No, given that we’ve seen people who should know better violate quarantine. Maybe the spectre of some nice people with guns will make these self-absorbed idiots do the right thing.
The article states it is a 30 man team that will be prepared to deploy for 30 days.
Personally I wonder if the news outlets have come up with the ‘quick strike team’. I would have thought that someone in the Pentagon would have come up with a catchier acronym. Something like: Diseases; Ebola Action Team Happines
I think this is actually a good thing. After the fiasco in Dallas, it’s evident that not all hospitals have the training and knowledge to safely care for someone with ebola. With this team, the five doctors and twenty nurses can provide care while the five trainers train a hospital’s staff on how to safely work with an ebola patient without taking undue risks.
This is exactly what a mature response to an impending public panic looks like.
Not that the public *ought *to panic. But they’re being stampeded by the media & the facebook echo chamber.
Put some hardcore adults in charge with an organization that has the muscle, the size, the respect, and the ability to stick to a clear & well controlled public message.
Makes eminent sense to me.
That’s the problem. It makes this whole thing seem like a disaster. A military response means “this is a horrible thing we need to be worried about.” Public fear is being reinforced.
Good luck telling anyone that catching ebola is not something to be worried about anymore. They can point to the U.S. military. Surely they wouldn’t be involved unless it is a crisis.
I do not in any way see how a military response is supposed to assuage public panic. If I didn’t know what I did, I’d be scared to death.
She was under voluntary quarantine and felt well. Worrying about her is a major overreaction.
Next thing you know, they’ll be actively deploying troops within our borders in response to floods and hurricanes. Holy crap, that’s a scary thought.
When I heard this, my first thought was, Why not have a force specifically trained to respond to these kinds of events, which is supported by a national sense of need but does not weigh heavily on the side of reaching military goals? If it is worth while to keep a standing army through decades of peace-time, just in case a need for defense arises, and if it is our national global policy to make out resources available for such non-military eventualities, wouldn’t it make sense to have a trained resource ready a hand to meet such a need?
When I first heard this my thought was:
Why the fuck have we NOT had this since 2001?!?!? Not specifically for Ebola, but for any smaller scale biologic incident, whether a terrorism attack or not.
I want a nation of 300+million people to have a group of 30-100 medically trained soldiers who can deploy within 72hrs should someone start sprinkling the anthrax or Marburg or whatever the hell. We should have a level II or level III portable lab plus support gear in trailers staged at Ft Detrick or somewhere else that can be airborne within four hours.
I am personally a little stunned we didn’t have that shit ready to go right the fuck now. It’s like a NEST system. You may never need them, but if you ever do, you better be able to pull that fire alarm and have a near instantaneous response. (And btw, the NEST has deployed on multiple occasions both in the US and elsewhere)
I have full confidence in our public health officials but this is just one of those things you don’t want to mess about with and you do want leadership from the feds on. They have the resources and they should have had a point team for years now.
I’m genuinely shaking my head that it took Ebola showing up in the US for anyone in the USG to realize this. Dafuq?
Regards,
-Bouncer-
The United States Armed Forces already have a standing strike force(actually three of them) to rapidly (within hours) respond to oil spills. It has not led to the end of democracy.
Having a standing rapid response team to respond to ebola outbreaks won’t lead to the end of democracy either.
Bad wording – should be “a standing strike force (actually three teams)”. Sorry.
Good question. We already have a CDC and a military well aware of biowarfare and there probably are teams trained and drilled to respond to an outbreak or terrorist attack scenario but the Ebola cases so far don’t really fit an emergency scenario. So let’s create a new team! Makes people feel better? Political?
Wouldn’t help. A good chance they would be out of network providers. Besides, your insurance doesn’t cover Ebola experts unless you have a referral from your doctor.
It would have to be battalion sized to start with, and the time period your referencing, both Iraq and Afganistan sucked up a sizeable portion of the military manpower. What I think was going on, was that the civillian side was going to take the quarter back role, and the military would backfill what needed.
We have had SARS, which seems to have been dealt with by the civillian medical establishment, and dodged a bullet with swine flu, that never seemed to materialize. So in truth, I think a medical special forces team would have been a want, rather than a need. That, and they probably would have been the ones that deployed to Africa.
