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Showing posts with label virus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label virus. Show all posts

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Monkeypox: genuine threat or FearPorn?



Dr. Robert Malone (credited with the invention of the mRna delivery system for the “vaccines”) has already published his take on the Monkeypox headlines;  his article is at Substack, and he begins:

Monkey Pox: Truth versus Fearporn

I keep getting asked the same question again and again; is this outbreak of monkey pox a real threat, or is this another case of overstated and weaponized public health messaging? I am going to save my answer to this question for the end of this article and instead focus on what monkey pox is, the nature and characteristics of the associated disease, what we know and don’t know.

The monkeypox virus, which originates in various regions of Africa, is related to SmallPox (Variola), which are both members of the genus Orthopoxvirus. However, it is important to understand that Variola (major or minor) is the species of virus which is responsible for the worst human disease caused by the Orthopox viruses. For example, Cowpox, Horsepox, and Camelpox are also members of this genus, none of which are a major health threat to humans, and one of which (Cowpox) has even been (historically) used as a Smallpox vaccine. My point is that just because Monkeypox is related to Smallpox, this does not in any way mean that it represents a similar public health threat. Anyone who implies otherwise is basically engaged in or otherwise supporting weaponized public health-related propaganda. In other words, spreading public health fearporn.

. . .

. . .There is no evidence of asymptomatic transmission. In other words, current medical knowledge indicates that it is only spread by person to person contact between an uninfected individual and someone who already has symptoms of the disease. Therefore, disease spread can be readily controlled by classical public health interventions such as contact tracing, temporary quarantine of those who have had physical contact with someone who is infected, and longer term quarantine of those who develop symptoms. Essentially all of the current cases in the west which we are seeing in the news are among men who have sex with men, and appear to be due to close physical contact.  . . . Once again for emphasis, Cowpox and Camelpox are also in the genus Orthopoxvirus, and they are not particularly pathogenic when contracted by humans; just because Monkeypox is a “pox” virus in the genus Orthopoxvirus, does not mean it is particularly deadly.

. . .

Current data indicate that Monkeypox is not very infectious in humans - it has a low Ro (perhaps below 1), which is the term used to describe how efficiency an infectious disease can spread from human to human. Again, this is super good news for containment. . . .

And his conclusion:

In my opinion, based on currently available information, Monkeypox is a virus and disease which is endemic in Africa, emerges sporadically after transmission into humans from animal hosts, and is typically spread by close human contact. It is readily controlled by classical public health measures. It does not have a high mortality rate. Unless there has been some genetic alteration, either through evolution or intentional genetic manipulation, it is not a significant biothreat, and has never been considered a high threat pathogen in the past.

So stop the fear mongering, misinformation and disinformation.

Read Dr Malone’s full article here. And just for fun:

Cartoon credit: BabylonBee (satire):
Fauci Recommends Stopping Spread Of Monkeypox
By Covering Eyes, Ears, Mouth

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Thursday, February 24, 2022

The coming “Vaccine” That Spreads Like a Virus

 




Globalist De-populationist Bill Gates Developing
Needle-Less “Vaccine” That Spreads Like a Virus

It keeps getting worse. Now Ethan Huff reports at NOQ that

New research funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aims to develop a needle-less vaccine that can spread like a virus rather than have to be injected, leaving no way for anyone to remain unvaccinated.

The goal is to create a vaccine that people “catch” without their consent, and without the need for any injections. The vaccine would be passed from one person to the next like a cold, in other words.

A paper on the subject claims that contagious vaccines will be slightly less deadly than traditional injections, “but not non-lethal: they can still kill.”

“Some people will die who would otherwise have lived, though fewer people die overall,” it further explains. “The other issue is there is no consent (for vaccination) from the majority of patients.”

