Ebola case reported in US; CDC director promises "we are stopping it in its tracks"

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Patient Zero - the first of millions?

Simple. Just move the border fence a bit north… Might as well also seal off Florida now just to be safe.

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You wanna be in Mexico? I think not. The Zetas will get us. I think we should just nuke Dallas.

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Think I’ll go and watch that episode of ‘The Strain’ I’ve been meaning to.

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All the sudden, Americans are concerned about ebola!

Life was so much easier when it was a thing happening to far away strangers.

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Thanks, Obama!

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You insensitive clod! now where am I supposed to run to? But seriously, all my best for this person and his family.

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Incidentally, this is a good illustration of the difference between evil and stupid. A journalist keeping this a secret would be stupid; an official trying to keep it a secret would be evil.

because the general public knows how to calmly prepare for the unlikely event of an ebola epidemic?

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The point is that it just makes the public less calm than they would otherwise be when they find out anyway.

Instead we’re enjoying an afternoon of A/B-tested hysteria to fill the empty space around a single leaked fact.

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Remember when Rick Perry suggested Texas should secede? He might find that idea has a bit more traction now.

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Baby, can you dig your man?

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I bet the zombie-preppers are just crapping themselves with delight about now.

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Reminds me, I need to get a flu shot soon.

Also time for Tdap again…

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I was just thinking that this morning.

He’s a righteous man!

If they are crapping and bleeding it’s too late for them now.

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Except that I’ve gotten reports that people are panicking in the Dallas area, even though there is absolutely no reason to. That’s largely thanks to the worthless news media. The actual dangers of ebola in a developing country are pretty minimal, since we have well funded hospitals that have real sanitation standards that get followed. Ok, so the disease has a scary high death rate, but I’d put money on this ending with patient zero in Dallas as the only case of this outbreak. I’ll be shocked if it hits more than 10 cases.

Sure the CDC official is going to use carefully couched words and try his best to communicate this. And then all that is going to get ignored by Fox and CNN, who are going to scream EBOLA WE"RE ALL GONNA DIE!!1! As Wolf Blitzer runs around his news room with CGI “holograms” of decapitated chickens flailing around with him. I can totally understand why they tried to embargo this.

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That’s cute.
Healthcare-associated infections | HAI | CDC
Estimates of Healthcare-Associated Infections Occurring in Acute Care Hospitals in the United States, 2011:
Pneumonia 157,500
Gastrointestinal Illness 123,100
Urinary Tract Infections 93,300
Primary Bloodstream Infections 71,900
Surgical site infections from any inpatient surgery 157,500
Other types of infections 118,500
Estimated total number of infections in hospitals 721,800

About 75,000 hospital patients with HAIs died during their hospitalizations.

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Thus the old joke: if you want to stay healthy, stay away from hospitals.

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