Bill Whittle: Fear of Ebola

A deadly epidemic is on the loose in America. It’s not an Ebola epidemic. It’s an epidemic of fear. In this must-see FIREWALL, Bill Whittle tells us not only that we should be optimistic, but WHY we should be optimistic, as well as what was done right, what was done wrong, and what needs to be done in the future. See the video and transcript below:

TRANSCRIPT: 

Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall.

There’s an epidemic breaking out in America – a deadly and destructive epidemic that can do catastrophic damage to our country and its people. It’s not an Ebola epidemic. It’s an epidemic of fear. It’s an epidemic of fear caused not only by the presence of a terrible disease, but by the sense that no one is in charge, no one is taking decisive action, and that the people charged with defending us against this kind of threat were asleep at the wheel and continue to flounder, lie to us, and cover their mistakes. When you get right down to it, this fear epidemic is caused by the belief that in this battle with Ebola, it’s the virus that has the initiative.

And it doesn’t have to be this way. All the American people need is a little honesty, and a little leadership, and if the Federal government cannot be counted on to tell you the politically incorrect truth, then that job falls to the states, or to the people themselves.

So let me try to tell you what there is to fear, why there is cause for optimism, and what actions need to be taken.

EVD, the Ebola Virus Disease, is a pretty simple, single strand of RNA that produces hemmoragic fever — in its later stages it destroys the walls of blood vessels and causes a host of horrific symptoms. The critical number — in terms of our ability to contain an outbreak — is the Basic Reproduction Number, R sub zero, usually spoken as “R Naught.” R naught is an estimate of how many people an infected person will pass the disease on to.

If R naught is less than one, the disease dies out over time. If greater than one, it will grow, and the bigger the number, the faster it will grow.

The deadly 1918 outbreak of influenza, spread easily by airborne droplets from sneezing, had an R naught of 2-3: every infected person infected two to three more. Measles, which is completely airborne, is extremely infections with an R naught of 12-18.

Ebola, in its present form, has an R naught of only 1-2. That number is very low, because Ebola is not transmitted either through the air or even through droplets, like measles or the flu. To contract Ebola, you need to be in direct physical contact, with a visibly symptomatic carrier, and even then the virus cannot pass through healthy skin but has to enter through the mouth, eyes, cuts, etc.

But that’s still a positive number, if a low one, and that means the disease spreads. But the one thing that we need to keep in mind is that the existing reproductive rate of 1-2 for Ebola is artificially much, much higher than it would be here in America, because it is derived from conditions in Central and now West Africa, where sanitary conditions are appalling and effective isolation virtually impossible. Ebola’s relatively low infection index is as high as it is almost exclusively because of burial customs in African culture, where tradition dictates that relatives wash the blood off the infected bodies by hand – blood that in the case of Ebola is extremely contagious, and there are not a lot a lot of rubber gloves or surgical masts in West Africa.

And there’s another factor: Ebola is not just spread by contact. It is also spread by fear. And in Africa that fear also drives these numbers much higher than they would normally be.

On September 18th, 2014 at least eight government health workers and journalists were found hacked to death in a latrine in Guinea, murdered in cold blood by villagers who thought they were in fact spreading the disease intentionally. There are reports of relatives breaking into hospitals in West Africa, assaulting the medical staff and removing, by force, extremely infectious individuals while shouting “There is no Ebola!” Riots broke out in the Guinean city of Neh-zeh Reh-KOH-ree, when health workers spraying disinfectant were thought to be spreading the disease. When a population attacks health workers, doctors and hospitals, instead of heeding them — well that R naught of 1-2 reflects all of that. We will not see that here.

Now despite these positive factors, this outbreak is in fact a very serious condition. Ebola, unlike most viruses, which can survive outside of a living body for only a few seconds or at most a few minutes, appears to be able to remain viable four up to three or fours days. So it’s a very persistent agent; hence the biohazard suits you so often see. And, of course, once contracted the disease is extremely lethal: fatality rates as high as 90% untreated and at least 50% under good conditions. So this is, in fact, a very serious problem but not an unmanageable one — especially if you live in the West. I suspect more people are going to die before we get this contained. But I do not see it breaking out into our population the way it has in Africa.

