The world is in denial about Ebola’s true threat

“The Ebola virus has multiplied in a medium of denial. There was the initial denial that a rural disease, causing isolated outbreaks that burned out quickly, could become a sustained, urban killer. There is the (understandable) denial of patients in West Africa, who convince themselves that they have flu or malaria (the symptoms are similar to Ebola) and remain in communities. And there is the form of denial now practiced by Western governments — a misguided belief that an incremental response can get ahead of an exponentially growing threat.”

The world is, largely, in denial. Read these 2 articles to understand why:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/six-reasons-panic_816387.html#!

http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/another-nail-in-coffin-expecting.html

Both explain the mathematics of the thing. Put simply, Ebola is expanding at a geometric rate (doubling roughly every 3 weeks), while we are incrementally merely adding resources to this thing. Even WHO has said that we need to get it under control within 60 days, or we are in uncharted waters. No one EVEN HAS A PLAN what to do (let alone the resources or the will to implement such a plan) if we don’t.

The best plan: AVOID EBOLA. Period. End. Of. Report. We can’t cure it - yes, for individuals that are lucky enough to be caught early enough, modern medicine in a 1st world setting can give them a good chance to recover, but the number of people that this has happened to can be counted on both hands. Also, we can’t innoculate enough people to stop it in its tracks (see the 2nd article, above). Thus, it has to burn itself out (i.e. simply be isolated from the non-infected and kill enough of those in the infected zone that the disease simply runs out of new hosts. YES, that is harsh, but it saves those who are not infected - and that says nothing about doing whatever is humanly possible to help those who are infected. But make no mistake, if this thing grows as it has for another few months, we are sunk - we are talking Black Death kind of percentages OR WORSE.

Oh, and what happens when 30% or more of your nation is sick or dead, and the rest are petrified of getting infected or busy taking care of those who are? Simple: normal functions, like food, fuel and medical production and transport basically cease. Electricity goes out, water stops coming out of the faucet. THAT, by itself, is a recipe for 90% or more of the people to be dead in a few months, without even considering a massive pandemic.

Quarantine - STRICT quarantine - is the only thing that will buy us enough time to work on vaccines and cures. If that means World War Z-like measures, then so be it. We literally face an extinction event if this isn’t controlled SOON.

What is the spread once you remove the home care for dying victims, dying victims in taxies, corpses in taxis, and corpse washing?

It should drop, a lot. However, would you fail to care for a loved one? Hospitals are, if still in one piece over there, overwhelmed and it will get worse. Where else are they going to be cared for - especially children? As for corpse-washing, it is a ritual of the Moslem religion, and many countries over there have 90% or more Moslems. You cannot realistically get people to stop that...and, as we've seen, people will literally bribe others to do so. Stupid, yes, but still reality.

Based on the PPE, this nurse is likely to become infected

If you believe the term "likely" is correct, why are only two Dallas nurses infected when more than 70 were exposed?

Look, the CDC was wrong, wrong, wrong about PPE, and wrong for bad reasons as well.

But it is not true that the nurse in the picture is "doomed". It is also not true that she is "likely" to be infected.

She should have better PPE, yes. But overstating the risk is not necessary.

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