The Bundibugyo virus (a type of ebolavirus) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is becoming more catastrophic every day. We’ve surpassed 1,000 suspected cases. Still not enough of everything that is needed to effectively respond. It’s totally America’s fault.
Here’s what you need to know today:
Ebola response is going great! Here’s the plan to imprison Americans in a foreign country
The White House really, really doesn’t want any Ebola in the country. The World Cup is coming up and, more importantly, America’s 250th birthday is set to throw a military parade so obnoxiously Extra Dictator-y that Stalin would have been envious. No Ebola allowed!
Unfortunately, Americans—especially doctors who work for Christian missionary organizations—are getting Ebola. Probably more will get exposed, since everyone is criticizing the US accurately for massively increasing the scale of death from outbreaks like this one by withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and letting Elon Musk and his posse of pimply, barely legal dipshits DOGE USAID into oblivion.
Now, perhaps stung by criticism that the US has retooled its entire outbreak response capacity and commitments to and leadership in global health to shrugging, antagonizing WHO, and continuing their usual corrupt fascist hijinks while millions of deaths occur that the US once prevented. Don’t get me wrong, the US is still not responding. But we’re saying that we are, when what we mean is infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights and abandoning them when they need the US most.
Kenyan Ebola prison
They already forced three American doctors to quarantine and get treatment in Germany and Czechia because HELL NO, AMERICA WANTS LIBERTY, NOT SICK AMERICANS. Never mind that we have purpose-built biocontainment units (BCUs) across the country for the exact reason of providing Americans with exceptional medical care when they are infected with dangerous pathogens like Ebola. This allows them to not only be treated in a state of the art medical facility, it protects all Americans by keeping pathogens in. The US has invested billions to expand this network as part of our pandemic preparedness network.
But we’re going to waste it! The US is so determined to keep Americans who have undefined “high risk exposure” to Ebola out that they are going to build a field hospital in Kenya where they will force Americans to quarantine for 3 weeks. And if they do test positive for Ebola, they will be treated there too.
It is a joint deployment between the Public Health Service and the Department of War. They plan to expand to 250 beds (!!!), indicating they have big plans for imprisoning Americans without due process or any kind of scientific justification. They will refuse entry to American citizens and force them to get treatment for an absolutely horrible, possibly lethal disease in substandard containment. BCUs take years to build and certify. They are putting this slapdash Ebola treatment unit together in a week. Personnel deploying will have three days of training.
This not only prevents Americans who deployed to help Ebola patients in the midst of a historically devastating epidemic from accessing the best standard of care—which their tax dollars paid for—it also puts the health care workers at greater risk because of substandard containment conditions compared to the BCUs.
This INCREASES the risk of Americans getting Ebola. Including our brave military servicepeople, who are also being deployed and may be ordered to enforce the unlawful and unconstitutional imprisonment of their fellow Americans on foreign soil. And if they do it because OH SHIT, EBOLA!!!!!!!! they can do it for any made-up pretextual reason at all. They are already forcibly quarantining passengers from the M/V Hondius at the BCU in Omaha, Nebraska. Now they want to do this outside of a BCU, in a foreign country, with American citizens who they are endangering. America used to care about bringing Americans home in an emergency, not incarcerating them trampling all over their Constitutional rights in the process.
First Secretary of State to endorse “Lock ‘Em Up Abroad” infection control policy
Despite screaming KEEP ‘EM OUT about the prospect of Ebola patients sullying our disease-free shores for more than a decade, these concerns sure don’t seem to be keeping President Donald Trump awake at night, or during the day, or at his own Cabinet meetings. He had one of those today and it did not inspire confidence about the US approach to Ebola outbreak containment.
Here’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio explaining that, look, America’s policy is that we are just not feeling Ebola and we can’t have it here to ruin the World Cup and America’s 250th Birthday throwdown in the UFC Octagon currently being constructed on the White House South Lawn. Perhaps the uselessness of this earnest, slightly desperate nine seconds of bullshit from Lil’ Marco is what put Trump to sleep, but it certainly wasn’t Rubio’s dense technical breakdown of the evidence to date and an accounting of the US doing…anything, because all we’ve done is issue useless travel bans.
As usual, Rubio probably got all his talking points from ideas Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Joe Rogan passed on about public health policy. Surprised he didn’t announce that Kenyan Ebola prison won’t be equipped with a full selection of fruit-flavored vapes newly approved by our Commissioner-less Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Maybe Zyns cure Bundibugyo virus! Won’t know until we try!
Thank you Pamela, Deborah J., Shirley Figueroa, Stephen Hooper, Courtneye, and many others for tuning into today’s update. See you tomorrow at 11 am ET!
