printJUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE US-MEXICAN BORDER. Breitbart: “Suddenly faced with a new and unforeseen threat, people entering the country who said they felt unwell were questioned about their symptoms. But there were no reports of anyone refused entry.”
THE SWINE STILL AWOL Although Secretary Napolitano has advised Americans not to travel to Mexico, the Homeland Security’s headless head lady has instructed border agents to lay off entrants from Mexico; do only passive surveillance now.
“Right now,” she said, “we don’t think the facts warrant a more active testing or screening of passengers coming in from Mexico. … All persons entering the United States from a location of human infection of swine flu will be processed through all appropriate CBP protocols. Right now those are passive. That means that they’re looking for people who — and asking about, are you sick, have you been sick, and the like; and if so, then they can be referred over for further examination.”
Meantime, world-wide, “thermal scanners and upgraded checks for flu-like symptoms” have been implemented at airport checkpoints.
MSNBC: “Ira Longini, professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, talks about using ‘social distancing’ to reduce transmission of swine flu.” But worries that the window of opportunity is closing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but “social distancing” would include precisely the measures this administration (following in the the footsteps of the last band of bastards) refuses to take: Put some distance between residents of flu “Ground Zero” (Mexico) and the US.
Update I: Writes the indefatigable Brenda Walker of VDARE.COM:
“I don’t think Washington would shut down the Mexican border for any reason. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of American citizens are killed yearly by illegal alien Mexicans and those victims are considered by elites to be the acceptable cost of the globalized economy. Nothing changed in immigration policy after 9/11 when 3,000 died in an hour. So don’t expect a few germs to alter the Potemkin village that stands for national security these days. DHS is not even testing travelers from Mexico for the virus even though the government has declared a public health emergency.”
Update II (April 29): Those anarchists who think laissez faire is best in the case of the Mexican Flu will be disappointed. The WHO has raised the pandemic threat to 5, “meaning the world is at imminent risk of a pandemic from H1N1 swine flu,” said Dr. Margaret Chan.
This also means that the US can no longer just wave through entrants from Ground Zero.
In my household there is a little less snickering at the resident Howard Hughes: me. For years I’ve practiced rituals my family has scoffed, even mocked. Having grown up in a water-poor country where fruit and veg. are irrigated with “recycled” water (Israel), I wash produce down to the individual berry, and dry it, with the hope that mechanical manipulation helps remove filth.
With me in my handbag are alcohol impregnated “wet ones”; I prefer these to bottled gel, because you can’t sterilize handles, bars and door knobs with the latter. My keyboard has recently been replaced since vigorous cleaning had caused the letters to fade. I’ve been barred from our very old TV remote, after Sean managed to salvage it.
You get the drift.
Still, Scherie G. makes exactly the point that needs making. Not everyone entering the US is equal, however much our egalitarians would like that to be the case. Americans are so naive, they fail to even begin to imagine the kind of hygiene, health, and eating habits mass migration brings to their country.
As an immigrant to this country, I was screened for TB, HIV, Hepatitis B., and other infectious diseases. Can I honestly say that the host population had no right to know whether I carried these dread diseases?
Anyone who has not crossed over into the intellectual abyss that is anarchy will recognize that, yes, the host population has a right to be protected from an assault on their persons.
What infuriates me is the fact that such screening is practiced on a biased sample: one which is law abiding, tax-paying, and relatively well-off and healthy.
The number of communicable diseases—some really grotesques, such as brain worms, dengue fever, and leprosy—that have entered the US because of unselective immigration is appalling.
“Each illegal with Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis coughs and infects 10 to 30 people, who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later,” reports WND.
So the idea that once one carrier enters the country, then the other million need not be stopped is worse than stupid. The greater the number of infected entering the country, the greater and wider-spread the harm.
Update III: DHS does not have to solve the problem of the flu; all it has to do is its duty: defend this country’s borders. Not sure why this simple thing is so hard to grasp. It must be the affliction that accompanies those congenital, left-liberal, anarcho-instincts.
