Ebola...

The Human Q-Tip said:

Way to misrepresent what other people are saying. Nobody in this thread has used the word "imminent" except you. I even tried the spiffy "search" feature to see, and nope, nobody but you has made that claim. And actually, an "outbreak" as defined by the WHO has already occured in Texas because you had two cases in a population in which none previously existed.

http://www.who.int/topics/disease_outbreaks/en/

The concern isn't Ebola swallowing the country overnight. It didn't even happen that way in West Africa. It's that the failure to handle this properly could lead to a steady increase in cases to the point where it may become unmanageable. That would take time, but it's something you have to move on quickly precisely to keep it under control.

The mutation issue also has been stated as a possibility, not as something that is "imminent" or even likely to happen at all.

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I wasn't necessarily referring to this board, but turn on any news station and the fear mongering is downright laughable at this point. "Imminent" wasn't intended to be taken literally, but that's the angle most of these media outlets are taking.

It has not gotten to the point of being out of control and frankly it hasn't even been close. 2 confirmed cases, one dead - the other improving. 0 confirmed cases in Ohio (or anywhere else).

For Christ's sake, there's an interactive Ebola tracker map on a certain news channel's website. Overkill.

You've got people screaming about Ebola on planes causing delays and scaring the shit out of passengers. Guy got arrested at the Casino the other night for saying his ex-wife had it and that he might be carrying the virus.

All of this "reporting" is stirring up a lot more trouble than good. And for what? So far, nothing.

somebody blew it with the 2 cases (which now may be 3 as the first nurse's boyfriend has been hospitalized with ebola like symptoms). It shouldn't have happened. We are a couple of weeks away from knowing for nearly certain that neither of those two people spread it to anyone else. And if the boyfriend does have it, it'll take another 3 weeks to know if he spread it to anyone else.

The larger concern for the disease spreading isn't these known cases. The known cases should be containable (even though 2 or now possibly 3 are a direct result of failure to contain a known case).

The larger concern is the potential that there are other people who are infected but don't realize it. How do we know for certain that every possible person Thomas Duncan encountered after arriving in the US has been accounted for? How do we know for certain that there's not another infected person like Thomas Duncan in the US right now? How do you eliminate that concern without also eliminating ebola in the rest of the world?

The crazy thing is the better job they do at containing and eliminating ebola in the US, the more people will claim they overreacted.

Binkster said:

I wasn't necessarily referring to this board, but turn on any news station and the fear mongering is downright laughable at this point. "Imminent" wasn't intended to be taken literally, but that's the angle most of these media outlets are taking.

It has not gotten to the point of being out of control and frankly it hasn't even been close. 2 confirmed cases, one dead - the other improving. 0 confirmed cases in Ohio (or anywhere else).

For Christ sake, there's an interactive Ebola tracker map on a certain news channel's website. Overkill.

You've got people screaming about Ebola on planes causing delays and scaring the shit out of passengers. Guy got arrested at the Casino the other night for saying his ex-wife had it and that he might be carrying the virus.

All of this "reporting" is stirring up a lot more trouble than good.

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I think part of the problem is that people rightly believe that the government is not being honest, and that stokes panic. It's ironic, because they're misrepresenting things because they don't want us to "panic". But ultimately, that backfires. Tell the cold, hard truths always, and you may be believed when you really need to be believed.

The other issue is that while Ebola can be controlled easily if you take prompt, aggressive measures to contain it, it can also get out of control if you don't. So it's a fine line between being too concerned, and not concerned enough.

Obviously, if Nigeria contained it, we should be able to do so as well, so there shouldn't be any real reason to worry. The problem is that we don't seem to be moving as aggressively against it as the Nigerians did. So for me, I'd much prefer an over-reaction than an under-reaction.

Binkster said:

I wasn't necessarily referring to this board, but turn on any news station and the fear mongering is downright laughable at this point. "Imminent" wasn't intended to be taken literally, but that's the angle most of these media outlets are taking.

It has not gotten to the point of being out of control and frankly it hasn't even been close. 2 confirmed cases, one dead - the other improving. 0 confirmed cases in Ohio (or anywhere else).

For Christ's sake, there's an interactive Ebola tracker map on a certain news channel's website. Overkill.

You've got people screaming about Ebola on planes causing delays and scaring the shit out of passengers. Guy got arrested at the Casino the other night for saying his ex-wife had it and that he might be carrying the virus.

All of this "reporting" is stirring up a lot more trouble than good. And for what? So far, nothing.

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sounds like you haven't kept up. There have been 8 confirmed cases in the US. There is now a possible 9th (the boyfriend of one of the nurses) and a possible 10th in Connecticut (see the bottom of the link below). The 8 are listed here.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/us/ebola-us-list/index.html

And while the number of cases is low now, the issue is the potential for exponential growth if not contained.

Binkster said:

Still waiting on that imminent outbreak... Any day now.

