COVID-19 and Other Pandemics | Anarchy in the USA

[Zack Morris]

Because that would be news that would help the public. High information consumers like me.

The public are not "high information consumers". The media know this and cater to their audience, as any good for-profit business would. You're not a "high information consumer", either. If you were, you would be reading medical journals. A "high information consumer" would have done this by now, or at least Googled "epidemiology of ebola."

The media has been citing journal studies and interviewing researchers who have had experience dealing with Ebola. Here's an example from today. Look at that! References to journal papers and quotes from epidemiologists! Took all of 5 seconds to find this.

They've also presented both the consensus view that Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids of a person with visible symptoms,

Wow. Imagine, virus spread through contact. When you have symptoms. Boy you learned so much from those articles. Wow.

A "high information consumer" would know that many common viruses, like the flu, can be spread before the onset of visible symptoms, or are easily aerosolized, or can persist for days on fomites. Even the "low information" media has covered this but apparently, you're still in the dark.

I put my immovable goalpost up in the beginning. When there is a virus outbreak I want everyone to shut up except epidemiologists. When there is a shooting I want everyone shutting up except criminologists.

Which is pretty much what is happening with the constant stream of statements from the CDC, medical researchers, and personnel in charge of managing the US's Ebola response. I still don't know what Sharpton or Trump think about the situation but apparently you went to great lengths to seek out their opinions.

The reason why is you actually, exhibit A, you've claimed to read all the high end journalism and you can tell us nothing about it that a school child can know and yet you think you are informed.

What exactly do you want to know? Survival rates? R0 number relative to other infectious diseases (already posted here and, predictably, dismissed by you)? Evidence for/against Ebola being airborne? How long (and by what vectors) it can be transmitted after a patient recovers? How long Ebola survives outside the body?

A "high information consumer", like me, already knows all the answers to these. In all the time you've wasted on this board, how come you don't know yet?

And even without reading medical journals or paying particularly close attention to the media, one can infer that Ebola is not a major threat. Planeloads of people have been flying out of West Africa since the outbreak began and less than a handful of confirmed transmissions have occurred in the developed world. In all cases so far, they've been in healthcare workers tending to patients who contracted the virus in Africa. Thomas Duncan's family haven't yet shown signs of infections. One can infer from all this that Ebola isn't worth losing sleep over.

[Zack Morris]

Sounds worrying...

Ebola virus mutating rapidly as it spreads

Impossible because evolution isn't real! Everyone knows that mutations can only delete, not add, information. Therefore, Creation science tells us that Ebola will not be able to magically acquire new survival capabilities that allow it to persist outside of the human body or be aerosolized in the way that the flu can.

But in all seriousness, do you remember when the same alarms were sounded about the possibility of an avian flu pandemic a few years back? As I recall, the government and media's preemptive concern prompted derision from conservatives who took it as an example of Big Government fear-mongering. After the media storm subsided, it became another reason for them to distrust scientific expertise and, especially, governments and NGOs. I believe it may even have been cited as an example on this forum.

Now that something has happened (under Obama's watch, never mind that Ground Zero is in Africa), they're both mad as hell the experts haven't already solved the problem and don't believe what they say anyway.

These are people for whom science is an alien concept. It's hard to please the totally irrational.

[Doc]

Sounds worrying...

Ebola virus mutating rapidly as it spreads

[...]
The virus amassed 50 mutations during its first month, the researchers found. They say there is no sign that any of these mutations have contributed to the unprecedented size of the outbreak by changing the characteristics of the Ebola virus — for instance, its ability to spread from person to person or to kill infected patients. But others are eager to examine these questions.

And such risks rise as the virus continues to spread. “The longer we allow the outbreak to continue, the greater the opportunity the virus has to mutate, and it’s possible that it will mutate into a form that would be an even greater threat than it is right now,” says Charles Chiu, an infectious-disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco.

Constant monitoring
The mutations do not seem to be affecting the efficacy of experimental drugs and vaccines, some of which have been given to patients in this outbreak. Some changes have occurred in regions of the genome that are targeted by diagnostic tests. This does not mean the tests are ineffective, but confirming this and continuing to monitor such mutations will be crucial, Chiu says.

In the meantime, doctors and researchers say that the only way to end the outbreak is to send more health workers and supplies to affected regions, and to train Africans to diagnose, trace and treat Ebola.
[...]

