Sierra Leone in lockdown
Trying to smoke out the ebola victims who might be reluctant to go to medical authorities, Sierra Leone has instituted a nationwide 3-day lockdown:
In a desperate effort to bring the outbreak under control, thousands of health care workers began going house to house in crowded urban neighborhoods and remote villages, hoping to find and isolate infected people…
Health officials said they planned to urge the sick to leave their homes and seek treatment. There was no immediate word on whether people would be forcibly removed, though authorities warned that anyone on the streets during the lockdown without an emergency pass would be subject to arrest.
Ambulances were on standby to bring any sick people to the hospital for isolation. The health care workers also planned to hand out 1.5 million bars of soap and dispense advice on Ebola.
Is soap such an unusual commodity there? Knowledge of the mechanism for the spread of disease certainly seems to be, although that’s part of the goal of the unprecedented campaign—to educate people about prevention and precautions.
Good luck. The resistance to the knowledge, and suspicion of the workers, is high:
In the latest case of violence against health care workers, six suspects have been arrested in the killings of eight people in Guinea who were on an Ebola education campaign, the Guinean government said Friday.
The victims were attacked by villagers armed with rocks and knives. The dead included three local journalists.
The entire thing is ghastly: the level of ignorance and fear, and the very real dangers of the disease compounded by that ignorance and fear.
In the present predicament in which Africa finds itself, the Ebola incident being a subset, are not the providences of our visionaries, the hearts of darkness that got us here, to be finally acknowledged and appreciated? What a cataclysm it would be if not for the UN and its Peacekeepers, and the World Health Organization; and the – surely it’s trillions now – of Western aid; the death knell of colonialism a half century ago and the ongoing opprobrium against it to this day; the end of apartheid.
What’s a bleeding heart to do? Double down? God have mercy of Africa in that case.
This epidemic seems far more dangerous than “the authorities” are admitting. The potential for a worldwide outbreak can’t be dismissed. We are told that Ebola doesn’t spread easily, but just a few virus particles from someone’s sweat can transmit them, and even recovered male victims can transmit it in their semen for months afterwards.
And then there are the suicidal Islamic terrorist fanatics: a few martyrs could infect themselves and jump on airplanes. Just spit and sweat on airplane door handles on the way, and do the same once they get to their destinations.
Perhaps worst, viruses being sloppy replicators, having many thousands of people infected means who know how many millions of chances for mutations, some of which could make the virus even easier to catch.
In short, there’s a distinct possibility of an Earth Abides (by George R. Stewart) situation.
“The level of ignorance”? it is we, us here in the USA, who are equally ignorant. We have no idea what living in the African “Bush” is like. We think, some of us, that passing out bars of soap with instructions to wash with, not eat the bars, is surely unusual, and the killing of anti-ebola “workers” (a nice Marxist word) is bizarre. We think the word to stay home for three days will just flash out to every Sierra Leonan using what, i-phones? public service announcements brought by the Ad Council? and they will heed and obey.
These are people who dine on fruit bats, for pity’s sake. Their lives in the Bush are pretty much the same as they were 2000 and more years ago. Now they have towns where the streets are mud and the people take dumps wherever and whenever.
We presume to think we can save them? It is we who are not just ignorant, but delusional….or willing to be deluded by our Dear Leaders.
They live, they breed, they die over there in West Africa. That’s what they do. They do not write poetry.
In Nigeria, they tap into petroleum pipelines to steal gasoline and blow themselves up. There are twenty-two million in Lagos, Nigeria, and our esteemed epidemiologists, like Frieden of the CDC, thinks “workers” can just be sent out to find and evaluate all contacts an ebola patient has had in the 21 days before getting sick.
We are sending 3000 US military to build hospitals in Liberia. Liberia has no doctors. Why do we do this? To keep people with a mortality rate of 75% under optimal circumstances alive? Who will staff these places? But not to worry; our troops will not catch ebola. Guaranteed.
