It Just Got Personal

Today, everything changed.  A terrorist opened fire in our nation’s capital, killing a Corporal at the National War Memorial where we honour those who fought for and defended our country and the freedoms we cherish. He then took his weapon and his deadly agenda to the halls of our Parliament, where gunfire ensued and he was killed.  Our nation’s capital went into lockdown. We used to say this doesn’t happen in Canada. We cannot say that anymore. There is no going back.

We don’t know yet what motivated the attack, but experts are saying it should be seen as a terrorist attack, and that it may well be the first of more to come.   The world is watching as ISIS continues to develop and gain hold as an extremist force in the Middle East. As dangerous as Al Quaeda is, I believe the greater and more immediate threat is ISIS. Why? Because they radicalize citizens from within populations to turn against their own countries, forsaking families, friends and beliefs. And these people, once turned, commit unthinkable acts of violence and death on innocents. How the hell do we begin to fight that?

I am angry that this has happened in my country. I am so truly sorry for family of Cpl Nathan Cirillo, especially his six year old son. This was a good man whose life was senselessly taken by another on whom life was wasted. Extremists disavow themselves of the rights and privileges the rest of us respect and enjoy the moment they embrace their new belief of terrorism. I won’t give them the benefit of the doubt or consider them capable of reform. Theirs was a conscious choice to embrace something that they knew was wrong. How, in this day and age, post 9/11, post-genocides and holocaust, can anyone not know that radical extremism utilizing terrorism is evil?

I love my country. Fiercely. Proudly. We welcome the world, embrace diversity, excel at peace and diplomacy and hockey. Acceptance and tolerance are values I want to my kids to live every day. Canadians are known for being accommodating and non-aggressive. We get mad “in a Canadian kind of way”. That does not mean we are push-overs and that should not make us easy targets for any reason. I hate that terrorism isn’t just the physical carnage, but the emotional and spiritual costs paid by those who survive. Now, we don’t get to be so open and friendly with the world, or with each other. We know what’s out there, and how their game is played. There was a heightened state of alert before today’s attacks. We have reason to believe more will come because ISIS has come to roost.

ISIS is a global threat that needs to be dealt with swiftly and decisively. They’ve made it clear that they are intolerant, inhumane and exist to serve only their purpose, utilizing whatever means necessary. The only way to deal with them is to exterminate them, like the deadly infestation they are, anywhere they appear. We cannot afford the mistake of giving them more time to gain a stronger hold. And we are fools to believe nothing else is coming. ISIS has established they have no boundaries, globally or morally. God forbid we let them prove that on our soil.

I keep a mug in my kitchen, filled with pencils, where I see it everyday. It’s part of daily life in our family hub. Nobody important gave it to me; it isn’t an heirloom or expensive. But what it represents is beyond measure. The mug says Cantor Fitzgerald. If you, like me, watched those Towers fall, and lived through the endless days into nights of news coverage during 9/11, you learned this firm suffered the loss of most of their people. They were a family, with families. I can never forget.

Ebola – One Plane Ride Away

 

On July 29 I wrote a post entitled “The Ebola Outbreak- Just One Plane Ride Away.”  At that time, my concerns were that things were moving too slowly, and that the spread of the virus out of Africa could be as easy as one passenger on a plane. The whole world is now processing the news that a man, infected in Liberia, boarded a plane and landed in Dallas, Texas.

At the end of July, there had been just under 700 deaths and 1200 confirmed cases limited to 3 African countries in what had been deemed the deadliest Ebola outbreak in modern history. Nobody knew how bad things were going to get. The WHO warned that we needed to “step up outbreak containment measures, especially effective contact tracing.” The Washington Post warned that we should be worried, because one flight out of west Africa to North America, densely populated and entirely unprepared, would land the virus in conditions where it could neither be easily contained nor readily detected. The early symptoms are no different than those of the common cold, and tests only find Ebola in the bloodstream after it has developed.

Now, there have been open assertions that things will get a lot worse before they get better. The CDC projects that there may be 1.4 million cases by January 2015. And that it is now possible Ebola will become “endemic among the human population of West Africa” something nobody ever thought would happen. The numbers currently stand at 5843 confirmed cases, 2803 deaths. These numbers, however, are far less than what is actually going on because cases are not being reported.

And Ebola just keeps spreading. We really don’t know where else Ebola has reached within Africa. Or globally, for that matter. Sierra Leone. Guinea. Liberia. Nigeria. The DRC. But according to studies, the growth is exponential and the WHO says the numbers could hit 20000 by the beginning of November.  Brilliant minds are struggling to accurately project what will happen. But calculations cannot factor in the unpredicatability of human behaviour in panic mode. How will the disease be contained if people are crossing borders freely? The massive fear and social stigma regarding Ebola in this region has been the reason for contagion. Those potentially infected will not admit to being sick. The living adhere to entrenched traditions and have bodily contact and exposure with their dead.

Fortunately, the US prepared for the possibility that a traveller could arrive with the virus and not know it. Hospitals were issued a protocol to follow. While there are warning signs posted at airports, and patients in affected areas are checked for fever, nothing has been done to effectively keep the virus from travelling. Ebola has an incubation period of up to 21 days. One doctor I spoke with who worked in Africa for decades explained part of the problem is due to the fact that Ebola has different strains, which is like fighting different strains of the flu. This particular variant is more aggressive, and proving that much more deadly.

President Obama is pledging money and resources now to fight the problem in Africa – a “boots on the ground” response. But this is what was needed at least two months ago, when we had a chance to get in front of it. Now, all we can do is hope that best-case scenarios in the dire projections bear out as we play catch-up.

And what about what those in the know aren’t saying? There is a vaccine, but we have no stock available to distribute and no real data or efficacy rates. What will panic look like in major urban centers as more cases occur and there is no vaccine or ready cure? If we don’t want Ebola to spread, there cannot be flights out of contagion zones. There cannot be any travel into or out of contagion zones. Will African nations be ready or willing to lock down their borders completely, using armed forces?

The news is grim, but at least it’s out there and knowledge gives people the tools they need to prepare and protect themselves.  We’re more afraid of what we don’t know than what we do. And we know now what to do to bring about an end to this crisis.