Posted on 06/21/2014 8:36:20 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The outbreak, which began in Guinea either late last year or early this year, had appeared to slow before picking up pace again in recent weeks, including spreading to the Liberian capital for the first time.
This is the highest outbreak on record and has the highest number of deaths, so this is unprecedented so far, said Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist with Doctors Without Borders.
According to a World Health Organization list, the highest previous death toll was in the first recorded Ebola outbreak in Congo in 1976, when 280 deaths were reported. Because Ebola often touches remote areas and the first cases sometimes go unrecognized, it is likely that there are deaths that go uncounted, both in this outbreak and previous ones.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
So true.
Here is a book which addresses that very scenario...
There are a bunch of very powerful strikes against Ebola in the US: good hygiene and sanitation, paranoia, cultural isolationism, first rate epidemic response and effective quarantine, good communications, and efficient body disposal.
Compare this to Africa: little to no understanding of hygiene, poor sanitation, indifference to most disease, families living in close quarters, ordinary hospital response to epidemics with no quarantine, poor communications and lower literacy levels, and ritually playing around with cadavers before family burial.
Oh, and they also have stupidly high rates of AIDS, so lots of human petri dishes unprotected by functional immune systems.
Perhaps THIS could be the thing to wake up the sheep to overthrow this fascist government.
Taking away rights and freedoms, over-taxation, violating separation of powers, and legislating from the bench hasn’t gotten anyone’s notice.
As the virus is now, that's true. The danger is when it spreads to crowded places with sickly populations or bad environmental conditions.
The other thing that's odd is that a less virulant Ebola would be more dangerous to the global population. It would spread to more people before the host died.
I read that hypothesis in a book OUTBREAK (?) quite a few years back.
The Hot Zone? It spawned the movie Outbreak and the series The Burning Zone.
Yeah, I am surprised Obama hasn’t brought those with ebola here for us to pay for some Obamacare for them.
The thing that strikes me is the 4 Horsemen.
Popular interpretation has the first being a conquerer who unites the world. Often thought to be the anti-Christ the world enters into a unity under a pseudo Christianity. The next is war. We enter into conflict resulting in famine and death following. While not tremendously prescient it does seem to be the way we’re going.
It was a great read. It's made me much smarter about enviornments I choose to be in.
Thanks for the ping!
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
And against that is the fact we have one of the most mobile populations in the world, who also feel vastly entitled. If some major epidemic started people would quickly scatter around the country spreading it overnight. One of the major reasons Ebola has been containable in the past is it struck small rural areas. If you tried to quarantine anyone they would ignore it. Despite any announcements to stay home anyone with so much as a sniffle would be running to the ER, or dialing 911 and demanding an ambulance.
The flip side of that is the US Public Health Service, which our entire medical system obeys without question.
In past it has been noted that during an epidemic, the USPHS can assume more authoritarian power than any other government agency. We almost never see it, fortunately, but when it happens it is pretty awesome.
And their orders are enforced at the point of a gun. Be it police or military.
Right now, about the only group that they apply this to are people infected with tuberculosis. If it is determined to be “ordinary” TB, if the person is compliant and takes their medicine, they are allowed to live their normal life, once they are no longer infectious. However, if they have a drug resistant form, they are quarantined in a medical ward facility, if necessary, until they die.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_tuberculosis_scare
(CNN) June 23, 2014 — The deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has hit “unprecedented” proportions, according to relief workers on the ground.
“The epidemic is out of control,” Dr. Bart Janssens, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, said in statement.
There have been 567 cases and 350 deaths since the epidemic began in March, according to the latest World Health Organization figures.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/23/health/ebola-virus-outbreak-west-africa/
The wonders of evolution at work—longer incubation period. Does this count as “Catastrophism?” Here is a more recent article:
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/06/26/ebola-outbreak-drastic-action-needed-to-halt-worst-outbreak/20920447/?ncid=webmail21
I think massive doses of vitamin C complex might prevent deaths from hemorrhaging. Hope no cases came from Africa to the World Cup and thence around the world
Abola, Bbola, Cbola, and Dbola were all stopped dead in their tracks by immunologists, I expect the same thing to happen with Ebola.
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