Mandatory “vaccines.”  Read the rest of Mr. Huff's report here.  Sinister.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Exposing Pfizer vaccine: under-reported adverse reactions

 

Mark Wauck (at Meaning in History) has shocking Pfizer “vaccine” updates from the NZ Daily Telegraph:

This article appeared in the NZ Daily Telegraph. It’s addressing the recent FOIA induced revelations from Pfizer, which revelations give just a glimpse of how bad the adverse event data is. I say ‘just a glimpse,’ because Pfizer acknowledges that “the magnitude of [adverse event] underreporting is unknown”. Read that as many times as is necessary for the implications to sink in—

governments around the world are coercing millions upon millions of perfectly healthy and not-at-risk people to get injected with an experimental gene therapy that has produced unprecedentedly horrific side effects—and Pfizer acknowledges that, bad as that is, “the magnitude of [adverse event] underreporting is [as yet] unknown”.

And governments, knowing this, are pushing ahead with new, draconian mandates, regardless. This is the final breach of faith, now in plain sight whereas previous such breaches of faith were kept hidden.

We know all this already, but I’ll be quoting extensively from the NZ article because the author, Guy Hatcherd, puts it all in a brilliant perspective. Read it and share it widely. The pushback in the US appears to be getting stronger by the day, and this type of articulate, informed perspective is what’s needed to keep things going in the right direction. This is Guy Hatcherd:

Guy Hatchard PhD is a statistician and former senior manager at Genetic ID, a global food safety testing and certification laboratory.

And this is an excerpted version of his article—severely pruned to simply follow the main lines of the argument:

PFIZER DOCUMENT CONCEDES THAT THERE IS A LARGE INCREASE IN TYPES OF ADVERSE EVENT REACTION TO ITS VACCINE

    • Document released by Pfizer apparently as a result of a Freedom Of Information court order in the USA reveals a vast array of previously unknown vaccine adverse effects compiled from official sources around the world.
    • Pfizer concedes this is ‘a large increase’ in adverse event reports and that even this huge volume is under reported.
    • Over 100+ diseases are listed, many very serious.
    • This document was compiled by Pfizer in the very early days of the vaccine rollout in NZ but was possibly not supplied to our government.
    • We examine the implications for government.

. . .

The sheer density of the technical medical terms and disease names are nevertheless broken down into recognisable and serious categories of illness—kidney failure, stroke, cardiac events, pregnancy complications, inflammation, neurological disease, autoimmune failure, paralysis, liver failure, blood disorders, skin disease, musculoskeletal problems, arthritis, respiratory disease, DVT, blood clots, vascular disease, haemorrhage, loss of sight, Bell’s palsy, and epilepsy.

Read the rest here. 

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Sunday, December 5, 2021

Next up: Super Duper Booster Shot

 


Sundance at Conservative Treehouse monitors the Sunday TV talk shows so you don’t have to.  Here’s his report on the latest Panic Porn.

Sunday Talks, NBC Proclaims Omicron Has Merged With Common Cold Virus to Create New Mutant Super Spreader Variant, Requiring New Super Duper Booster

Once the political operatives unleash the healthcare/media narrative engineers to push the maximum fear-porn needed to support the larger objectives, you end up in this bizarro world where buck-tooth carrot-eating parents are having rabbit faced babies with ten inch ears.

Yup, the jaw-agape headlines start to become a parody of themselves, and while people roll their eyes the media cannot stop…. they just can’t.  That’s where we cue the opening segment of Meet The Press with Chuck Todd interviewing NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins.  Just the first minute is needed to see it.

The virus has morphed, changed, mutated they shout with earnest proclamation… and Omicron has merged with the common cold to create a new highly infectious super duper variant requiring even more important booster shots to protect civilization. This holiday season you better watch out for dissidents showing symptoms of the variant sniffles who are not triple-vaxxed and quadruple-masked.   It’s the science, swear… 

The video clip is here.

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Sunday, September 12, 2021

Exemptions to the vaccine mandate!

 

Are the vaccine mandates about public health or politics?  That’s an easy one.  Here’s the report from Darragh Roche at Newsweek:

President Joe Biden's new vaccine mandates for federal employees don't apply to members of Congress or those who work for Congress or the federal court system.

Biden issued two executive orders on Thursday requiring vaccination against COVID for federal workers and contractors who work for the federal government. He also asked the Department of Labor to issue an emergency order requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested on a weekly basis.

