Ebola scare: Sierra Leone announces lockdown of 2.5 million people

Times of India ^ | 03/19/2015

[wtd]

• Ebola scare: Sierra Leone announces lockdown of 2.5 million people FREETOWN: Sierra Leone said on Thursday it will confine around 2.5 million people to their homes across the capital and in the north in a three-day shutdown aimed at stemming the Ebola epidemic. The worst-ever outbreak of the virus has claimed almost …Times of India · 7 minutes ago

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[wtd]

• Bill Gates: Ebola Virus A 'Wake-Up Call'

  Bill Gates has called for "germ games not war games" to ensure readiness for battling a deadly global epidemic. The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist said the Ebola epidemic was a "wake-up call to get ready", during a talk at the prestigious TED ...Sky News HD · 9 minutes ago

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• 101st leader, dozens of soldiers returning to Fort Campbell

  (AP) -- Maj. Gen. Gary J. Volesky, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, is returning to Fort Campbell from West Africa along with dozens of soldiers who were deployed to aid in the fight against Ebola. The soldiers are expected back at the post ...LOCAL8now · 15 minutes ago

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• Ebola suspect charity worker tests negative

  ANOTHER Ebola scare in Spain months after the country was confirmed ‘disease-free’ by the United Nations has proven to be a false alarm – a charity worker hospitalised on Wednesday has turned out not to be suffering from the deadly haemorrhagic …Gnomes National News Service · 42 minutes ago

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• Second negative test for Ebola nurse

  A New Zealand nurse who had been working in Africa has been officially cleared of having Ebola after returning a second negative test. The woman from Gore arrived home on March 8 from Sierra Leone where she'd been treating people with the virus. She …MSN · 58 minutes ago

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• Two more U.S. healthcare workers repatriated for Ebola monitoring

  March 18 (Reuters) - The last two members of a group of U.S. healthcare workers whose colleague is being treated for the Ebola virus returned on Wednesday from Sierra Leone to the United States, where they are …Thomson Reuters Foundation · 1 minute ago

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• There Are Now More Than a Dozen People Being Monitored for Ebola in the U.S.

  NEW YORK (TheBlaze/AP) — Health officials say two more American aid workers arrived in the United States Wednesday night to be monitored for Ebola, bringing the total brought back to the country since Friday to …The Blaze · ByLiz Klimas · 2 hours ago

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• UNICEF details Ebola outbreak’s impact on children

  The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released a report on Tuesday detailing the impact of the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, stating that approximately nine million children have been heavily impacted.Bio Prep Watch · 4 hours ago

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[tumblindice]

In other news, President Obama announces 2.5 million infected Sierra Leonese will be flown to the United States and settled in the homes of “climate change denying white devils”.

[cuban leaf]

Blah, blah, blah.

I have a Firesign Theater CD that was created in 1999 and they were making fun of the Ebola scare back then. It is a third world country problem.

And so is Aids if you are not a sodomizer or use shared needles.

[wtd]

• Now 17 in US being monitored for ebola WEST PALM BEACH

  (CBS12) – Two more American aid workers have arrived in the United States to be monitored for Ebola. The two make 17 Americans flown back from West Africa's Sierra Leone since Friday for monitoring. None have tested positive.CBS 12 News · 45 minutes ago

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• Two patients in Amarillo monitored for Ebola in

  AMARILLO, TEXAS (NBC) - The city of Amarillo public health department says two patients are being monitored for Ebola. The patients, a mother and child, recently traveled from Liberia to Amarillo. A change in the …KGNS · 11 hours ago

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• Guinea Ebola Cases Rise, Three Doctors Infected

  CONAKRY/DAKAR - Guinea has suffered a setback in its fight against Ebola with a rash of new cases, including three doctors infected by the virus, with officials blaming weak surveillance and a failure to follow safety …Sudan Vision · 19 hours ago

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[UCANSEE2]