Still waiting on that imminent mutation to get this thing airborne...

Democrat fuck up or Republican fear mongering? The results are pouring in:

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This is pretty disingenuous. There is a lot we don't understand about Ebola. Having in-laws from West Africa (Ghana) I've been tracking this story very closely. This article isn't very reassuring when looking at how the virus spreads.

http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-ebola-goes-airborne-112112

Unless this lab completely jacked up the mechanisms used to monitor the test, somehow the virus found it's way from separate cages to contaminate all test animals.

I think if anything, a lot of people are underestimating how contagious this virus is. People say it isn't "airborne" but they haven't proven definitively that fomites and large droplets, for example can transmit the virus (meaning you could get Ebola if an infected person sneezed near you).

The fact that people in the United States, who knew they were treating someone with the disease, still contracted Ebola, is troubling. I have a feeling this thing gets worse before it gets better. Beyond controlling it in the US to the few subjects who have contracted it, I just don't see how you control it globally, when it's spreading like wild-fire throughout Africa with a billion+ people. And many of those billion+ people are global travelers. Unless you shut the airline industry down, there isn't a great way to contain this thing regionally...

Ebola for everyone! Yay!

Come on zombies.

billmac91 said:

The fact that people in the United States, who knew they were treating someone with the disease, still contracted Ebola, is troubling. I have a feeling this thing gets worse before it gets better. Beyond controlling it in the US to the few subjects who have contracted it, I just don't see how you control it globally, when it's spreading like wild-fire throughout Africa with a billion+ people. And many of those billion+ people are global travelers. Unless you shut the airline industry down, there isn't a great way to contain this thing regionally...

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Well, there are a couple of countries that actually border on the ones that have the infection that have protected themselves completely and haven't had a case.

If Ebola was really an airborne disease in the same way that, say, influenza is it would have already killed about half the earth's population by now. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 wiped out 5% of the earth's population in the span of about 2-3 months and it was far less lethal than Ebola.

And it's no surprise that the two people infected by Thomas Duncan were both nurses; they're the ones most likely to be in close proximity to an Ebola patient when the disease is most communicable.

KI4MVP said:

sounds like you haven't kept up. There have been 8 confirmed cases in the US. There is now a possible 9th (the boyfriend of one of the nurses) and a possible 10th in Connecticut (see the bottom of the link below). The 8 are listed here.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/us/ebola-us-list/index.html

And while the number of cases is low now, the issue is the potential for exponential growth if not contained.

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Sorry, should have specified that there are currently 3 (I was incorrect in saying 2).

There were 8 cases - 2 were the doctor/missionary sent here from Africa (both cured), 1 is a confirmed U.S. citizen that is abroad, 1 is dead (contracted it in Africa), 1 (the nurse) is improving, 1 is an NBC worker who contracted it in Africa, 1 is the other Texas nurse, 1 is another missionary who has since been cured and released.

So 3 total cases currently being treated. Only 2 cases were contracted on U.S. soil as a result of treating the man in the Dallas hospital.

The Human Q-Tip said:

Well, there are a couple of countries that actually border on the ones that have the infection that have protected themselves completely and haven't had a case.

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Ghana being one of them. I have concerns over how accurate that information is however...A country like Ghana, which is the gold standard for West Africa in 2014, would be crippled if ever hit with travel sanctions, tourism erosion, or just general panic about an outbreak with the mortality rate of ebola. Flight costs into Ghana are the lowest my wife and I have ever seen them. It's almost comical. There are a lot of layers to this disease which make it complex...in my opinion, this thing has become too political rather than just looking at it with the best interests of the human race.

It is simply insane that a nurse who was not feeling well after treating an ebola patient, was then allowed to travel to Ohio with permission from the CDC. Just mind boggling...a blatant lack of respect for the power of this virus and definitely a political play to not rile up Americans or get them in a panic. It's dumb decisions like that which could spiral this thing out of control.

Hell, for the first few weeks of the initial outbreak in the US, anyone who traveled with Thomas Eric Duncan into the United States were asked to call the CDC with any concerns. Fantastic crisis control...several hundred people potentially exposed to the Zaire-strain Ebola, and we're asking them to proactively call into a government agency. It's pretty embarrassing to be honest...the hospitals reaction to Thomas Eric Duncan on his initial visit after stating he had come home from Liberia and had a fever, is just beyond understanding as well. I honestly think our countries ability to contain this thing is vastly overrated. We'll see....

billmac91 said:

This is pretty disingenuous. There is a lot we don't understand about Ebola. Having in-laws from West Africa (Ghana) I've been tracking this story very closely. This article isn't very reassuring when looking at how the virus spreads.

http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-ebola-goes-airborne-112112

Unless this lab completely jacked up the mechanisms used to monitor the test, somehow the virus found it's way from separate cages to contaminate all test animals.