However, Biden's order on federal workers applies to employees of the executive branch. The House of Representatives and the Senate belong to the separate legislative branch, and the courts to the judicial branch of the federal government.

Read the rest here.

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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Playhouse Square will require theatergoers to be fully vaccinated or test negative for COVID

 


At cleveland.com: "Playhouse Square will require theatergoers to be fully vaccinated or test negative for COVID":

Theatergoers will have to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or show proof of a recent negative test in order to attend shows at Playhouse Square. The new policy, issued on top of the existing mask mandate for all audience members regardless of vaccination status, goes into effect on September 30.

“From the momentum we have created with the successful run of ‘The Choir of Man,’ we are building toward full-capacity performances for the return of Broadway, our beloved resident companies, concerts and comedy shows,” said Playhouse Square President & CEO Gina Vernaci in a press release. “We are all eager to enjoy live performances together again; the vaccination requirement being enacted by Playhouse Square and venues across the country enables us to maintain our forward motion responsibly.”

The new protocols are similar to the measures currently being enforced on Broadway in New York City. The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Pops Orchestra announced the same requirements starting on Sept. 15. . . .

Key phrase: “measures currently being enforced.” Full report is here. 

Will you comply?  Where do you draw your line?  Our household has tickets for performances postponed in 2020 because of the lockdowns.  We will be turning in those tickets for a tax credit.

Is it responsible to require proof of having had a dangerous experimental gene therapyinjection in order to be seated?  Showing proof of a negative test for COVID essentially validates rules that do not follow science and are merely political theater.  Sad.  And scary.  And it’s here in Cleveland.

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Friday, August 13, 2021

The Four Stages of Ideological Subversion

 

image of dystopia via dystopia wallpapers


Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has been my go-to source for years -- for in-depth analyses and reporting on significant current events.  I first discovered his website when he was digging through the evidence, and manipulation of evidence, in the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case.  That was in 2012-13.   Here’s his take on what we’ve been witnessing over the past dozen+ years, especially as it relates to the current COVID-19 hysteria and government over-reach:

It has been almost ten years since CTH first outlined the 1984 interview between Yuri Bezmenov and G. Edward Griffin titled “Deception was My Job”.  [2013 CTH Article Here] However, it is worth revisiting the interview as we find ourselves increasingly influenced by a deliberate effort to control U.S. society.

Mr. Yuri Bezmenov was a Soviet informant and KGB operative who defected to the United States in the early 70s.  Within the interview [full video here], Bezmenov lays out the four stages of “ideological subversion” created by radical Marxists to indoctrinate and weaken nations from within.

It is my contention the Chicago Marxists aligned with Barack Obama (revolutionary communists) were/are following this ‘four stage’ roadmap.  The U.S. State Department is filled with like-minded travelers who align with this approach.

Some researchers have identified the objective as connected to the Fabian Socialist goal, others have called it “The Color Revolution”, but the names do not matter much; what matters is the map they follow, the four stages:

Stage One: Demoralization – Elimination of American Exceptionalism, fundamental change of national identity, structural deconstruction of foundational principles, elimination of religion. Embedding a new societal design upon the psyche of generations through ideological academia. Peer pressure by elites upon academics and society to convince that prior values were inherently flawed, racist, prejudiced etc. National identity is diluted with aspersions toward historical references. National history is re-written, re-defined, and molded to fit the new intended behavioral model and create the new values.

Stage Two: Crisis – Creation of economic, financial, and national security crisis. Also includes social crisis and breakdown of previous self-evident restrictions on moral behavior. Cloward Piven approach to overloading the system, ie more takers than producers. The crisis produces benevolent leaders who will promise to deliver “things” (Hope and Change) to meet people’s needs through Social and Economic Justice. False illusions that the situation is under control if certain strategic directions are followed (Bailouts, Stimulus, Jobs Bills, Regulations of industry, Unconstitutional Power Grabs, Dismissal of Historical Laws, Changes in legislative processes, Changes in checks and balances of power etc).

