What
would a global pandemic look like for a disease that has no cure and
that kills more than half of the people that it infects? Let's hope
that we don't get to find out, but what we do know is that more than 100
health workers that were on the front lines of fighting this disease
have ended up getting it themselves. The top health officials in the
entire world are sounding the alarm and the phrase "out of control" is
constantly being thrown around by professionals with decades of
experience. So should average Americans be concerned about Ebola? If
so, how bad could an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. potentially become? The
following are 25 critical facts about this Ebola outbreak that every
American needs to know...#1 As the chart below demonstrates, the spread of Ebola is starting to become exponential...
#2 This is already the worst Ebola outbreak in recorded history by far.
#3 The head of the World Health Organization says that this outbreak "is moving faster than our efforts to control it".
#4 The head of Doctors Without Borders says that this outbreak is "out of control".
#5 So far, more than 100 health workers that were on the front lines fighting the virus have ended up contracting Ebola themselves. This is happening despite the fact that they go to extraordinary lengths to keep from getting the disease.
#6 There is no cure for Ebola.
#7 The death rate for this current Ebola outbreak is over 50 percent, and experts say that it can kill "up to 90% of those infected".
#8 The incubation rate for Ebola ranges from two days to 21 days. Therefore, someone can be carrying it around for up to three weeks without even knowing it.
#9 For the first time ever, human Ebola patients are being brought to the United States. And as Paul Craig Roberts so aptly put it the other day, all it would take is "one cough, one sneeze, one drop of saliva, and the virus is loose".
#10 This has already potentially happened in the United Kingdom. A woman reportedly collapsed and later died on Saturday after she got off of a flight from Sierra Leone at Gatwick Airport.
#11 A study conducted in 2012 proved that Ebola could be transmitted between pigs and monkeys that were in separate cages and that never made physical contact.
#12 This is a new strain of Ebola, so what we know about other strains of Ebola may not necessarily apply to this strain of Ebola.
#13 Barack Obama has just signed an executive order that gives the federal government the power to apprehend and detain Americans that show symptoms of "diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled."
#14 And as I noted the other day, federal law already permits "the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease".
#15 According to the CDC, there are 20 quarantine centers around the country that are prepared to potentially receive Ebola patients...
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