Would your feelings about Ebola entering the US be different

[Puzzledtraveller]

if there was a Republican administration in office?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Nope.

[Puzzledtraveller]

3. Thanks for your reply

I'm really trying to get a feel for peoples reactions to the news reports and want to rules out, or at least see if there was any partisanship involved in how people are reacting to news reports. This is part of a conversation I was having with co-workers today also.

[Renew Deal]

5. I'm not sure what's partisan about some guy getting off a plane with Ebola

The govt can't really control that.

[Puzzledtraveller]

8. Absolutely

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Nope

[Aerows]

4. No. n/t

[Kalidurga]

6. Nope

[LostInAnomie]

7. No.

It should have never been allowed to enter no matter who is in charge.

[Puzzledtraveller]

11. I agree

I am just trying to figure out what motivates those that believe it's just hype and want to down play it, here and elsewhere. I'm not sure myself what I believe. I at one point believed it was just hype, and more am leaning to it being a very real credible threat. I posed the question the way I did to maybe draw out some responses that may explain why some say it's hysterics and the threat is minimal.

[LostInAnomie]

14. A lot of pseudo-intellectuals get off on thinking they are smarter...

... then the average person. As of now, the chances of them contracting ebola are incredibly slim. So, they can act smug and superior whenever someone shows concern about public safety.

[kestrel91316]

22. ^^^^ THIS

[Marrah_G]

19. It's not that I don't take the deadliness of the virus seriously

I've done a lot of reading over the last 5 years on the topic of viruses- everything I can get my hands on (books, documentaries, biology web sites and papers). I was trying to understand the death of a friend in Germany who died from swine flu. Heck I even fall asleep to audiobooks on the topic. (edit to add: I am well aware that I am weird ~grin~) There is a difference between downplaying and dispelling misinformation being spread about through fear, ignorance and tv news ratings.

My reaction would not be different if it were a republican president, because having a republican president would not change the facts or science behind it.

[kestrel91316]

9. I'd be more worried. Republicans don't believe in public services.

[Marrah_G]

20. Well yes, there is THAT point :)

[JaneyVee]

10. Yes, I have no confidence in Republicans to contain outbreaks.

They're anti-science, anti-healthcare, and half of them aren't even vaccinated.

Also, they ignored 9/11 warnings, blew a surplus, and let a global financial collapse they created to happen on their watch.

[Puzzledtraveller]

12. That is a good point, a different side to the equation.

[JI7]

13. yes, their solution would be to close the mexican border, build a wall etc

[Marrah_G]

21. I had not thought of that aspect.

[AverageJoe90]

15. Probably not.

TBH, I don't think the CDC would've had any chance to stop this, regardless of whether Obama or a Repub was in office; once Duncan got past the airport security in Liberia, there wasn't much anyone could do.

[Dont call me Shirley]

26. Heck that CDC job would be headed by Michael Brown or similar character.

[valerief]

16. Of course not. It's independently scary. nt

[Puzzledtraveller]

23. That it is

though I admit that earlier when all this started I was thinking it was mostly hype and scare tactics. I have come to believe that it is a credible and serious threat.

[valerief]

25. I also think if it spreads in the U.S. it's a tool white supremacists can use against "the black

man" since ebola came from Africa.

[Marrah_G]

17. No

[MohRokTah]

18. No. eom

[840high]

24. No.

[Dont call me Shirley]

27. Yes. It would be panic. Gops only fill positions with political hacks, not anyone who knows anything

[SheilaT]

28. No. It's not a partisan issue.

It's also very facile of people here to pontificate on how that guy shouldn't have been allowed on the plane. First of all, he didn't have any symptoms, so unless all air traffic from Africa is embargoed, it was just a matter of time before someone got here with it.

The CDC has been saying for a couple of decades now that no place on the planet is more than 24 hours from any other place, thanks to air travel. They've been saying that it's inevitable that someday some very deadly disease will spread far and wide because of that air travel.

Despite all the snark in other threads here on DU, Ebola is still NOT easy to catch. It is NOT an airborne virus. Yes, that could conceivably change, but such changes are rare and so not very likely in this case.

It's the incubation period that is just long enough to make the spread somewhat easy and inevitable. People are not symptomatic for anywhere from two to twenty-one days. Fortunately they are not contagious when not symptomatic, because if they were contagious before symptoms appeared, well then God help us all.

I will recommend that everyone here read everything they can by Laurie Garrett. You could start with The Coming Plague, about emerging diseases, including Ebola. It came out in 1994 but does not feel at all dated. Then there's Betrayal of Trust which is about the systematic gutting of public health everywhere, including in this country. That came out in 2000.

Read them before making too many more comments.

[MFM008]

29. Bush may be responsible for a lot of things

but Ebola isn't one of them. I think......

[Puzzledtraveller]

30. Maybe Poppy Bush, Lol.

[Blue_In_AK]

31. Of course not.

It has nothing to do with the president.

[Warpy]

32. Only if they ignored it like Reagan ignored AIDS

and as long as it's killing more black folks than white folks, they're likely to.

Reagan delayed the kind of R&D funding that could have taken care of AIDS for about 5 years. Now it's a chronic, progressive illness that joins a lot of other pain in the ass, chronic, progressive illnesses. Take care of them and have a lot of good time left.

It's a VIRUS. As long as research money is made available to discover ways to treat it, it will be less transmissible and more survivable.