There is a lot of confusing - and often contradictory - information about the Ebola virus circulating.

Hopefully this Q&A will clear things up.

Q: What IS the Ebola virus?

A: Ebola is an infection with a virus of the family Filoviridae, genus Ebolavirus. So far, only two members of this family of viruses have been identified - Marburgvirus and Ebolavirus.

Five subspecies of Ebolavirus have been identified, four of which can cause disease in humans:

• Ebola virus (Zaire ebolavirus)
• Sudan virus (Sudan ebolavirus)
• Taï Forest virus (Taï Forest ebolavirus, formerly Côte d'Ivoire ebolavirus)
• Bundibugyo virus (Bundibugyo ebolavirus)
• Reston virus (Reston ebolavirus): This is the one that has not caused disease in humans (but it can be fatal in non-human primates). This is the strain that killed dozens of lab monkeys at a research facility in Reston, VA, in 1989. Four workers at that facility tested positive for Ebola. In 1996, nine lab workers were exposed to this strain after handling infected animals. None of those infected developed symptoms or became ill, but they did develop antibodies to the strain. It is possible that the Reston strain can be transmitted via small-particle aerosols (airborne), but that hasn't been confirmed.

The deadly Marburg hemorrhagic fever has broken out in Uganda after samples taken to the Uganda Virus Institute tested positive, a top government official said Sunday.

Elioda Tumwesigye, minister of state for health told reporters that one person has so far died and 80 others are being monitored in central Uganda and the western district of Kasese.

"The Ministry of Health would like to inform the country of an outbreak Marburg which has so far killed one person. Another person who has developed signs is being monitored," he said.

He said the index case died on Sept. 28 after developing signs of Marburg which was later confirmed by laboratory tests. The minister said the deceased's brother has also developed signs and is currently under isolation.

He added that all the people that had contact with them are being monitored.

The Marburg virus was last reported in Uganda in 2012.

According to the World Health Organization, Marburg is a severe and highly fatal disease caused by a virus from the same family as the one that causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

According to the global health body, the illness caused by Marburg virus begins abruptly, with severe headache and malaise.

Whether it is due to the sheer deferred Ebola panic (we warned in June it was only a matter of time before the "world's worst Ebola epidemic" made it to US shores, which promptly got us branded as fearmongers as usual), or the administration's bumbled attempt at damage control with a very confused and mostly pointless press conference on Friday afternoon, but three days ago, a petition was launched on the White House website demanding that the "FAA ban all incoming and outgoing flights to Ebola-stricken countries until the Ebola outbreak is contained." As of this moment, over 4,000 people have already signed it.

We hate to be the one to state the obvious (again), but how much more like a bad pandemic movie is this so-called "Ebola crisis" going to be allowed to get?
Yes. "Allowed." The word was chosen carefully here. Why?

Let's start back at in oh, let's go with June, back when Ebola first began murdering people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Somewhere between 300 and 400 people had died, and the news was still fit for little more than the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen on most 24/7 networks. Barely anyone was even paying attention. People shrugged it off with little fanfare and the apathetic attitude of, "Well, that's just what happens in Africa sometimes..."

The death toll continued to rise. Ebola continued to openly spread. No travel restrictions between borders were put in place. No air travel bans were instituted. No nothing. Finally officials had to call it - this Ebola outbreak was the deadliest in known human history. So what did that change?

Not much. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the situation was "totally out of control" and "one of the most challenging Ebola outbreaks ever." So challenging in fact, that they rushed to action by... calling a meeting .

Meanwhile, more people died. The virus continued to spread. The healthcare system in these African nations was finally - not surprisingly - overwhelmed. No one in the mainstream press bothered to mention the fact that biowarfare researchers from Tulane University and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick had just so happened to have been over in the Ebola hot zone countries, propagating cultures of different types of Ebola viruses (and Marburg virus and Lassa virus and Dengue virus and West Nile virus and yellow fever virus and chikungunya virus) in labs in the years leading up to this outbreak.

Here's one of the scholarly articles published from that research just this past July in the CDC's journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

In it, the researchers conclude, "PRNT is the laboratory standard for immunologic assays... In the ebolavirus PRNTs, we did not include the newest discovered ebolavirus, Bundibugyo virus, which cross-reacts with EBOV [Ebola virus] in immunoassays. Ebolavirus infections in Sierra Leone might be the result of Bundibugyo virus or an ebolavirus genetic variant and not EBOV."

Someone please PLEASE explain to me how this makes sense at all. Please.

Now, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden, the guy who couldn't even go two minutes without contradicting himself on CNN about how Ebola is transmitted, is now saying that if we restrict air flights from the Ebola-stricken African nations, it will "backfire" and cause Americans to somehow be exposed to the disease more here.

Wha...? Am I missing something here?

