23 October 2014

"Fearbola"

As reported in The Huffington Post:
In Maine, an elementary school teacher was recently put on paid leave for up to three weeks after parents complained that the teacher had traveled to Dallas, where there have been a few Ebola cases. On Sunday, a similar precaution was taken at a high school in Phenix, Alabama, after an employee flew on the same plane as a person who contracted Ebola -- even though the employee flew a day later, long after the aircraft had been cleaned...

In Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, Ebola is killing business at a local Liberian
restaurant. "We have had customers coming in and actually standing in front of us at the counter saying, 'do you have Ebola?'"

On the upside, the business of protective gear is booming. David Scott, president of LifeSecure, told The Chicago Sun-Times that his business recently sold out of a kit that includes "disposable eyeshields, biohazard bags, protective masks, vinyl gloves and hand sanitizer."
What they should sell are the sunglasses described in Hitchhiker, which, at the first sign of danger... go totally black.

Addendum:
(Reuters) - U.S. stock futures tumbled while safe-haven assets such as the yen and U.S. bonds gained on Friday after media reported that a doctor who returned to New York City from West Africa has tested positive for Ebola.
*sigh* 

7 comments:

  1. "Do you have Ebola?"

    "If it's not on the menu, we don't have it."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Currently based on hospital exposures and deaths (not actual number of cases) we are all several thousand times more likely to die of the flu and while people get shots every year no one is freaking out about it (and the 600+ people it kills in the U.S. every week).

    ReplyDelete
  3. The fear, I get. Ebola virus disease is a terrible, awful, excruciating way to die, from all the evidence. But the panic is ludicrous. It really reminds me of the H1N1 scare five years ago, only in that case, the virus in the spotlight was airborne and could be passed before major symptoms presented. That is far scarier to me. The moronic comments from conspiracy theorists are about the same, too.

    Stan, if The Hot Zone isn't already in your library, you might enjoy the read. I read it 15 years ago or so, and it was fascinating. Played a small part in my entry into medical diagnostic device engineering.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The government should issue a public service announcement that Ebola is just like AIDS in that you must be exposed to body fluids into your body in order to catch the disease. Then maybe all of the scared people would calm down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I doubt that would reassure the viewers of Fox News. It's not about facts (dreaded science) after all.

      Delete
  5. Well, to be fair, airliner cleaning is rudimentary at best.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There was a feature about US coverage compared to UK coverage of ebola on English TV tonight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAz-F1QnyCk

    ReplyDelete

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