The Annoyed Man wrote:It may not BE possible, but I'm going to try. I don't think wearing a mask all the time is the answer......but wearing a mask in an airplane might be, and people have actually been doing that for years now, so it's not even that unusual. I don't want to minimize Ebola's contagion, but getting it INTO you is a much bigger threat than getting it ONTO you. Some of the people in Africa handling the remains of the dead have caught it, but not ALL of them. That signifies something.G26ster wrote:TAM, if everything you say here is factual (and I believe it is) then how can simply carrying and using hand wipes and wearing a face mask on the plane (as you stated in a previous post) possibly protect one from this virus? Sure, it might help in a tiny way, but you say, "we don't have to be crazy paranoid about it, but responsibility dictates that we take them into account in our daily business." Well I think based upon what you said here, even being crazy paranoid about it and holing up (ala Howard Hughes) wont protect us. How do we protect ourselves from daily life? How do we protect ourselves from things such as, getting (touching) the mail, eating at restaurants where we don't know the medical condition/sanitary habits/exposure of the food preparer, the server, the previous guests at out table, or walking past other people in town, buying groceries (who touched that product before we did, or sneezed/coughed on the floor we walked on so we track it in the car and in the house and on the rug), and on and on and on. Doesn't seem possible.The Annoyed Man wrote: baldeagle, I'm sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong about droplets. Yes, some will land on the ground. It's really windy at my house today. Some might get carried away to land harmlessly on an oak leaf 3 blocks away, to be irradiated by ultraviolet sunlight until harmless. Some may land on my neighbor's doorknob. A droplet could land in my granddaughter's eye......and she wouldn't even feel it! Some may go straight across the room to be inhaled by my wife. THIS IS EXACTLY ONE OF THE MEANS OF HOW FLU GETS TRANSMITTED! And... you could step where some of those droplets have landed, and because it survives outside the human host for at least days at a time, you track the virus into your grandkids home, where they get into the carpet.......the same carpet your grandkids play on.
I do not say these things to engender panic. I say them so that you will abandon this false argument that Ebola cannot be spread by this means. There are common sense things we can do to avoid it, and we don't have to be crazy paranoid about it, but responsibility dictates that we take them into account in our daily business........for exactly the same reasons we carry a gun. We don't expect to need it, but we want to have it just in case we do. That does not mean you are about to mugged any minute, and neither does it mean that you will be exposed to Ebola any minute.
Seems to me that taking a "few" non-paranoid precautions like we do to protect from the flu virus, which you says dies almost instantly outside the body anyway, is almost meaningless when it comes to Ebola. I guess we need to change the slogan "always carry, or guess right" to "Hole up like Howard Hughes, or guess right." MHO.
I believe that's my point. I believe, if the "droplet" fact, and the time Ebola can survive on surfaces, if you get it on you, you WILL get it in you. Even with full protection, the nurse contacted Ebola because she probably got it ON her first. My point is if the "droplet" and the "on you" are facts, then there must be thousands of ways to get Ebola on you that you would never be aware of, and eventually in you so, to me at least, taking one, two, or three basic precautions is sort of useless to prevent contagion. I wish all of us the best of luck.