Here's the clip via Politico:

The number of possible contacts with the Ebola patient in Dallas has risen to 80, said Zachary Thompson, Dallas County Health and Human Services director Thursday.

He also said a control order has been issued to the family of Thomas Eric Duncan, the man identified by The Associated Press as the victim of the often-fatal virus. Thompson said that means the family members are confined to their apartment and the front and back areas, such as the patio.

Original story

Parents rushed to get their children from school Wednesday after learning that five students may have had contact with the Ebola patient in a Dallas hospital, as Gov. Rick Perry and other leaders reassured the public that there is no cause for alarm.

The patient, identified by The Associated Press as Thomas Eric Duncan of Liberia, arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 20 to visit family. Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Zachary Thompson said county officials suspect that 12 to 18 people may have had contact with Duncan.

For the moment, our top public health officials are quite adamant that there absolutely will not be a major Ebola outbreak in the United States. But what if they are wrong? Or what would happen if terrorists released a form of weaponized Ebola or weaponized smallpox in one of our major cities? What would such an event do to our economy? I think that we can get some clues by looking at the economic collapses that are taking place in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone right now. When an extremely deadly virus like Ebola starts spreading like wildfire, the fear that it creates can be even worse for a society than the disease. All of a sudden people don't want to go to work, people don't want to go to school and people definitely don't want to go shopping. There are very few things that can shut down the economy of a nation faster. Considering the fact that our big banks are being more reckless than ever, we better hope that we don't see a "black swan event" such as a major Ebola outbreak come along and upset the apple cart. Because if that does happen, our Ponzi scheme of an economy could implode really quick.

Right now there is just one confirmed case of Ebola in Texas. If they isolated him before he infected anyone else, we might be okay for the moment. But already we are being told that there may be "a possible second Ebola patient" in Dallas...

Health officials are closely monitoring a possible second Ebola patient who had close contact with the first person to be diagnosed in the U.S., the director of Dallas County's health department said Wednesday.

All who have been in close contact with the man officially diagnosed are being monitored as a precaution, Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, said in a morning interview with WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth.

"Let me be real frank to the Dallas County residents: The fact that we have one confirmed case, there may be another case that is a close associate with this particular patient," he said. "So this is real. There should be a concern, but it's contained to the specific family members and close friends at this moment."

Five students, who attended four different Dallas schools, are being monitored this week after possibly being in close contact with the Ebola patient over the weekend. At a news conference at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, the state's governor Rick Perry said parents were concerned but he allayed fears of contagion.

Officials said they are monitoring up to another dozen people who may have come into contact with the man. Thomas Eric Duncan is thought to have contracted the virus in Liberia. The Liberian national came to the U.S. nearly two weeks ago to visit relatives and he is the first man to be diagnosed with Ebola while in the US. Mr. Duncan is now in a serious condition, a spokeswoman for the hospital said.

A nurse had asked him on his first visit to the hospital when he felt ill if he had been in an area affected by the Ebola outbreak. He told them he had been to Liberia but the "information was not fully communicated throughout the whole team," according to hospital officials. Mr. Duncan was then sent home with antibiotics - a decision hospital bosses have described as a matter of "regret" - but he was admitted when he returned two days later. Mr. Duncan's family are among up to 18 people being monitored after exposure to the man along with the ambulance crew who transported him to hospital.

According to The New York Times, Mr. Duncan worked moving cargo for Fedex in the Liberian capital Monrovia but had recently quit his job and gotten a visa to come to the U.S. where his son reportedly lives.

The Times also revealed that Mr. Duncan may have contracted Ebola while helping carry his landlord's seriously ill, pregnant daughter to hospital. The woman, named by The Times as 19-year-old Marthalene Williams was taken to a hospital on September 15, but turned away because there was no room to treat her. She died the following day.

The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States initially told a nurse he had traveled in Africa but was sent home anyway, raising concerns about US preparedness for the spread of the deadly virus.

The man, whose identity and nationality have not been released by health authorities, flew from Liberia, the hardest hit nation in West Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak, to Texas to visit family.

An apparent miscommunication among hospital staff left the man in the open community and contagious for four days, and he even came in contact with schoolchildren before he was finally isolated in a hospital, officials said Wednesday.

"I know that parents are being extremely concerned about that development," said Texas Governor Rick Perry.

"These children have been identified and they are being monitored and the disease cannot be transmitted before having any symptoms."

Why is anyone listening to the CDC when they claim their Ebola safety protocols are going to save everyone from Ebola?

Just asking, because these so-called safety protocols have already failed.

Or we could ask Ebola patient zero out of Dallas, Texas - the first man diagnosed with Ebola outside of Africa anywhere - who recently went to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital A) with flu-like symptoms combined with B) a recent trip home from Liberia, Africa six days prior, one of the Ebola-ravaged hot zones.