A New Ebola Czar; Military deploys to plague zone. Competence in government.
By Jerry Pournelle | October 17, 2014 - 1:16 pm | Updated: October 17, 2014 - 11:04 pm | View
View 846 Friday, October 17, 2014
“I have observed over the years that the unintended consequences of social action are always more important, and usually less agreeable, than the intended consequences.”
Irving Kristol
“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”
President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009
“We had been told, on leaving our native soil, that we were going to defend the sacred rights conferred on us by so many of our citizens settled overseas, so many years of our presence, so many benefits brought by us to populations in need of our assistance and our civilization.
“We were able to verify that all this was true, and because it was true, we did not hesitate to shed our quota of blood, to sacrifice our youth and our hopes. We regretted nothing, but whereas we over here are inspired by this frame of mind, I am told that in Rome factions and conspiracies are rife, that treachery flourishes, and that many people in their uncertainty and confusion lend a ready ear to the dire temptations of relinquishment and even to vilify our actions.
“I cannot believe that all this is true, and yet recent wars have shown how pernicious such a state of mind could be and to where it could lead.
“Make haste to reassure us, I beg you, and tell us that our fellow citizens understand us, support us, and protect us as we ourselves are protecting the glory of the Empire.
“If it should be otherwise, if we should have to leave our bleached bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware the fury of the Legions.”
Centurion Marcus Flavinius, Second Cohort, Augusta Legion to his cousin Tertullus in Rome. No date given.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view414.html#Fury
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The premise of the liberal philosophy is that good intentions are the most important qualification for government office, and government is more competent to solve social problems than any other institution. Today President Barrack Hussein Obama appointed a political operative to be “Ebola Czar.”
Obama to Tap Former VP Chief of Staff Ron Klain as Ebola ‘Czar’
President Barack Obama will appoint Ron Klain to head up efforts to address the Ebola threat, a senior administration official tells NBC News.
Klain is a former chief of staff to both Vice President Joe Biden and former Vice President Al Gore. He left the vice president’s office in 2011. He is now the president of Case Holdings and serves as the general counsel for Revolution, an investment organization.
"It’s not solely a medical response," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. "That’s why somebody with Mr. Klain’s credentials — somebody that has strong management experience both inside government but also in the private sector; he is somebody who has strong relationships with members of Congress; and obviously strong relationships with those of us who worked with him here at the White House earlier in the administration. All of that means that he is the right person."
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/obama-tap-former-vp-chief-staff-ron-klain-ebola-czar-n228151
I cannot resist wondering whether his association with Al Gore was thought to be qualification for a post involving scientific observations. Chief of Staff to Al Gore and Joe Biden.
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Ebola Scare at Pentagon After Woman Who Was Recently in Africa Vomits on Tour Bus
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/10/17/ebola-scare-at-pentagon-after-woman-who-was-recently-in-africa-vomits-on-tour-bus/
Around 9:10 a.m., a woman began vomiting in the Pentagon parking lot while on a bus tour, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson. The woman indicated she has recently traveled to Africa.
DC Dept Health Director says woman who got sick on bus had been to Sierra Leon.
This picture taken 26 December 2011 shows the Pentagon building in Washington, DC. The Pentagon, which is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense (DOD), is the world's largest office building by floor area, with about 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m2), of which 3,700,000 sq ft (340,000 m2) are used as offices. Approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STAFF/AFP/Getty Images)
That one, at least, is not a problem: she has since confessed that she has not recently been in Africa, and physicians are confident that she does not have Ebola. Of course the Pentagon would not be a target of Ebolized jihad.
Belize Confirms Patient With Ebola Symptoms On Cruise Ship Off Its Coast
http://belizean.com/belize-confirms-patient-with-ebola-symptoms-on-cruise-ship-off-its-coast-1814/
Six Reasons to Panic
By JONATHAN V. LAST
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/six-reasons-panic_816387.html?nopager=1#
As a rule, one should not panic at whatever crisis has momentarily fixed the attention of cable news producers. But the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has migrated to both Europe and America, may be the exception that proves the rule. There are at least six reasons that a controlled, informed panic might be in order.
(1) Start with what we know, and don’t know, about the virus. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other government agencies claim that contracting Ebola is relatively difficult because the virus is only transmittable by direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person who has become symptomatic. Which means that, in theory, you can’t get Ebola by riding in the elevator with someone who is carrying the virus, because Ebola is not airborne.
This sounds reassuring. Except that it might not be true. There are four strains of the Ebola virus that have caused outbreaks in human populations. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the current outbreak (known as Guinean EBOV, because it originated in Meliandou, Guinea, in late November 2013) is a separate clade “in a sister relationship with other known EBOV strains.” Meaning that this Ebola is related to, but genetically distinct from, previous known strains, and thus may have distinct mechanisms of transmission.
Not everyone is convinced that this Ebola isn’t airborne. Last month, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy published an article arguing that the current Ebola has “unclear modes of transmission” and that “there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.”
In August, Science magazine published a survey conducted by 58 medical professionals working in African epidemiology. They traced the origin and spread of the virus with remarkable precision—for instance, they discovered that it crossed the border from Guinea into Sierra Leone at the funeral of a “traditional healer” who had treated Ebola victims. In just the first six months of tracking the virus, the team identified more than 100 mutated forms of it.
Yet what’s really scary is how robust the already-established transmission mechanisms are. Have you ever wondered why Ebola protocols call for washing down infected surfaces with chlorine? Because the virus can survive for up to three weeks on a dry surface.