The largest concentration of Sierra Leonean immigrants lives in the Baltimore- Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Other enclaves exist with sizable population Sierra Leonean immigrants are suburbs of Alexandria, Fairfax, Arlington, Falls Church, and Woodbridge in Virginia, and in Landover, Lanham, Cheverly, Silver Spring, and Bethesda in Maryland. There are also Sierra Leonean communities in the Boston and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, and in New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Oregon and Ohio. Recent immigrants from Sierra Leone, while scattered over a variety of states, tend to congregate in small communities for mutual support.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leonean_American

Ebola Outbreak-related Immigration Relief Measures to Nationals of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone Currently in the United States (Release Date: August 15, 2014 )

http://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/ebola-outbreak-related-immigration-relief-measures-nationals-guinea-liberia-and-sierra-leone-currently-united-states

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Importantly the 3-day quarantine seems to work quite well, as it breaks up the timetable of the spread of the disease.

In fact, it works so well, that the US should consider a similar, but much more managed version itself, not just for Ebola, but for other diseases as well. Here is what is needed:

1) An accurate understanding of the incubation period length in days, as well as a subset of that, the length of time during which an infected person can easily communicate the disease. Importantly, the quarantine only has to last for *part* of these times to be effective.

2) A practical estimation of the spread of the disease from a given outbreak point (”patient zero”). This is a physical area in which infections are rated at “severe”, such as in the same home; and “moderate”, such as a workplace, market or other recently visited public area. This limits any quarantine and notification area to the riskier places.

3) Response teams that poll the quarantine area, first by phone and then on foot if needed. For larger areas, an automatic phone bank could systematically poll every phone in the quarantine area, for information and to offer assistance.

None of this is particularly radical, from a public health viewpoint, as this is just a modernized version of how quarantines used to be done. That is, all physicians carried quarantine signs in their black bags. Its improvement is that it quarantines smaller areas and is more responsive to the people in those areas.

[BenLurkin]

Bill Gates in his fortress manse.

[Pollster1]

http://apps.who.int/ebola/current-situation/ebola-situation-report-18-march-2015

“A total of 150 new confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) were reported in the week to 15 March, compared with 116 the previous week. There were 95 new confirmed cases reported in Guinea: the highest weekly total for the country in 2015. Sierra Leone reported 55 new confirmed cases over the same period: the country’s lowest weekly total since late June 2014. Liberia reported no new confirmed cases for the third consecutive week. March 15 was day 12 since the final patient in Liberia had a second negative test for EVD (42 days must elapse before transmission can be considered to have ended).”

I am not at all willing to consider this an “African problem”. We can contain Ebola if it comes to the United States, but it will disrupt our economy to an unimaginable degree. We were right to put resources into containing it in Liberia (the wrong resources since Obama made that decision, but they still got the job done since they were American military). We (the West, China, and India) need to contain it in the other two countries too.

[bgill]

In other news, President Obama announces 2.5 million infected Sierra Leonese will be flown to the United States and settled in the homes of “climate change denying white devils”.

Bingo. I posted another article a couple days ago that Ebola there has caused children not to get measles vaccines so we can look forward to more outbreaks.

[bgill]

The city of Amarillo public health department says two patients are being monitored for Ebola. The patients, a mother and child, recently traveled from Liberia to Amarillo.

Yeah, like they won't be going to Walmart, the grocery store and school. As if Texas isn't getting enough diseases from south of the border.

[bgill]

What’s the reason for delaying the lockdown for another 9 days? How many more will become infected between now and then? The government should have told everyone last September that lockdowns could come at any time so be prepared. If it’s bad enough to announce a lockdown, it’s bad enough to do so immediately.

[TruthInThoughtWordAndDeed]

Here is some practical follow-on to your comments:

1) Average time from infection to death is twelve (12) days - you either die or you recover (on average) after that and are no longer part of the “active case” pool.

2) Using this reasoning, I have been tracking the Ebola “active case” pool size now since last fall (for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone combined).

a) Largest “active case” pool size spiked to just over 3000 on November 6, 2014. (Epidemic phase)

b) The “active case” pool size steeply declined to about 645 by January 22, 2015. (Pandemic avoided)

c) The “active case” pool size has now stubbornly held at an average of 648 from January 22, 2015 to today, March 19, 2015. (Endemic phase)

This thing just refuses to go away. It is simmering on the back burner.

