Posted on 11/01/2014 9:15:35 AM PDT by Rockitz
In a lengthy document that received nearly no media attention, a U.S. government agency has warned preliminary data shows Ebola is aerostable, meaning it can survive in the air and potentially be transmitted via airborne means.
The document was released in a federal government announcement seeking research proposals from private firms for Ebola treatment and diagnosis tools, including for the rapid disinfection of an “aerosol” version of the virus.
The announcement indicates that despite its public pronouncements to the contrary, the government is concerned the virus can spread through the air via vaporized bodily fluids.
There has been fear a patient can potentially self-vaporize Ebola through a strong sneeze, projectile vomiting or the flushing of a toilet.
The information was contained in a 33-page report released Oct. 24 by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of Defense’s Combat Support Agency for countering weapons of mass destruction.
The agency report states “preliminary studies indicate that Ebola is aerostable in an enclosed controlled system in the dark and can survive for long periods in different liquid media and can also be recovered from plastic and glass surfaces at low temperatures for over 3 weeks.”
The report says the government is seeking technologies for the “rapid disinfection” of Ebola, including an aerosol version of the virus.
“The technology must prove effective against viral contamination either deposited as an aerosol or heavy contaminated combined with body fluids,” reads the solicitation document.
The document further states Ebola “can survive for long periods in different liquid media and can also be recovered from plastic and glass surfaces at low temperatures for over 3 weeks.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Smokin Joe just sent me a comment that the CDC has again revised the 3’ to 6’ distance on sneezing/coughing...and scientists have revised some things including days to weeks Ebola lives on a dry surface, so your whining about ‘conspiracies’ is just more information containment by those who refuse to realize that they don’t know as much as originally claimed. That is not conspiracy-mongering.
All these new revisions make us all realize that the CDC or Scientists do not know as much about Ebola as they originally claimed. So that affects the safety factor for everyone who comes within a visual distance of an ebola patient....”X factors unknown”. Now enough said until the whole healthcare system figures it out correctly!
So are you saying the CDC just does NOT have a clue? And the danger zone has excalated out of sight?
A 1 micron droplet released from 5 feet stays airborne for 12 hours. Is that airborne enough for you?
My “whining” about conspiracies refers to the constant claims that the CDC is lying about Ebola. No one can actually point at a specific item and identify it as a lie, but, nevertheless, they insist that the CDC is lying.
I think the reason the CDC keeps revising the poster is that people still keep insisting that Ebola is airborne, and the CDC is trying to dumb down the information enough to get it through people’s heads that Ebola is NOT airborne. Unfortunately, the CDC is staffed by scientists who generally are not exciting people, and these calm, rational people are trying to communicate with a public that is drawn to emotionalism and sensationalism. The posters about spread of Ebola have not changed the information, but they revised its presentation.
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/infections-spread-by-air-or-droplets.pdf
The fact that a lot about Ebola is unknown does not invalidate the data that we *do* have about it. No new information is going to show up “proving” that Ebola is airborne. And you don’t need a PhD to figure out that it is not airborne—you only need to observe the behavior of Ebola and compare it to the behavior of influenza (which is thought to be airborne and is highly contagious). We can’t stop influenza. If Ebola spread as easily as influenza, we wouldn’t be able to stop it, either.
That is the kind of droplet nucleus used by viruses like chicken pox and measles, and maybe influenza, to spread. As I have explained many times, you do not need to be near an infected person, either in distance or in time, to catch an airborne disease.
The kind of particle that can stay airborne is small enough that it dries almost instantaneously. Ebola is fragile and cannot tolerate being dried out; it is also susceptible to a number of environmental factors. It is also large enough (it is several times the size of airborne viruses) that an infectious dose is highly unlikely to be contained within a particle. One micrometer = 1000 nanometers; an Ebola virus is 80 nanometers in diameter and anywhere from 970 to 14,000 nanometers in length. Clearly, there is a size incompatibility there.
Droplets are large enough to fall to the ground before they dry out. Droplet nuclei are particles that dry out before they hit the ground, which allows them to remain airborne. Some airborne viruses can travel for long distances and remain infectious. For example, a veterinarian friend told me that the virus that causes hoof and mouth disease can travel for miles, which is why every susceptible animal in entire counties is culled if a single case of hoof and mouth is found.
I’ve done the Stokes flow calculations and even a 10 micron droplet stays aloft for 12 minutes. I presume an ebola virus can bend since every picture I’ve seen shows that they do indeed bend. I’ll do the vaporization calculation too, but I can guarantee you it’s not fast enough.
You are confusing the term ‘airborne’ with ‘aerosol’...the two are different definitions. Aerosol spray is from coughing, sneezing, and lands on dry surfaces where it remains active for what now is days, but originally was only admitted to be a few hours.
Lying or ignorance is still deceiving the public.