Stage Three: Normalization – The uncomfortable feelings of change including losses of freedom are absorbed and accepted. Lost national identity becomes accepted as the norm within the new societal model. A period of national rebranding transition where people are so overwhelmed by the change they become numb and begin to accept a ‘new normal’. This period of normalization lasts indefinitely as the progression is continually advanced and acceptance takes place in small controlled doses. (New limits on behavior, Regulations, TSA Patdowns, Intrusions into privacy, Controls into daily life) These things begin to be accepted as “just the way it is now”.

Stage Four: Destabilization – Unlike the period of “Crisis” the people who helped orchestrate the change are now no longer needed. The new overarching centralized governmental model begins to take control. Leftist usurpers who initially thought they were going to be part of the new power structure begin to realize they were used and manipulated and they themselves become the new enemy. Because they have first hand knowledge of the agenda they are the primary target for elimination. They may simply be disregarded, obfuscated, thrown out, or they may be collected, imprisoned, or worse killed. There is no longer room for dissention. Dissent is only possible within the free system that has now been deconstructed. Therefore the leftist purpose is served once the destabilization is complete. Totalitarian Government takes control.

Perhaps a reasonable person would argue that elimination of economic capacity (to live freely) is just as restrictive as living inside a walled camp. If you cannot live freely, earn a living freely, move about without restrictions, and determine for yourself your choices, then what really is the difference between being thrown in an internment camp and having the invisible chain link fence of diminished freedom built around your home?

If government can control your income through taxation, employment and redistribution; tell you what to eat by deciding your choices for you; tell you how much energy you are allowed to consume through rules and regulation; tell you what kind of car you can be allowed to drive; tell you what type of toilet you can buy; tell you what kind of detergent you may wash with; determine what information you have access to through the TV media and internet access; and then control your capacity to receive the healthcare of your choice; then really what is the difference between living in a collective camp under such rules and living where you are now but following the same rules ?

I would argue that we are solidly in the middle of stage #3 (normalization), while all around us Stage Four (destabilization) is beginning, perhaps as planned. We talk about the new “isms” all the time. Heck, most of what we discuss is our reluctance to engage in acceptance of the “normalization”, and our seeming frustration to be able to influence “it” to stop presenting us with new acceptance challenges.

And here is the kicker:

Everything you just read above was written in 2013.  If we consider the constant nudges, probes and pushes from the leftists in government and society (BLM, Antifa, Occupy Wall Street, etc.), we can consider them as different approaches, tests or probes per se’, toward the same totalitarian outcome.  Then if we overlay the weaponization of COVID-19 fear as the biggest effort so far, well, from that perspective SARS-CoV-2 takes on a new strategic dimension.

There is much more at the link here.  I’d recommend the whole thing for weekend reading and re-reading.

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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Mark Steyn on "COVID Forever"

 


Mark Steyn is always worth the read. From his website

A year and a half into this thing, how's it going?

From Canada's Globe & Mail, which is like The New York Times but without the jokes, it seems the New Normal is going to have to be cranked up a notch:

Overwhelming evidence now demonstrates that the dominant mode of transmission of SARS-CoV2 is airborne, yet mitigation strategies have not evolved with this knowledge.

Indoor environments where people are in close contact present the highest risk for transmission. Work-from-home should continue as much as possible, as it is premature to return to the office unless absolutely necessary. When indoor close contact is occurring, cloth or medical masks should be replaced with respirator masks, which provide superior protection through a combination of exhalation source control and inhalational filtration.

Respirator masks, huh? They're pricey but stylish - and your kids will soon get used to them.

[I did not know what a respirator mask was, so here's an image: 


- ed.]

On the other hand, from Iceland's top epidemiologist:

Þórólfur Guðnason sagði í Sprengisandi á Bylgjunni í morgun að vonbrigði séu að hjarðónæmi hafi ekki náðst með bólusetningu. Hann segir að einungis ein önnur leið sé fær til að ná hjarðónæmi, að leyfa veirunni að dreifast um samfélagið.