It’s enough to make one go out and play another round of golf.
Don Carlos:
Who is this “we” of whom you speak?
I don’t think most commenters here are that naive, for example.
I’m currently reading The Idealist, which is about Jeffrey Sach’s mission to end poverty in Africa. It’s a good read, starting off with his idealist mission and then taking you through its effects on the ground. Several of his Millenial Fund villiages (primarily in central Africa) are described quite closely. The differences between our ways of thinking are amazing, especially to those like Sachs who come from an academic bubble. It’s a good read.
anywhere and everywhere that blacks rule themselves the same conditions exist. so yes, soap is not a common thing there, as food is not a common thing, and people will pay for food before soap. but also, there isnt much money there either.
the wests blood diamond bull crap ended up killing the outer trade in diamonds… so now, instead of getting full market value for a diamond a person gets outside the mines (same in places like indonesia), they have to take the diamond to the monopolists, who pay them scrub, and then make the diamond clean and official as if it came from their mine.
the do gooders tightened the diamond monopolies.
so to kill the conflict resource they basically starve out the people who get diamonds… do you really think a small group who dig a hole are thinking, boy, i really want a machine gun… or i really want food?
yeah… well, all that did was make sure that they are not smuggled out and that they cant get market prices for their work, and that a few who run the programs with the state get all the lucre
diamonds account for about half the whole economy. so locking them down means a few get wealthy the rest of the country lives at subsistence levels and this is third world subsistence… so starvation is not uncommon
Ministry of Mineral Resources controls most of the diamonds… Concessions for industrial mining (exploration and large-scale mining) is managed by the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) in Freetown, while all artisanal mining licenses are managed by the MMR Regional Offices located in Bo, Kenema, Makeni and Kono
London Mining says Ebola now impacting output, costs
http://www.mining.com/london-mining-says-ebola-now-impacting-output-costs-82946/
London Mining’s (LON:LOND) announced Thursday production volumes at its Marampa Mine in Sierra Leone jumped 24% to 2.1 million tonnes in the six months to end-June, but warned the outbreak of the Ebola virus in the West African country is beginning to impact operations.
now… want to know who makes the most money? and remember, london mining basically has to work with the rest of the diamond trade… which, would take me way too much time to clue you all in on… (i have friends in the diamond trade, i cut gems, and know other cutters… for me its a hobby, but my family through my wife has a in perpetuity deal for diamond rough)
you will find that in africa, the london offices have a lot of pull, and the dutch not so much. however, if you want to cut diamonds, the industry works out of one of three or four places, with the jewish people in amsterdam, and in the united states (created thanks to hitler), and others.
these are called bourses.. 30 members and is centered in antwerp. if one is lucky enough to be able to get to the point of buying a cache of diamonds, its a very odd case. what you get is put on a table, with others. you get to walk in, take a look, take lunch, and so on.. and decide. do you want it, or not. though caution, if you say no, you may find yourself never ever being able to buy again!!
its a funny process…
you can see who cuts them in ny… they often are the hasidim (our friend is hasidic, my wife and i are gentiles), you can tell they cut by the way their hands look… they walk around with huge amounts in their pockets… our friend is a man who runs top cutters. i have seen their work and its some of the most incredibly high quality cutting i have EVER seen in my life. interesting to hold an almost flawless diamond the size of a grape perfectly cut… beautiful
anyway.
its a very old business with people who deal in perpetuity. meaning that the deal is forever. i can go any time and he will buy… the deal is passed on to our children if we had any, and so on… for as long as the families exist and the deal is not negated.
interesting world.
“we”? Heck, Neo, i wrote, “we, here in the USA.” You want i should say we Americans, present readership excepted?
Don Carlos:
No, I was just curious. Did you mean liberals? All Americans?
Jeffrey Sachs & Coy clearly demonstrated that they didn’t have a CLUE as to how economies boot up.
In his ignorance, he’s got plenty of company: 99.99999% of humanity is at a loss as to how our economic society booted up..