Now of course, that’s assuming we have a competent government. However: Federal authorities didn’t seem to give a second thought when large numbers of illegal aliens carrying various serious infections were simply tightly packed together and then distributed across the country. And, as usual, we seem to be critically short on test kits and anti-viral medications — especially vaccines. Why? We have known about this deadly disease since 1976. We have 11 carrier strike groups, fully armed and staffed, fully trained, with most of them operational at all times in order to defend the American people. Why are we so perpetually unprepared in the face of this serious and well-known threat? Is it because the present administration is so commited to the idea of open borders?

We’re also told that shutting off air travel to West Africa will hamper medical access and health care workers. Really? Really? You’re telling me that we can’t shut off civilian air traffic to these highly contagious areas without being smart enough to get medical personnel in and out of there, on military transports, with personnel who are presumably trained in chemical, biological and nuclear contamination protocols?

Some shameless Democrats are blaming budget cuts for this outbreak, but when the President spends $500 million of your tax dollars on Solyndra to make solar cells and then immediately goes bankrupt, taking that money with it; or when Obamacare is spending two thousand six hundred billion dollars in ten years, and they still can’t be prepared, then maybe the answer isn’t more money for the government. Maybe the answer is a government that gets its priorities straight when it comes to defending the American people.

And where’s the President on all this? Why does a private citizen have to stand here and make the case when this is in fact precisely the reason we have a chief executive in the first place?

Maybe he’s out fundraising. Maybe he’s playing golf. Maybe he just doesn’t care. But, as usual,  he sure as hell is not out in front of this issue – this one above all others — telling us why all we really have to fear is fear itself.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.  

Subscribe to Frontpage’s TV show, The Glazov Gang, and LIKE it on Facebook.

  • Jay Dillon

    CDC’s information page on Ebola indicates Ebola will travel short distances via air, in microdroplets, unless these are blocked by a Plexiglas divider. Also new guidelines from CDC require all nurses must cover exposed skin completely. Why? Well, there’s little doubt the concern is that microdroplets or virions may contaminate exposed skin, either via air wafting on the skin or by slight touch from an Ebola patient or contaminated objects. You don’t go to an Ebola Hot Zone and start prating about fear and fear itself, etc. Enough of the talking down to concerned citizens.

    • Nadzieja Batki

      No matter how clean and secure we try to keep our skin, we all have scratches, nicks, manicure and nail biting breaks in the skin, men shave so they have breaks in the skin on face and neck.

  • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

    I like Bill Whittle well enough despite his Libertarian tendencies, but he’s no epidemiologist. First, and as Jay Dillon above points out, Ebola may indeed be transmittable through the air. Second, if R0 = 2, that is by Whittle’s own admission getting into the range of the 1918 flu pandemic which killed millions of people, and I’d say that was something to fear. Whittle thinks R0 won’t be that large here in America, but that’s pure speculation on his part. More efficient means of transportation could bring an infected person into contact with more people per unit time, for instance.

    As to the behavior of those Guinea villagers, to be frank they remind me a great deal of inner-city Obama voters. I wouldn’t want to be a worker trying to disinfect some inner-city location, because Obama voters might reach the same conclusion those villagers did about what we were doing there – or they might just shoot us for other reasons. If Ebola ever gets a foothold in some inner-city neighborhood, watch out.

    • Nadzieja Batki

      Either Whittle is a Libertarian or he is not. We do not need more immature and stupid people telling us how a virus may or may not operate. Viruses have and make their own rules as they mutate.

  • rlqretired

    The very worst possible biological weapon of mass destruction, easily possible to acquire, is now readily available to the Islamic Jehadist suicidal nuts of the world of tyrannical Islam, a group to whom Obama has demonstrated his allegiance heavily favors with every mid-east decision he has made during his entire 6 years in office, the Muslim Brotherhood.

