Transpacificflyer

In consideration of the WHO finally admitting that it bungled the Ebola crisis, your suggestion of throwing more money at the crisis is foolish. The same people who bungled the case management are still there managing the response. Unfortunately, when the UN is involved, there are appointments of people made who are not suitably qualified for the position(s) and there is invariably theft of assets. Large amounts of medical supplies were sitting in afflicted country entry points for long periods of time as the local government officials had refused to release the material. (This was due to such things as a refusal to pay bribes, arguments over taxable treatment, inadequate logistics, ineptitude etc.) This is the reality and is why the fall back position of screening at hub airports and even the suggestion of travel/flight restrictions are reasonable discussion points. The AC FA union concerns are legitimate and should be acted upon, at least to address the psychological stress issues of the workers. A perceived failure to address such concerns could also impact discretionary travel as travelers avoid routes that bring pax into transit hubs of concern such as BRU, LHR and CDG.

It is both unfair and impractical to suggest that "mobile treatment labs" be established and that trained personnel be deployed. These treatment facilities are few and far between and they are typically not mobile. Canada certainly doesn't have such facilities. Canada barely has the resources to mount a small response in the event of a catastrophic earthquake in Vancouver or Montreal. Where do you expect these trained personnel to come from? Again, the number of qualified personnel are in short supply. The 2 lead treatment groups who were out in front of this crisis, the Billy Graham Ministries - Samaritan's Purse and the Medicins sans Frontieres have seen their own personnel become infected and they have even come under violent attack from the locals. Health services personnel are human beings and as such they have to worry about their own safety and their families. There is already resistance from workers in Canadian hospitals that have been designated as special treatment points. This is a west Africa health crisis and the Africans have to take the lead in responding.

CanRulez

You aren't serious with this ridiculous comparison, right? Passengers are screened for "guns" as they go through airport security.

tyberius

I don't think lowered immune system has much of an impact here.

If you get ebola you're going to die 70% of the time. If your wife's immune system is impacted then maybe she has a 90% chance of death if she gets ebola. The chance that you will be infected with ebola has to be something like a hundredth of a percent or something extremely small. A 30% raised chance of death on something extremely small is itself extremely small.

That said, I am not taking any express flights to Monrovia regardless of my immune system situation and I am not looking too kindly to anything routing through Paris given how many African flights go through there.

This stuff has a vector and that originates out of Africa and the whole "our African country is free of ebola" thing doesn't hold much water with me. To me, yay, South Africa is free of Ebola, great for SA. But the worrisome point is that it is more likely to encounter an infected passenger from Liberia in any African airport than it would be say, in China. So I don't have any worry about traveling in South Africa due to South Africans, just that any travel in Africa itself becomes more risky by the day.

Same way as any travel *anywhere* becomes more risky by the day. Just that the closer you get to ground zero the higher the risk gets, and it probably follows an exponential curve. So your best bet is to stay as far away as possible, though that does not guarantee anything.

This thing could get really bad.

tyberius

SARS had a 9.6% fatality rate. SARS killed a total of 775 people.

Ebola has a 50-90% fatality rate. Ebola deaths are 4,400 for this episode and counting and possibly very under-reported and accelerating.

Health care workers are getting infected wearing full biohazard gear because of an inability to *take it off* perfectly.

Different beasts at this point and I think caution is wise.

tyberius

Whether or not flu kills between 300 and 4900 people per year in the USA is completely immaterial as to whether or not ebola is a risk.

The vast majority of people that flu kills are elderly and those who have compromised immune systems.

Ebola kills, period.

The fact that ebola deaths are limited are based on it being less contagious (so far) than influenza. It doesn't mean that it is of no concern. It should be of great concern. What influenza does is completely irrelevant.

CanRulez

+1 Precisely. To those that dismiss the seriousness of this health hazard, this is the same dismissive attitude that got us into trouble in the first place.

