Here's Your Front Line Of Defense

I've noted multiple places that Duncan wasn't our only Ebola patient: he was only our first.

Ebolaville (WSJ) -Up to three Ebola-infected people could embark on overseas flights every month from the three most-affected African countries, according to a new study that projected travel patterns based on infection rates and recent flight schedules.The researchers’ analysis assumed no exit screening in the airports of the three African nations. In reality, exit screenings occur, but the authors contend that this doesn’t change their conclusion because screenings can miss travelers who don’t yet show signs of Ebola. A person can incubate the virus for up to 21 days without exhibiting signs of the disease. That was how Thomas Eric Duncan was able to board a flight from Liberia and show signs of the disease only after he landed in Dallas on Sept. 20.

So now, the most respected medical journal in the UK has published the projection that more will certainly come. We got Duncan when there were 6000 Ebola patients in total. WHO expects that soon we'll be looking at 10,000 a week. You decide what that's going to do about whether or not people will try to get out.

The Lancet study takes into account international flight restrictions that were in place to the three countries at the Ebola epicenter as of Sept. 1. Those restrictions led to a 51% drop in passengers for Guinea, 66% for Liberia and 85% for Sierra Leone.
After accounting for that level of decreased travel, the authors’ model projects that 2.8 passengers infected with Ebola would depart the three countries via commercial flights, on average, every month.
The projection by Dr. Khan and his colleagues suggests that about two-thirds of these travelers are expected to fly to low/ lower-middle income countries. This could pose a problem because poorer countries have fewer resources to identify and track infected people.

The risk to European countries or the U.S. is considerably less. The research concludes that for every case exported to the U.S., there will be about eight cases exported to the U.K. and France combined.

Three Duncans a month, who could (and will) land in Cairo, Kinshasa, London, Brussels, Paris, Rome...and the US.
Just ducky!
But don't worry, our government officials know how important it is to protect us, which is why we're depending on the truthfulness of passengers, and the dedication and literacy of Third World middle school dropouts to keep the next Duncan off of your commuter train, out of the ER you take your kid to, and out of that ghetto apartment with 20-50 sketchy folks who may not run straight to the doctor when they get a fever, headache, or tummy ache.
So those guys are ON THAT CASE!:

For now, passengers departing on international flights from those three African countries are checked for fever and asked to fill out questionnaires. In Liberia, each form presents a column of yes-or-no boxes next to a list of symptoms. They range from the vague—“muscle or joint pain”—to the severe, such as “unexplained bleeding.”

The system isn’t perfect. On a recent 2 a.m. flight to Morocco, a small group of medics, all of whom had just returned from weeks volunteering in an Ebola hospital, worked their way through the form. A reporter watched as they each checked no in response to the question asking whether they had “taken care of an Ebola patient.” They boarded their flight.

With New! Improved! Protocols!
With a New Ebola Czar (one of these days...)!
With a 30-person Military Ebola Strike Force (just as soon as we can get them trained...)!

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

Sleep tight. ABCNNBCBS and the Government have told you to stop panicking, because there's nothing more to worry about. They've GOT this!
They've put the dedicated immigration security forces of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone on the case for us.