    An obvious plan is simple and if you don’t think the ISIS nuts are working on something similar in nature you are dreaming. First you line up the number of Jehadists you want to disperse throughout your target country, all with the proper visas ready to board the plane to their chosen target with tickets in hand, such as the USA for instance, and lets say they have gathered the 25 to 50 awaiting suicidal Jehahists needed to carry out their planned attack.

    Next they will send out a couple of these guys to acquire an Ebola infected live and dying victim, who then provides the biological weapon needed to timely infect the rest of the group of suicidal nuts, who then immediately board the planes and fly to their target city, pass all the entry tests because they have no symptoms and immediately acquire living quarters to await the infectious phase of the virus to begin and then begin the spread of virus to as many victims as possible. Within days the economic foundation to the entire target country would freeze and food/medical riots will commence and Obama will implement his peacetime version of Martial Law and our Republic will cease to exist as a Republic never to return.

    I am not saying Obama is privy to such an attack. I am saying he is demanding that we leave ourselves open to such an attack and will allow nothing to be implemented to stop it until it begins which will be to late. His allegiance has thus far been to Islam and will remain so to the very end of our Republic.

    None dare call it Treason and what is so damn devastating to the Republican Party is that they all know our acting commander in chief has acquired this position based upon a law enforcement verified forged birth certificate and selective service registration card and is using a stolen social security number and they are afraid to complain because the media and the democrats will call them racists. Treasonous Cowardice can be no greater than this.

  • http://littlenotesfromparis.blogspot.fr/ Rita
  • Sheik Yerbouti

    Obama will make this a race issue. Republicans will capitulate. Americans will get infected and die. Both sides will swear they “tried” when it’s clear neither side gives a damn.

  • http://www.apollospeaks.com/ ApolloSpeaks

    EBOLA ISN’T OBAMA’S KATRINA

    Obama is America’s Katrina.

    http://www.apollospeaks.com

    • JonathanBrayufa

      my Aunty Scarlett just got a nearly new green Mercedes C-Class Sedan by working parttime off of a pc. why not try here……>> -> CHECK IT OUT HERE! <-

  • Gamal

    There is evidence that Ebola is airborne. See

    http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33277/title/Ebola-from-Pigs-to-Monkeys/

    and

    http://gotnews.com/despite-cdc-assurances-ebola-gone-airborne/

    http://www.wnd.com/2014/10/u-s-army-warns-of-potential-airborne-ebola/?cat_orig=politics

    I don’t think Ebola causes people to sneeze so it may be less airborne than the common cold but it’s airborne.

  • Jim Powell
  • Douglas Mayfield

    Many thanks to Mr. Whittle for his comments. As a former physician, now retired, I do have questions concerning two of his points.

    “Ebola, unlike most viruses, which can survive outside of a living body for only a few seconds or at most a few minutes, appears to be able to remain viable four up to three or fours days. So it’s a very persistent agent; hence the biohazard suits you so often see.”

    I have read that Ebola is quite sensitive to the U-V portion of sun light spectrum and also to many commonly used cleansers. But there a number of strains of Ebola so the ability to survive outside the body may vary from one to another. (And I am certainly not questioning the use of biohazard suits in dealing with the virus.)

    “Ebola, in its present form, has an R naught of only 1-2. That number is very low, because Ebola is not transmitted either through the air or even through droplets, like measles or the flu.”

    I have read that there is still a question as to whether Ebola can be transmitted by infected droplets. Apparently, Ebola is not usually found extensively in the lungs and so may not be transmitted by coughing, sneezing, etc. But as far as I can tell, this is still being investigated.

    Thanks again for the article.

    • Edward E

      Nobody says “let’s import MILLIONS of non-Blacks into EVERY & ONLY
      Black countries until Blacks become a minority, FORCE
      integrate/assimilate them into EVERY black community to create a
      “blended humanity”, give them Affirmative Action & free health care
      and push miscegenation 24/7 via movies/t.v shows & media(only in
      black countries)”

      THEN, when the Blacks object we will tell them “don’t worry you RACIST, you are free to move to another country”

      Anti-racist is a >code< for anti-White