The Guardian (June 6)
“South-east Asia is battling to contain the spread of highly contagious African swine fever, known as “pig Ebola”, which has already led to the culling of millions of pigs in China and Vietnam.” At this point, experts say the “region is losing the battle to stop the biggest animal disease outbreak the planet has ever faced.” The news has “sent the global price of pork soaring.”
Tags: African swine fever, China, Contagious, Disease, Ebola, Outbreak, Pigs, Pork, South-east Asia, Vietnam
Washington Post (July 27)
After great devastation, the Ebola crisis appears to be winding down in Africa. “Now it is time to confront another hard problem: addressing the weaknesses in global response that allowed the virus to spread so rapidly. Without the urgency of another outbreak, national governments and the World Health Organization will be disinclined to change the way they do business. But change they must, or there will be another wave of disease, panic and unnecessary death.”
Tags: Africa, Change, Death, Devastation, Disease, Ebola, Global response, Outbreak, Panic, Urgency, WHO
New York Times (March 9)
“Ebola demonstrated that oceans are no longer an obstacle to a raging virus. As this outbreak winds down, all involved must ensure that the next germ never gets as far as this one did and that, once zero is reached, Ebola stays at zero.”
Chicago Tribune (January 14)
“Each of the attacks in Paris that killed 17 people last week was an atrocity, an affront to freedom and an act of terrorism.” Still, this is unlikely to mark “the beginning of a rash of extremist violence in the West.” Since 9/11, “the danger posed by Islamic militants” has been chronically overestimated. Some of this is due to human nature. We “worry too much about dramatic, unusual dangers, like terrorism and Ebola, and too little about commonplace ones.” But there is also “a giant public-private network that has a stake in stoking these fears.”
Tags: 9/11, Atrocity, Attacks, Danger, Ebola, Extremists, Fear, Militants, Paris, Terrorism, Violence
USA Today (December 26)
“America has much to be cocky about.” It has frequently been the world leader “and its entrepreneur-driven economy is again the envy of the world.” Nevertheless, the U.S. is plagued by “fear and anxiety. If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was a nation of wimps.” Whether it’s ebola or terrorism, today’s outsized fears “need to be tempered. The world’s greatest and most powerful nation deserves people who exhibit backbone and have the confidence to live by their principles.”
Tags: Anxiety, Backbone, Confidence, Ebola, Economy, Entrepreneur, Fear, Leader, Terrorism, U.S., Wimps
New York Times (November 16)
“Recent gains in controlling the Ebola epidemic in West Africa have been encouraging, but they offer no reason for complacency.” The situation is improving in Liberia, stable in Guinea, but worsening in Sierra Leone. To make further progress, donor nations need to “increase their contributions.” To date, Ebola has taken over 5,000 lives.
Tags: Complacency, Contributions, Ebola, Encouraging, Epidemic, Gains, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, West Africa
Washington Post (October 17)
“You could feel a shiver of panic coursing through the American body politic this week as the country struggled with a metastatic set of crises: the spread of the Ebola virus, the surge of Islamic State terrorists and the buckling global economy.”
Tags: Crises, Ebola, Islamic State, Panic, Terrorists. Economy, U.S.
Washington Post (October 9)
The “Ebola virus is a sobering reminder that we live in a world more connected and fluid than at any time in human history…. Viruses and bacteria do not stop at passport control.”
The Economist (September 20)
“The cost of halting Ebola’s spread is also rising exponentially. In August the World Health Organisation estimated that it would take nine months and cost $490m to contain Ebola. Now it reckons the cost has risen to over $1 billion. The longer the world prevaricates, the harder and costlier it will be to contain this outbreak.”
Tags: August, Containment, Cost, Ebola, Exponentially, Outbreak, Spread, WHO
The New York Times (September 7)
“The widening epidemic of Ebola in West Africa looks worse with each passing day. The outbreaks…have outstripped the ability of humanitarian groups and fragile government health systems to treat the sick and slow the spread.”
Tags: Ebola, Epidemic, Government, Health systems, Humanitarian, Outbreaks, Outstripped, Sick, Spread, West Africa