How robust is transmission? Look at the health care workers who have contracted it. When Nina Pham, the Dallas nurse who was part of the team caring for Liberian national Thomas Duncan, contracted Ebola, the CDC quickly blamed her for “breaching protocol.” But to the extent that we have effective protocols for shielding people from Ebola, they’re so complex that even trained professionals, who are keenly aware that their lives are on the line, can make mistakes.
By the by, that Science article written by 58 medical professionals tracing the emergence of Ebola—5 of them died from Ebola before it was published.
(2) General infection rates are terrifying, too. In epidemiology, you measure the “R0,” or “reproduction number” of a virus; that is, how many new infections each infected person causes. When R0 is greater than 1, the virus is spreading through a population. When it’s below 1, the contamination is receding. In September the World Health Organization’s Ebola Response Team estimated the R0 to be at 1.71 in Guinea and 2.02 in Sierra Leone. Since then, it seems to have risen so that the average in West Africa is about 2.0. In September the WHO estimated that by October 20, there would be 3,000 total cases in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. As of October 7, the count was 8,376.
Given that this is in the neoconservative magazine Weekly Standard I doubt if Mr. Klain has read it, but perhaps someone on his staff with access to the Czar will encounter it. The rest of the article is worth your time. Five of the 58 medical professionals involved in the Science Magazine study died of Ebola before the paper was published.
U.S. Soldiers Get Just Four Hours of Ebola Training
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/17/u-s-soldiers-get-just-four-hours-of-ebola-training.html
As the U.S. military rushes to combat Ebola in West Africa, soldiers are receiving on-the-fly instructions on how to protect themselves against the deadly virus.
American military operations to fight Ebola in Africa are unfolding quickly—forcing the military to come up with some procedures and protocols on the fly.
Soldiers preparing for deployment to West Africa are given just four hours of Ebola-related training before leaving to combat the epidemic. And the first 500 soldiers to arrive have been holing up in Liberian hotels and government facilities while the military builds longer-term infrastructure on the ground.
For soldiers at Fort Campbell and Fort Bragg preparing for their deployments to West Africa, Mobile Training Teams from the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), based out of Fort Detrick, have been tasked with instructing them on Ebola protocols.
A team of two can train as many as 50 personnel over that four-hour time frame, USAMRIID told The Daily Beast. The training includes hands-on instruction on how to put on, remove, and decontaminate personal protective equipment, followed by a practical test to ensure that soldiers understand the procedures.
“All training is tiered to the level of risk each person may encounter,” said USAMRIID spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden.
The training process sounds daunting: One USA Today report described soldiers being told that Ebola “basically causes your body to eat itself from the inside out” and that Ebola is “worse” than what soldiers encountered in Afghanistan. Others reportedly heard that the disease is “catastrophic” and “frightening… with a high fatality rate,” though the chances of contracting it are low.
“I’ll be honest with you,” one soldier told the newspaper. “I’m kind of scared.” [emphasis added]
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Soldiers based in Liberia have their temperature measured several times per day, and are not permitted to shake hands.
The military maintains that American service members have only limited interactions with locals on the ground. But some American soldiers are working with the Armed Forces of Liberia on a day-to-day basis, and others are training health-care providers on how to combat the virus.
Further, the military acknowledges that it is currently sharing hotels and businesses with foreign nationals.
"We are here with the permission of the Liberian government and we do not clear out local hotels and businesses during our stay," said an Army spokesman. "We chose hotels with the safety of our service members in mind, and the hotel staffs monitor all employees and guests and allow us to conduct safety inspections of their facilities to ensure they meet our safety criteria."
Instead, the military spokesman focused on the precautions that they are already taking: Soldiers based in Liberia have their temperature measured several times per day, and are not permitted to shake hands. They are also are required to frequently wash their hands with a chlorine solution. Some locations even employ chlorine mats that service members are required to wipe their feet on in order to enter.
“The facilities that we’re in have been vetted by our doctors. [They] have gone through the facilities to make sure that they’re safe for our soldiers,” Army spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Indovina said. “We’re very confident. We’ve had very good luck from the time when we’ve arrived on the ground.”
Congress has been slow to give the green light to funding for military operations combating Ebola in Africa, in large part due to initial skepticism over whether there was a sufficient plan for protecting American service members in Liberia.
In mid-September, the Obama administration submitted a $1 billion request for Ebola funding. The request was for a movement of leftover funds from an overseas war spending account, requiring a sign-off from several key congressional figures.
When the Obama administration briefed staffers of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 19, it was criticized for not adequately explaining what steps the military would take to ensure soldiers’ health.
“If they had bio-security procedures in place, they weren’t adequately articulating them to Congress,” said an aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “When they first came over, they were not able to answer a lot of questions about what procedures were in place.”
Of course it was not long ago that high government officials assured us that any decent hospital in the United States would be able to care for Ebola patients. Yesterday Nina Pham, the first American known to have contracted Ebola in the United States, was taken out of her hospital where, as a nurse, she contracted Ebola, and was sent to Bethesda. Her condition, previously reported to be “good” has now been downgraded to “fair”. Unlike typhus and cholera, Ebola basically turns internal organs to liquid and expels them through diarrhea. There is no known treatment, although there is empirical evidence that the plasma of Ebola survivors can be effective. Experimental drugs but not plasma was given to Mr. Duncan, from whom Ms. Pham contracted Ebola; he subsequently died.