24left

The front page of FT has this headline "Ebola’s Effect on Travel", containing a "list of stories pertaining to how the outbreak is affecting the aviation and travel industry worldwide". We can be sure that this list grows by the minute. Multiply this by the panic variable and we all know it will not be improving any time soon.

This thread which started with the news item about AC FA's asking to wear gloves and of course, I started to think about the fact that the gloves may not offer any real protection, which won't help the fear factor.

I do however expect to see a new line item under surcharges, taxes and fees on airline tickets:

Big Blue Gloves 4.75 plus HST, PST, QST, GST.....

I am NOT making light of the concern by FAs, I'm just thinking that someone will have to pay for this plus any other costs involved in airport Ebola screening, should that get implemented.

largeeyes

What an idiotic thing to say. This sort of hysteria just makes things worse.

Stranger

Oh, I absolutely agree tat her concern is not rational. I merely said, understandable, I think. But having options other than BRU, why not?

Actually from CDG there are only AF flights to Konacry. From BRU there are flights to Monrovia, Freetown and Conakry.

I don't really think there is a significant risk associated with going through either airport, though.

But in African countries other than Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, surely the risk is no greater than at CDG or BRU? Apart from Casablanca, from which other African airports are there flights to these countries? I suspect the answer is either none, or a handful.

The thing is already very bad in three of the poorest African countries. It getting real bad elsewhere is quite unlikely. Sure, there could be more cases for instance in Texas, where some mini-epidemic could happen. But (1) that is still unlikely and (2) if it would, it would be brought under control before it gets real bad. A similar scenario could also happen elsewhere, but with at worst similar outcome.

The two key points are (1) this is not airborne and (2) patients are not contagious before developing symptoms. I also suspect that if diagnostic is timely and if treatment is appropriate, the survival rate will end up much higher than in Africa, except perhaps in elderly or weak patients.

Alas, this is a third word problem. Obama is right that isolating these African countries is wrong, and that they need all the help we caqn provide.

Stranger

However the number of cases in the relatively large Doctors without Borders team in Africa, who operate in very primitive conditions, has been minimal, with just a handful of cases.

I suspect that when we hear the full story of the Texas affair, it will turn out to be a much larger blunder than "inability to take the gear off." For how long was the guy there before properly diagnosed, with workers around and no protective gear at all?

You want to go where?

Well, no. What any other disease does is not irrelevant. We do not have unlimited resources to fight disease. Consequently, we need to use the resources we do have in the most effective ways possible.

The question is: What is the best way to fight disease to minimize its impact on people now and in the future? You are right that Ebola should be of great concern, but that doesn't mean we should just throw money at it in hopes that some of our efforts may have some effect. We also have to devote funds to combatting the flu. It not only kills far more people today than Ebola does, but it also has demonstrated a particular propensity for mutation, and has in the past mutated into particularly noxious varieties such as the 1918 epidemic which killed millions, many of them young and healthy.

As risks go right now, Ebola in the Americas is a miniscule risk. Our best use of resources on Ebola is to concentrate on eliminating the epidemic in West Africa so it stays that way.

ridefar

Empirically, miniscule would equal 2 in 528 million at the moment. (The number of cases contracted in North America, and the population of the same.) Expressed as a %, that would be .000000038%. I think, it is easy to lose track of all the zeroes it is so small. In my books, that is less than miniscule.

ridefar

Yes it could get really bad. But so far your odds of catching Ebola in SA are less than in NA. Your odds are also lower in China than NA. There are no cases, suspected or real, in any of the South African countries. Nor China. Nor... well, most places.

http://www.businessinsider.com/which...-ebola-2014-10

24left

"Hong Kong Airport Introduces Ebola Questionnaire"

http://mashable.com/2014/10/20/hong-...ola-screening/

You want to go where?

I was trying to stay out of the numbers because I do get lost in the zeroes, but I couldn't come up with a word.