Mutations are to be expected. I think I read somewhere that the rule of thumb is that only 1 in 500 mutations are fatal to whatever mutated. Though filoviruii are not technically alive. So the 50 mutations seen are almost certainly each a 1 in 500 occurrence. With 8000 some suspected cases of Ebola with about 1/4 confirmed. (There are probably many more but undiagnosed) that means the mutations are produce at least 0.625 percent for each confirmed infection. From what I understand there are probably a finite but very large number of possible mutations that Ebola can have. Going airborne is not the only mutation that can make transmission easier.

Mutations like longer incubation times would statistically make the virus more wide spread. Longer time being contagious would also make the transmission rate higher. Going airborne would basically mean that the virus would be able to survive in a great range of temperatures. AS it stands now it can only be airborne in liquid droplets at a fairly narrow range of temperature. It does not create dry spores that can be carried through the air, and from what the experts say it probably never will. however water droplets carrying it in greater temperature variations with make it spread more effectively.

The biggest problem at the moment seems to be suit decontamination. All that has to happen when taking off the hazmat suit is the briefest failure to follow the procedures. Like the Spanish nurse who without thinking touched her face with an Ebola exposed glove. One thing it seems like could be done to limit exposure if they are already not doing it is a bleach shower system before taking off the suit.

It would also greatly help If Obama would stop telling people incorrect information Like he did in his address to the people of West Africa Telling them "You can't get Ebola from sitting beside someone on the bus" Which is absolutely false AND contrary to what the CDC says.

[Doc]

Sounds worrying...

Ebola virus mutating rapidly as it spreads

Impossible because evolution isn't real! Everyone knows that mutations can only delete, not add, information. Therefore, Creation science tells us that Ebola will not be able to magically acquire new survival capabilities that allow it to persist outside of the human body or be aerosolized in the way that the flu can.

But in all seriousness, do you remember when the same alarms were sounded about the possibility of an avian flu pandemic a few years back? As I recall, the government and media's preemptive concern prompted derision from conservatives who took it as an example of Big Government fear-mongering. After the media storm subsided, it became another reason for them to distrust scientific expertise and, especially, governments and NGOs. I believe it may even have been cited as an example on this forum.

Now that something has happened (under Obama's watch, never mind that Ground Zero is in Africa), they're both mad as hell the experts haven't already solved the problem and don't believe what they say anyway.

These are people for whom science is an alien concept. It's hard to please the totally irrational.

Well then by what you are saying here I guess it is best to pray to God Obama to save us all.

[Doc]

http://time.com/3500231/5-ways-u-s-hosp ... for-ebola/

5 Ways U.S. Hospitals Need to Get Ready For Ebola


Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin
2:13 PM ET


New York's Bellevue Hospital Prepares For Possible Ebola Cases

Members of Bellevue Hospital staff wear protective clothing as they demonstrate how they would receive a suspected Ebola patient on Oct. 8, 2014 in New York City.

Spencer Platt—Getty Images

Dallas will be a "lessons learned" experience


The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital where a patient with the Ebola virus is being treated in Dallas on Oct. 1 2014.
More

“We don’t know what occurred, but at some point there was a breach in protocol,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a meeting with the press Sunday. The Dallas hospital worker is the second health care worker in the Western world to be infected with the disease, which begs the question: Are all hospitals really capable of caring for a patient with Ebola, as Americans have been repeatedly told?

The CDC is still insisting yes, but hospitals need to start listening very carefully to their guidance. The CDC has long been advising hospitals on how to take care of a potential patient, but the agency is kicking it up a notch this week given the new patient and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital’s blunders, including not admitting Duncan the first time he arrived at the hospital with a 103-degree fever.

The CDC is sending in a team of six to eight disease specialists to Dallas to help with infection control, a CDC spokesperson told TIME. A couple of those members just returned from Dallas on Friday, but given the new infection, they’re hopping back on the plane to help the hospital. “As that team continues to investigate what happened [at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital], it will be used as a lesson learned experience,” says CDC. President Obama also directed the CDC on Oct. 12 to investigate.

Every hospital in the U.S. has the equipment and isolation areas needed to treat someone with Ebola, but there’s no denying that the physicians at Emory University hospital, for example, have more experience and training. TIME visited the infectious disease team at Emory in August, and the team had been training for a situation like Ebola for 12 years, undergoing drills at least twice a year. That’s not the case at most medical facilities.

