The distinctive morality of ebola

Ebola does not really hide. It is transmitted by the obviously sick and the dead. Moreover if transmission stopped tomorrow, it would disappear completely within a couple of months. In so far as it is cryptic at all it is because of a short asymptomatic incubation period and early symptoms that can be mistaken for other diseases.

As the experts have said repeatedly, it is a disease we know how to control by contract tracing and isolation of symptomatic individuals. The fact that the recent outbreak has run out of control comes down to moral decisions and in fact its spread involves moral decisions at nearly every step. It is also in an important sense black and white. There is no accommodation possible. Ebola needs to be controlled or it will just grow and grow until it overwhelms those trying to fight it and then the rest of us.

Read more » http://paintmychromosomes.blogspot.ca/2014/10/the-distinctive-morality-of-ebola_13.html

Iraqi city falls to ISIL as army withdraws

ISIL “100 percent control” Hit in Anbar, says police colonel, after troops are relocated to reinforce nearby airbase.

The Iraqi army has withdrawn from its last base in the city of Hit in Anbar province following weeks of fighting with the ISIL, leaving the group in full control, security sources have said.

Hundreds of troops were pulled out of the base and relocated to help protect the Asad air base, the AFP news agency quoted a police colonel in the provincial capital of Ramadi as saying.

Read more » Aljazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/iraq-army-withdraws-from-last-base-hit-20141013105557467561.html