U.S.A & West Africa: Ebola -- facts, not frenzy; let common sense prevail

Feeling saturated with ebola news?  Are you getting the feeling that there's too much unhelpful political posturing?  Yep, I thought so; me, too.  So this will be short and quick and probably the most concise thing you can read on this subject.

There's no doubt that this is a complicated and dangerous disease.  The chances are pretty good that it's going to become more complicated and more dangerous before there's any really good news to report.  The timeline for eradication is probably years, not days or weeks or months.  This thing will mutate and evolve; for all we know, it might be doing this on a daily basis, but could go unrecognized for months or years.  Victory over ebola will not come easily, nor will it come quickly.

And victory over ebola will not happen in the United States.  It can happen only in those areas where it is already firmly entrenched.  Those areas appear--based on everything we know at this time--to be in west Africa.  Call it the "hot zone" for ebola if you want to.  That's where it already has thousands of human hosts in which to incubate, and is aided and abetted by those nations' limited abilities to provide effective medical treatment and recovery care.

Is there a danger to the United States--or, for that matter, to Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Nigeria, Brazil and all the other nations of the world--from the arrival of ebola-infected travelers?  Yes, but it's a danger that is recognized.  If you are saturated with the news, then you already know that the danger is being mitigated.  It's something new for us to deal with, so a little time--remember that as of the date of this writing we are talking about an experience directly affecting America and Europe of only a few weeks--has passed, much has been learned, mistakes have been made, more has been learned from the mistakes, adaptations have taken place, and effective procedures, protocols and tools have been activated to deal with the issues involved in medical care and exposure.

With a few lines of text, we have summarized a massive medical, governmental and logistical response to a major event of great importance.  So far, so good, but that's just the easy part, because America and Europe have been exposed to only the smallest of dangers from ebola.

The bigger danger hasn't yet hit the news

The bigger danger is in those African countries that are saturated with the disease.  The danger there is two-fold:  First, near-term ebola deaths that have the potential to suddenly spike from the current count of thousands to a possible death count--over the next few months--of tens of thousands. 

The second danger--horrible as the first one is, this one is much worse--is the potential for some kind of ebola-induced social disintegration in these hot zone countries.  If these countries are not provided with massive additional amounts of medical and social assistance--including on-site guidance and help by trained practitioners--then this disease might simply evolve and spread until it is out of control. 

With that possibility in mind, it's not hard to conjure up images of consequent mass migrations of human populations, eventually causing chaos, greater numbers of deaths, prolonged and exacerbated human suffering and potentially national failures throughout much of Africa.  This, then, would become a humanitarian and national security crisis of unspeakable proportions for the rest of Africa, all of Europe and North America.  With that thought, can there be any doubt about the value of President Obama's arrangement for appropriate American military personnel to be a part of the containment and relief efforts?

Let common sense prevail

America, of course, is key in seeing to it that none of these dire scenarios prevails; simply put, the United States--and Europe, too--have the most to offer in terms of medical and humanitarian assistance.  It's a combination of science, know-how, money and commitment. 

I don't know if international travel restrictions--an idea with a companion conversation that is consuming much of the political and media atmosphere at the moment--are helpful or hurtful, or a combination of both.  What I do know is that the most helpful approach would be one that includes liberal amounts of common sense, which means recognizing that a complicated problem is going to be fixed only with a complicated solution.

In the spirit of promoting common sense--not able to fix the problem with this, but perhaps it can help certain parts of the problem from getting any worse--here are a few simple facts about ebola--put together by the Obama Administration for American consumption, but applicable everywhere--that I hope will be helpful (to see this at its origin, visit the White House blog via this link):