Ebola and Moral Panic

a reply to: FyreByrd

Its tomorrow already!!!

Yet...

I would like to hear you reinforce your arguments for why this is NOT a time to panic over incompentence and lack of any control over the possible daaths and permanant damage forthcoming...

I see only way to prevent panic is protest, before we are all living in lockdown due to widespread deadly disease.

originally posted by: lakesidepark
a reply to: FyreByrd

Its tomorrow already!!!

Yet...

I would like to hear you reinforce your arguments for why this is NOT a time to panic over incompentence and lack of any control over the possible daaths and permanant damage forthcoming...

I see only way to prevent panic is protest, before we are all living in lockdown due to widespread deadly disease.

I will reinforce (really???) my argument by stating it again, it's very simple - Panic doesn't accomplish anything constructive, it will never protect you from ebola and should (and I repeat should) this ever reach your town or city it could very well increase your changes of being exposed or catching the disease.

There are two - count them two - confirmed cases in the US. The US has a population of 310 million. More people die everyday from common infecious diseases, flu, measels, this mysterious respirsatory disease killing children in the midwest. I don't hear people panics about them and for good reason, it will not accomplish anything.

Then there's this, and I quote "panic over incompentence". Panic over incompetence - oh that's going to help. Panic increases incompetence by overriding reason and realist perspective. Protest all you want, write your congressmen or better yet your local public health department if it soothes your fears.

Yeah - it's another day. Enjoy it. Take some time to read about how viruses spread - the difference between boldy fluid born and air born. How long can the Ebola live out side of a host body. Real information that could be useful in case of any Zombie Apocalypse.

Or even better why don't you PANIC over my incompetence at spelling - it's sure to increase my competency.

a reply to: FyreByrd

Thank you. I feel so very much comforted with your advice and instructions.

(keeps painting his protest posters and checking on the ammo and food stocks)

Just in case you were confused, I was not actually thanking you for your informed guidance.

The only people that will not be panicing over this will either die, or be the ones out fighting it. There will be no group of calm and reasoned epople for you to go hang out with. Might as well give up that little fantasy of utopia.

Telling reasonalble and intelligent people not to panic and deal with this calmly and rationally...well forgive me, but I feel that is simply a way to minimize the URGENCY of this situation, this situation does not deserve calm and reasoned action - it deserves extreme measures and immediate responses, and if the are over-the-top on what is eventually determined to be required, so BE IT.

So, you continue to round up the sheeple and pacify them, and get them out of the way of those that intend to fight and protest for immediate and extreme changes to address this threat. In that way, maybe you are doing some good, to keep those that are brain-dead out of our way.

We don't need screaming panic-driven crowds running around everywhere - they need to be herded to Pensylvania Avenue to run around and scream, and given a script to scream about....if their panic can't be rightfully directed, then you can do your part to pacify them good sheeples so they don't use up all the food stocks and ammo the rest of us need to take our country back from those that wish to kill it with disease.

But, meanwhile, there is only a short time to act to keep it as benign as you would like people to believe it will remain...before it makes statistics here in the U.S. that make your comforting disease examples sound like a bunch of stubbed baby toes and back-slapped whiners.

Education is the atidote to ignorance:

for your consideration:

www.kcl.ac.uk...

from the abstract:

Inappropriate or excessive precautionary
measures may serve to weaken society’s natural bonds and, in turn, create anxious and
avoidant behaviour. Weapons that tap into contemporary health fears have the greatest
psychological impact.

from the introduction:

targetshaveagainputciviliansinthefiringline.Yet there exists uncertainty
about the form that any terrorist attack might take, whether an explosive
device, chemical or biological agents or a dirty bomb designed to cause
radiological fall-out. How the public might respond to any of these weapons
is an important question as a terrorist goal is to create fear.

It's quite an interesting paper and uses The Blitz as a baseline. I have not read it all.

a blog by Marc Siegel, associate professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Medical Center.


www.delmarvanow.com...