Which means more or less:

Þórólfur Guðnason said on Sprengisandi á Bylgjunni this morning that it is disappointing that herd immunity has not been achieved through vaccination. He says the only other way to achieve herd immunity is to allow the virus to spread through the community.

The great monolithic herd of public health commissars then took the tire iron to him, and Mr Guðnason has now walked that back.

Meanwhile, in America - or at least on Twitter - it's business as usual. Lars McMurtry is following the science:

The CDC should roll out a new program: Get the shot or get shot.

The unvaccinated need to be rounded up and lined up in front of open trenches, Their choice is simple.

America has had enough of their virus. We need to get back to normal life.

With or without them.

The bad news is that America can't dig open trenches, because all the shovels and excavators are made in China and the supply chain's a bit disrupted. The good news is that what Joe Biden calls "the pandemic of the unvaccinated" mostly involves the vaccinated giving the Delta variant to the un-, so Mr McMurtry may get his wish albeit a little more incrementally than he'd like.

My view is that the Icelandic guy is right - that is, before he was clubbed into submission. To recapitulate a pithy line from another apparently silenced researcher, stopping humans from being human won't stop the virus from being a virus. Whatever the original justification (ie, to prevent the collapse of hospital systems), maintaining lockdown after, oh, late April 2020 did nothing to the virus except retard the development of herd immunity and, in the absence thereof, enable it to incubate more lethal variants than it would otherwise have done.

What's the upshot? This medical prof from East Anglia now says "herd immunity will never happen". Well, whose fault is that? Quarantining millions of healthy people while setting a target of zero-Covid is a pandemic policy that no sane government has ever attempted.

Given that we're now being told we have to live with Covid forever, we could at least take measures to punish the Chinese biowarfare lab and its enthusiastic funders in America's diseased public-health bureaucracy for loosing this thing on the world.

Ah, but that's even less likely than open trenches...

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Sunday, July 25, 2021

More on COVID vaccine mandates

 


JD Rucker at NOQ published an informative analysis on the latest vaccine mandates cropping up worldwide:

The Various Lies About the Delta Variant
Set the Stage for Draconian Vaccine Mandates

The Delta Variant of Covid-19 is a lie. No, I’m not suggesting it doesn’t exist. It’s real, and it’s just as dangerous as the previous variants of Covid-19. That means unless you’re elderly or have major preexisting conditions that make you extremely vulnerable to pulmonary infections of any sort, the Delta Variant has a 99.97% recovery rate. Depending on the study du jour, some will say it’s more transmissible but less deadly than the other variants.

Why, then, is it be propped up as another existential threat to humanity that requires totalitarianism and other radical measures to fight? Our readers likely already know the answer or can extrapolate it from the headline. This is all about the fear necessary to compel the masses to self-suppress their rights, accept whatever “guidance” is given to them by government, and pressure their friends, family, and even strangers to get injected.

. . .

Is the Delta Variant truly much more dangerous than previous ones? The numbers do not back it as cases are going up but deaths are not. This indicates what we stipulated earlier, that the new variant is more transmissible but less deadly. But as the old saying goes, if you torture the numbers long enough you can make them say anything. According to an article from Global Research, mainstream media is torturing the numbers in one of the most egregious scare propaganda campaigns we’ve seen throughout the Covid-19 ordeal, and that’s saying a lot.

There is a lot more about the “science” and the elite politics of these mandates in the complete report here.

For those of you who might be interested in an in-depth interview with Dr. Peter McCullough on the subjects of COVID, vaccines, and therapeutics, here is the link to Mark Wauck’s site, Meaning In History. 

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Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Saturday, August 8, 2020

COVID Hyperbole Syndrome

Cartoon credit: Cartoonstock

Lionel Shriver’s column at The Spectator is titled “Never Has  Virus Been so oversold:  I’d like to sign on with COVID’s agent. What a publicity budget.” She sets forth the grotesque trade-offs we are seeing in both the US and the UK – with no end in sight.  An extract:

The more relentless these micro-managing policies of ‘social distancing’ (an expression I’ve come to loathe), mandatory masks, continued closures and capriciously restored regional lockdowns apparently on the basis of a miserable uptick of 14 extra cases, the more we relocate what had lurked far at the back of our minds to the front: other people are sources of contagion. We used to live with that fact. But this on-going risk of mixing with other human beings we’re now, apparently, to find intolerable.

