Posted on 10/29/2014 11:35:53 AM PDT by varyouga
A centimeter of blood is about 1 ml, or about 1/5 of a teaspoon. That is a huge volume compared to a droplet. Droplets are tiny, about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
The Ebola virus can enter through a break in the skin, even if the break is too small to be seen. If their necks were bare (and that is a detail I have not seen elsewhere), they could have splashed tiny droplets onto their skin doing any number of things—cleaning up vomit or diarrhea, changing soiled sheets or patient clothing, etc. They might have even unthinkingly reached up to scratch an itch with contaminated gloves. It only takes one such occurrence, one droplet full of a few dozen viruses landing on a tiny unseen break in the skin, to cause an infection. Or they could have contaminated themselves during the PPE removal, which is an exacting process that is difficult to perform properly (and they were untrained; I have not verified, but another poster said that they had read the CDC guideline—reading does not substitute for hands-on training).
1. Ebola survives in the cold and certain surfaces.
That is strictly laboratory data, measured in controlled conditions, and I have discussed that at length in other posts. If you want to know whether Ebola viruses are stable in situations where someone could actually be infected, you have to study the virus in those conditions.
==== Life is not controlled, and the temperature
data, and binding-survival data is relevant.
You are sophomoric to assume the virus will not mutate.
2. And it survives MONTHS in humans who are allegedly “cured”.
It is known that virus takes weeks to clear from some bodily fluids. ... But all patients had completely eliminated virus after 400 days. Obviously, this is a potential means of transmission.
======= Thank you. Q.E.D.
3. And you have ignored the animal reservoirs which are about to develop and grow.
The virus has always been in an animal reservoir, probably bats. It is not about to “develop and grow”;
====== “Probably” means you do not KNOW the extent
of the animal reservoir. And NO ONE knows how many
animals species it will survive in, on the N. America
continent (yet).
4. And where is the data showing filoviruses are “larger” than the droplets. That is nonsense.
A filovirus is 80 nm in diameter and anywhere from about 900 to 14,000 nm, or 0.9 to 14 micrometers in length. Airborne particles generated by sneezing, coughing, etc., are smaller than about 5-10 micrometers. The average size of such particles is smaller. ... So, even if virus were present in respiratory secretions (if they contain blood, virus could be present), very few virions would fit in a particle.
============= Rain drops are between 1 and 50 microns in
diameter. Nebulized aerosol droplets are 2 to 20 microns.
The filamentous Ebola, stretched out which it need not be,
is 970 nm which is 0.9 microns. Therefore, Q.E.D.
WHO claiming that “shared taxis” spread the virus because “they are not disinfected”. This would be by contaminated surfaces transferring to people from hand to face, I’m assuming.
Reston 1989 Ebola outbreak. This involved a monkey quaratine facility and the virus spread from room to room through the air. This is not the same strain of Ebola that has our attention now.
“Of course I believed it,” he said. “I was shocked. It was hundreds of monkeys involved right there in Reston.”
He said everyone’s mind turned to the full weight of what was happening. What if Ebola got into the general population? Were the handlers infected? And just as troubling: Why were monkeys in another contained room dying? Had the virus mutated? Was it now being transmitted through the air?
That is strictly laboratory data, measured in controlled conditions, and I have discussed that at length in other posts. If you want to know whether Ebola viruses are stable in situations where someone could actually be infected, you have to study the virus in those conditions.
==== Life is not controlled, and the temperature data, and binding-survival data is relevant. You are sophomoric to assume the virus will not mutate.
That is the point. It has only been shown to survive for prolonged periods in controlled environments--in environments that do not assault the virus with factors like temperature, humidity, changes in pH, environmental chemicals, etc. Biological entities typically are not very durable in uncontrolled environments.
Also, I *assume* that the virus mutates. It would be extremely unusual if it did NOT mutate, since viruses, especially RNA viruses, have very unstable genetic material. They cannot mutate in such a way that they change their shape or the functions of their proteins too much, because then, they would be unable to cause infections--but, within limits, they mutate a lot.
“Probably” means you do not KNOW the extent of the animal reservoir. And NO ONE knows how many animals species it will survive in, on the N. America continent (yet).
Actually, "probably" means that everyone is pointing fingers at bats, but nothing has been proven. The evidence is all circumstantial.
