More Gain-of-Function Experiments

Legal Insurrection reports that papers are being published that claim the H5N1 avian flu is a gain-of-function lab leak.  

Fortunately,  I am not a bird.  Try and mask all of America's birds and order them to stay indoors!

I am informed it has crossed over, in small numbers, to people.

Nothing To Worry About

At my doctor's office yesterday, there was a sign on the front door that said, "If you have travelled to West Africa in the last 30 days and are sick, do not enter.  Stay in the parking lot and call [office number]"

Fear of Ebola Is Racism

From October 16, 2014 Guardian:

The problem with the west's Ebola response is still fear of a black patient

Ebola is now a stand-in for any combination of ‘African-ness’, ‘blackness’, ‘foreign-ness’ and ‘infestation’ – poised to ruin the perceived purity of western borders and bodies

Ebola now functions in popular discourse as a not-so-subtle, almost completely rhetorical stand-in for any combination of “African-ness”, “blackness”, “foreign-ness” and “infestation” – a nebulous but powerful threat, poised to ruin the perceived purity of western borders and bodies. Dead African bodies are the nameless placeholders for (unwarranted, racist) “panic”, a conversation topic too heavy for the dinner table yet light enough for supermarket aisles.

tThe author of course is an American.

Ebola Fears May Be Unreasonable

But the fears may themselves become a real issue.  From the October 17, 2014 Daily Beast:

Jason Charles knows the exact moment he will lead his wife and five kids out of their Harlem home, pile into a car, and take off for the wilderness. It will be not long after Ebola reaches the population of New York City, hospitals overflow, and looting begins—when the first riots break out on the streets of Manhattan.
“Right now it isn’t bad, but if the first case happens in New York, you start hearing about hundreds or thousands of people getting sick and it shotguns through the city, then you want to start getting your plan together to leave,” says the 37-year-old fireman and dedicated prepper. When that happens, he says, “it’s a free fall, that’s the system breaking down.”

But the moment of evacuation is delicate. Skipping work, pulling the kids out of school—all of these decisions have lasting consequences. “If you leave too early, you look like an idiot; if you leave too late, you could be dead,” Charles says.

Nationally, the number of Americans concerned that Ebola will shoot through the population is skyrocketing. According to a Wednesday poll by the Harvard School of Public Health, 52 percent of Americans surveyed said they believe the country will experience a large outbreak in the coming year, while 38 percent said they believed they or a family member would be infected. To be sure, there have been just three cases diagnosed in the U.S.