WHAT IS THE “POTENTIAL RISK?”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Oct. 10, 2014) — Amid conflicting reports that U.S. soldiers would or would not be exposed directly to people with the Ebola virus in Liberia and possibly Sierra Leone and Guinea, The Post & Email on Thursday contacted the current press representative for the military, LCDR Nathan J. Christensen, to ask if troops have arrived in West Africa, who made the decision to send them, and whether or not they would be in contact with infected individuals.
Christensen referred us to his Army colleague, Lt. Col. Valerie D. Henderson, who did not respond on Thursday.
On Friday morning, we sent Henderson a message asking if she had received our forwarded email from Christensen, to which she responded almost immediately in the affirmative, promising a response later today.
Approximately an hour later, we received Henderson’s reply:
Sharon,
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the White House fact sheets on the US Government response, but they provide a good overview.
Currently we have about 450 personnel in the area, with more expected in the coming weeks.
Valerie
In an article titled “Reversal! U.S. soldiers to have direct contact with Ebola” published on Tuesday, Dr. Jerome Corsi of WND wrote that AFRICOM commander Gen. David Rodriguez stated that U.S. troops “will have direct physical contact with Ebola victims.” Rodriguez issued a correction later on Tuesday contending that U.S. soldiers would be working only with “samples” from potentially-infected people.
Numerous news outlets reported Rodriguez’s original assertion that U.S. soldiers would “treat patients with the Ebola virus directly.”
On Wednesday, Corsi reported that a “double-reverse” had been conducted by the Department of Defense when they said that Rodriguez had “misspoken” when he first addressed the public on Tuesday.
Last Friday, the Liberian Daily Observer reported that eight soldiers died of Ebola after apparently having relations with a woman “unsuspected of carrying the disease.” The deaths have reportedly caused widespread army desertions in Liberia. “This latest setback among the rank and file of the already sparse number of soldiers has reportedly created panic among them, to the extent that some of them have begun to desert the various barracks across the country,” the Daily Observer reported.
In an article dated October 4, it was reported that Rodriguez had said, “…we’ll do everything in our power to address and mitigate any potential risk to our service members and civilian employees and their families.”
News on the Ebola “epidemic” is reportedly being controlled by the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, with which some journalists have taken issue and labeled “unconstitutional.”
Quoting the Department of Homeland Security and the CDC on Thursday, CNS News reported that “150 people a day arrive in the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, the three West African countries that have been hit by the Ebola virus,” which CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said is a “relatively small” number. The CDC and the White House have said that restricting travel from Ebola-infected nations is not necessary to prevent the spread of the disease to the U.S.
A man from Liberia who first traveled to Brussels, Belgium and then to Dallas, TX last month was diagnosed with Ebola after becoming very ill while visiting relatives. He died on Wednesday of the disease, and several dozen people known to have had contact with him have reportedly been quarantined.
It is believed that after 21 days following exposure, a person will not contract Ebola. While the CDC maintains that it is transmitted only through bodily fluids, various well-sourced articles suggest that it could be passed through the air, like the common cold.
Commander of SOUTHCOM Gen. John F. Kelly has been more vocal than the military press representatives in speaking about the Ebola outbreak. Kelly, who also voiced deep concern over the admission of tens of thousands of illegal aliens over the southern border earlier this year, told an audience at the National Defense University on Wednesday that “there is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa.”
Kelly added that if Ebola reached Central America, citizens there would attempt to reach the U.S. for treatment.
A strain of enterovirus has killed five children in the U.S. over the last several weeks. Reportedly, the same virus strain has been noted in young people in Central America. Over the last year, the Obama regime has admitted more than 60,000 young people from the nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Reportedly, the viral outbreak in the U.S. was first noted in the Midwest. The children are attending American public schools at taxpayer expense and often require special services which are heavily depleting school systems’ resources for the 2014-2015 school year.
Health care workers caring for the illegal-alien children and adults at Lackland Air Force Base and other makeshift shelters were threatened with their jobs or arrest by “Brownshirts” if they were to speak to the press about the conditions inside.
Enterovirus 68 primarily affects children and shows symptoms similar to polio. It also causes breathing problems with wheezing, requiring hospitalization. It has been identified in 43 states thus far. On October 4, independent journalist Sharyl Attkisson reported that research published in Virology Journal last year detailed a type of rhinovirus “with high similarity to human enteroviruses” found in very young children in eight Latin American countries.
The second “Fact Sheet” to which Henderson referred us states that the Obama regime has taken “prudent measures at home” to reduce the chance of an Ebola outbreak. But can it be believed?
“What is the potential risk” to our troops? The answer is DEATH!