[lowbridge]

“And he offered assurance tonight that a “serious outbreak” remains extremely unlikely.”

This can mean only one thing: there’s going to be a serious outbreak.

[Black Agnes]

I was just going to type the same thing.

[krunkygirl]

If it was one of his daughters, would that constitute a “serious outbreak”?!

[Sacajaweau]

Idiot doesn't get it. One case is a serious outbreak.

We're waaaaaay beyond serious.

[The Antiyuppie]

Define “serious”, as used in this context.

Define “outbreak”, as used in this context.

[Nip]

“Serious Outbreak.”

An interesting but totally nonsensical term.

To me a serious outbreak happens whenever your ability to immediately treat the outbreak is exceeded by the outbreak’s number of victims. i.e. more people getting and staying sick than you can treat. Also in my definition of “treatment” is more than 50% of the patients go home alive and non-infectious.

So, what is the demonstrated critical factor for treating Ebola patients? Two patients survived Ebola earlier this year; they were in a class IV isolation hospital room. One Ebola patient didn’t - he was in a run-of-the-mill hospital room.

An extremely small sample size with loads of variables.

But, now we have two more confirmed Ebola patients that probably were infected within a few days of each other in early October. They are about the same age and gender. One is being treated in a run-of-the-mill hospital (demonstrated survival rate of zero) and the other in a class IV isolation hospital room (demonstrated survival rate of 100%).

Again sample sizes too small to draw any conclusion from.

But, what happens if the two survival rates are repeated?

That means any Ebola outbreak between now an New Years that produces more than 25 patients at the same time or more than 100 patients in the next 75 days becomes a “serious outbreak” because those numbers exceed the current number of hospital beds/patient days.

75 days - isn’t that New Years Day 2015?