“You’re going to see us really making even more clear what hospitals need to be doing,” says the CDC spokesperson. “We are really trying to help health care workers understand the principles [they] need to follow and why, and how to do them.” The CDC received a 10-fold increase in calls from hospitals after a nurse in Spain was infected with Ebola.

1. Have a lead manager. Frieden said the CDC is recommending that hospitals have someone’s whose role it is to monitor the protocols that physicians and nurses are taking for protection. Taking on and off the protective equipment is one of the most high-risk scenarios and has to be done meticulously. “[Treating Ebola] can be done safely, but it’s hard to do safely,” Dr. Frieden said in the press conference, adding that even a single slip can result in contamination.

2. Learn from the country’s best. On Oct. 14, doctors at Emory and Nebraska—both best-in-class facilities when it comes to treating something like Ebola—will host a conference call for health care workers. On Oct. 21, the CDC and the Partnership for Quality Care will be hosting a live educational meeting in New York to show health care workers how to prepare their facilities and themselves. The CDC says the goal is to get 5,000 front-line health care workers there in person, and to also live stream it for those who cannot attend in person. The CDC has long been running a Health Alert Network that hospitals and individuals can subscribe to for notifications and advice on caring for diseases.

3. Get a patient’s travel history. The CDC says health workers should consider the possibility of Ebola if a patient exhibits fever, severe headache, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, or unexplained bleeding or bruising. If a patient has been to Ebola-affect countries, “immediate action should be taken.”

4. Isolate immediately. If a patient might have Ebola, they should be “isolated in a single room (with a private bathroom), and healthcare personnel should follow standard, contact, and droplet precautions, including the use of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE).”

5. Be protected. PPE should consist of gloves, gown, eye protection (goggles or face shield), and a face mask. In situations where there may be copious amounts of bodily fluids like blood, vomit and feces, health workers should consider double gloving, wearing disposable shoe covers and leg coverings. Some hospitals may choose hazmat suits, since those suits are made up of fewer pieces—which means it’s less for doctors to take on and off.

You can read more of the CDC’s recommendations here.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Returning to the CDC mask guidance, an October 5, 2014 article on this topic notes that the specification for the N-95 mask is that it is designed to block 95 percent of particles 300 nanometers in width or larger. The Ebola virus, at 80 nanometers in width, is much smaller than that, barely one-fourth the size. As such, it could theoretically pass right through the mask, in either direction. So, not only may the CDC guidance be putting health care workers at risk, it may put those who the health care workers come in contact with, in a hospital or other healthcare setting, at risk. http://www.phibetaiota.net/2014/10/cdc- ... nt-add-up/

In an article published in the November 2010 issue of the Journal of Applied Microbiology, the authors present data suggesting that both of the filoviruses studied, Ebola virus (EBOV) and Marburg virus (MARV), can be recovered from a solid substrate (PVC plastic and glass – metals, not so), outside of an active host, for over 7 weeks. The article notes:

“Viruses display a range of survival times within the environment. Variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox, for example, can remain infectious in dust and on tissue for up to 1 year, whereas influenza virus has a low level of survival and only retains its infectivity on surfaces for a matter of days (Harper 1961). Data generated in this study suggested that both EBOV and MARV could be recovered from contaminated substrates for at least 50 days. No comparable data have been published by other groups; however in a recent study undertaken to assess the risk of transmission of Sudan ebolavirus from bodily fluids and fomites, virus was detected by PCR in a number of samples. No data were recorded however, as to the length of time virus was able to survive in these samples (Bausch et al. 2007).” http://thenewsdoctors.com/ebola-studies ... dc-mantra/

First and foremost, there is the mantra being repeated in the mainstream media and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that Ebola can only be transmitted via direct contact with the bodily fluids of an actively infected person. This is a bit of semantic legerdemain meant to deceive the general public, and is borderline reckless. Lulling yourself into a false sense of security can get you killed.

Direct contact with bodily fluids can include airborne droplets that are expelled from the infected host via a sneeze or a cough. A plain language account of how viruses can propagate and persist includes the following:

“The smaller and lighter particles (those that are five microns or less across) are less affected by gravity and can stay airborne almost indefinitely as they are caught up in and dispersed by the room’s airflow.”

