At what point should a person in the U.S start to worry about Ebola?
You should worry right now. The key to preventing panic is to be prepared and, don't let the disease get a "foothold" in the US. Prevention is the best defense.However, the CDC and the medical community so far have been completely incompetent in their first attempts at prevention. They have been sloppy, negligent, and foolish. They've also been boastful and inappropriately proud ("oh, this will never spread in the US, we have too good a medical system"). We as citizens need to hammer them. Hard. Only by aggressive action, will we get these slow-moving sloppy agencies to tighten up their game.The time for anger is NOW. Write your congressional representatives NOW and tell them to get off their asses. When somebody tells you to "be calm", ignore them. Idiots. In politics, "calm" means the issue will be ignored.
Did Thomas Duncan (Ebola patient) come to the U.S. deliberately knowing he would get the best treatment in the world?
At this stage, we don't know. We may never know, depending on the outcome of his illness and the judicial cases against him. I would be willing to believe that he may have dismissed the possibility that he might have contracted Ebola, believing that it would have been impossible that something so terrible could happen to him and ignoring the possibility just as others have done in other situations around the world since time immemorial.EDIT: Two different articles--one blog post at the Daily Kos ("Thomas Eric Duncan & the Less Popular Story of his Infection") and one widely-syndicated news article ("Texas Ebola patient aided Liberia woman thought to have malaria", readable here and here)--suggest that at the time, no one knew that the woman Duncan aided had Ebola. Marthalene Williams appears to have been the first person in her community to contract Ebola. As she was seven months pregnant and presenting with abdominal pains, it was thought more likely that she was suffering a pregnancy-related condition. After her death, Williams was believed to have died of complications of malaria. It was only when people around her began developing Ebola, after Duncan's departure, that her true cause of death was known. Duncan may well have known nothing of these developments until after his departure.
Is lassa fever caused by a virus or a bacteria?
Virus
Ebola: What are they are not telling us?
Ebola is NOT 95% contagious, IT IS ACTUALLY 99.9%. Of those who contract the disease 1/5 will die. it HAS a 99% fatality rate, and is extremely dangerous. There is NO CURE, NO VACCINE, and contrary to what the lying media is telling it is AIRBORNE. The most worrying thing about this disease is that it INCUBATES for up two three weeks, during which time the infected host can STILL pass the pathogen to other UNSUSPECTING hosts. There is almost 800 TONNES of monkey and bat meat entering the U.K. and is sold in the OPEN AIR on African markets in London. This does NOT make the BBC news. (Google it). EBOLA HAS BEEN PROVEN TO COME FROM MONKEYS! They are telling you these things so to as not cause a panic, don't believe it! The NHS is NOT prepared, and even if they were, they can't help the person with full blown Ebola, all they can do is ISOLATE the person until he/she does to stop the pathogen spreading and mutating. Why can't the media tell the truth to prepare us for an eventuality that may lead to the worst scenario? What are they hiding???
Should Ebola victims, like this person, be brought to the United States?
A lot of people are hyping up this patient being brought back as likely to be the cause of some sort of Ebola outbreak in the US. Such panic is misguided.From what I have read, these patients are being transported with Biosafety level 4 precautions being taken. I quote:The jet can carry only one patient at a time. It is outfitted with a special, portable tent designed for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases, officials said.From: First Ebola patient may arrive in Atlanta this weekend | Local News | Star-Telegram.comThis means the patients will be contained in an environment with a segregated air supply and negative air pressure. They will be accompanied by personnel who also have isolated air supplies and pressurized suits. They will be walking through multiple vacuums and taking chemical showers. The risk of the infection spreading, barring some highly unlikely, catastrophic freak accident, is almost nonexistent.The US has some of the most advanced medical facilities available, best equipped to provide treatment to patients suffering from highly lethal diseases such as Ebola. The government has an obligation to protect its citizens, and bringing them back for treatment is part of that.