Posted on 10/06/2014 2:09:59 AM PDT by markomalley
Scientists have used Ebola disease spread patterns and airline traffic data to predict a 75 percent chance the virus could be imported to France by October 24, and a 50 percent chance it could hit Britain by that date.
Those numbers are based on air traffic remaining at full capacity. Assuming an 80 percent reduction in travel to reflect that many airlines are halting flights to affected regions, France's risk is still 25 percent, and Britain's is 15 percent.
"It's really a lottery," said Derek Gatherer of Britain's Lancaster University, an expert in viruses who has been tracking the epidemic - the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
The deadly epidemic has killed more than 3,400 people since it began in West Africa in March and has now started to spread faster, infecting almost 7,200 people so far. Nigeria, Senegal and now the United States - where the first case was diagnosed on Tuesday in a man who flew in from Liberia - have all seen people carrying the Ebola haemorrhagic fever virus, apparently unwittingly, arrive on their shores.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
PING!
Reuters UK doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo to downplay and ridicule concern over this.
Ebola will be a common illness...nothing to worry about. It’s only fair./s
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
75% chance of being in france by 10/24 and 50% chance of being in UK by then.
I suspect these numbers are completely made up. How can a model, any model, accurately predicting anything. Someone with Obola gets on a plane today bound for france and voila, its there 6+/- hours later.
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...
Thanks for the ping!
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
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