The data keeps changing, so whether we call it lying or they themselves just don’t know is the issue. Sometimes the truth ‘we just don’t know yet’ would help people remain safer, because of more precautions.Quarantine is a safeguard and stubborn people are dangerous.
Your terminology is not in line with what we are saying here...both have different definitions. We aren’t confused but you seem to be about what we are explaining.
Do some research and leave me alone about it.
You are confusing the term ‘airborne’ with ‘aerosol’...the two are different definitions. Aerosol spray is from coughing, sneezing, and lands on dry surfaces where it remains active for what now is days, but originally was only admitted to be a few hours.
Lying or ignorance is still deceiving the public.
The data keeps changing, so whether we call it lying or they themselves just don’t know is the issue. Sometimes the truth ‘we just don’t know yet’ would help people remain safer, because of more precautions.Quarantine is a safeguard and stubborn people are dangerous.
Your terminology is not in line with what we are saying here...both have different definitions. We aren’t confused but you seem to be about what we are explaining.
Do some research and leave me alone about it.
You are confusing the term ‘airborne’ with ‘aerosol’...the two are different definitions. Aerosol spray is from coughing, sneezing, and lands on dry surfaces where it remains active for what now is days, but originally was only admitted to be a few hours.
Lying or ignorance is still deceiving the public.
The data keeps changing, so whether we call it lying or they themselves just don’t know is the issue. Sometimes the truth ‘we just don’t know yet’ would help people remain safer, because of more precautions.Quarantine is a safeguard and stubborn people are dangerous.
Your terminology is not in line with what we are saying here...both have different definitions. We aren’t confused but you seem to be about what we are explaining.
Do some research and leave me alone about it.
The term "aerosol" refers to a suspension of tiny particles in the air. The term "airborne" refers to how those suspended particles distribute through the air. Essentially, these terms refer to two aspects of the same phenomenon.
Natural aerosols resulting from sneezing, coughing, etc., have never been shown to transmit Ebola. Have you heard of any widespread transmission of Ebola in, for instance, Monrovia, Liberia, where the population density is rather high and people are frequently within range of aerosols generated by other people? It seems that even in the heart of the Ebola outbreak, every case can be explained by contact transmissions.
Also, the one study that supposedly shows that Ebola is stable for days involved placing virus in very controlled environments, which are very unlike natural environments. A study that took place in a natural (clinical) environment (Bausch et al., 2007) did not show infectious virus on any surface in an area where patients were being treated.
Lying or ignorance is still deceiving the public.
Do you have a specific example of a lie that the CDC told? And do you have a link to original scientific research that exposes the lie? Do you even have an example of incorrect information, with links to show the correct information?
The data keeps changing, so whether we call it lying or they themselves just don’t know is the issue. Sometimes the truth ‘we just don’t know yet’ would help people remain safer, because of more precautions.Quarantine is a safeguard and stubborn people are dangerous.
What data has changed? Do you have references to established that actual scientific data has changed?
Just because the CDC keeps changing the description does not mean the CDC is changing the information. What I see going on is that the CDC is explaining the same thing multiple times in different ways to try to get through to a public that is fixated on this idea that Ebola absolutely *must* be airborne. This, to me, is more an indication of the failure of the American education system than anything else--our level of science education is abysmal (but you can't sacrifice diversity training in favor of real education!)
Your terminology is not in line with what we are saying here...both have different definitions. We aren’t confused but you seem to be about what we are explaining.
My terminology is completely consistent with the scientific literature. I am very careful when I describe things, because I know that most people do not, in fact, have the benefit of a PhD education.
Do some research and leave me alone about it.
I have done the research, and continue to do the research. I do not expect you to answer; however, I will attempt to keep correct misunderstandings of the knowledge in this area. One of *my* motivations is to try to educate people, because the outcry of a misinformed public calling for things like quarantines that are not scientifically justified needlessly complicates the response to this outbreak. The outbreak needs to be stopped. I don't want to see misinformation derail the effort to stop it.
Forty of PRESIDENT REAGANS COMMENTS, IN REVERSE...enjoy!
40) “A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.”
39) “The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.”
38) “When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”
37) “Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.”
36) “A taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take a civil-service exam.”
35) “One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.”
34) “I am paying for this microphone…!” (When a debate moderator threatened to cut off his mike at a debate he paid for.)
33) “ I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” (To Walter Mondale at a debate)
32) “One legislator accused me of having a nineteenth-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an eighteenth-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government’s primary concerns.”
31) “There you go again.” (Reagan to Jimmy Carter in a debate)
30) “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”
29) “Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.”
28) “Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.’ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.”
27) “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
26) “I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”
25) “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”
24) “Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”
23) “The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated.”
22) “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”
21) “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”
20) “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them — this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’” (Speech about the Challenger disaster).
