EBOLA CONTINUES TO RAVAGE THE WORLD AS OBAMA REFUSES TO ISSUE A TRAVEL BAN

Peter Piot is one of the researchers who was one of the first to study the disease way back in 1976, long before some of you reading this site were born I would guess. He was also the guy who named the virus after the Ebola river which has to be the most frightening waterways on the planet. I can't imagine anyone suggesting a nice river cruise down the Ebola River for a vacation spot.

Here is what he has to say about the UN and why they dithered:

On the one hand, it was because their African regional office isn't staffed with the most capable people but with political appointees. And the headquarters in Geneva suffered large budget cuts that had been agreed to by member states. The department for hemorrhagic fever and the one responsible for the management of epidemic emergencies were hit hard. But since August WHO has regained a leadership role.

To clarify, because rich people sank the planet economy, budget cuts had to happen somewhere and this is where the UN decided to cut corners. Wonderful. Notice they also said that because politicians were involved, everything got screwed up because it is far more important to reward your friends than, I don't know, save the Earth or something. You're doing a hell of a job Brownie, comes to mind.

Here Piot says the exact thing I have been saying in which, unless the disease becomes airborne, the US and Europe have little to worry about. Places like China and India however:

There will certainly be Ebola patients from Africa who come to us in the hopes of receiving treatment. And they might even infect a few people here who may then die. But an outbreak in Europe or North America would quickly be brought under control. I am more worried about the many people from India who work in trade or industry in west Africa. It would only take one of them to become infected, travel to India to visit relatives during the virus's incubation period, and then, once he becomes sick, go to a public hospital there. Doctors and nurses in India, too, often don't wear protective gloves. They would immediately become infected and spread the virus.

And as for its mutating ability:

Like measles, you mean? Luckily that is extremely unlikely. But a mutation that would allow Ebola patients to live a couple of weeks longer is certainly possible and would be advantageous for the virus. But that would allow Ebola patients to infect many, many more people than is currently the case.  But it is just one of many possible ways the virus could change to spread itself more easily. And it is clear that the virus is mutating.

That last sentence is telling because it is true. The virus is already a new strain, luckily not as lethal as the Zaire strain, but still killing at least 30% of those infected. There is also some evidence that the disease may be already mutated to a limited airborne strain, still requiring close contact and not contagious at six feet like smallpox. Yuck.

It is also not helping that I watched a documentary last night which had people surviving on bat meat who live in dense jungle areas. There are two types of meat in a jungle that should be equated with raw pork: bats and monkeys. Researchers recently concluded that the Aids virus was gotten when workers in the Kinshasa area ate infected monkey meat, spread the disease to prostitutes, homosexuals and drug users and, from there due to the long incubation period, the world. Ebola is a living thing that will evolve in a multitude of ways, none of them good.

And yet even with all of this knowledge, our idiot President refuses to issue a travel ban to the three hardest hit countries (Nigeria stamped out their outbreak quick because they are not ravaged by war like the other three). In Liberia, only 50 doctors remained after the 2010 war ended, and most of them are now dead from Ebola. These countries need our help. They also need a quarantine. Anything short of both of those proposals could end humanity. Meanwhile, some still are screaming about non-existent terrorists, like the mythical Khorasan group that never existed until September 13th apparently but is now the next big boogeyman the government is suing to scare us. Allegedly, according to the State Department, they are coming for us. Sure, I have heard that a zillion times over the last 13 years and am frankly sick of the whole thing. There has been zero major terrorist attacks world wide since the hotel attack in India WAYYYY back in 2008. Since then, six whole years, nothing. ANYWHERE! If these guys were such bad asses, wouldn't they have done something a lot bigger than lop of the heads of off people in areas they shouldn't have been in the first place? Terrorism, as the likes our government keeps going BOO! too, is not real. Ebola is. Let's have some priorities as to which is the bigger threat.