Ebola causes different symptoms in different animals. Dogs don't get symptoms, but they have been shown to get infected. Pigs get a respiratory illness, and they can spread the disease through respiratory droplets (they sneeze a lot, contaminating their environment). But they don't die (at least in lab studies). And so on. Many viruses cause mild illness in bats, but are deadly to humans. No one can possibly know how the virus will affect a species without testing it.
Rain drops are between 1 and 50 microns in diameter. Nebulized aerosol droplets are 2 to 20 microns. The filamentous Ebola, stretched out which it need not be, is 970 nm which is 0.9 microns. Therefore, Q.E.D.
The 970 nm length is a minimum; it is up to 14,000 nm long. And it can't be "stretched"--it might coil or not, but its volume is still the same. And it fits best in the large particles that fall quickly to the ground. I doubt that the small particles can hold an infectious dose, and they dry so quickly that the virus wouldn't survive anyway.
Nebulizing, as in laboratory experiments, is not really pertinent to a natural setting. For aerosol studies, the virus is mechanically nebulized directly into an animals face. Humans don't nebulize... Some medical procedures can generate aerosols or droplets.
Despite your claim, even humans “cured” pass the virus to sex partners for months.
Despite your claim, viruses survive (in clays for example)
for a long time, and bacteria have been found on the ISS.
Despite your claim, filoviruses can be transmitted in droplets
Despite your claim, virus reservoirs are serious,
and at this moment there are none with these filoviruses
in N. America.
Despite your claim, you do not know how this virus
can mutate, or what promotes that process,
or even if this involves error prone processes
leading to aerosolization
or unexpected means of transmission
or to unexpected vectors.
If you really feel there is nothing to this, consider
joining a doc or nurse in W. Africa with the US military.
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Original is available on Wayback...
Despite your claim, even humans “cured” pass the virus to sex partners for months.
I've pointed out many times that viable virus has been isolated from semen several weeks after the patient recovered. Clearly, this is a potential source of new infections.
Despite your claim, viruses survive (in clays for example) for a long time, and bacteria have been found on the ISS.
Bacteria and viruses are drastically different. Bacteria are alive, viruses are not. And what kind of viruses are those that survive in clays for a long time? Are they DNA or RNA viruses? RNA is notoriously fragile; DNA is sturdy and can even be mailed in envelopes without significant loss of quality.
Despite your claim, filoviruses can be transmitted in droplets
I have pointed out that Ebola may be transmitted in droplets, which is a form of direct transmission. It is NOT transmitted in aerosols. Droplets, yes. Aerosols, no.
Despite your claim, virus reservoirs are serious, and at this moment there are none with these filoviruses in N. America.
A virus reservoir is only a problem if the habitats of the reservoir and humans overlap. I just read today that over 300,000 animal viruses are estimated to exist. Many of those viruses, no doubt, would cause deadly disease in humans--at least one new disease "emerges" every year.
Despite your claim, you do not know how this virus can mutate, or what promotes that process, or even if this involves error prone processes leading to aerosolization or unexpected means of transmission or to unexpected vectors.
The mechanisms of mutation are well-known and ubiquitous. I actually *do* know how Ebola can mutate, because I've studied those mechanisms. On average, every time a new virus is made, it has one mutation in its genetic material. The Ebola virus has about 19 kilobases, that is 19,000 nucleotide bases long. That means that there are 19,000 different mutants possible after a single round of replication, and a single infected person might have millions of genetically different viruses in their body. Most of the mutants, however, do not survive, since some are more "fit" than others. The major significance of mutation is that it allows us to analyze the course of the outbreak--by sequencing the virus from different people, and comparing the sequences, we can trace the route of spread of the outbreak and determine where it started. Biologically, the significance of mutation can mean a virus is more or less efficient in any given function, but it does not change its functions.
If you really feel there is nothing to this, consider joining a doc or nurse in W. Africa with the US military.
When did I say that I "feel there is nothing to this"? I think very much that people deserve accurate information, and that the more people understand about the virus, the fewer complications they will create for the people who are over there trying to deal with the virus now.
Also, I have absolutely no problem with going to help out. I do not provide patient care; I analyze samples.
Analyze this.
1. Ebola is nearly uniformly fatal to adults over 45.
2. There is none in any animal reservoir in the USA, yet.
3. Mutations can, and have, with filoviruses yielded
airborne variants.
4. Both you and the CDC fail to even recognize the
difference between a symptom and sign.
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