“was fairly constant of about 12 cases/day (Sierra Leone data only). The last few data points (up to August 13, 2014) pointed to a rate of about 23.5 cases/day. “
Yeah.....That’s why it’s difficult to pull one data set and see a trend...you have to look at it in it’s entirety. But like I said, numbers give me a headache...lol
As to the situation there with the clinics, this is nothing new..The locals think the clinics and the doctors have brought the aids to them. They think people go to hospitals to die and if you get rid of the hospitals and doctors, the disease will go away and nobody will die.
This is why for some weeks now, voluteers have been deserting their posts, and without law enforcement the locals can’t wait to close these clinics down and take whatever is valuable, along with the Ebola infection.
Call it a Darwin award candidate....posthumously of course.
Back to the numbers.....
“was fairly constant of about 12 cases/day (Sierra Leone data only). The last few data points (up to August 13, 2014) pointed to a rate of about 23.5 cases/day. “
That alone should tell you something...The initial outbreak being 12 cases per day, has only doubled to 23.5 cases in what is now months...
If this disease was anywhere near as volatile as some people seem to think it is, What would you anticipate the per day new cases should look like?
No question, this is the worst Ebola outbreak in recorded history. But it’s not showing the ability to become a pandemic. It spreads in Africa for a number of social reasons, and those reasons do not even need to include population density. It’s all the other stuff, as we are discussing today with the clinics..Population density is really not contributing a lot to it..as you can ascertain as you read the anecdotal stories and just multiply it over 4 backward countries or regions X 500....,...
When I see it running like a forest fire into central and Eastern Africa, with very high initial infections rates (verified) and a mortality rate in the low 50s or even lower, I can assume it is uncontrolled and wild and may go farther.
But I’m just not seeing that..I’ve been looking for it, but it’s not there yet.
If this disease was anywhere near as volatile as some people seem to think it is, What would you anticipate the per day new cases should look like?
Actually, that jump from ~12/day to ~23.5/day was over a period of about 3 weeks (first 3 weeks of July/14 to August 13/14)
If the disease were as volatile as some news stories suggest, I would expect it turn into an exponential rate of growth. As of now I don't see it. But we may also be looking at the near 0 value of squiggly lines (that's a technical term, BTW) typical to a an exponential rate curve that hasn't really blossomed yet.
The thing that disturbs me most is that the data published by the CDC is so obviously not true. The cases in their raw form are cumulative rates of infection of a given area, and the date the data point was finalized (typically 3-4 days before the data point is published). But that reporting has data where the cumulative total at some later date is lower than that value reported at an earlier date. That simply cannot happen and gives rise to negative rates of growth..
BTW, the data suggests that median mean mortality rate per infection is hovering around 45%.