If treatment efforts are disrupted, it could easily flare up again and go out of control. (Think war in the Middle East, economic collapse, or both.)

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

However,

1) Average time from infection to death is twelve (12) days - you either die or you recover (on average) after that and are no longer part of the “active case” pool.

But oddly enough a person infected with Ebola only becomes infectious *after* they exhibit symptoms. According to the CDC, “Symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure to Ebola, but the average is 8 to 10 days.”

Importantly, 5 to 7 days after exhibiting symptoms, a person is very sick, likely incapacitated, and thus far less able to spread the disease beyond their immediate family.

So the actual “window” of public infection is just 5 to 7 days. This is the real genius of a 3 day quarantine, because if you take 3 days out of a 5 or 7 day period, it will keep the vast majority of infected people out of circulation when they are most contagious.

During this time, teams are sent door to door to ask if anyone in the home is sick. This polices up the sick people and identifies their families as being at risk.

Importantly, epidemics work with what is called a “brush fire” approach. Unless they have a ‘reservoir’ that can restart the epidemic if it is extinguished in an area, it *must* continue to infect new victims or it will “burn out”.

[citizen352]

I watched a BBC YouTube video about Ebola. I think people who live in Africa are afraid of Western medicine and the West discourages African burial practices that follow African culture and customs. The suspicion of Western medicine might cause the Ebola problem to continue to come back again many times.

[citizen352]

I watched a BBC YouTube video about Ebola. I think people who live in Africa are afraid of Western medicine and the West discourages African burial practices that follow African culture and customs. The suspicion of Western medicine might cause the Ebola problem to continue to come back again many times.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

It certainly did, especially at the start of the epidemic. However, to their credit, the respective countries medical community arm-twisted their governments to strongly crack down on such bad habits.

An element of an epidemic that is hard to measure is “stupid fear vs. smart fear”, because a public imbued with “smart fear” engages in practices that strongly suppress the epidemic.

An example of how this happens can be seen in the evolution of the public mind in the US, starting at the time of the Spanish flu of 1918-’20. At that time, the US medical community was well versed in sanitation and the use of effective antiseptics, especially carbolic soap. Importantly, this was discovered before they knew what the virus pathogen was, though they suspected an infective agent too small to see with a microscope.

At the same time, the public’s ignorance was such that when a rumor swept middle America that a sweater made and sold by a woman in Indiana prevented flu, she received thousands of orders.

This ignorance was changed by the US government during WWII, by instituting a nationwide program of education about infectious diseases, starting even in elementary school.

So Africa needs something like this educational program.

[Pollster1]

What’s the reason for delaying the lockdown for another 9 days? How many more will become infected between now and then? The government should have told everyone last September that lockdowns could come at any time so be prepared. If it’s bad enough to announce a lockdown, it’s bad enough to do so immediately.

In this case, I disagree. There is no urgency in implementing this, since the growth rate is negligible. They want to plan and coordinate it so they get maximum benefit from the three-day disruption in their economy. The goal is to reset the equilibrium level of cases to a lower level.

[Morpheus2009]

There’s also the fact that Ebola treatment specialized centers are a luxury in the U.S., you are working in an improvised clinic with a lot of low quality equipment, and people crowded together, not to mention the fact that a lot of people don’t have sewage treatment, so you drink trace amounts of blood, fecal matter, and vomit out of your water source, along with whatever disease germs are in them. I personally would get myself shot up with Diptheria and Typhoid innoculations at the least before I ever thought of visiting Africa, not to mention I wouldn’t be interested at this point because I could be not allowed to give blood. I probably wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that norovirus could kill somebody in Africa whereas it’s just a twenty four hour sick to my stomach for me.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping...

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

[null and void]

Sierra Leone announces lockdown of 2.5 million people

Obama announces 2.5 million refugee visas for Sierra Leonese!

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

Bring out your dead! The Dark Man cometh! Bring out your dead! The Dark Man cometh! Bring out your......

(Since all records of obama's past were lost in a tragic boating accident and fire, no one can be certain that the guy in the red circle isn't him...)

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...