(The Carnival Cruise Ship Magic, denied access to Belize. They say a cruise is a great way to get your mind off a crisis.)
You know why I have been plunging into the past. It is easy. There is no uncertainty back there, nothing to be afraid of. Plus, I know we all lived through it, except for the ones who didn’t. We have had time to get used to it.
What I have not had time to get used to is the muddled response to a disease that is spreading rapidly in West Africa, and which is now here in America. Ebola infection currently has a fatality rate of around 70%.
So sorry, I have been keeping my mouth shut but this is something on which I have direct personal experience and I am dumbfounded by what the government is doing about it.
Spending time with an assortment of Cabinet Secretaries in the days after 9/11, I had several sessions with then-Secretary of Health and Human Services, former Governor of Wisconsin Tommy Thompson. He was a pretty cool guy who rode Harleys and enjoyed life. Part of our discussions were naturally about the sorts of biological threats we might be facing from al Qaida.
I was frustrated with the way the Rumsfeld Defense Department was handling the messaging about our conflict with the militant Islamists, and decided to send in my letter requesting to retire. At that moment, Tommy asked me to come over for my last few months on active duty and help set up an interface between him, his Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and the Intelligence Community.
I had close personal experience with The Station Nightclub Fire that killed 100 and tied up most of the hospital ventilators in the Northeastern U.S. I realized for the first time that even one relatively small disaster (smoke inhalation affected many more attendees at the concert) could literally stress the health care system to the breaking point.
At the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, we coordinated response to the deadly SARS epidemic and the response to the Anthrax mail attacks, and the disturbing but unheralded Monkey Pox outbreak in the Midwest. I do not claim to any particular epidemiological expertise, but did work closely with some of the best in the field. I have great respect for them. We worked hand-in-glove with the Center for Disease Control (CDC), then headed by Dr. Julie Gerberding, not to mention the Canadian and Chinese Governments and the World Health organization.
So, I understand the players, the roles and responsibilities, and contributed to the concept that formalized the legislative transformation of our Office the next year into what is now the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, with an annual budget of nearly a billion dollars to pass out in grants.
If you have heard anything from that office lately, please let me know. Ditto the Secretary of Health and Human Services, for whom CDC works. I assume this has something to do with the intensely centralized decision-making process of the Administration, coupled with the desire to keep HHS low-profile after the departure of Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Have you have heard anything at all from current Secretary Burwell?
This morning was the moment I said “enough.”
Revelations are that a lab worker who tested U.S Ebola Patient Zero Thomas Eric Duncan’s bodily fluids went on a Carnival Cruise aboard the good ship Magic. The ship was denied entry in Belize. This comes on the heels of the news that the CDC permitted Nurse #2 to fly on commercial jets with a fever.
More troubling news this morning is that Nurse #2 may have had symptoms sooner than originally believed, and Frontier airlines is notifying up to 800 passengers linked to flights she took between Dallas and Cleveland may have been eposes Not to mention the people who sat in the seats in which she sat afterwards, before the planes were decontaminated.
So let me get this straight: Belize is taking action. We are not. We are concerned more about the economic impact of travel restrictions on Liberians than the health of the American people? We are allowing people with direct contact with the bodily fluids of Ebola patients to go on cruises and commercial transportation?
There is something really, really wrong here.
We are still dithering on travel bans. There is talk of establishing a “Czar” to deal with the situation- six months after the first cases were reported in Guinea.
Oh, wait. We have a Czar already. Maybe some people should start doing their jobs. Maybe we should get proactive on this deadly thing. Maybe take a lesson from world leaders like Belize.
Enough.
Sorry- we can go back to Africa in a more fun way tomorrow.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303