Reply to Official Ebola update thread

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The bottom line is that the kind of solutions being discussed here are not as simple as people would like to believe.  They have real ramifications in terms of time, energy and monetary resources that could be devoted to addressing the situation at it's root--in West Africa.  We're talking about diverting resources away from a place where hundreds are dying every week to (theoretically) prevent the the possibility of a few isolated cases here in the US and to partially alleviate the worry/inconvenience that goes along with that possibility.

Seems borderline unethical to me.[/quote]

The problem is that the "few isolated cases" here are very costly as well, which is also a diversion of resources.  And that's assuming that they stay few and isolated.
Second -- if you think that spending resources on dealing with problems here that are less severe than in other parts of the world is unethical, then basically every spending decision we make is unethical.  We should just give our entire GDP as foreign aid, by that logic.  Yes, we prioritize ourselves.  Yes, I will feed my kids before other kids.  That may be unethical, or it may just be the nature of humans.
I totally agree we need to address it in W.A.  We should have long ago.  But we didn't.  Now it's here, and we should be both addressing it there and preventing further importation of it.  The arguments as to why we can't do that seem very unconvincing to me.  Because we'd damage the airline industry?  Sorry, but I already know people who've changed their travel plans to avoid flying right now.  That's damaging the airline industry.  Because we can't manage to charter flights for aid purposes?  Why not?  Because we can't set up quarantine centers near airports?  Sure we can.  
All of it costs money.  We should stop saying "we can't" and start being honest and saying "we don't want to spend the money".  [/quote]

Do you really think that implementing a flight ban will prevent every false alarm?  We're already hearing ridiculous theories about Ebola patients sneaking across our border from Mexico.  We're going to be forced to continue expending resources on these kinds of situations regardless because as long as the situation continues unabated in West Africa, people will continue to be fearful.  And that assumes a flight ban is actually successful in preventing further importation of new cases.  It's not at all clear that that would be so.

By focusing our resources on West Africa we are prioritizing both ourselves (by implementing the most effective strategy for preventing spread of the virus overseas) AND West Africans.  A win-win.
[/quote]

It may not stop every person who has been exposed from coming here.  But it would certainly reduce the risk.[/quote]

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