Quote Originally Posted by hollohas View Post
Even if an outbreak on US soil was way smaller than 1% it'd be a major problem. Let's say 1000 people got infected in Denver. Think there's room for 1000 people to be isolated in area hospitals? Are there enough qualified nurses and doctors to care for each of them? What about the contacts of those thousand people that need to be tracked? Maybe each infected person only had contact with 20 people, less than Dallas ebola guy. That's 20,000 secondary people that need to be tracked, tested daily and forced into quarantine. Are there enough police to keep that many people locked in their homes? Will they all have 21 days worth of supplies or will they need to be helped?

What about the cost. Dallas ebola guy's medical costs are being reported to be in excess of $500k. His family isn't going to pay that. So who would pay the medical bills if 1000 people got sick at $500k a pop. What's that, $500 million? The cleanup of his apartment was over $100k aparently. Multiply that by our example number of 1000.

Now run those numbers if that many people get infected in a dozen cities. Two dozen? That's still not very many people. 24,000. A minor number of sick compared to some of the flu's and plagues from history. 24,000... $500k each just for medical...$12 billion? Think Cigna will cover that?

Add cleanup, humanitarian aid, logistical costs, LE costs, etc, etc, etc.

I wonder what the magic number is that would overload the system...how many infected until it breaks the camel's back? Obviously it would be different for each city, but how many infected could a city like Denver handle until it just couldn't treat any more? A city might be able to keep an outbreak somewhat under control, with only slow increases in the number of sick...but once a city reachesd it's limit of how many people it could treat, the number of infected would skyrocket quickly.

I agree with those here...we should have been taking EVERY step possible to make sure not a single infected person made it to our shores. The only way to make sure would be to shut-her-down. Lock the door. Instead we are basically inviting them here. We advertised that we healed 4 doctors who were infected. Everyone in Africa must be thinking, "dang, those Americans have amazing health care. If I get infected, I'm going there." And you know what? I'd bet good money that's exactly what Dallas ebola guy did. Didn't work out too well for him and it had the potential to really screw us. How long until the next guy shows up?
Well, at least someone's making money? it keeps people gainfully employed... but the problem is- where does the money come from?