The West was far too slow to respond to this crisis. Action should have been taken much sooner. Hopefully, West Africa is now getting what it needs to combat Ebola, but I am not convinced that is the case. There are two significant threats to the US economy, one being a possible European recession brought about by the same tight money economic policies advocated by American Republicans since 2008 and a potential liquidity crisis and credit bubble in China. Lesser risks are Ebola and ISIS. Of the two, ISIS is the most solvable and therefore the least worrisome. If it all goes to pieces we can always send in the Marines. At this point, the only thing Ebola has done is depressed airline and travel stocks. When and if it begins killing off thousands in the developed world, it will become a problem for all stocks.
CNN has a nice article listing some of the mistakes the CDC has made with this Ebola outbreak. http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/health/ebola-cdc/index.html
Only due to panic. Flu (a communicable and preventable disease) kills thousands a year but no one worries about it much "because it's just flu." COPD, a largely preventable disease, is a far more horrible way to die - you slowly suffocate over months, and as your brain starts to die you become demented and eventually you quite literally lose your mind. And it kills over 100,000 people a year, and costs over $50 billion in lost labor and healthcare costs. So for Ebola to have a significant objective impact on the economy you'd need to see deaths in that range. However, you are right that even thousands of deaths will cause a significant impact to the economy due to irrational panic.
A Canadian firm has begun human trials of a promising Ebola vaccine today. I think we will find an Ebola vaccine within the coming months. But that doesn't justify the incompetence in the CDC. Ebola and the Duncan affair should be a wake up call. If stock markets had confidence in the CDC to handle it, the outbreak wouldn't be a problem for the stock markets or the economy. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ebola-...ls-of-canadian-vaccine-start-in-u-s-1.2796859
You keep comparing the flu with a mortality rate of a small fraction of a percent to a disease that has a 90% mortality rate. Not really a fair comparison, don't you think? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates
I think it's quite fair. Try to tell the family of someone who just died of the flu that they should only be 5% as sad because the disease their loved one died of doesn't have a high mortality rate. The NUMBER of deaths, as well as how contagious the disease is, are objectively the most important criteria. Now, Ebola is _scarier_, no argument there. But fear is an irrational reaction, and we should not base our decisions on irrational foundations.
Another Texas healthcare worker has contracted Ebola. http://m.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29628622 It should be very apparent that contrary to CDC claims we are not ready for a biological disaster like Ebola.
Let's hope it doesn't get that bad. But it is becoming apparent that Texas Health really screwed this up. According to nurses they screwed up the handling of blood samples. Nurses didn't have the needed garb as skin was exposed during some high risk low value treatments. If what the nurses say is true, we will likely see many more cases before this is over.
A troubleshooter should be sent in to take over, and fire people if they are at fault. At a guess they have someone in charge who is clueless. Somebody's brother probably.
It's pretty damn close. If what the nurses say is true, they should shut down the hospital and disinfect it. Texas has managed to turn a hospital into a bio hazzard site.
I hope there were no traveling nurses on staff during this debacle. Hospitals may be the last place anyone wants to go right now.
Well the CDC dropped the ball too. They were so focused on the patient's contacts and ttheir much vaunted tracing abilities they overlooked the biggest problem, the hospital.
The most recent victim flew the day before she recognized Ebola symptoms. So now within just a few days we have gone from 1 victim and 100 exposed individuals to 3 victims and 300+ potential victims...all from one guy because we didn't have a travel ban in place.
Another straw man, really? They have an epidemic in West Africa. We don't yet have one here. But thanks To the CDC and our POTUS we have one in the making.
The second nurse is being flown to the biocontainment unit at Emory. The CDC says going forward, folks under observation will not be permitted to use public transit (e.g. flying) as the nurse did. This Ebola outbreak has been just one misstep after another. When is the CDC. going to get its act together? What is the problem? Is this the product of Republican spending cuts? Those cuts may be a contributory factor. But I don't think that alone explains the incompetence. A travel ban would have prevented this mess.