The severity of 9/11 was immediately evident.
New York is the worst possible place in America for there to have been an Ebola case.
The problem is that we simply do not know how Ebola will spread in our society. We can guess at it. But we don't know - it's not really been here, before.
Dallas, so far, has been lucky. We will know in a couple weeks if anyone aboard the nurse's flight contracted the disease.
For comparison - the doctor in New York traveled on three subway lines.
The mayor made a big deal about taking the subway - but that's not the problem. The problem is who all was bumping up against the man on the subway, on the way into and out of the station, etc.
NYC is used to a degree of personal contact that most of us in the rest of America are very uncomfortable with. It's not as insane as China or Japan - but you all are used to literal tides of human beings and you think nothing of it. That is not "close contact."
Except, in the world of viruses. It is. It's not just close contact - it's intimate contact.
It's functionally little different from the burial ceremonies in Africa.
Ebola is exceptionally infectious. It only takes one virus particle. It is that effective at countering our early immune responses. It destroys some people so fast that they never get the chance to develop a fever:
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"The study, sponsored by the World Health Organization and published online late last month by the New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed data on 3,343 confirmed and 667 probable cases of Ebola.The finding that 87.1% of those infected exhibited fever — but 12.9% did not — illustrates the challenges confronting health authorities as they struggle to contain the epidemic."
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"Researchers studying an outbreak in Uganda in late 2000 and early 2001 reported that "the commonest symptom … was fever, which occurred in 85% of the cases."
Another study of that outbreak, focusing on 24 confirmed cases of Ebola, found fever in 88%.
The third study, which examined a 1995 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, found fever in 93% of 84 people who died and in 18 of 19 individuals who survived."
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"He added: "It seems that Ebola can present without fever especially in the first phase."
Zwinkels said that without fever as a trustworthy marker, it is difficult for medical professionals to treat the many West Africans suffering from everyday maladies."
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"If Ebola cannot be readily identified, Zwinkels wrote, "Ebola patients will be admitted in the normal ward and possibly contaminating health staff and caretakers. This is why a lot of hospitals in West Africa are closed. … Millions of people don't have any healthcare at the moment because hospitals treat Ebola only or are closed.""
Panic is never a good idea.
However, if people in New York who had contact with this guy begin displaying symptoms...
It means I am as correct about this virus as I fear.
When that happens, there is a very narrow window of opportunity to act.
Quarantine districts must be established. Travel between those districts must be restricted and the contacts of people who had the virus must be traced while free public travel -must- be restricted.
Not by the government - but by the people. The government can't force that on people - and at this point, I doubt they would be able to organize it in a functional manner, anyway.
Shopping should be conducted in an organized fashion with as little travel of individuals as possible and as little interaction as possible.
This will need to be done for one full month after the most recent case has been identified within each quarantine district.
That must happen, or by the time New York has "A problem" with thousands being infected, it will be far too late and the city must be quarantined by those outside the city at all costs, because the city is lost.
By the time you have a thousand recognized, you have hundreds of thousands of potential exposures. By the time even a fraction of those are identified, your potential exposures are in the millions.
You must understand that the BRN - Basic Replication Number - that is used for Ebola in Africa has little application within our society.
In Africa - for every one person infected with Ebola, they are currently transmitting it to roughly 2.4 people (this number has been trending up).
But one must keep in mind that this virus is very short lived. It has a very narrow window of opportunity to come into contact with as many different people as possible before its host dies and loses much of its ability to infect others.
How many different people does the average West African come into contact with? Not very many. Despite cultural shifts that have been causing people to distance themselves from those who work with Ebola and those who display its symptoms - the virus has been spreading at an increasing rate.
So - how many different people does the average New Yorker come into contact with on a daily basis?
Far, far more.
Our society is generally trusting of our immune system and we can shrug off most of the common infections. The guy who coughs a bit on the subway just prompts you to eat a salad for the next few days or drink a few glasses of orange juice (or some other vitamin-C supplement).
Ebola, frankly, is in an entirely different class of viruses. There is no such thing as a "mild case." You'll be rendered in need of hospitalization.
