I have this addictive game on my iPad called "Plague Inc." It's a simulation game, where you are given various infectious diseases to spread throughout the world and you only win when you wipe out the entire world population.
Your goal is to mutate viruses into killing machines through various tactics that create both real symptoms and fictional, extreme symptoms such as humans evolving into zombies. All the while, computer-run governments are working to shut down the spread of the virus.
The game goes to such an extreme that it can't be mistaken for reality and therefore, the twisted nature of the mission can be enjoyed for the strategic fun it is.
There's one big problem here: the tactics the computer governments use in this game are far more logical than the prevention methods I've seen being used worldwide to fight the spread of the ebola virus in real life today.
Over the past 24 hours, we've seen more cases pop up because of irresponsible attention to protocols, if you believe CNN's Sanjay Gupta.
Over that same span, news broke that a Caribbean hotspot was reportedly shutting down its borders to those who are at the west African center of the outbreak.
In the last week, we've seen the U.S. government's highly-evolved response: to have virtually untrained Coast Guard troops take temperatures and ask questions at five high-traffic U.S. international airport hubs. The Centers for Disease Control believe they'll catch 94 percent of potential inbound visitors that could be carrying Ebola on to our soil. As we learned with SARS and we're learning now with the rash of airplanes-diverted-for-nothing stories now, one symptom such as fever doesn't mean the virus is present. So the airport screening is likely a gigantic waste of money simply meant to appease a very scared public.
Listen, I respect that we're trying to take action. But the reality here is that irresponsibility is going to spread this disease. Like the kind of careless behavior that the first U.S. patient to die in Dallas showed. We call him Thomas Eric Duncan, giving him the three-name treatment like the media gives to all serial killers or domestic terrorists.
Irresponsibility like the medical personnel in Dallas not taking precautions to avoid passing bodily fluids when caring for Duncan.
Our own fearless leader, Mark Murphy, had as good of an idea on how to prevent the spread of the disease as I've heard (yes, a suck-up to the boss, but a heartfelt one): use the same attention to cleanliness that the cruise lines use.
The reaction to this idea was typical of a media intent on holding a narrative: Cruise lines? Are you crazy? We've been spreading the world consistently that cruise lines are an oversized petri dish filled with infectious disease. And we're not backing down off of our talking points, dadgummit.
I'm a frequent cruiser and I see the point that Murphy was attempting to make. The cruise lines had a real problem and they attacked it with OCD-level cleanliness, to the point where onboard stomach bugs and norovirus cases are a miniscule percent of a percent compared to the on-land cases reported. They may not be winning the media war yet, but they're winning the war against viruses.
Could the airlines turn around planes quick enough to maintain current schedules? No. They'd lose some profit in the name of national security. So, sure, let's dismiss the idea because over-the-top cleanliness would cost too much time and money. That's sarcasm but there's a reality here. Sanitizing airplanes to the extreme would help minimize the spread, but even then, there's still the problem of identifying and containing the infected.
I've heard some suggest a 30-day quarantine, not letting anyone in our borders until we're sure that west Africa is getting a leg up on this problem and we're stopping the spread on our borders.
In my game, the user is charged with being the virus, with figuring out how to keep the spread multiplying until continents are fully wiped out. The message in the game is one that applies in real life as well: slow the spread, contain the infected, win against the virus.
St. Lucia is likely on to something here. If the virus continues to spread, larger countries will have to take extreme measures and shut down borders. This will have a crippling effect on the travel economy if it's the action needed, the kind that will have create a short- and long-term travel fallout on any quarantined area.
Sadly, it will not account for or fully contain irresponsible behaviors.
I hate reporting on this story. Because ultimately, the media is fueling a hysteria right now. Sadly, this story is good for ratings and page views. So the more headlines, the better. It's just another form of irresponsible behavior.
The most responsible thing I've heard in this whole mess is by Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.
"No matter how many of these procedures are put into place, we can't get the risk to zero. That will not be the case but this additional layer should add a measure of security to the American public. This entry screening procedure, for example, would not necessarily have caught the patient in Dallas."
All we're really doing here with the screening is trying to stem the hysteria. It's not fighting the virus. The one disease the CDC can not control is human idiocy.
The sad truth is eradicating infected animals in Africa and eradicating irresponsible Ebola-related behavior in every other locale is going to be the only fool-proof solution.
This will be a costly and potentially lengthy battle. As much as travel execs don't want to admit it, it's a truth that every last one of their board of directors and CFOs is secretly planning for.
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