19) “Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
18) “It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”
17) “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”
16) “How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
15) “Trust, but verify.”
14) “I hope you’re all Republicans.” (to surgeons as he entered the operating room following his assassination attempt)
13) “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.” (Said during a radio microphone test, 1984)
12) “The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray to God we have not lost it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.”
11) “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”
10) “Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.”
9) “History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”
8) “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
7) “Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”
6) “Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.”
5) “Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.”
4) “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
3) “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
2) “We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.”
1) “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Topics:RONALD REAGAN
“My terminology is completely consistent with the scientific literature. I am very careful when I describe things, because I know that most people do not, in fact, have the benefit of a PhD education.”
roflmto.
Do not agree. It has been said over and over that ebola needs a way into the body—a point of ingress. Respiratory is only one way. It doesn’t need to be into the lungs, only the bodily fluids, which there are many on the way to the lungs. Much chatter about covering skin, completely. If it can gain entry though cracks in the skin, it can certainly enter through the easy points such as eyes, cuts, nose, mouth, and any other orifice.
It has already been said that a big reason it has not spread out of control up to now, in Africa, is that it affects those remote areas where people are localized and typically it runs its course before those people get to more populated areas, if at all.
Your post also is contra to the notion that it can survive in fluid such as semen up to 70-90 days, which has been put out there. So please clarify this for me.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3222360/posts
Comments on CDC now admitting what you are arguing against?
Ebola can enter through mucous membranes, like those in the mouth or eyes, it can be spread through sexual contact, or it can enter through tiny breaks in the skin.
However, it is not aerosol--you cannot catch Ebola by (for example) walking past the open window of a room where an Ebola patient is, or by entering a room where an Ebola patient was a few hours previously. You can catch measles or chicken pox in this manner, but not Ebola.
Ebola spreads by direct contact with infected bodily fluids. If someone who is sick with Ebola vomits nearby, and tiny droplets splash onto your bare skin, you could get Ebola through a microscopic cut in the skin. You can also get Ebola by handling items that have been soiled by an Ebola patient, unless you wear protection.
It has already been said that a big reason it has not spread out of control up to now, in Africa, is that it affects those remote areas where people are localized and typically it runs its course before those people get to more populated areas, if at all.
Even now, Ebola is not spreading rapidly. It is spreading because the health care systems in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia are so bad that there is no place for sick people to go. As a result, people sick with Ebola stay home, where their family members take care of them and often end up sick. The efforts to break those chains of transmission are ramping up, and we have already seen good results in Liberia. The weekly number of new cases has dropped.
Your post also is contra to the notion that it can survive in fluid such as semen up to 70-90 days, which has been put out there. So please clarify this for me.
My post stated that Ebola is not an airborne disease. That does not mean that it is not a sexually transmitted disease, or that it can't be transmitted by other forms of direct transmission. We've seen that it transmits directly: every case so far is a result of direct transmission. My post specified that Ebola cannot spread by indirect means.
My comment that Ebola does not infect the respiratory means that it does not grow in cells of the respiratory system, even though it can enter and cause sickness if you breathe drops of bodily fluids. It gains access through the respiratory system to the cells that it *does* infect, such as certain blood cells and the cells that form the structure of organs. Since it does not infect cells of the respiratory system, those cells do not secrete virus into mucous, so only bloody mucous would contain virus. You don't have to be able to see the blood for there to be an infectious quantity of virus.
It's more accurate to say "Journalists seek to create drama by saying CDC 'admits' that Ebola is spread by droplets exactly the way scientists and the CDC have always said it spreads."
Being able to catch a disease through the respiratory route does not mean the disease can spread that way. Droplet transmission is a form of direct transmission; aerosol transmission is indirect.
As an example, you can get anthrax by breathing spores, and you will almost certainly die from it, but anthrax is not a contagious disease.
Agree with most of what you said. However,...
“However, it is not aerosol—you cannot catch Ebola by (for example) walking past the open window of a room where an Ebola patient is, or by entering a room where an Ebola patient was a few hours previously.”
Your definitive is working against you. You should state the following: “It is highly unlikely that a person can become infected with Ebola by walking past a window...or by entering...”
“Direct contact” is another fuzzy phrase being bandied about. If direct contact implies tactile contact only, then BS. If the phrase includes 3-6 feet of non-tactile contact, but by a cough or the like, then it is reasonable.
Regarding “aerosol” and “airborne”, both are injections into the air, but one is suspended possibly indefinitely, and the other is not (gravity takes over). In any case, the aerosol form enables infection via the air on carrier particles (e.g., droplets); however short the distance may be.
“Being able to catch a disease through the respiratory route does not mean the disease can spread that way.”
In a purely respiratory sense of normal breathing, that makes sense. However, any slight cough or clearing the throat can be the mechanism for droplet emission, and hence infection, which of course is not respiration.
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