Declan
The military has a role in the National Incident Management System(NIMS). Federal troops still fall under Posse Commitatus and by the Incident Command System (ICS) fall under the direction of civilian officials responsible for the incident. This team was requested by the Department of Health and Human Services. I’d guess that means HHS don’t have a suitable civilian capability or wants to be able to augment what’s existing. The military can assemble, supply, train/retrain, and rapidly move such a team. As Federal troops this team could assist under the appropriate state incident command structures.
Northern Command, that’s providing this team, already has a structure prepared to respond to CBRNE (Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear and Electromagnetic) This seems like a custom built team to deal with a specific biological threat instead of a more broad based one. If you want to understand more you can read about NIMS, ICS, and for the CBRNE threat, You might want to read about Vibrant Response exercises training DCRF (Defense CBRNE Response Forces). It’s nothing like a Hollywood portrayal in a sci-fi movie.
A military team composed almost entirely of military doctors and nurses… jackbooted thugs?!? That almost made me wet myself laughing. Commissioned military doctors might be marginally more effective planning to cordon off towns than a group of stereotypical Pacific Northwest flannel wearing hipsters…might be. They certainly have about equal experience levels.
I remember that the military response was largely ineffective against giant ants, flying saucers and blob monsters.
If 60 years of movie tropes have taught us anything, the standard protocol for this sort of thing is as follows:
-A brigade-sized task force of light mechanized infantry in MOPP gear cordon off the town. They are authorized to use lethal force against anyone who attempts to breech the perimeter.
-Nazi-like doctors in HAZMAT suits set up a lab in the hot zone, complete with chain link fences topped with concertina wire and creepy mobile flood lights.
-The local population is rounded up and taken to the local football stadium where they will be processed
-Infected will be separated from the general population and treated with an aggressive program of napalm.
-Upon loss of containment, the entire area will be sterilized with nuclear or fuel-air explosives.
So your “experience” in these matters is that you remember your dad was in the military 40 years ago when you were a child?
I would expect that they would be supported by the entirety of the US government and law enforcement agencies as the need arises.
Gosh golly, sooo much misinformation…okay, first of all, nurses are any rank from O-1 to O-6. Odds are, at least couple of higher ranked experienced critical care nurses would be chosen for this team. They may or may not outrank the doctors chosen, and if one of them does, they’d be in command of the team, though they’d defer medical decisions to the doctors. Second, none of them are going to be carrying firearms, for cry-eye. Nor will they require any kind of support team…they’d be quite capable of working with the civilian establishment. The military actually does partnerships with civilian hospitals on a a regular basis. Military residents train in civilian hospitals on a regular basis, and the military and civilian systems collaborate on patient care all the time.
The reason for a team like this is that, should another case of Ebola pop up, they aren’t always going to be around large, well equipped, well trained medical centers. And it’s not always going to be feasible to move a patient to one of these. It’s very easy to uproot a military team and have them in place quickly…it’s kind of what we do. A civilian team, not so much. A civilian is going to have a job, family, and may not be able to simply pick up and go the way a military team can.
I’ve worked with civilian agencies from time to time doing humanitarian work, and I’ve never seen one that can be in place and up and operating as fast as a military team.
Lucretia, USAF RN for the past 11 years.
It is a disaster. Ask any Liberian. It’s just not a disaster that affects the U.S. directly in a substantial way.
The end goal is defeating this outbreak. It’s bad news for everyone and needs to be stopped. I’d prefer people didn’t panic because it hinders the response. But the response is what’s important here.
Thank you for some real information. If another case of Ebola appears, the closest hospital may be like the one in Dallas–not really ready to offer the high-tech care needed. And shipping infectious patients around the country sounds like a lot of trouble. Glad the group will offer training, too.
If one purpose for this plan is to mollify the Republican Enemies Of All Things Obama–good. Surely they won’t badmouth Our Men & Women in Uniform.
I’ve had relatives in the service & don’t see them as “Jack Booted Thugs.” (How would you get those disposable booties on over jackboots?)
I’ve been giving this more thought. I hope the intent is to provide support and training to the hospitals and doctors. Be there to assist and not simply throw their weight around.
The wording used in the news reports is unfortunate. Quick strike team sounds too militaristic. I was concerned they might be more concerned with aggressive quarantine and crowd control.
At this point we really don’t know what the intent is. There’s been no discussion or explanation. I’m not sure its even been formally acknowledged by the administration. The news is coming from Pentagon sources. We’re simply being told this team is being created and trained. No explanation of any legal authority they’ll have or what they can do.