ebola (a-licky boom boom down)

Despite the lack of a clearly defined plan to prevent more sporadic cases of Ebola occurring in Europe, there is an air of resignation that little can be done. While the Western, antiseptic world bears the guilt for not doing more to prevent the disease from becoming endemic and the real suffering and individual tragedies ought not be overshadowed by vague fears and pandering to something adjacent to godliness (something in which there’s always money), absent a direct onslaught on the inchoate epidemic, international passenger transportation should be severely curtailed.
Public health officials do not seem exactly forthcoming and are taking an apologetic, almost defensive stance for the airline industry—which would and will no doubt take a major hit, when the matter is finally forced. Screening passengers prior to departure is window-dressing at best and a farcical stab at prevention, considering that each flyer has a vested interest in avoiding detention or scrutiny. Those suspecting that they have the disease of course want to avail themselves to better treatment facilities in America or Europe and remove themselves from areas where Ebola is prevalent. They certainly do not want to be turned back or sent to a holding room for examination, undoubtedly full of sick people. Given the incubation time to become symptomatic and uncertainty (despite sworn surety) about how it is communicated, any exercise would be a post-containment one but—without hindering the delivery of supplies and the support of aid-workers in West Africa—flights ought to be grounded, and not selectively but world-wide since viruses do not respect the borders and remoteness that air-travel has also made obsolete. Restrictions, I think, ought to remain in effect until an outbreak occurring anywhere on Earth can be successfully treated on the spot and the standards (so long as that is an elevation and not healthy hegemony, a pharmacracy or a step backwards) for healthcare and sanitation that the West has are made available to everyone. Not only is it not an unreasonable dream, the costs of not doing so are quite dear.