Is the United States prepared for an Ebola outbreak?
Yes, I believe so. Decades of zombie movies, books, and television shows have prepared the American populace for an epidemic like Ebola:What the US Has Learned From Zombie Movies:
- Close physical contact is to be avoided.
- Tending to loved ones with visible symptoms will lead to your own demise.
- The diseased are to be treated as plague carriers, not people.
- There is no escape.
- There will be survivors.
At the workplace...
- The number of people who work from home in white collar professions with dramatically increase.
- Coming to work with even a sniffle will become a firing offense.
- Communal snacks and coffee makers will disappear.
- Person-to-person sales calls will dramatically drop.
At the hospital...
- There will be an immediate rush of people to hospitals and ERs with phantom symptoms when the first real cases in the U.S. appear in the media. This influx will overload most major metro hospitals, and make it more difficult to treat the actual cases.
- After the first major outbreak at a hospital, few people will visit their family doctor or other medical services for even routine check ups.
- The hesitancy to go to health care providers will lead to a number of 'hot spots' where an entire family/neighborhood is lost due to lack or reporting an Ebola case to medical authorities.
- As the number of 'hot spot' cases is reported in the media, the social norm quickly becomes one of 'isolate yourself, protect your loved ones'. Plastic sheeting and duct tape for home isolation units becomes a hot commodity.
- After the first few months, effective isolation of sick individuals becomes a reflexive social response, and overall Ebola cases rapidly decline.
At the school...
- Public and private school attendance drops to 90% after the first U.S. case is reported.
- Cyber-school gets a massive increase in demand, and providers struggle to keep up.
- School attendance drop to 50% after the first major metro area hospital has an outbreak.
- School is cancelled for the 2014-2015 year in the U.S. after the first 1000 U.S. Ebola deaths.
At the grocery store...
- 'Free For Your Health' disposable nitrile gloves become as common as Purelle dispensers in most grocery stores.
- Home bleach washing stations for produce become hot selling items.
- Stockpiling of canned goods, starches, frozen meat, and sugars outstrips supply for a few weeks.
- After the first Ebola case confirmed to come from imported food is widely publicized, 'Proudly Grown in the U.S.A.' becomes a bigger draw than 'Organic' in many stores.
- After the third Ebola outbreak from imported food occurs, food imported from South America, Africa, and other global hot spots is banned from U.S. shores.
- A series of articles about a resurgence of scurvy in January 2015 causes a run on vitamin C sources, leading to rationing of orange juice, lemons, and cabbage.
At the restraunt...
- After the first few outbreaks that are tied to infected food service personnel or produce, restraunts cease to be viable business until late 2016.
- A 'foodie' that wants to dine out or eat fresh produce is looked upon as an excessive risk taker.
At the home...
- Dinner parties, children's birthdays, and other social occasions occur via video conferencing, if at all.
- Those that can, move from urban areas to rural areas. The population surge in rural areas exceeds the available medical, food, and fuel infrastructures, and lead to several incidents where starving trespassers are shot by landowners fearing infection by those that have fled the cities.
- 'I love you - please do not attend my funeral!' becomes a common sentiment.
- Groups that have social norms that include handshakes, pats on the back, cheek-to-cheek kissing, and other intimate behavours are severely affected during the initial set of outbreaks, and become ostracized by other social groups.
- Due to the above, conspiracy theorists go nuts claiming that Ebola was specifically engineered to attach the most affected social subcultures.
- A large portion of children will spend 2014-2016 without ever stepping outside their home.
- The 'man cave' becomes a survival strategy - households with the space will make separate entrances for the primary supply runner, who will not directly interact with his family, but will go outside the home to fetch food and other supplies.
How Long Will It Last?
The last U.S. Ebola case will be in late 2016, but it will take till 2020 until it it considered to be contained on a world-wide basis.By 2021, it will be completely eradicated (either via vaccine or... other means) and not permitted to be retained for study in live form.
