Ebola May Be Coming to Australia, But Not in a Terrorist’s Backpack
Ebola is coming to Australia, but everyone can stop freaking out, the chance of getting infected is low. And it is definitely not coming in the form of a suicide bomber, despite a politician’s outrageous comments to the contrary.
Global Health’s Professor Barbara McPake, speaking ahead of a conference on global health security in Melbourne on Wednesday, said although it is likely we will see the Ebola within our borders, Australia is well placed to deal with an outbreak.
“As the epidemic gets larger and larger in west Africa the likelihood of the odd case emerging in Australia is quite high, but I do think Australia will deal with it very well,” she said. “If anybody dies in Australia it’s likely to be somebody who has come already at a fairly advanced stage of the infection … Australia has a very strong health system.”
Senator Jacqui Lambie, who is known for relating to all things, obviously didn’t get McPake’s memo. It escalated quickly.
Lambie: If Ebola comes to our shores it will be “claustrophobic”… her words not mine #auspol pic.twitter.com/IPYpUJi3Eg
— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) October 22, 2014
At a Senate Estimates hearing not long after McPake’s little chat, Lambie pushed the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, Ray Griggs, to answer questions on not the possibility of an Ebola outbreak, but the possibility of a biochemical attack using the Ebola disease and suicide bombers.
“Do you have any information to suggest that Australia’s enemies could attack our country or military using the virus, for example with suicide agents who are affected with the disease, or have access to bodily fluids containing the disease, and what is your contingency plan to fight this?” Senator Lambie asked, with a serious look on her face.
Hang on. Wait. What?! It appears Lambie has gotten a little bit confused. Don’t worry, Griggs will sort it out.
“I don’t believe there is any evidence to suggest that that is a likely course of action,” Griggs responded, keeping his cool in a volatile situation. “One of the things, senator, that we have playing to our advantage is our geographic isolation and the length of time that it takes simply to get to Australia, and the life cycle of the virus, it becomes very obvious relatively quickly how sick someone is.”
Ray Briggs’s face when Jacqui Lambie asked what the ADF will do about Ebola infected suicide bombers. What a muppet! pic.twitter.com/If6jrpgGaP
— Will Manning (@willmanning001) October 22, 2014
So where did Lambie pull such a ridiculous question from? It appears she has been reading the wrong news sites, upside down.
Satirical site the National Report wrote an article three weeks ago describing the possibility of a terrorist attack using the Ebloa disease.
“The plot that has been uncovered is said to involve ISIS suicide bombers who have purposefully infected themselves with the Ebola virus,” it wrote in its satirical way. “They would then synchronise their self-detonations in the populated areas of American cities. The bodily fluids produced by the explosion would then, in theory, infect large swaths of innocent civilians with the virus.”
What followed can only be described as bizarre. Last Friday, Fox News wrote an in-depth article on the actual potential threat of vomit-filled bombs hitting the streets of America.
Then Lambie followed suit. Why? It may never be known.
We would like to offer out sincere thanks to Vox, who put everything into perspective for normal people with this lovely interaction between two plotting ISIS terrorists, whose strategies include licking doorknobs and using a fan to disperse the disease.
Terrorist 1: Dude dude dude I have a brilliant idea for doing terrorism. So, like, suicide bombings, right? What if we did those, but with Ebola?
Terrorist 2: OMG I love it. Ebola is so hot right now.
Terrorist 1: SO hot right now. Here’s the plan: we go to Liberia and catch Ebola. Then once we are infected, but not too sick to travel, we fly to America, which is a very easy thing for us to do, as terrorists. Then we do suicide bombings, but they’ll be ones with Ebola in them instead of just plain old regular ones.
Terrorist 2: Okay let’s say this succeeds, though. If people get Ebola, won’t they just think it was the regular spread of disease? We’re in the business of making people fear us, not viruses. I mean, the flu kills thousands of Americans every year, but that doesn’t do anything for us. 48,000 people died of the flu in 2004, but it’s not as if America was all “OMG we surrender, time for a caliphate.”
Terrorist 1: Maybe if we released a video showing us licking the doorknobs, so they knew it was us?
Terrorist 2: That’s not really the dignified martyrdom I had in mind.
Lambie should be very, very afraid and avoid doorknobs at all costs.
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