Posted on 10/12/2014 4:26:02 PM PDT by ElenaM
In light of the first domestic transmission of Ebola Zaire, I thought it would be useful to compare Ebola Zaire with a well-known viral disease that hits American communities every year: Norovirus.
People keep comparing Ebola to influenza, which is an apples to broccoli comparison. Ebola Zaire and norovirus have the same transmission profile (at least based upon the CDC's claims of Ebola transmission vectors, which are publicly admitted to be incomplete)so the best comparison of the spread of Ebola in the US to any other viral pathogen is norovirus.
According to the CDC:
CDC About Norovirus: TransmissionNorovirus is a highly contagious virus. Anyone can get infected with norovirus and get sick. Also, you can get norovirus illness many times in your life. One reason for this is that there are many different types of noroviruses. Being infected with one type of norovirus may not protect you against other types.
Norovirus can be found in your stool (feces) even before you start feeling sick. The virus can stay in your stool for 2 weeks or more after you feel better.
You are most contagious
1.when you are sick with norovirus illness, and
2. during the first few days after you recover from norovirus illness.
You can become infected with norovirus by accidentally getting stool or vomit from infected people in your mouth. This usually happens by
1. eating food or drinking liquids that are contaminated with norovirus,
2. touching surfaces or objects contaminated with norovirus then putting your fingers in your mouth, or
3. having contact with someone who is infected with norovirus (for example, caring for or sharing food or eating utensils with someone with norovirus illness).
Norovirus can spread quickly in closed places like daycare centers, nursing homes, schools, and cruise ships. Most norovirus outbreaks happen from November to April in the United States.
Additionally:
JID 2012: Noroviruses: The Perfect Human Pathogens?The success of noroviruses should come as no surprise once one considers how well adapted they are for transmission within human populations. First, noroviruses have an extremely low infectious dose ( ≥ 18 viral particles), coupled with copious viral shedding (10^5 – 10^11 viral copies per gram of feces), even among asymptomatic infections, suggesting that up to 5 billion infectious doses may be shed by an infected individual in each gram of feces. Second, noroviruses are environmentally stable, able to survive both freezing and heating (although not thorough cooking), are resistant to many common chemical disinfectants, and can persist on surfaces for up to 2 weeks. Third, there are a myriad of ways in which noroviruses may be spread, including direct contact between hosts via fecal-oral transmission, ingestion of contaminated foods or water, handling of contaminated fomites followed by hand-to-mouth contact, and — unique among enteric pathogens — via ingestion of aerosolized particles.
A virus that is communicable only through direct and indirect exposure to infected feces and vomit should be incredibly easy to stop, right? After all, we have modern plumbing, soap, etc. No one eats with their hands from a communal pot. Norovirus isn't airborne. Yet norovirus is the most common cause of the ubiquitous "stomach bug" that sweeps through the US every year.
Now compare norovirus to Ebola Zaire. Even if we discount the norovirus food/liquid contamination issue in the context of Ebola, a virus that can only be transmitted via feces and vomit contact spreads very quickly in the US. How often do your kids or entire household come down with the "stomach flu?"
Now imagine that same event only you and/or your family is infected by Ebola Zaire.
Tell me again how protected we are from a virus that is every bit as prolific in several bodily fluids (not just feces and vomit) with an infective dose even lower than norovirus (Ebola ID50 is 1-10 virons) and a 70-90% fatality rate.
Everyone else is free to respond to Ebola however they wish. I am taking it very seriously because it's an incredibly dangerous virus.
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...
We are screwed for the simple fact that we have an enemy of the US as President the same time this is going on. Thank you Democrats
Ebola can survive outside the body for 6 days which pretty much means we are screwed especially under this POTUS who seems hellbent on getting it into the US.
A majority of respiratory viruses are enveloped (parainfluenza virus, influenza virus, RSV, and coronavirus) and survive on surfaces from hours to days. In contrast, most enteric viruses are nonenveloped and survive on fomites from weeks to months.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1828811/
Norovirus, being non-enveloped, survives better on surfaces. Not only that, but the envelope around the Ebola virus is made of proteins that are very attracted to detergents and bleach, so it is quite easy to kill off that way:
Taken together with empirical epidemiological observations during outbreaks, our results suggest that current recommendations for the decontamination of filoviruses in isolation wards [3] are effective
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.full
Essentially the same protein envelope that makes Ebola so dangerous also makes it relatively easy to clean up.
Since he has been in office, his priorities have been the Islamist/Marxists interests first, and interests of the American people only whenever pressed by the media (not often).
Thank you - a good analysis and comparison... It is useful information that gives a perspective on the spread of the Ebola..
Posted at this thread:
2nd person who got ebola was wearing FULL PROTECTIVE GEAR as recommended by the CDC per presser!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3214194/posts
#133
What USED TO BE on the Web page of the CDC as of 8/2/14:
“In this guidance healthcare personnel (HCP) refers all persons, paid and unpaid, working in healthcare settings who have the potential for exposure to patients and/or to infectious materials, including body substances, contaminated medical supplies and equipment, contaminated environmental surfaces, or CONTAMINATED AIR. “
https://web.archive.org/web/20140802...endations.html
Also.......
http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/1211...srep00811.html
Transmission of Ebola virus from pigs to non-human primates
A study conducted in 2012 showed that Ebola was able to travel between pigs and monkeys that were in separate cages and were never placed in direct contact.
Remember folks!
The CDC recommends N95 mask for Ebola that stops things 0.3 microns in size.
Ebola Is 0.08 Microns (range of size is from 0.05 to 0.3 microns).
On the high end, yes. But more importantly Ebola survives well when moist and at about 4C. That may make it more dangerous for us here in winter than it is in tropical Africa.
Not easily. The flight containing Patrick Sawyer vomiting blood and dying a few hours later had 48 passengers. 1 passenger died (the woman seated next to him) and some flight attendants who were tasked with cleaning up not realizing the threat. The other 46 survived.
Ebola doesn’t survive floating in the air. It has to be inside droplets of water, so most masks will be sufficient. The important point is it has to seal around the face and protect the eyes.
Not only that, but Ebola symptoms and norovirus symptoms are almost indistinguishable for the first few days.
And the problems with things like this is that they grow exponentially. Even if Ebola grows slowly to start with, unfortunately, we ain’t seen nuttin yet. Just wait until flu and norovirus season hits to see what a completely paralyzed nation that battens down the barricades REALLY looks like as millions have symptoms that are much like how Ebola starts off!
The trenches of our medical system are woefully unprepared for something like this. And thank you, President Obola for your “fundamental transformation” when flu season hits!
Oh, and PLEASE let’s keep those West African shuttles flying back and forth, since obviously it would do no good anyway with your open borders policy. Oh, and everyone? Be sure to vote a straight Democrat ticket in November: they really DO care about you folks, ya’ll hear? After all:
“Now, I am not on the ballot this fall,” Obama stressed. “... But make no mistake: My policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.” (Including unrestricted West African air flights.)
Barack Hussein Obama, October 2, 2014, Northwestern University
And NONE of those pertain to Ebola virus.
Put it this way: if Ebola were as contagious as Noro, we'd have lost half the population of Africa by now, not to mention Asia, Europe, the Americas...
Go read the docs at the links posted.
Go read the docs at the links I just posted.
You can thank Repugs just as much. Where in the hell are THEY?
The last two are 404.
Wow! Somebody had those pulled!
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