I can’t concatenate my understanding into a blog post.
Writing a tome is required.
But in high outline: only a trivial fraction of a society is involved in leading the way. That fraction requires an IQ of approximately 105 or better to become a member. One also has to have no infirmities, etc.
This core network is the seed for all that is to follow. Everyone else is dead weight. They will have no more utility, and no less function than beasts of burden.
In railroad terms: they’re riding the train wondering where and why the locomotive is pulling them along. They are actually not providing ANY impetus at all — regardless of how hard they toil. In economic terms they are heading off on the wrong ordinate. With any luck, at some point the vanguard of economic rationality will put them in harness.
Since the IQ 105 threshold is actually a semi-fixed value, it’s extremely important in predicting the economics possible for the larger society.
This has been discussed, in some depth, by La Griffe du Lion.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/
When the IQ distribution is startlingly low — Africa — then the Smart Fraction is pitifully small. THIS is the hang up in Africa. NOTHING ELSE.
This is why anyone truly interested in the betterment of that continent must advocate the return, the repatriation, of American Blacks to Africa. They are the ONLY cohort that is acceptable to Black Africans.
That’s right, they’re racist to the extreme. THAT’S another crippling problem in Africa. They disrespect White advice, Yellow advice, Brown advice, Arab advice — you name it — they disrespect it.
My nephew found that the morons he was dealing with were collectively laughing at him from day one. He had to learn their primitive language to do so. It didn’t take long. The village IQ normed to 70 — if you’re willing to be seriously generous — 60 if you’re forced to put money on the estimate.
In such a population, it’s actually impossible to find enough Smart Fraction talent to boot up a money economy. So, they didn’t.
&&&
It took European Jewry to bring economic enlightenment to the Renaissance. Those Jewish ‘pilgrims’ took arrows from every direction. Modern anti-Semitism entirely revolves around the resulting rivalries and resentments.
%%%
WND has been linked to by Drudge. Within its columns they quote experts who seem to have cribbed their commentary from neo neocon’s post just the other day.
More likely, they looked at the same situation and came to the logical conclusions.
One can only hope that Barry is forced to cancel the suicide regiment before it is lost in west Africa.
Popular protest stopped his insane Syrian campaign a year ago. We can hope.
Everyone should rally their relatives. The life you save will likely be your kin’s.
Neo:
Regretfully, all Americans. We have, as you well know, dumbed ourselves down quite wonderfullyl. Half of all Americans probably cannot identify the continent of Africa on a world map.
“Is soap such an unusual commodity there?”
Yes! When I was a boy growing up in Rwanda many years ago soap was indeed a big deal. Shoes were also very much prized by the Africans. Apparently things have not changed much.
The Africans I knew in Rwanda probably did have substantially lower IQ than European Whites, but they were not retarded by any means. At that time the majority of Africans were extremely friendly to the missionaries and greatly appreciated the help missionary doctors like my father gave them.
Before we judge the Africans too harshly because of their backwardness, we need to remember that they have been under intense pressure for hundreds of years by Muslim jihadis who have disrupted their traditional cultures and have stolen from them, murdered entire villages with impunity and enslaved those they didn’t kill. In other words, Muslims brought on a dark age in Africa similar to what they caused in Europe by their pillaging and murders.
The English colonizers temporarily broke the cycle of jihad and gave Africa breathing room in which to right itself. Unfortunately, because the Africans looked to Europeans for ideas for their new civilization, they were easily manipulated by leftists especially those in the Soviet block who taught them to hate the West and to totally mismanage their economies.
I do understand how Americans would be cynical about Africans after Mr. Obama the black racist has done his best to cause and to exploit black racism and resentment. However, Mr. Obama is of Muslim heritage. His ancestors were the oppressors in Africa. Even today Mr. Obama’s Muslim family is busy stirring up trouble in Kenya.
Don Carlos:
You can solve that, one person at a time.