But overreacting might just be the way to spread the disease instead of contain it. It is a lesson we learned long ago. During the 14th century Black Death, Venice and other cities introduced a quarantine, shutting off their waters to ships suspected of carrying the disease, to no effect. Thousands of Venetians died.

The city of Milan, well ahead of its time, avoided a major outbreak by isolating sick people and sealing off their houses.

The problem with the quarantine was that it caused people to panic. And panicked people take fewer precautions, spreading more disease. Overreactions, such as the needless quarantine Thursday of a whole building near Paris, can distract from better approaches.

A tried-and-true method of slowing the spread of an outbreak is known as contact tracing — isolate victims and then identify and follow the contacts of the sick person.

Another academic paper, from the section on "Rarity of Panic"

www.atsdr.cdc.gov...

When panic does occur, it usually involves few persons, is short-
lived, and is not contagious. (21) In studies of more than 500 events, the Univer­
sity of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center found that panic was of very little
practical or operational importance.

So I guess I should stop, panicing about spreading panic.

a reply to: FyreByrd

From listening to the news on different stations last night, a repeated theme is that the fear of panic is now inspiring lawmakers to consider the travel bans. I even heard one 'naysaying' doctor that has changed hsi tune, and he states exactly that - that we have to take action to stop panic from trashing the economy.

PANIC IS WORKING....

So we need MORE - if people like the OP had not done their part as well as the lying CDC and Obola, we would have had the levels of panic high enough to have stopped this madness, and insured those nurses were wearing level 4 protective gear, and made sure everyone that had contacted the index patient (the lying Thomas Duncan, the one that endangered us all...but appears not the only selfish person in Dallas endangering people) were quarantined and monitored, and that NO ONE would be worrying in Cleveland and off the coast of Belize.

WE NEED MORE PANIC, not posters telling us why we should not be panicing...TARGETED PANIC AT THE HIGHEST AUTHORITIES IS THE BEST OPTION RIGHT NOW to get the travel stopped from the affected areas, get visas revoked from the affected areas, add force protection to the southern border, and get the idiots in government taking this seriously.

The OP is correct only when the situation is not critical - THIS SITUATION IS CRITICAL AND REQUIRES PANIC.

fox13now.com...
Just thought I would throw this out there. Im personally getting my antivirals ready. I truly hope I never have to use them.

I've been wondering about this "Travel Ban" that right wing talking heads are all on about. I listen to the right to get a sense of what people are hearing. Not impressed by curious. I can only stand so much.

I listened 3 times today for about five minutes each (about the time between commericals) to three different narcissists - all were screaming about travel bans that we have to insitiute travel bans. Not a one said what they envision as an effect travel ban.

No International flights whatsoever? Only ban flights from certain countries? What's to stop Africans, going elsewhere and then hopping to the US?

Close all borders (especially the border with Mexico so ebola infected middle eastern terrorist or latin american children - they might be infected too)?

What about domesic flights? Shut them all done or which ones? Only from cities that have an active ebola patients or??

What about trains and buses and cars.

Close state borders?

Really, there is no proof that any travel ban will work to stop the spread of any virus. Why waste manpower and resources on useless posturing when they can be put to good use helping those already infected and in need of Service.

We stop it from getting here. That takes less resources than treating outbreaks here, and stopping entries there is safer than the gambles of taking temps and asking questions.

If we stop it from getting here, we can continue to pour resources into stopping it from spreading there. We do have to do that, it it gets bigger there, it gets harder to keep it out of here.

That is logic and the safest that we can choose to do.

We stop immediately issuing visas from the afffected countries. We stop allowing people to board flights incoming to the U.S. with a passport stamp that shows an exit from the affected countries within the last 30 days or so. We require quarantine from medical and military and aid workers that return from the hot zones.

Those are the exact steps, with maybe a bit more elaboration for the lawyers, that are being called for. Just in case all that listening to the narcissists made it hard to hear when it was mentioned by others that were not narcissists.

It appears there will be no panic for a while, the Ebola Czar has cast a silence upon the media, and the demo-drones are out in full force to make note of the hysteria and overblown hype just in time to hold onto a vote or two.

Let's see how long this finger in the dyke will hold.