What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola

New York Times ^ | 9/11/2014 | MICHAEL T. OSTERHOLM

[DouglasKC]

THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.

There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.

There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.

The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages. But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africa’s population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums. What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu — or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?

The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air. You can now get Ebola only through direct contact with bodily fluids. But viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented...

[ealgeone]

So all these health professionals, experts and agencies basically: -Have no plan. -Can do nothing. -Explain the disease as nature taking its course. Useless bureaucrats doing nothing but making excuses. Cashier them all!

they're just following obama's leadership style.

[ealgeone]

Why? Roughly 50% of people don’t wash their hands after a bowel movement so we aren’t any cleaner.

I see it at work all the time. thank goodness I don't have to touch anything they touch like paper, etc.

[spodefly]

If Ebola was coming to the United States to vote Republican, the government would find a cure.

[SisterK]

ping

[null and void]

The game of Ebola Roulette continues...

*click* spin *click* spin *click* spin…

Eeeee-bolllll-aaaaaa ping!

Bring Out Your Dead

We’re gonna need

a bigger cart!

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

What the New York Slimes is afraid to say about Ebola is that pResident Ebola is actively bringing it into the United States for the final stage of his "fundamental transformation."

[Rodamala]

I learned a long time ago to wash my hands BEFORE using the lavatory and also not to shit and piss on my hands. Your mileage may vary.

Oh, and I don't eat donuts.

[Lou L]

And this is not even the scariest bug running around right now. Sigh.

Just curious what you think is scarier?

[driftdiver]

Well aren’t you special.

You’re also disgusting.

[PapaBear3625]

Does anyone remember the AIDS epidemic

Now, think about the datum about recovered Ebola patients still being able to transmit Ebola in semen for weeks afterward, and consider the effect of just one recovered gay man going back to work as a trucker and making the rounds of gay bars around all the truck stops across the country he may visit over those weeks.

[PapaBear3625]

planeloads of Africans are now departing for the hajj in Mecca

Where they will live in crowded tent cities.

And mingle closely in large crowds. "What could go wrong" -- indeed.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping…

A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread

[kitchen]

40 years ago there were productive grain farms in a land known as Rhodesia.

[hal ogen]

Have you ever had the experience of using a 3rd world “public restroom”? The hole in the floor is usually surrounded by a slimy floor covered with much unpleasantness. Hygiene is a foreign concept.

[bayliving]

Have you ever had the experience of using a 3rd world “public restroom”? The hole in the floor is usually surrounded by a slimy floor covered with much unpleasantness. Hygiene is a foreign concept.

I would like to add that there is usually no toilet paper, soap or hot water at the sink as well.

[RinaseaofDs]

“But air transmission makes that advantage worthless.”

Mode of transmission is the best kept secret in this outbreak.

Nobody is talking about it.

[Spartan79]

I see it at work all the time. thank goodness I don't have to touch anything they touch like paper, etc.

You almost inevitably touch common fomites all day long at work or in school. Can you go through the day without coming in contact with door knobs, light switches, pens and pencils, buttons on the coffee maker, desktop surfaces, computer keyboards, etc. etc. etc.? Researchers studying the spread of germs in office environments have sprayed a doorknob with harmless tracker germs and found that they managed to migrate to 60% of the surfaces of other fomites in the office within two hours.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The biggest threat to humanity since the Black Plague in the fourteenth century...and our government and health officials are totally immobilized with fear of being labeled un-PC. They are putting the entire world at risk by having not shut down all traffic into and out of Africa.

It's interesting that the Black Death was spread along the major transportation routes of the 1300s, so we've been down this road before...

The Black Death is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching the Crimea by 1343. From there, it was most likely carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships. Spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, the Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60% of Europe's total population. All in all, the plague reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million in the 14th century...It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover.

  --Wikipedia

[goodnesswins]

My husband had a Secretary who happened to sit outside the men’s room...she could hear whether men washed their hands...and if they did not would say something to them when they came out!

[EQAndyBuzz]

“I still do not think it can take hold here like it can in Africa.”

If it gets loose in East LA or Camden, it’s game over. Even though our sanitation processes and clean water and food will disrupt the virus, there will come a tipping point where it won’t matter what is done, it will become uncontrollable.