First, you can’t mass – test travelers for swine flu. [Who’s talking about that?] You have to get a sample of sputum and grow it in a culture, then analyze it, all of which takes several days. The rapid tests that could be used only test for type A or B (not swine or avian), and miss up to 30% of infections. Not to mention false positives. They only have to let one case through, and it will spread.
The problem is that people shed the virus before they are symptomatic, and transmission is very easy. In this case, it’s already been spread. The toothpaste is out of the tube and it can’t be put in.
Like the regular flu, most people that live in decent conditions will have mild symptoms, recover, and be immune to that strain forever after. People who live in bad conditions with poor nutrition and no access to good hospitals in case they come down with pneumonia are at higher risk. We lose 30,000 people in the U.S. to flu every year as it is, mostly due to pneumonia.
If you retreated into a bubble, you could prevent exposure to it. Otherwise, even if you take every precaution and avoid exposure now, you will then be vulnerable when the next, mutated wave comes around.
Central planners are generally idiots. They are showing their idiocy this time around, too. Let them declare their emergencies, then get a laugh at how ineffectual they are.
Luckily for us, nature’s biological weapons laboratory only generates a mutation that is especially deadly and especially contagious at the same time once in a long while. It has been longer than usual since the last one. But we are helpless to avoid the contagious ones, and they don’t respect borders nor authority. Groups that are rarely exposed are the ones that are most vulnerable; look what happened to native Americans when explorers brought their germs.
While other nations were implementing tests at the incoming airports, the US Center for Disease Control director was screaming about how bad it was going to get, downplaying the fact that the US cases were mild, ignored the airports and ordered tons of vaccine. I don’t claim to be very smart, but even I know that the way to stop the flu is with disinfectant. Clean hands are safer than vaccine filled blood vessels. Colds and flu are transmitted primarily by hand contact. Bleach water for home and office and incoming airplane cleaning. Disinfectant wipes for doorknobs, exercise equipment in gyms, and everyday use will stop the flu worldwide, even in Mexico. How come the government doctors, ie Center for Disease Control are not making that recommendation to the citizens, or did I miss it?
Everyone should keep in mind that we are entering May sweeps. So we will have every media outlet claiming this to be the next bubonic plague. I find it odd that no fuss is made about recurring outbreaks of measles and mumps. Illnesses that were eradicated through inoculation.
But silly me, since we don’t have an Ellis Island type process, many children and adults enter the country not ever seeing a doctor, let alone getting a shot. And we can’t forget the anti-science element in our population who will not vaccinate their children.
I’m not worried about this flu. Just wash your hands and keep your households clean.
“My keyboard has recently been replaced since vigorous cleaning had casued the letters to fade. I’ve been barred from our very old TV remote, after Sean fixed it.”
Typical female paranoia. My wife won’t eat two-day old refrigerated leftovers. I say if it’s not blue, eat it.
Language is very important, and I think it must continue to be stressed (as Ilana does above, as does Vox Day) that what is going on in the southern border region is mass _migration_, not _immigration_. This is true regardless of whether or not disease is involved. “Immigration” conjures up images in many people’s minds of a more-or-less orderly procedure like Ellis Island. That term should be universally abandoned in any further discussion of the border.
Ilana: On my first travel in 3 years, I find that one “plus” of being on the road is to ignore media-amplified hysteria like the Swine Flu (and a few years ago, it was Mad Cow). Mencken had a great quote about government assuming powers to fight hogoblins(sp?), most of them made-up. But soon I’ll be back looking at the day-by-day crises. Speaking of DHS, today was a speaker (at my conference) explaining how the DHS wasted $10,000,000 on a nonsensical idea that I wrote up within 5 minutes of hearing it 3 years ago – on why it was nonsense (but they insisted on funding the “research” anyway!). Things might be WORSE if the Homeland Security folks got involved “solving” Swine Flu!
Our federal government defending our border lol
Actually the government will quarantine travelers.
Remember this guy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_tuberculosis_scare
Of course he is a citizen, and willingly informed Uncle Sam of what had happened to him.
The late Sam Francis called it correctly. He termed it “anarcho-tyranny.” http://www.vdare.com/francis/muzzle.htm
The southern border remains open because the elites want it this way.
How else can you create a hemispheric version of the European Union?
Put it to a vote?