This is not the same as this:
Because one gives you tools and a method to handle the problem, the other just freaks people out who suddenly believe that all Chinese Americans are carrying the plague.
Not really, no. Healthcare providers didn’t and don’t need to run around with their hair on fire to handle this. We have providers dealing with lethal and spreadable diseases in this world… everyday.
Yeah, it’s easy to forget this and become cynical. :(
Shutting down borders isn’t stupid and doesn’t mean deathly hardship, just means people need to change their travel plans and sit tight while the health exerts assess the scope of the outbreak.
Travel restrictions are political theater
So says a couple of writers for Vox.
They reference actual studies in that article, including CDC data.
They literally end the article with “We know this for sure: The longer this virus spreads, the more people get the disease there, and the greater chance it has of spreading throughout Asia and the world.”
Closing borders, cancelling travel, telling people to stay in one place helps avoid “spreading throughout Asia and the world”.
Here are a half-dozen more:
We tried it with HIV / AIDs… look how well that turned out. We did it with Ebola, not like that diseases is actually gone and we had a huge scare with a couple of health providers who came into the country, should we just shutdown the whole continent… oh right, memories are short, people probably barely remember that complete freakout now. SARs, Swine Flu, the actual flue, I mean how many of these do we have to go through before the knee jerk reactions that don’t work are just abandoned?
But hey panic is certainly a rational reaction so why not spread that? That’s a hell of a lot easier to spread than the next freak-out diseases the public cares about… for about five minutes of history.
We lose more people to the flu every year than this disease has likely killed, and I bet there are a number of people demanding borders to be closed that still haven’t got their flu shot. Don’t tell me this is some sort of rational approach. It’s designed to do what people want the most, assurances that don’t require them to do anything at all.
During the period of infection, there were 8,098 reported cases of SARS and 774 deaths.
This page has been removed - NHS
In the United States, only eight persons were laboratory-confirmed as SARS cases. There were no SARS-related deaths in the United States. All of the eight persons with laboratory-confirmed SARS had traveled to areas where SARS-CoV transmission was occurring.
SARS | Frequently Asked Questions | CDC
CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.
Disease Burden of Flu | CDC
So which one of these are we freaking out about again?
Why a dozen, if I were wrong, it would only take one.
You took issue with the source in the other one. I have no idea what sources you think are real enough to consider. Clearly not Vox which references many others. So I gave you a variety. You can easily find more of course.
Coming down hard on people just causes them to go underground/escape detection I guess. And a virus is going to exploit human psychology.
Yeah it does. And we can get almost the same results if not better with an educated population, certainly educated employees at the point of entries and care facilities as well as clear protocols about quarantine and how to attend to the disease.
The world is not going to just surround one country and shut-it off, and even if it did, that’s just legal transportation. We still have the other one. So know get people still using the proper and legal methods of travel, get the symptoms out there and respond accordingly. The health systems and the employees in them are well aware of these risks and the symptoms and that information is going out to most providers as well as any updates.
A false sense of security and forcing people to go underground or work around these bans is a recipe for disaster. But hey I guess we can try it once again to see the same thing again. A blissfully ignorant but I feel safe public that still refuses to get their vaccines against a disease that kills thousands while losing sleep at night over this other one that may or may not reach those levels.
Not sure about the CDC Director’s wildfire analogy,
When a wildfire breaks out we don’t fence it off.
But we do “fence it off”, we create fire breaks to try and contain it.
We go in to extinguish it before one of the random sparks sets off another outbreak somewhere else.
Had to laugh at that, cause fires don’t jump on a jetliner and travel to other continents unannounced.
How’s that working for Australia these days?
Here’s the thing, the break lines, the bulldozers, they don’t always works. Fires do often jump those lines and attempts and it’s not something you want rely on. It’s just better to have policies and controls in place that work rather than trying to predict fires all the time.
Sparks do actually travel relatively long distances through the air.
Yes they do. But always coach.
My point is that the analogy is not bad. Granted there are competing pressures.
I’m not sure those studies are relevant. The flu is different. It can arise in multiple areas and has an existing and well established reservoir, meanwhile this coronavirus is a distinct single point of origin. Ebola is also different. It usually spreads via bodily fluids, not normally as an aerosol mist. This particular virus puts every single person on a flight, every person who passes by said individual in the airport - at risk. I’m not sure you can use flu containment studies, nor Ebola containment as a proper gauge for how to handle this particular virus since their circumstances are unique.
SARS is the only relatable option and I firmly believe things would have been much worse if the red flags hadn’t been raised. The death-count for SARS could have been dramatically higher if a single SARS infected individual had coughed their way through JFK airport or been a baggage handler there. Therefore we do what we can to minimize risk. When we already have to worry about the flu, we don’t want to open the door to an additional respiratory virus to gain the same kind of foothold the flu has. Many healthcare systems find themselves at the breaking point at peak flu season. Throw this coronovirus into the mix and you end up with hospitals that exceed their ability to care for the critically ill.
I’ve been in the hospital when the ICU is overflowing from flu and newly vented patients are waiting in step-down critical care. It’s scary stuff. While quarantines and travel bans will never fully stop a dangerous virus, it does slow their spread. Much better to have the world’s population beset over a period of a year vs. having it hit most of the world in a just a month.
What we need are flexible options for each new threat that comes out. I know you mentioned better education @Nesrie, but you and I both know that isn’t going to happen outside of the healthcare field. We live in a society where people and even legislators revel in ignorance and would rather put themselves/others at risk than listen to a doctor or scientist.
Allowing direct flights from Wuhan to the rest of the world is/was a recipe for disaster. If people use cars to get out? At least their infection pool is limited. When someone flies out? You’ve instantly put 100,000 people at risk depending on the size of the airport. Then factor in plane population, and then another 100,000 at the receiving airport. But new policies and procedures do nothing at an airport if you don’t have a cough or fever. By the time you show up at a hospital you’ve already been shedding the virus for days and now it’s too late. If hospitals are overwhelmed because we didn’t try to stop the epidemic from spreading at a warp speed, we’re in trouble. I don’t want to see this scene here:
I understand what you’re saying, but you ignoring Swine Flu, aka H1N1, and a number of others. This is not our first rodeo. This is not the first time we’ve run into a strain of flu thought to be spread by animal to human contact and then is easy to spread from person to person. And SARs had confirm cases in the USA. It’s not a matter of if these individuals exposed the public. We didn’t lose anyone to it either. It’s probably a good thing we dedicated some resources to methods of identification and treatment instead of a bunch of systems that don’t actually work designed to keep people who refuse to even get the flu shot feeling safe.
The only thing a flat-out travel ban will do is make people feel safe with complacency.
Well we’ll never hit 100% but we can certainly try and reach some of the populace by telling them what the symptoms are and what to do, other than, you know irrational fear about being around someone they assume is Chinese.