For comparison, an Ebola virus particle has a width of 80 nanometers – 62.5 times smaller than 5 microns, the typical diameter of a human red blood cell. Ebola virus is tiny. Even once a particle settles to the floor, don’t expect it to stay there – it can easily become airborne once again, as the cited article goes on to explain:

“Opening a door can dramatically alter the airflow in the room and pull up viruses on the floor. Even walking through a room can spread droplets in a person’s wake.”

“If a person is sick, the droplets in a single cough may contain as many as two hundred million individual virus particles.”

“Once airborne, viruses in these tiny droplets can survive for hours. Even if the droplets hit a surface, the viruses can survive and still spread disease if the droplets become airborne later. When a droplet lands on paper, its virus particles can survive for hours. On steel or plastic they can survive for days.” http://thenewsdoctors.com/ebola-studies ... dc-mantra/

[Mr. Perfect]

I understand people being scared about ebola. What I don't understand is why the U.S. Public Health Service is so completely absent. This is the quasi-military service whose mission is to be the first responders to exactly this type of threat.

http://www.usphs.gov/aboutus/history.aspx

Which is why you never trust the government with health care. Thank you NH for providing powerful arguments against single payer and government healthcare. I am glad you are coming around.

[Zack Morris]

Nonc: Maybe they're absent because only a single person has been infected with Ebola in the United States?

[Doc]

Returning to the CDC mask guidance, an October 5, 2014 article on this topic notes that the specification for the N-95 mask is that it is designed to block 95 percent of particles 300 nanometers in width or larger. The Ebola virus, at 80 nanometers in width, is much smaller than that, barely one-fourth the size. As such, it could theoretically pass right through the mask, in either direction. So, not only may the CDC guidance be putting health care workers at risk, it may put those who the health care workers come in contact with, in a hospital or other healthcare setting, at risk. http://www.phibetaiota.net/2014/10/cdc- ... nt-add-up/

In an article published in the November 2010 issue of the Journal of Applied Microbiology, the authors present data suggesting that both of the filoviruses studied, Ebola virus (EBOV) and Marburg virus (MARV), can be recovered from a solid substrate (PVC plastic and glass – metals, not so), outside of an active host, for over 7 weeks. The article notes:

“Viruses display a range of survival times within the environment. Variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox, for example, can remain infectious in dust and on tissue for up to 1 year, whereas influenza virus has a low level of survival and only retains its infectivity on surfaces for a matter of days (Harper 1961). Data generated in this study suggested that both EBOV and MARV could be recovered from contaminated substrates for at least 50 days. No comparable data have been published by other groups; however in a recent study undertaken to assess the risk of transmission of Sudan ebolavirus from bodily fluids and fomites, virus was detected by PCR in a number of samples. No data were recorded however, as to the length of time virus was able to survive in these samples (Bausch et al. 2007).” http://thenewsdoctors.com/ebola-studies ... dc-mantra/

First and foremost, there is the mantra being repeated in the mainstream media and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that Ebola can only be transmitted via direct contact with the bodily fluids of an actively infected person. This is a bit of semantic legerdemain meant to deceive the general public, and is borderline reckless. Lulling yourself into a false sense of security can get you killed.

Direct contact with bodily fluids can include airborne droplets that are expelled from the infected host via a sneeze or a cough. A plain language account of how viruses can propagate and persist includes the following:

“The smaller and lighter particles (those that are five microns or less across) are less affected by gravity and can stay airborne almost indefinitely as they are caught up in and dispersed by the room’s airflow.”

For comparison, an Ebola virus particle has a width of 80 nanometers – 62.5 times smaller than 5 microns, the typical diameter of a human red blood cell. Ebola virus is tiny. Even once a particle settles to the floor, don’t expect it to stay there – it can easily become airborne once again, as the cited article goes on to explain:

“Opening a door can dramatically alter the airflow in the room and pull up viruses on the floor. Even walking through a room can spread droplets in a person’s wake.”

“If a person is sick, the droplets in a single cough may contain as many as two hundred million individual virus particles.”

