What would You Do if Ebola Were to Spread in Your City?

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is still very much in the news. Most news articles keep stressing that it is unlikely to reach the U.S. and downplay any threats. On the other hand, the CDC has released guidelines for hospitals should an infected person were to present himself. New projections estimate that 500,000 may be infected by the end of January. (Note: Since the article was written, the estimates have now been revised to 1.4 million)
Consider for a moment what could happen when a person who appears to have flu-like symptoms but has Ebola were to go the emergency room.

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How an Average Person can Prepare for a Pandemic

I’ve been seeing several news reports of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and got to thinking about pandemics in general. Lots of people fear a global pandemic. If you had to rank a list of super scary threats, pandemic would be pretty high on the list. We’ve all seen movies like Contagion, which is scary enough. We also associate pandemic with nightmarish throngs of zombie like disease ridden creatures. But let’s pull back to reality and get some sense of what is a pandemic and whether they can happen.

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