And we win one!

Updated below:

Breaking from the New York Times:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday night outlined New York State’s mandatory quarantine policy for health care workers returning from West African nations with Ebola outbreaks , bringing the state closer into line with federal protocols and marking a significant break with the way the policy has been carried out in New Jersey.

The announcement comes after the Obama administration pressed New York to rescind its order, issued only two days ago in a joint press conference with New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie. New Jersey officials, who stood by their decision on Sunday, have yet to explain many details of their quarantine policy. The state has come under scathing criticism for the treatment of a nurse returning from Sierra Leone, who was forced into quarantine in a hastily erected tent at a New Jersey hospital even though she had not displayed any signs of illness and tested negative for Ebola.

Earlier in the day, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the treatment of the nurse, Kaci Hickox,had been shameful and vowed that New York City would do all it could to honor the work of the health care workers here and those who go to help fight the epidemic in West Africa.

Via Funny or Die.

I still won't vote for Cuomo. Don't care for the way he buckles under pressure, even when he's buckling in the right direction. Subject to hysteria, not a steady hand like Howie Hawkins. And speaking of buckling, thanks, thanks, thanks Mayor de Blasio and President Obama for your firmness in sticking by the rational approach in the face of media and political panic. You guys are great.

Update:

Annals of derp: Politico

Issa: Public doesn't trust Obama is handling Ebola http://t.co/4dfK46NQY6 pic.twitter.com/LFq7C8QRKO
— POLITICO (@politico) October 26, 2014

Dozens of subtweeters falling over each other in their excitement over this evidence of how the nation has given up on our president. Though last I heard 61% somewhat or very confident make up a majority, even in the Senate. Not sure why Politico posted it, unless it's maybe meant as snark. But I fear Allen and Vandehei are not that good at math, to say nothing of Issa.

Ex Africa Semper

Updated

Image from Brotha Wolf.

Continuing the rant...

Just heard some audio of Cuomo saying, "I'm old enough to remember HIV—we didn't know how HIV was communicated," implying that we're in the same situation (somewhat imaginary, because it was almost from the beginning clear that gay men were not passing HIV to their many female and straight male friends and relatives and associates whereas among straight people afflicted by AIDS, especially in Africa, the transmission was strictly between male and female sex partners and their children) in regard to Ebola.

Oh, right, HIV comes from darkest Africa too, just like those killer bees.

Fearless City: Postscript

Andy 'n' Chris: "Look how serious we are! Awesome!" But a little smile on Cuomo's lips as he contemplates the captive press, paying him attention but unable to ask him a single question about his role in Albany's corruption and secrecy. Photo by Katie Orlinsky/New York Times.

Not that fearless. I guess I spoke too soon.

Friday started off pretty well, with New York as a whole resolutely refusing to panic and Mayor de Blasio and city health commissioner Mary Bassett keeping things that way, as our own Ebola victim, Dr. Craig Spencer, remained in stable condition:

Fearless City

New York takes pride in acknowledging Dr. Craig Spencer, "gifted", "goofball", and specialist in international emergency medicine, generous volunteer, speaker of Chinese, French, and Spanish, and general person who knows what a New Yorker should do after a spell of taking care of Ebola patients in Guinea for Médecins Sans Frontières: go bowling in Brooklyn, have a nice dinner, do a three-mile run if you're feeling a little off your form, and take your temperature twice a day. And don't panic.

I hope very much for his happy recovery and have no worries whatsoever for the other eight million of us.

Dr. Spencer, via New York Times.

More, with a precious classic link, from Steve.

It's not rocket science

Amalie Atkins, Girl in reeds with bolex, chromogenic print, 20 x 30”, 2010, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

So apparently there was a pretty promising-looking Ebola vaccine around for ten years, 100% effective in monkeys, but no money for testing it in humans:

“There’s never been a big market for Ebola vaccines,” said Thomas W. Geisbert, an Ebola expert here at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and one of the developers of the vaccine that worked so well in monkeys. “So big pharma, who are they going to sell it to?” Dr. Geisbert added: “It takes a crisis sometimes to get people talking. ‘Ok. We’ve got to do something here.' ”

If only there were some kind of super-organization that could dispose of the necessary billions for doing stuff like that without having to worry about profits and screaming shareholders!

The vaccine was actually produced, in Winnipeg by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The Canadian government patented it, and 800 to 1,000 vials of the vaccine were produced. In 2010, it licensed the vaccine, known as VSV-EBOV, to NewLink Genetics, in Ames, Iowa.

The Canadian government donated the existing vials to the World Health Organization, and safety tests of the vaccine in healthy volunteers have already begun.

Yeah, exactly! You could call it "Canada"!

Fear and Trembling and Republicans unto Death

Grzegorz Klaman, Fear and Trembling. Installation piece, Schmidt Center Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, April-May 2007.

David Brooks takes on the Quality of Fear:

There’s been a lot of tutting-tutting about the people who are overreacting to the Ebola virus. There was the lady who showed up at the airport in a homemade hazmat suit.

Sunday news: George Will is still stupid

Academitasse. Via Caffeine Content.

Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday made a small government argument for dealing with Ebola in the United States, saying that the current government could not be trusted because it had become too large.

“Government is not competent,” Will argued on Fox News Sunday. “Frankly, it is not competent under Republicans or under Democrats. It is always a monopoly, and monopolies are not disciplined by market forces to connect them with reality.” (Raw Story)

Yes indeed. Let's turn the Ebola crisis over to private enterprise. Because there's a lot of profit potential in fighting the disease. How about a joint task force run by Big Pharma and the company formerly known as Xe formerly known as Blackwater (It's now going by "Academi"). The former can work on improved boner pills and resting-face relaxants so people will feel sexier, since Ebola is such a downer it depresses consumption, and that's so bad for the economy, and the latter can shoot everybody in Guinea because they look scary.

Update:

That last bit was meant as a gag, obviously, but fearless fascist Todd Kincannon has already gone there in earnest:

With zero hesitation. RT @gracels: @SCOAMT Not all Ebola victims die. You would kill the medical workers we brought back? The cameraman?
— Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) October 4, 2014

Eboling alone

Himmelskibet (The Sky Ship), known in English as A trip to Mars, by Holger Madsen, Denmark, 1918. Image from Bullfax.

So last week the House Appropriations Committee deals with a request from the White House for $88 million to help the government cope with the sudden escalation of the Ebola virus in West Africa. So what is the inevitable response of chairman Hal Rogers? To offer $40 million instead.

David Brooks doesn't mention this in his critique of the US approach to Ebola. He may not have noticed it because he was too busy reading Adam Garfinkle's article in The National Interest, which tells us how former senator Dr. Bill Frist had the Ebola problem licked before it was even discovered by proposing a Medical Expeditionary Force, which is a bit like Médecins Sans Frontières but with fewer doctors and without all those spooky accents and foreigners, and will cost more than $88 million, annually, if anybody ever puts it together.