“Once airborne, viruses in these tiny droplets can survive for hours. Even if the droplets hit a surface, the viruses can survive and still spread disease if the droplets become airborne later. When a droplet lands on paper, its virus particles can survive for hours. On steel or plastic they can survive for days.” http://thenewsdoctors.com/ebola-studies ... dc-mantra/

Here is the manual from the CDC for health care workers to avoid infection and how to deal with Ebola patients and patients with other diseases.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/abroad/pdf/afric ... ng-vhf.pdf

Note that they refer to cotton masks. The cotton is meant to absorb small air borne water droplets among other things. They also talk about HEPA air filtration. HEPA Filters by law filter particles down to 0.3 micro meters (One micro meter = one micron)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_viru ... ansmission
Airborne transmission has not been documented during EVD outbreaks.[2] They are, however, infectious as breathable 0.8–1.2 μm laboratory-generated droplets.[37]

[Nonc Hilaire]

Doc: Ebola = 80 nm, or .08 microns. This is why researchers use positive pressure suits.

Zack: now there are two.

Mr. P.: not even wrong.

[Zack Morris]

Nonc: who is the second person? Last I heard, the only person so far to have contracted Ebola on US soil was a nurse tending to Thomas Duncan. Duncan himself contracted it in Liberia. Someone else who was in contact with the nurse is being monitored in isolation.

[Zack Morris]

To put things into perspective, the 2009 flu pandemic is estimated to have killed ~280 thousand people worldwide. The flu is more contagious than Ebola.

[Doc]

Doc: Ebola = 80 nm, or .08 microns. This is why researchers use positive pressure suits.

800nm last time I checked.

Here is a diagram of(IT may have already been posted here) what is understood to be the "airborne" route of transmission of a virus. Note the shaded area represents the distance that Zaire Ebola is known to travel



Which is part of this explanation
http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com/2 ... plets.html

Included in guidelines issued by the WHO (7) and CDC (5) is the need for droplet precautions (Figure). This is very important for healthcare workers, family and other caregivers who stay close and are frequently exposed for lengthy periods of time with severely ill, highly virulent cases of EVD. These cases may actively propel infectious droplets containing vomit and blood across the short distances separating them from caregivers. But this is a form of direct transmission, and is not airborne transmission.

It goes on to say that they do not know why Ebola does not transmitted by the same airborne means that something like the flu does *naturally* But they theorize that it doesn't because of droplet evaporation of droplets that are light enough to travel further. .[/quote]

[Doc]

To put things into perspective, the 2009 flu pandemic is estimated to have killed ~280 thousand people worldwide. The flu is more contagious than Ebola.

And much less deadly.

[Mr. Perfect]

Doc: Ebola = 80 nm, or .08 microns. This is why researchers use positive pressure suits.

Zack: now there are two.

Mr. P.: not even wrong.

NH: The government is botching the response, therefore we need more government

Zack Morris. I just learned viruses are contagious, and unless we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dead, y'all are hysterical teabaggers. One school shooting, let's delete the 2nd Amendment, but we can absorb few hundred thousand ebola deaths no problem. It's forward thinking.

[Doc]

Doc: Ebola = 80 nm, or .08 microns. This is why researchers use positive pressure suits.

Zack: now there are two.

Mr. P.: not even wrong.

NH: The government is botching the response, therefore we need more government

Zack Morris. I just learned viruses are contagious, and unless we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dead, y'all are hysterical teabaggers. One school shooting, let's delete the 2nd Amendment, but we can absorb few hundred thousand ebola deaths no problem. It's forward thinking.

Think progress -- just missing the gas chambers

YG33HvIKOgQ

[Mr. Perfect]

The public are not "high information consumers". The media know this and cater to their audience, as any good for-profit business would. You're not a "high information consumer", either. If you were, you would be reading medical journals. A "high information consumer" would have done this by now, or at least Googled "epidemiology of ebola."

The media has been citing journal studies and interviewing researchers who have had experience dealing with Ebola. Here's an example from today. Look at that! References to journal papers and quotes from epidemiologists! Took all of 5 seconds to find this.

I am a high information consumer, I deal in professional level data in different disciplines on a daily basis. I'm a part owner of a data collection business.

As such I recognize high information data, while you apparently do not. None of what you have said has any bearing on the fact that the MSM is information barren on the subject.

A "high information consumer" would know that many common viruses, like the flu, can be spread before the onset of visible symptoms, or are easily aerosolized, or can persist for days on fomites. Even the "low information" media has covered this but apparently, you're still in the dark.

Everybody knows viruses are contagious Zack Morris. Everyone. We didn't need you, or an LA Times article to tell us that. We all already knew. You are the only who apparently this is news. Lo info.

