For anyone thinking of glibly and irrelevantly pointing out the ineffective nature of TSA checkpoints, this is rather a more limited and intelligent program:
"At the five US airports that receive most passengers from the three countries where Ebola is circulating, passengers will be singled out on the basis of their travel records; interviewed by means of a questionnaire; and have their temperature taken, to see if they have a fever."
It's just as much security theater as TSA checkpoints. IR thermometers are pretty inaccurate[0] and not good at catching Ebola.[1] You can also just pop and Ibuprofen an lie your way through.[2]
So this approach might not be foolproof. Does that mean we shouldn't expend the very small amount of effort that this approach would require? Do we have any reason to think that IR thermometers are so inaccurate that they aren't worth using? (For that matter, where does the article say they will use IR thermometers?) And while a person MIGHT be able to slip through after taking a fever reducer, is there a good reason to think that a meaningfully large number of people will do that?
Comments like this strike me as textbook examples of making the perfect the enemy of the good.
An infected individual might believe that they have a greater chance of surviving if they're treated in the US. After all, we've brought back our own infected folks, supplied them with experimental therapies, and they've survived. Send that through the grapevine a few times, and it could very easily create the impression that the US has a cure.
To not be hassled at the airport? The last time I checked, airports aren't actually known as the places where people expect reasonable and fair treatment.
And having read an article about Eric Duncan in the German "Stern" about how his case had been mis-handled by the U.S. agencies, I cannot blame anyone trying to take it into his own hands, even if I can see why this could be even more irresponsible.
Because you think you just have the flu, not ebola, and you don't want to waste time with some dumb checkpoint. You want to get home to see your family and finish this god-awful and way-too-long business trip.
To get into the country. Far better to be in the USA or Western Europe with Ebola than Africa. Besides, everyone thinks, "Maybe it's nothing serious; maybe it's just a cold."
To indulge in a bit of perhaps undeserved paranoia: What were/are the messages coming from the treatment and outcome of the patient in Texas?
On the one hand, a highly fatal disease and typical, systemic mishandling. On the other, an indication that travelling to the U.S. won't save you.
I have no evidence that the latter message was deliberately manufactured (implying all sorts of terrible things). But I'm certain there were and are people in positions of authority thinking about this.
A citizen of one of the countries where there is an outbreak would need a US visa to even get on the plane.
I was thinking about that the other day; taking the need for a visa into account, it's unlikely the deceased patient in Texas traveled to the U.S. in response to exposure.
From the reporting I've read and heard, it's fairly conclusively known that he did not.
He helped a neighbor thought to be suffering complications from pregnancy -- she was in her 7th month -- getting a cab and perhaps also accompanying her to the hospital or care center; I don't recall the details on the latter part.
The general population will not be making a rush over, on airplanes. But a subset who is eligible and capable might.
Personally, from the reporting, it seems to me that the man in Texas was a good samaritan and deserving of whatever help the U.S. might be able to provide. I further consider the threatened prosecution (by Liberia, and now I read perhaps also by others) not only unkind but counter-productive -- in general, I gather, such actions force further underground and prompt people to hide potentially threatening symptoms and conditions.
Because fear (especially of death) makes people do highly irrational things. You could argue that it actually isn't irrational to lie in order to get into a 1st world country with 1st world hospitals. From a very selfish perspective of preservation, that is actually pretty rational.
Screening for temperatures is a good first step but since a person might not be symptomatic at the time the temperature is being taken, temperature taking won't be enough.
I think the Government should go further and embark on enlightenment campaigns. These campaigns would involve listing the symptoms of Ebola, advising people who exhibit such symptoms to visit the nearest hospital, explaining in very clear terms how people can contact Ebola (there is a shocking amount of misinformation about how Ebola is contracted out there) and also listing some of the basic ways people can help prevent the spread of the disease (like washing of hands with sanitizers).
Basically, borrow a leaf from what the Nigerian Government did which brought Ebola to a halt after a Liberian brought Ebola to Lagos, a city whose population is more than the entire population of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone combined (those are the 3 countries hardest hit by Ebola).
Honestly that sounds like a very constructive suggestion. However it might be a little bit too early for it given the few cases outside of Africa.
There's a thin line between sewing panic and providing the public with constructive information. If they released that kind of stuff right now, people would become super paranoid and expect an outbreak any day.
You'd see people going to the hospital with every single flu, cold, or similar that they have.
It is very likely that thousands of people are going to die this year alone, because the elected officers that are supposed to protect them are more concerned with "preventing panics" than with implementing actual measures to contain and stop the epidemic.
We already have forced the moronic security theater of airport security to "protect" against a bunch of yahoos using box cutters as weapons. How worse could it get, anyways?
It will work in the same way the TSA works: It will make people FEEL like the government is taking action. Which is really what it aims to do and nothing more...
Aside from that it will likely pick up more false positives than it will actual Ebola cases (e.g. common flu, someone getting too hot after running from the aircraft with a heavy bag to beat the queues, etc), Ebola can go asymptomatic for over a week within which time it will be undetectable.
Keep in mind that several African states are already checking people as they leave. So for this US measure to work someone would have to go from asymptomatic to symptomatic within the time it takes from flying out of an Ebola infected area and arriving at their destination (e.g. 12 hr period).
I already feel bad for all of the people who will be incorrectly quarantined under this scheme just because they have regular flue. They will be caught up in a state overreaction similar to "shoe inspections" and "no liquids above 150mm" nonsense of the past ten years.
