Not really if St. Lucia (and Colombia and St. Vincent, another island that put a ban) checked the customs records and decided that the tourists or nationals coming from West Africa are/were zero to few. So it may seem like a huge posture, but economically, not doing any impact.
Likewise, while other airports in bigger countries can have state of the art screening and holding facilities, it seems a bit unfair for smaller island nations to have all that provision, and perhaps it is also more convenient and cheaper for them to just put up a ban.
Ted Cruz said, ‘Banning flights from the afflicted countries is a prudent, common-sense step until the epidemic is brought under control.’
Since there is now Ebola in the U.S., that means he wants to ban flights from leaving the U.S. Since at least one infected person flew on a domestic flight, perhaps we should ban domestic flights as well?
One vital difference is that the epidemic in Sierra Leone and Liberia is raging unchecked, whereas there isn’t an epidemic in the US. Unless you count hysteria. Still, if Japan or Madagascar, to pick two names somewhat out of the blue, wish to do so, that would entirely be their right. It would cost them dearly in trade, but if they felt that the increase in public safety warranted that, that’s their choice.
As to what a US quarantine would look like, it’d probably be similar to this. No entry into the US by anyone who has visited the countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, or Guinea, within the last 45 days, without first going through a quarantine period of 25 days and a negative test for the Ebola zaire virus. Said quarantine will either be in another country free of the Ebola virus, or at a US government installation. Citizenship of any of the three countries constitures a presumption that the alien has visited those countries. Also, no individual who has been a caregiver to a patient with Ebola zaire within the last 45 days may enter the US w/o the above quarantine. Passports will be examined ahead of time to verify that the bearer has not visited any of these countries. Flights may depart US soil for any of those three countries with prior approval from either the Department of State or Defense.
Modify as needed.
Edit: Oh, and if CBP/DHS can’t keep out say 95 percent of the people who’d otherwise come to the US, then disband them in favor of an organization that can.
Well, that’s the link, but it doesn’t seem to want to work.
The Mail also reports that a Man died on a flight from Nigeria to New York. I’ve never heard of the airline. It days the body has been removed but the passengers remain on the plane.
Too late to edit - the headline in the article about the man who died is a little different than the story. It didn’t just happen - and I’m guessing the other passengers have deplaned.
The TEAliban are in hysterics over it, and some right-wing politicians are like sadists talking about spiders to arachnophobes. (‘Man, I hate spiders. Especially when they’re crawling in your hair…’)
There is a difference between the Ebola cases in the U.S. and the ones in West Africa. But 40% of Americans are in fear of getting Ebola. Fearful people do irrational things. Many are calling for a ban on flights from West Africa, notwithstanding that the flight that brought Thomas Duncan to the U.S. flew out of Belgium. It Ted Cruz has his way, then we very well might see Japan or Madagascar banning flights from the U.S.
Again, how many cases have there been in the US among the general public (not healthcare workers) since the epidemic in West Africa began six months ago??
The timeline and the lack of cases among the general public tells me that we’re not likely to pick it up at work or while shopping for Cheerios.
TEAliban doesn’t help the argument much, kinda like Democrap, or the latest acrostic I read for this crisis: Every time Barack Obama Lies Americans die. Needs work, I agree.
Anyway, the quarantine framework I proposed above would have kept out Duncan, and saved the taxpayers of Dallas County and Texas at least a million dollars, and probably a lot more with all the hysteria. To the best of my knowledge, and until someone like Eva chimes in, the US requires that citizens of all three countries have visas in order to enter the U.S. Simply put a hold on all of their visas to enter until they show proof of having been through the quarantine/negative blood test for Ebola. Expand the pool of countries quarantined if it’s shown that citizens of neighboring countries of the three are able to enter the three countries without stamped passports, visas, or another paper trail. With all of the money DHS has received since 9/11, we don’t have a clearinghouse with other countries’ immigration services to confirm whose citizens have been where?
My favorite story is the Presbyterian Hospital lab worker who handled Duncan’s fluid samples, got placed under ‘voluntary’ quarantine as a result, yet still left on a Carnival cruise to the Caribbean. Neither Belize, who banned the ship from docking, nor Carnival, which is likely going to be out a whole lot of money from the tickets and scouring the ship, are happy with her decision I’m sure.
The U.S. cannot afford to treat every case of the flu this year as if the sufferer were contagious with a hemorrhagic fever. Providers will stop showing up to work, people will stay in rather than go out and engage in commerce, and hospital resources will be taxed so hard as to be unavailable for the ordinary emergencies we rely on them for. One way to make sure we don’t have to treat every patient as if they were an Ebola carrier, is to drastically cut down the pool of people in this country who could be. Usually, that’s done through quarantine and travel restrictions. Aid workers can still go to the affected countries—charter a flight there—the military can send whatever humanitarian and engineering aid they feel warranted, medical supplies can still go: they just can’t go immediately right back to America until they’ve been shown to be uncontaminated.
We should have been ready for this since August, when Patrick Sawyer kicked it in Nigeria before making it back to Minneapolis. CDC and major hospitals could have used that as the impetus for breaking out the emergency binders, calling for drills, actually checking if hospitals were ready for this. Instead, we had the ratscrew, make-it-up-as-we-go-along tragicomedy of Dallas, and the inability of exposed people to stop scaring the shit out of everyone else.
We can continue screwing around, roll the dice some more, until we get a carrier who doesn’t immediately go to the hospital, who manages to give off secondary and, unlike Duncan, tertiary infections, and the clamor will be for a more Draconian solution to the problem.