I’m currently in New York, where the medical paranoia is sustained, and social life is nearly nonexistent. This week, a rarity, a couple came inside our house. They didn’t sit down, didn’t stay long, and were careful not to touch anything. When they left they were clearly relieved, and immediately doused themselves in hand sanitizer. I don’t think it’s going to be any different next summer. Google, for example, has already advised its employees to work from home for the next 12 months.

The graph of new cases in the UK roughly leveled off throughout July — but it has not plateaued at zero. The PM gives every indication that only zero will do. Thus as long as the coronavirus persists, the fearful prophylactic measures will continue. In trade for this valiant vigilance on our behalf, we merely have to sacrifice: our friends. Any new friends. All live performance — music, plays. Restaurants. All occasions, like proper weddings, funerals, birthdays and extended-family celebrations. Travel. Colleagues. Any search for love. Any moving communal experience, like festivals. Dentistry. A functional National Health Service. Oh, and the economy — and in case you need translation, that means the country, full stop.

Boris’s ‘nuclear option’ of another total national lockdown remains on the table. Why on earth? The one constructive conclusion to draw from this debacle is that long, indiscriminate national lockdowns to suppress infectious disease are a catastrophe. Yet the most horrifying consequence of COVID-19 could be that lockdown — which once applied only to prisons — becomes officialdom’s established knee-jerk response to any new contagion.

There will be a new contagion, too, and a new one after that. How many times can you send the national debt soaring, devastate small business, paralyze government services — including healthcare — and cancel for months on end the civil liberties of an erstwhile ‘free people’? In preference to this repeated carpet-bombing, a literal nuclear option might at least get the agony over with fast.

Read the full column here (h/t Instapundit).

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Saturday, November 1, 2014

Ebola Quarantines


Art credit: littlebigplanet.wikia.com


Ohioans had a scare recently when a nurse with the Ebola virus flew in and out of Hopkins Airport. Were Ohioans' fears justified or unwarranted? Betsy McCaughey is an excellent resource on healthcare, including Obamacare and the Ebola virus. Here’s her column from National Review online:

OCTOBER 31, 2014 6:18 PM

The Evidence Demands Ebola Quarantines

We can applaud health workers and take the prudent steps at the same time.