I took Don Carlos’ remarks to mean “most Americans”. I didn’t take them personally.
I long ago concluded that aid to Africa was doing more harm than good. For example, food aid undercuts local farmers.
If missionaries and aid workers want to help, they’re free to do so, provided they use voluntary donations, not tax money. I feel no obligation to help them myself.
Imo the proposed team obama rescue mission is doomed to failure and will in all likelihood bring ebola to America. Conditions on the ground are too primative, corrupt, and the borders too porous. It would take 20 times the number of human and material resources proposed to stand a chance of containing this epidemic. Obama is being poorly advised or he’s simply flying by the seat of his royal golf cart.
“I long ago concluded that aid to Africa doing more harm than good.”
I agree rickl. All the aid does is postpone the day of reckoning…. too many people, tribalism, corruption, refusal to develop a sustainable economy, and ingrained superstition must eventually face plant. Same goes for most of Latin America.
rickl- you got my meaning right. Thx.
mf- solve what, one person at a time?
It is easy for Americans to become cynical about Africans after the constant race baiting and entitlement expansion by Obama and his leftist goons. That’s just OK with them since they would like for the Muslims to have unlimited access to Africa again like they had before European colonialism put a halt to the jihad against Africans.
American blacks are not Africans either culturally or ethnically. Most of them don’t know what tribe they come from and many are mixed with Whites. Therefore it is unfair to blame Africans for what American Blacks have become under the power of the American left.
As Obama and elk undoubtedly know very well, if Americans write the Africans off, the Muslims will be glad to continue their jihad and to enslave the entire continent. Muslim jihad against Africa has been on going for hundreds of years. Boko Haram is nothing new, it is just the latest manifestation of an ancient problem. If anything, Boko Haram is similar or even less destructive than the previous jihads.
Spelling correction, it is “ilk” not “elk”. Apologies to all the elk for insulting them by comparing them to Obama.
Africa could be revitalized via South Africa’s white colonial or the Rhodesian differential system. However, America’s push for equality amongst the UN caused those rulers and systems to collapse. And that was done intentionally. Much like Bay of Pigs in Cuba.
“FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Some in Sierra Leone ran away from their homes Saturday and others clashed with health workers trying to bury dead Ebola victims as the country struggled through the second day of an unprecedented lockdown to combat the deadly disease.”
Don…
As you can read, there is no way that ebola is going to be contained when the population flees into the bush.
The ONLY solution is a distant quarantine.
Needless to say, no-one wants to be on the inside of the quarantine perimeter. Holding a quarantine is always an ugly business.
Using White troops to hold back Black tribesman is very poor optics.
I know that the US Army won’t do it, but the wise course of action is to establish all Black medical-military formations on the hurry up.
I can’t see any other formations able to hold the quarantine.
As it stands, ebola is simply going to progress straight through to the east – building up its tempo as it hits major populations.
The rioting has just begun.
It’s in the nature of exponential expansions that the numbers get very huge, very fast, even if the base value seems modest.
The last ebola trend was a doubling time of 12 days – ish.
One can only pray that some of the survivors can come forth and provide anti-bodies.
There is still no indication in the MSM that the West does NOT have any isolation wear that is suitable for west Africa.
They are still on the bong, dreaming away.
Old Africa hand with a viewpoint:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/924795/posts
Africa needs to be left alone. The same way blacks in America suffer under too much intervention, and often not enough.
The British intervened a lot, and then at the end left due to lack of will. So they didn’t intervene enough.
America is intervening too much as the superpower. And in other areas, not enough, such as Somalian pirates or Rwanda massacre. Although in those circumstances, it’s difficult to “intervene” unless you have a reason. Against the pirates, it is because they were attacking Americans. Against Rwanda, you needed a reason, a pretext. An American dying or being tortured and killed by any faction in Rwanda, would be sufficient to gear up military operations to annihilate all factions in the war.
Not pretty, but intervention by the West has often been either too much or too little.
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