I think if anything, a lot of people are underestimating how contagious this virus is. People say it isn't "airborne" but they haven't proven definitively that fomites and large droplets, for example can transmit the virus (meaning you could get Ebola if an infected person sneezed near you).

The fact that people in the United States, who knew they were treating someone with the disease, still contracted Ebola, is troubling. I have a feeling this thing gets worse before it gets better. Beyond controlling it in the US to the few subjects who have contracted it, I just don't see how you control it globally, when it's spreading like wild-fire throughout Africa with a billion+ people. And many of those billion+ people are global travelers. Unless you shut the airline industry down, there isn't a great way to contain this thing regionally...

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I'm not going to discount the credibility of that article (which is from 2012, by the way) but your own article ends on this note:

What do these findings mean? First and foremost, Ebola is not suddenly an airborne disease. As expert commentators at ProMED stated, the experiments “demonstrate the susceptibility of pigs to Zaire Ebolavirus and that the virus from infected pigs can be transmitted to macaques under experimental conditions… they fall short of establishing that this is a normal route of transmission in the natural environment.” Furthermore, because human Ebola outbreaks have historically been locally contained, it is unlikely that Ebola can spread between humans via airborne transmission. - See more at: http://healthmap.org/site/diseaseda...ola-goes-airborne-112112#sthash.KJa0TaJ3.dpuf

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What about the aftermath of the people who had Ebola and are now symptom free? They found traces of Ebola in a guy 61 days after he was symptom-free. That's concerning to me. They can't keep people quarantined for 2.5 months and if these nurses go back to work, if they can spread it, it will be nightmare. There's way too much unknown about this virus.

Binkster said:

I'm not going to discount the credibility of that article (which is from 2012, by the way) but your own article ends on this note:

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Understood...my point is there is a ton we don't know about it though. There are a lot of experts predicting it becomes airborne relatively soon based on how many strains there are and how often it mutates. It sure doesn't make me feel very comfortable...

How about those that became sick from ebola, but they were able to fight the disease off without knowledge of having contracted the disease. It happens extremely rarely because of how sick you typically get, but there have been some cases in Western Africa where people have shown trace amounts of the disease without ever being treated for it...meaning they likely fought it off thinking it was the flu, fever, etc..? And they're still contagious weeks after...

In a perfect world a vaccine would be found and we could essentially eradicate this thing...but realistically, we're not very close on that front either, so my guess is this thing gets worse before it gets better.

billmac91 said:

Ghana being one of them. I have concerns over how accurate that information is however...A country like Ghana, which is the gold standard for West Africa in 2014, would be crippled if ever hit with travel sanctions, tourism erosion, or just general panic about an outbreak with the mortality rate of ebola. Flight costs into Ghana are the lowest my wife and I have ever seen them. It's almost comical. There are a lot of layers to this disease which make it complex...in my opinion, this thing has become too political rather than just looking at it with the best interests of the human race.

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I understand the incentive to underreport, but I also think there's enough going on that it would leak out if there was anything more than very scattered cases. Which is why I think any kind of flight restriction should be limited only to people initiating travel from one of the three countries with widespread infection. No reason to restrict travel to Ghana, although I suspect travel to/from Europe is much more common than travel to North America.

Hell, for the first few weeks of the initial outbreak in the US, anyone who traveled with Thomas Eric Duncan into the United States were asked to call the CDC with any concerns. Fantastic crisis control...several hundred people potentially exposed to the Zaire-strain Ebola, and we're asking them to proactively call into a government agency. It's pretty embarrassing to be honest...the hospitals reaction to Thomas Eric Duncan on his initial visit after stating he had come home from Liberia and had a fever, is just beyond understanding as well. I honestly think our countries ability to contain this thing is vastly overrated. We'll see....

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I think we have the ability to contain this unless the "don't panic" attitude seemingly continues among some in the medical/government establishment. I keep reading about how Nigeria - despite less than 20 infections -- conducted over 11,000 visits by health care workers to the homes of people exposed for twice-a-day examination. Was that what some here would consider "panicking"? If so, I'd like to see more of it.

That's really what is kind of aggravating about this. Imagine if our government would have said "we're tracked down everyone exposed. They'll be staying in their homes, and will be visited twice a day by health care workers who will take their temperatures and see if they are feeling ill. If so, we will remove and quarantine them immediately, and put their families on the same monitoring program." That would be an "overreaction" compared to what we did, but people within the country would feel a lot more secure, and there would be less panic despite the "overreaction". But instead, they essentially try to hush it up and say "don't worry, nothing to see here."

But right now, people rightly fear that the government is more concerned with "panic" than with controlling the disease, which has the perverse effect of increasing the likelihood of panic.

The Human Q-Tip said:

But right now, people rightly fear that the government is more concerned with "panic" than with controlling the disease, which has the perverse effect of increasing the likelihood of panic.

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Probably doesn't help that the news stations are more interested in manufacturing panic than relaying facts.