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To: scouter

Good, somebody who is educated in epidemiology should be able to explain why you think it hasn’t peaked. Perhaps you can first describe your credentials.


42 posted on 09/17/2014 7:47:44 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Perhaps you can first describe your credentials.

For starters, I passed high school algebra, including the part about exponential functions. That's all you need to understand that the epidemic is accelerating.

You stated:

Epidemics of this kind do not work like that. It has probably reached near its peak already. This can be said with some certainty because of several factors. (emphasis mine)

1) It is not yet pulmonary, transmitted by coughs and sneezes.

In point of fact, it can be transmitted by coughs and sneezes. Blood, saliva and sputum contain the virus, and they can all be spread by a cough or sneeze. Would you really be confident you wouldn't get Ebola if a patient sneeze or coughed on you? Really?

2) While people may be infected for just a few to 21 days before showing symptoms, they are only infectious to others when they are showing symptoms. This is a major flaw.

That is the current belief, but it has not been firmly established. There is also evidence that they may be infectious before symptoms occur (read The Hot Zone).

3) From showing symptoms to death is about 10 days, during half of which they are incapacitated. So while appearing very sick to others, they only have 5 days to infect others.

So according to your hypothesis, a person lying in a hospital bed, or being cared for at home by their family, can't infect others, despite the fact that the bedding, the floors, the walls and ceiling, will all be splattered with blood, feces, urine, and vomit? And that their bodies and bedding magically become sterile once they die? That should comfort the hundreds of health care workers who have died.

Even if your assertions were true, they only relate to how the disease spreads, and in no way support the idea that the epidemic has already peaked. To support your contention that the epidemic has peaked, you'd have to AT LEAST show me data where the number of cases has started to decline, instead of it's current trajectory, which is in positive acceleration.

I will not waste any more of my time responding to such absurd claims.

81 posted on 09/18/2014 9:17:45 AM PDT by scouter (As for me and my household... We will serve the LORD.)
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