It is clear that my Governor Cuomo has rushed into this decision to quarantine returning aid workers from the countries affected most by this epidemic. This is very much a populist decision caving to the uninformed, overblown fears of the general public and placing the need to calm that fear above the lives of people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
In those nations there is good reason to panic because this is a critical moment in the course of an outbreak whose growth has been best modeled by an exponential curve. If as a global community of human beings we cannot put the breaks on this now hundreds of thousands of people will die. Hundreds of thousands of people. Each one of those lives is important and has meaning...the loss of so much human capital will be very difficult to recover from in a region that already has more than enough challenges.
We have sent aid, but we need to send MORE.
We send volunteers but we need to send MORE. And we nee to do this right now. They need to stay as long as possible. Every delay, every bit of red tape means more time for the virus to spread and thousands more dead in the future.
Why is the disease is spreading so much in these countries if it is not easily transmitted? It is spreading because people are trying to take care of each other when the system fails them. If your loved one was sick and there was no room in the hospital what would you do? Let them waste away in a bed alone? Or bring food and water and whatever else you could to ease their suffering? It is in the act of caring for others that this disease spreads. It is true even of all of the famous cases we have had in the US. Every person got sick trying to help others. There is something repugnant about a person who would never dream of really risking exposure to Ebola lambasting someone who did for a vanishingly small and mostly imagined risk. (I'm also tired of people saying that at this stage it is spreading because of some funeral practice of touching the dead. That was true at the very start of the epidemic, but now the citizens of these three nations are just as freaked out as many Americans. People are avoiding shaking hands, some are avoiding all human contact and that is making it hard to do simple things like buy food.)
But why is isolating people such a big deal you ask? Isn't it better to be safe that sorry?
Imagine you are a doctor or medical school professor and you have taken a leave of absence of 2 months to help fight Ebola in Liberia. You now know that when you come home you will not be able to go back to work for almost a month, you cannot see your child or friends, you are effectively under house arrest. What will you do? Come home early of course so that you can go back to work on time. Aid workers have lives too.
So, you stay for 1 months and a week rather than 2 months ...right at the critical time when need is greatest and this could become a global health hazard. And many others do the same.
All to make people feel safer in the USA. Not to really reduce any significant risk. Our feelings for their lives.
It is madness.
New Ebola Quarantine Protocol Seen as Barrier to Volunteers (New York Times)
Future scenarios show how easily Ebola could explode (New Scientist)