President Barack Obama and Kaci Hickox, a nurse who returned from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone on October 24, are attacking states’ efforts to keep returning health-care workers away from the public for 21 days. Governors in New Jersey, Illinois, Maine, Connecticut, and other states say it’s a wise precaution to prevent the virus from possibly spreading. But Obama claims that these regulations are based on fear, not science. And Hickox has successfully defied Maine’s effort to restrict her to her home, bashing the quarantine as “unnecessary” and “not evidence-based.” Judge Charles C. LaVerdiere ruled on Friday that Hickox is free to travel without restrictions.
But, in fact, science is against Obama, Hickox, and the judge. Evidence shows that to protect the public, travelers from Ebola-plagued West Africa, especially doctors and nurses who battled the virus, should be quarantined for 21 days.
Fever Monitoring Is Unreliable
At least 100 people, including about five health-care workers, enter the U.S. each day from Ebola-infected countries in West Africa. At departure from there and arrival here, their temperatures are checked by airport workers. But data from over 4,000 Ebola cases (the most complete analysis ever) published October 16 in the New England Journal of Medicine show that 13 percent of patients don’t develop a fever early on.
Thomas Duncan, who brought Ebola to Texas and infected two nurses, was able to get through fever screening. It also failed to identify Craig Spencer, the physician with Doctors without Borders, who returned home to New York infected with Ebola and then went bowling, dined out, and took the subway. Now he is fighting for his life in Bellevue Hospital, and public-health officials are scrambling to identify the people who may have been exposed to him.
Spiking temperatures eventually alerted Duncan and Spencer. But the research shows that in 13 percent of Ebola cases, the patient is already quite ill and diagnosed with the virus but still does not have a fever.
Are Americans At Risk Of Catching Ebola?
For most Americans, the known risk of catching Ebola is currently small. Ebola is most contagious in the later stages of illness, when victims here presumably would be in a hospital, putting hospital workers at severe risk but not the rest of us. Better sanitation facilities here than in Africa make it less likely that Americans will be exposed to infectious bodily fluids.
Less likely, that is, but not impossible. An infected person’s saliva can contain numerous virus particles. When scientists say Ebola is not “airborne,” they mean the virus doesn’t remain suspended in the air after the infected person leaves the area. But Ebola might be contagious if the infected person coughs or sneezes, sending droplets several feet. If droplets land in one’s eye, nose, or mouth or on a cut or opening in your skin, it’s possible to get Ebola. On October 23, the CDC edited its website to include this kind of transmission. Sharing finger food from a common plate with someone infected with Ebola also could put you at risk, according to research in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
What about touching a subway pole, door knob, or bowling ball? Unlike staph and other bacteria that can last weeks on dry surfaces, viruses last only a few hours, and there is no research confirming transmission that way. A 2007 study in The Journal of Infectious Diseases shows that the virus can survive on objects much longer if it is embedded in blood, for example, a bloody bandage, tampon, or tissue. The CDC also included this information in its October 23 update, only seven years after the research became available. Better late than not at all.
Then there’s the risk of using a toilet right after an Ebola-infected patient has used it and flushed. A bacterial infection common in hospitals, Clostridium difficile, is known to spread that way. Investigators from the University of Illinois School of Public Health make the connection: “Regarding diarrhea, even when contained by toilets, toilet flushing emits a pathogen laden aerosol that disperses in the air.”
These unknowns would humble any scientist confronting a virus that has no cure for the infected and no vaccine to protect the public. But not the Obama administration.
Why Not Just Test For It?
Kaci Hickox tested negative for Ebola shortly after arriving in the U.S. and finding herself detained under Governor Christie’s new 21-day quarantine policy. But Ebola lab tests (both types available) don’t show the virus until the patient develops symptoms, and even then they can give false negatives for a few more days, explains Dr. Sandro Cinti, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Michigan Hospital System.
Don’t Hazmat Suits Keep Workers Safe?
The CDC insists that doctors and nurses working in Africa are not at a high risk of carrying Ebola home because they wear protective gear. Not so fast. The World Health Organization reports that 521 health-care workers have contracted Ebola so far this year and 272 have died. Some had inadequate equipment or training, but the fatalities include many with experience and full protective gear. According to infectious-disease experts at Johns Hopkins, the gear, though helpful, “is simply not enough.” That’s because there is no room for error in removing it once it’s contaminated with vomit, diarrhea, or blood. “The smallest mistake can be fatal,” Peter Piot, a renowned virologist who co-discovered Ebola, has said.
It’s no wonder that Samaritan’s Purse, a relief organization in North Carolina, imposes a 21-day isolation period on workers returning from Ebola-affected countries. Similarly, hospitals require Ebola volunteers to stay out of work for 21 days after their return to the U.S.
Hickox insists she’s healthy. Let’s hope so. But the same New England Journal of Medicine analysis of 4,000 Ebola cases shows that health-care workers are no quicker to identify their own illness and get to a hospital than others.
Stigmatizing Or Honoring?
Hickox objects that Ebola volunteers are being “stigmatized.” President Obama, sounding like the nation’s schoolmarm-in-chief, lectured us on Wednesday that when these volunteers come home “they deserve to be treated properly. They deserve to be treated like the heroes they are.”
They are heroes, including Kaci Hickox. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be quarantined. On Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that all U.S. troops returning from West Africa undergo a 21-day quarantine. They’re heroes too.
There is no stigma to being quarantined: Our heroic astronauts who landed on the moon were quarantined on their return, to be sure they were not carrying unknown pathogens.
Obama is creating a false choice by saying we have to applaud health-care workers instead of quarantining them.
We should do both.

— Betsy McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research.
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