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Most experts think that Ebola presents low risk to US so I am not sure why CDC should spend significant resources on it. Private company is working on vaccines

by smm2000 12y ago

Most experts think that Ebola presents low risk to US so I am not sure why CDC should spend significant resources on it. Private company is working on vaccines and at current funding CDC is perfectly capable of handling a few cases of Ebola in US. Voiding visas of everyone who was in Liberia, Sierra Leone and other affected countries together with mandatory three week quarantine for few US citizens who was there is probably all that is needed to be done. Should not be too expensive. CDC budget for 2014 is $6.8B so 25 million is drop in a bucket anyway.

jlmorton 12y ago
This donation was made to the CDC Foundation, not the CDC. The CDC Foundation does most of its work outside of the United States. Zuckerberg's donation is meant to help reduce the novel growth rate seen with 2014 West Africa Ebola. We have little experience with Ebola in urban areas. We're currently seeing a doubling of case rates nearly within the the Ebola generation time of 16 or so days. If that reproductive rate is not slowed quickly, in the next few months, then one possible outcome is that Ebola will never go away, and will exist as yet another terrible disease afflicting the poor. Moreover, imagine if we could eliminate a disease like malaria for a few billion dollars. The cost-benefit of that would be astounding. It makes sense to try and eliminate Ebola now, not just prevent it from reaching the US.
dreamweapon 12y ago
CDC budget for 2014 is $6.8B so 25 million is drop in a bucket anyway. And the budget for the department tasked with responding to the Ebola crisis is how much?
- smm2000 12y ago
  CDC should be able to re-allocate budget on a short notice - I am sure there are contingency plans for it. On CDC website they list priorities - Food Safety, Healthcare-associated, Infections, HIV in the U.S.,Motor Vehicle Injuries, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, Teen Pregnancy, Tobacco. I am sure they can cut 1% from these programs - none of them is any kind of emergency. If there was a risk of Ebola reaching African proportion in US, I am sure there are emergency funds to bolster up CDC. But currently there is no such risk and realistically there is no good way to spend significant amount of money in US on Ebola.
digikata 12y ago
Besides humanitarian reasons? How about this: the risk model for ebola is based on limited empirical data from past strains. The current outbreak already exceeds past outbreaks. If the virus is different than the past, or it mutates, then the model from which we assess that the risk is low could be wrong. So helping to end the outbreak, for one, would cutoff many, many opportunities for ebola to mutate into something even worse.

by smm2000 12y ago

jlmorton 12y ago

This donation was made to the CDC Foundation, not the CDC. The CDC Foundation does most of its work outside of the United States. Zuckerberg's donation is meant to help reduce the novel growth rate seen with 2014 West Africa Ebola. We have little experience with Ebola in urban areas. We're currently seeing a doubling of case rates nearly within the the Ebola generation time of 16 or so days. If that reproductive rate is not slowed quickly, in the next few months, then one possible outcome is that Ebola will never go away, and will exist as yet another terrible disease afflicting the poor. Moreover, imagine if we could eliminate a disease like malaria for a few billion dollars. The cost-benefit of that would be astounding. It makes sense to try and eliminate Ebola now, not just prevent it from reaching the US.

dreamweapon 12y ago

CDC budget for 2014 is $6.8B so 25 million is drop in a bucket anyway. And the budget for the department tasked with responding to the Ebola crisis is how much?

smm2000 12y ago
CDC should be able to re-allocate budget on a short notice - I am sure there are contingency plans for it. On CDC website they list priorities - Food Safety, Healthcare-associated, Infections, HIV in the U.S.,Motor Vehicle Injuries, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, Teen Pregnancy, Tobacco. I am sure they can cut 1% from these programs - none of them is any kind of emergency. If there was a risk of Ebola reaching African proportion in US, I am sure there are emergency funds to bolster up CDC. But currently there is no such risk and realistically there is no good way to spend significant amount of money in US on Ebola.

digikata 12y ago

Besides humanitarian reasons? How about this: the risk model for ebola is based on limited empirical data from past strains. The current outbreak already exceeds past outbreaks. If the virus is different than the past, or it mutates, then the model from which we assess that the risk is low could be wrong. So helping to end the outbreak, for one, would cutoff many, many opportunities for ebola to mutate into something even worse.