Ebola - the plague of fear

[Graham2001]

The following seems to be becoming a 'thing' so I thought I might start a thread. Both quotes come from the same article:

A teacher at Strong Elementary School was placed on a 21-day paid leave of absence after parents told the school board they were concerned that she might have been exposed to Ebola during a trip to Dallas for an educational conference.


The teacher, who was not named, attended a seminar held by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium that is still meeting in Dallas.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist for the Washington Post, who photographed Ebola victims in Liberia in September, was disinvited from a photojournalism workshop at Syracuse University even though he showed no signs of the disease for 21 days after his return to the United States. On Thursday, a woman flying on an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago vomited in the airplane, and was subsequently locked in a bathroom by flight staff. In Hazelhurst, Mississippi, a crowd of parents pulled their middle school students from class Friday after learning that the school’s principal recently had traveled to attend a family funeral in Zambia, which is in southern Africa and about 3,000 miles from the outbreak in West Africa.

http://www.pressherald.com/2014/10/...y-teacher-on-leave-after-traveling-to-dallas/

I found it though this blog post, the blogger is 'right of left' but his concluding question which I will quote below is one well worth exploring:

Collating the data would be a chore, but I’d be interested in seeing what the Venn diagrams look like of “people who are freaking out about Ebola” and “people who think that vaccinations cause autism” and “people who think that alternative medicine isn’t nonsense” and “people who think evolution is a myth.”

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=26775

 

[TragicMonkey]

I find it astonishing that so many people apparently believe all viruses are capable of airborne transmission.

 

[shemp]

Teacher: "I just got back from Dallas."

School Board: "OMFG you might has the Ebola!!!11ELEVENTY!1!! You are on a 3 week leave of absence!"

Teacher: "A 3 week paid vacation? WOOHOO!!!"

Other Teachers: "We're going to Dallas!"

 

[MG1962]

True story

I returned to work after a three week vacation

Manager: I thought you had been deported

Me: I was but I was refused entry back home because I have Ebola **Cough** **Cough** for effect.

Manager: Thats funny

Ten minutes later.....

Phone rings "It's xxx from HR, you were only joking about having Ebola, weren't you?"

 

[mgidm86]

True story

I returned to work after a three week vacation

Manager: I thought you had been deported

Me: I was but I was refused entry back home because I have Ebola **Cough** **Cough** for effect.

Manager: Thats funny

Ten minutes later.....

Phone rings "It's xxx from HR, you were only joking about having Ebola, weren't you?"

We'll get used to it after it's been here awhile. A little early hysteria is normal.

 

[Myron Proudfoot]

I find it astonishing that so many people apparently believe all viruses are capable of airborne transmission.

Hey, George Will insisted on Fox that the that question is still up in the air. The science is not settled yet! The host kept correcting him, apparently to no avail.

 

[The Greater Fool]

True story

I returned to work after a three week vacation

Manager: I thought you had been deported

Me: I was but I was refused entry back home because I have Ebola **Cough** **Cough** for effect.

Manager: Thats funny

Ten minutes later.....

Phone rings "It's xxx from HR, you were only joking about having Ebola, weren't you?"

"Many truths are said in jest."

 

[Dr. Keith]

Teacher: "I just got back from Dallas."

School Board: "OMFG you might has the Ebola!!!11ELEVENTY!1!! You are on a 3 week leave of absence!"

Teacher: "A 3 week paid vacation? WOOHOO!!!"

Other Teachers: "We're going to Dallas!"

If only that worked for teachers in Dallas . . .

 

[eeyore1954]

21 days paid leave. I watched some of the Giants vs Dallas Cowboys game on TV in the interest of being safe I am going to request paid leave

 

[Belz...]

True story

I returned to work after a three week vacation

Manager: I thought you had been deported

Me: I was but I was refused entry back home because I have Ebola **Cough** **Cough** for effect.

Manager: Thats funny

Ten minutes later.....

Phone rings "It's xxx from HR, you were only joking about having Ebola, weren't you?"

You just hung up right there and then, right ?

 

[dudalb]

21 days paid leave. I watched some of the Giants vs Dallas Cowboys game on TV in the interest of being safe I am going to request paid leave

Too bad the Cowboys are actaully playing well (so far) this season.
If they were playing like they were last year (horribly) I could use a joke about how the Cowboys are the only people in Dallas who don't have to worry about getting Ebola because the Cowboys can't catch anything.....

 

[yodaluver28]

Hey, George Will insisted on Fox that the that question is still up in the air. The science is not settled yet! The host kept correcting him, apparently to no avail.

Several right wing commenters are pushing this "but...but...but it could be airborne and then...The Apocalypse, so buy some gold coins and colloidal silver from me" nonsense in a desperate attempt to prolong the hysteria.

If Ebola were airborne, there'd be more than a million people dead from it in Africa not barely 5,000. If it were airborne, all of Thomas Duncan's contacts would be dying instead of leaving isolation with no symptoms or signs of infection whatsoever. If it were airborne, there would be dozens of cases in Spain from the contacts of the infected nurse (who has just been declared Ebola free and will be released from the hospital sometime next week after she's regained some strength). As it stands the percentage of the American population that has been diagnosed with the Ebola virus stands at 0.000001%. The apocalypse is gonna have to wait.

 

[MG1962]

You just hung up right there and then, right ?

I so wanted to cough as I did lol

 

[SezMe]

21 days paid leave. I watched some of the Giants vs Dallas Cowboys game on TV in the interest of being safe I am going to request paid leave

*cough* After reading your post I'm *cough* feeling fine.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I find it astonishing that so many people apparently believe all viruses are capable of airborne transmission.

Maybe not all......but Ebola?

Our findings support the hypothesis that airborne transmission may contribute to ZEBOV spread, specifically from pigs to primates, and may need to be considered in assessing transmission from animals to humans in general.[2]

 

[Minoosh]

If Ebola were airborne, there'd be more than a million people dead from it in Africa not barely 5,000.

I agree, but IIRC Marburg, a similar virus, did "go airborne" in a population of monkeys. And if Ebola managed to get transmitted even with first-world protocol, it's not an insignificant risk. There's a definite "ick" factor.

 

[dudalb]

Several right wing commenters are pushing this "but...but...but it could be airborne and then...The Apocalypse, so buy some gold coins and colloidal silver from me" nonsense in a desperate attempt to prolong the hysteria.

If Ebola were airborne, there'd be more than a million people dead from it in Africa not barely 5,000. If it were airborne, all of Thomas Duncan's contacts would be dying instead of leaving isolation with no symptoms or signs of infection whatsoever. If it were airborne, there would be dozens of cases in Spain from the contacts of the infected nurse (who has just been declared Ebola free and will be released from the hospital sometime next week after she's regained some strength). As it stands the percentage of the American population that has been diagnosed with the Ebola virus stands at 0.000001%. The apocalypse is gonna have to wait.

Right Wingers don't have a monopoly on this nonsense. I am hearing it from a number of "Alternative Medicine" people on the Political left as well.
When it comes to medical woo there is plenty to go around on both ends of the political spectrum.