OUR COLLECTIVE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

I don't know what has happened to America.  We seem to go from hysterical situation to hysterical situation., like last year's panic was over Ebola.*  We were urged not to panic, but we did.  Now we have gone just crazy over a possible terrorist hidden in Syrian refugees.  Peggy Noonan, who is susceptible to hysteria writes in the Wall Street journal, "...pause the refugee program, figure out how to screen those seeking entrance more carefully, and let in only the peaceable.  If it takes time, it takes time."  Well it already takes 18 mo. of screening.**  The word "pause" is actually a ruse that actually means "permanently stop."  Even some bright people don't believe the experts know anything, not how Ebola is transmitted, not how to screen immigrants.  Of course you can't guarantee that no terrorist will manage to creep through any screening process.  Nor can you guarantee that none of the refugees will be radicalized after living in the U.S. for awhile, but so far as I can find out, no refugee has turned out to be a terrorist so far.

Not surprisingly the hysteria over terrorists is alive and well in our politics.  Donald Trump, for example, wants all Muslims to be registered.***  John Kasich says we should have an agency to spread Judeo-Christian values around the world that seems to violate church and state (He has since toned down on this.).***  Though Kasich is a Evangelical, he has been pretty good up to now to keep his religious beliefs pretty much to himself except for his belief that Christ has said we should look after those less fortunate than ourselves, a belief that is constructive.  Can it be long before some candidate proposes "internment camps," as a polite term for "concentration camps," or expelling all Muslims from America?

Why is it that we tolerate about 30,000 automobile deaths and 30,000 gun deaths a year in America and brush off things like the Auroa, CO, movie theater  New Town, CT, shootings, but make ourselves sick over the possibility of some sort of terrorist attacker.  We should be vigilant, of course,and do all that is reasonable to prevent terrorist attacks, but let's be rational about it.   But we have a long history of hysteria.

* More than half of U.S. adults worry that there will be a large-scale Ebola outbreak across the next year, according to a new Harvard poll conducted last week and released on Tuesday. Most of them are nervous that they’ll get sick with Ebola, or someone in their family will. ..... But at the same time, scientists and public health officials have repeatedly urged Americans not to panic about Ebola. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2014/10/16/ebolas-very-contagious-ebolas-also-hard-to-catch-confused-heres-how-to-understand/)
** http://abcnews.go.com/International/officials-fear-syrian-refugees-pose-threat-us/story?id=28930114
*** http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/gop-rivals-denounce-trumps-call-muslim-database-n467201;http://api.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-kasich-govt-agency-judeo-christian-values

EBOLA AND THE FLU

The news media is trying their best to whip the public into hysteria over the two nurses who apparently have come down with Ebola.  I listen to the Ebola news just long enough to hear if there is anything new.  There isn't except that the first nurse is now in good condition.  No one outside the medical profession in the U.S. has come down with Ebola, though I guess we await developments on the journey to Cleveland by the second nurse.  We may yet close all air traffic to the infected African countries.

In the meantime many hundreds of children have come down with envirovirus and one child has died, which is as many as have died from Ebola in the U.S., yet the new media seems immune to this development.  If you Google envirovirus, you only get reports up front from last September.  So far as I am concerned, Ebola in this country is a non-issue, as of now.

There is also the little matter of this year's flu epidemic, something I feel is far more important than Ebola (http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/flu-season-coming-early-and-hitting-hard/37803/):

"The H3N2 strain tends to affect the elderly population more severely and a season with predominant H3N2 activity typically leads to more hospitalization and deaths.
..........................................................Another difficulty with the flu vaccine is the time required for its mass production. Vaccine strains are chosen in advance, sometimes as early as February. While experts do their best to predict the pattern of the viral strains, often the strains contained in the vaccines end up having an almost insignificant effect on the flu season."

So, although I did get a flu shot, I and many others, particularly at continuing care facilities, may still be exposed.  All it would take is someone in the kitchen handling food to come to work or a visitor with the flu and have it run rampant through the membership.  Time will tell what happens.  Symptoms of seasonal flu are:  fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, and muscle aches.

The following is excerpted from a CDC report (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2014-2015.htm):

Is there treatment for the flu?

Yes. If you get sick, there are drugs that can treat flu illness. They are called antiviral drugs and they can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They also can prevent serious flu-related complications, like pneumonia. For more information about antiviral drugs, visit Treatment (Antiviral Drugs).

What is antiviral resistance?

Antiviral resistance means that a flu virus has changed in such a way that antiviral drugs are less effective. Samples of flu viruses collected from around the United States and worldwide are studied at CDC to determine if they are becoming resistant to any of the FDA-approved influenza antiviral drugs.):