........Oh hell we are led by idiots who cannot contain it even when fully cognizant of it's danger.
That state of normalcy is what Baghdad Bob was doing as the M-1 Abrams drove by behind him.
ReplyDelete"Never doubt me for a minute, the American tanks are nowhere near Baghdad"
In Kings book The Stand normalcy went on till everyone was dead and no one noticed it till the lights went out on the very knowledgeable and unimpressed by then survivors.
The problem with quarantine camps is that if they lock one infected person in with 200 uninfected people, in short order they have 201 infected people, and have increased the problem load by 20,000%.
ReplyDeleteThe place you group people together is once they are known infectees, and not one minute earlier than that status is confirmed.
Otherwise you're just going to lump a bunch of otherwise healthy flu and cold sufferers in with a small number of Ebola patients, to no good end.
Quarantine will probably thus be de facto, by household groupings, and if you become symptomatic, you come out, get tested and sorted into Ebola treatment, or not.
The keys then become strict quarantine, and rapid testing, while focusing scarce resources in concentrated Ebola treatment facilities. And the media coverage of same has to be flawlessly transparent, and world-class excellent treatment, or you simply drive up panic, suspicion, non-compliance, and thus force the disease underground, which is how you prolong things to West African levels.
And if someone wants to barricade themselves at home, that's fine. Either Ebola will solve the problem, or time will. But after that point, either they stay in until known clear, or they get taken out for breaking quarantine before that point. And I mean, you shoot them in the head. The only way to stop this without a vaccine or definitive treatment, is to starve the virus of new hosts.
People hunkered down at home aren't the problem then.
The jackasses who think they can still wander freely about are.
At that point, the relatively minimal worry is ensuring continued water and utility supply, and food delivery as necessary.
If you don't do that, it becomes an anarchic free-for-all race to the bottom, and the world reverts to the 18th or 19th century.
More like 1500 BC. If the trains don't run on time, our "nation" will totally collapse. Mass anarchy, starvation, disease, etc...
DeleteWhile I'll grant that we'd revert to the pre-electric period, I don't think we'd revert to the time before the common use of the wheel. You're getting ridiculous, and overlooking that society didn't revert backwards when plague hit in the 1400-1500s. It would be bad, but let's don't go crazy predicting apocalypse.
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