So basically, the only reason to do this—acknowledged by researchers after more ambitious programs of this kind—is to reassure the public. It's theater, meant to calm irrational, emotional concerns. Unlike the TSA, people aren't even pretending otherwise!
To me, this is a great illustration of why we need strong, consistent rights and limitations on government action: it's not just a check on government abuse, or abuse by certain minority movements or even malicious abuse by the majority—it's also a check against popular emotional responses like this. It's a way of forcing ourselves to stop, reconsider and perhaps avoid acting poorly in a knee-jerk reaction.
(Also, thinking about it, it's a solid committment strategy: if these rights and restrictions are clear and unambiguous, we can use that when negotiating both with other countries and within our own government.)
In the United States, a public hysteria would likely do more damage than the virus itself so this is a good idea even if it is just security theatre. I've heard that phrase uttered several times in this thread already. Do you guys all read the same libertarian blog or something?
It's about to be flu season. They don't want hospitals to be overcrowded with paranoid patients because that means if somebody actually does have the virus they're less likely to get the proper attention. Etc. Not to mention all the people suffering from other problems. Such a strain on our healthcare system must be avoided at all costs.
This is a good thing, even if it is just a jumping off point.
No need for a blog, I can think for myself, thanks.
The fact that this policy is intrusive, expensive and yet demonstrably irrational (at least on the part of the public) is pretty self-evident. The idea that we need some method, whether legal or social or both, to control irrational responses like this is a pretty a pretty natural conclusion after that.
Perhaps the idea that the government should not react due to irrational popular pressure is somehow libertarian, but really, it seems pretty non-ideological. Not wanting intrusions and restrictions on individuals just because a bunch of people are overly panicky is very reasonable.
Intrusive: Depends on how sensitive you are about stuff like this. They're only going to be screening flights from the worst hit West African countries. It's a temperature check before you get on the flight, and another one after. We've had way more intrusive security measures in place for EVERY person flying in the past (and present).
Expensive: More expensive than not doing it, sure. There's only about ~150 people entering the U.S. daily from the Liberia+Sierra Leone+Guinea. The screens will be performed using digital thermometers. The cost should be relatively low.
Demonstrably Irrational: It's not really irrational to take the potential for public hysteria surrounding this issue very seriously. If people believe that we're just letting at-risk people travel freely between W. Africa and the United States then things are going to get very nasty the moment Patient 1 shows up (P0 died a few days ago). CDC (Frieden) admits that the checks might make people feel safer but the real focus needs to be on containment in Africa. Everything else is going to be a half measure by comparison.
So what's the long term policy / law that will come out of Ebola testing via the TSA? Since these activities never go away they just become unquestionable policy.
Long term maybe it's finger print scanning, blood, saliva.
Those agencies both have wider mandates, so they won't want to continue to expend resources on pointless screening. Much of the criticism of the TSA is rooted in the fact that it exists to expend resources on screening (maybe with some arguing about whether 'pointless' belongs in the statement).
It could be a good measurement, at least airport management (and government, sure) is doing something to avoid it. Whether people take responsibility or not is a completely different ball game.
Of course it won't work. It wouldn't have prevented the incident it is a reaction to. Why would anyone think it would prevent any future incident similar to the first one?
Yes it will work. Partial success has benefits. So if you miss 3% or even 50%, you're making less work for those who have to contain those who get through.
That would make sense most of the time. Do you want them to filter words like "maybe" and "perhaps" too? I think there is enough censoring on HN already.
Of course it will -- there is no terrorism any more, after all.
Real answer: this is nothing more than security theater. The effective way to fight disease would be health care, and that's the one measure the United States will never take to fight any disease.
I'm curious why you'd undermine your point with a statement that is demonstrably false. Hyperbole doesn't do you any favors in trying to make a convincing argument. As measured by the CDC, mortality rates in the US have been on a steady downwards march more or less across the board for as long as we've been measuring them.
Making those kinds of statements just makes you seem like an angry, irrational person with an axe to grind.
>The effective way to fight disease would be health care, and that's the one measure the United States will never take to fight any disease.
What are you trying to say? That the US doesn't do health research? That the US doesn't have the best medical care in the world? That we haven't yet invented the magical cure to Ebola and shipped it to West Africa? Or are you trying to politicize a virus discussion into something about insurance?
I'm loathe to get involved as I know this is a very emotive subject to you friends over the pond, but from my various (largely anecdotal) readings on the subject I fear the view may be correct.
I don't think it's unfair to say that there's a percentage of the population that is scared of incurring healthcare costs and that these people will not seek medical attention as pro-actively. With something like Ebola this is very bad news for their family, friends and community.
But access would seem to be an important dimension to any effort to stop the spread of a pandemic, since pathogens do not discriminate by insured status.
There is little to no health care that can make a difference to a person already infected with Ebola, AFAIK, IANAD. Quarantine is the best thing you can do to prevent it getting further.
Why not? Because is not perfect? Such is life. And still, I am sure those people that have received proper care and survived are grateful enough.
Or are you arguing that additional measures are needed both at the individual and at the social/political level to prevent the worst outcomes. There I agree 100%.
"At the five US airports that receive most passengers from the three countries where Ebola is circulating, passengers will be singled out on the basis of their travel records; interviewed by means of a questionnaire; and have their temperature taken, to see if they have a fever."