Government Experts Still On the Case!

Continuing the pattern of careful thought and flawless expertise that put us amidst the current situation, the government's Top. Men. continue to exercise their brilliance in responding to the current Ebola crisis:

(AP) In Washington, the White House continued to rule out any blanket ban on travel from West Africa.

 Federal health officials say a travel ban could make the desperate situation worse in the afflicted countries, and White House spokesman Earnest said it was not currently under consideration. 

People leaving the outbreak zone are checked for fevers before they're allowed to board airplanes, but the disease's incubation period is 21 days and symptoms could arise later.Airline crews and border agents already watch for obviously sick passengers, and in a high-level meeting at the White House, officials discussed potential options for screening passengers when they arrive in the U.S. as well.

Nancy Castles, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles International Airport, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has had employees on site at more than a dozen major international airports in the U.S. like LAX for many years. Screening of passengers starts with Customs and Border Protection agents, who work with CDC when they have a case they are concerned about.
Obama said the U.S. will be "working on protocols to do additional passenger screening both at the source and here in the United States." He did not outline any details or offer a timeline for when new measures might begin.
Additional screening would not have caught Duncan because he wasn't exhibiting any Ebola symptoms when he arrived in the U.S.

So, summing up, the federal government has ruled out the only measure that would stop infected persons from arriving in the U.S., but is definitely going to roll out additional measures that will have absolutely no additional effect, guaranteed.

Because the problems of people 6000 miles away are more important than doing anything to ensure the safety of people here, now.

More cowbell, please.
I feel better about this already.

What other good news?

The U.S. is equipped to stop any further cases that reach this country, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

Really, Josh?!? If any of that gold-plated BS were true, the 316M-person question is,
WHY IN HELL DIDN"T YOU STOP IT WITH DUNCAN BEFORE HE GOT HERE???

Perhaps he could then go on to explain how, exactly, we're equipped to do something that all current and planned future measures are incapable of doing. Apparently Presidential Liar Josh Bullshit has knowledge of a Secret Klingon Ebola Detection Device, which he could tell us about, but then he'd have to kill us. If the Ebola itself doesn't do that first.

What else have they got?

The Obama administration maintains that the best way to protect Americans is to end the outbreak in Africa. To that end, the U.S. military was working Monday on the first of 17 promised medical centers in Liberia and training up to 4,000 soldiers this week to help with the Ebola crisis.
"The tragedy of this situation is that Ebola is rapidly spreading among populations in West African who don't have that kind of medical infrastructure," Earnest said.
About 350 U.S. troops are already in Liberia, the Pentagon said, to begin building a 25-bed field hospital for medical workers infected with Ebola. A torrential rain delayed the start of the job on Monday.
The virus has taken an especially devastating toll on health care workers, sickening or killing more than 370 in the hardest-hit countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - places that already were short on doctors and nurses before Ebola.

So, to that end, in a region that's seeing 150+ new cases and 100 deaths from Ebola with every passing day, the military troops we sent have yet to build so much as anything, not even starting on a 25-bed clinic for infected health workers, because it's raining near the equator in Africa. During the rainy season. Who knew?

Nor have they made any progress on any of the 17 other imaginary Ebola treatment centers, in countries that are already currently thousands of beds short for the last month, and the futile citywide search for which, with his infected friend, is how Duncan got the Ebola infection he then brought into Dallas.

Certainly there must be something, anything, to bring some slight ray of sunshine and cheer into this picture?

Raising fresh concern around the world, a nurse in Spain on Monday became the first person known to catch Ebola outside the outbreak zone in West Africa. In Spain, the stricken nurse had been part of a team that treated two missionaries flown home to Spain after becoming infected with Ebola in West Africa. The nurse's only symptom was a fever, but the infection was confirmed by two tests, Spanish health officials said. She was being treated in isolation, while authorities drew up a list of people she had had contact with.

Ah, but wait, not so fast:

NBC, The woman, who was described as a "sanitary tech," last month treated a priest in Madrid who later died of Ebola after contracting the virus while doing missionary work in Sierra Leone.

The elderly priest, Manuel Garcia Viejo, was treated in Madrid's Carlos III hospital, where he had been in quarantine since his return from Africa. He died on Sept. 25. The nurse entered the priest's room twice: Once to treat him and once upon his death, to recover his belongings, officials said. She began showing signs of illness on Sept. 30 and sought treatment, they said.

Health authorities said the nurse earlier had also helped treat another priest, Miguel Pajares, 75, who had been working in Liberia when he was afflicted with Ebola. He was airlifted back to Spain on Aug. 7 and died five days later.

"We are working to verify the exact source of contact to see if all strict protocols were followed," Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato said at a news conference on Monday.

So rather than a baccalaureate-trained professional in nursing care whose full WHO-compliant PPE was breached by Ebola in some diabolical new twist to the story, we're apparently talking about someone who was probably a minimum-wage member of the clean-up crew who either wasn't told, didn't know, or didn't care that she was playing around a deadly virulent pathogen, rather than something far less serious. (If you have more insight on Spanish healthcare practices, use the Comments option.) 
While her situation is humanly regrettable, it's nowhere near the disaster it would be if Ebola had somehow managed to get past numerous layers of protection precautions which she likely wasn't using in the first place.

And that last tidbit is the absolute brightest glimmer anywhere in this continuing nightmare.

This is therefore probably one of those cases where IQ becomes Darwinian destiny.
And now, 5 to 9 chances out of 10, Senora Sanitary Tech is going to be dying in a puddle of her liquefying internal organs because of a few lapses in practice, in the next couple of weeks.
Along with anyone she may have infected there after becoming symptomatic herself, the total number of which TBD. (30 contacts as of now.)

Thus Spain now becomes the eighth nation to get on the scoreboard worldwide from this epidemic, with no end in sight.

Mother Nature doesn't grade on the curve. Ever. The bitch.