The worst-case scenario for the Ebola epidemic spreading in
West Africa predicts about 1.4 million cases by early 2015 according to the
W.H.O. In a quote from the N.Y. Times, Thomas
R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said, “My gut feeling is, the actions we’re
taking now are going to make that worst-case scenario not come to pass. But
it’s important to understand that it could happen.” Lets do the math.
Right now we have about 10,000 cases of Ebola infection in
West Africa, and thanks to our Federal non-response to the Ebola epidemic, 5 or
6 people with Ebola have made their way into the United States. This has resulted in spending about 12
million dollars on health care, and quarantining or supervised monitoring
approximately 1,000 contacts.
Furthermore, 2 nurses have been infected by Ebola treating one Ebola
infected “tourist” let into our country.
Lets “scale up” these numbers to reflect the “worst case scenario”. If we do not change our national policy of
letting in everyone without a current fever, we could predict that
approximately 700 Ebola patients would make their way into the U.S. The cost to
our health care system--16.8 billion dollars, quarantining 1.4 million people,
and we could expect 3,000 infected nurses.
But we can rest easy--our head of the CDC has a gut feeling
that this is not going to happen. I also
believe that this will not happen, but I am not tasked with the protection of
our citizens against deadly viruses. However, President Obama and Director Frieden
are responsible for our security and are gambling with our healthcare
infrastructure and the lives of our nurses, doctors and citizens. Why?? so that they can be seen as doing the
politically correct actions by allowing free travel between the epidemic and
the U.S.? This simply makes no sense--a
little less guts and a bit more brains are called for.
Steven Keller, Ph.D.
Professor New Jersey Medical School-Rutgers University
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