Which is pretty much what is happening with the constant stream of statements from the CDC, medical researchers, and personnel in charge of managing the US's Ebola response. I still don't know what Sharpton or Trump think about the situation but apparently you went to great lengths to seek out their opinions.

The media went to great lengths to give me their opinions. I go to great lengths to ignore them.

So far,

What exactly do you want to know? Survival rates? R0 number relative to other infectious diseases (already posted here and, predictably, dismissed by you)? Evidence for/against Ebola being airborne? How long (and by what vectors) it can be transmitted after a patient recovers? How long Ebola survives outside the body?

I want to know and you have not answered:

What is happening
What is likely to happen
What should we do.

That is the realm of the epidemiologist, who cannot get broad access to the media.

A "high information consumer", like me, already knows all the answers to these. In all the time you've wasted on this board, how come you don't know yet?

You do not know the answers to the questions I have put forward, basic questions, you didn't even think to ask. Lo info.

And even without reading medical journals or paying particularly close attention to the media, one can infer that Ebola is not a major threat.

Judging by your responses to mass shootings, open carry patriots and AR15s, you are in no position whatsoever to infer threats.

Planeloads of people have been flying out of West Africa since the outbreak began and less than a handful of confirmed transmissions have occurred in the developed world. In all cases so far, they've been in healthcare workers tending to patients who contracted the virus in Africa. Thomas Duncan's family haven't yet shown signs of infections. One can infer from all this that Ebola isn't worth losing sleep over.

That's great. We have your worthless opinion, I am going to go with scientists, not you.

[Zack Morris]

I'm a part owner of a data collection business.

There's a market for low-latency Al Sharpton and Donald Trump press release delivery?

Everybody knows viruses are contagious Zack Morris. Everyone. We didn't need you, or an LA Times article to tell us that. We all already knew. You are the only who apparently this is news. Lo info.

You apparently didn't know. You should read the LA Times more. It's reading-age appropriate.

The media went to great lengths to give me their opinions. I go to great lengths to ignore them.

You're the only person I've encountered who has, uh, collected Sharpton and Trump's opinion. I don't recall seeing anything.

What is happening
What is likely to happen
What should we do.

That is the realm of the epidemiologist, who cannot get broad access to the media.

Oh, you want to know the future! There's a number you can call for that:

That's great. We have your worthless opinion, I am going to go with scientists, not you.

Yeah, sure you will. Until they say something that offends your political or religious sensibilities.

[Mr. Perfect]

There's a market for low-latency Al Sharpton and Donald Trump press release delivery?

Yeah. It's called the mainstream media and you seem to like them.

You apparently didn't know. You should read the LA Times more. It's reading-age appropriate.

No. Even my kids know. You were the only one who felt the need to instruct what you discovered in your lo info media products. Nobody even felt the need to bring it up. Everyone else knew that viruses are contagious.

Everyone but you.

You're the only person I've encountered who has, uh, collected Sharpton and Trump's opinion. I don't recall seeing anything.

I didn't collect their opinion. They are simply go to information sources for the MSM you are defending. Your epic reading comprehension problems get you in so much trouble.

Oh, you want to know the future! There's a number you can call for that:

Actually if you had gone to college then you would know that is the purpose of science. To predict the future.

Yeah, sure you will. Until they say something that offends your political or religious sensibilities.

I guess we have that in common.

[Typhoon]

. . .
Oh, you want to know the future! There's a number you can call for that:

Actually if you had gone to college then you would know that is the purpose of science. To predict the future.

Actually, no. The purpose of science is to test hypotheses. Those that pass experimental tests become theories.

The track record of scientists predicting "the future" is no better than that of anyone else.

[Typhoon]

Speaking of science . . .

WSJ | Canada Launches Clinical Trials of Ebola Vaccine

Initial Results Expected as Early as December

Tip of the hat to the Canadians. While everyone else has been arguing and panicking, they've been quitely working on a Ebola vaccine for years.

VSV-EBOV

[Mr. Perfect]

Actually, no. The purpose of science is to test hypotheses. Those that pass experimental tests become theories.

The purpose of testing hypotheses is so that one can find rules that have 100% replicable, predictable results. With f=ma I can predict, repeatedly, what will happen to physical objects under certain conditions. Same thing with chemical formula and electrical relationships.

As an EE I can predict what will happen in a circuit, over and over again without any errors. That is the whole point of the scientific method. Finding rules and laws that operate predictably without fail.

The track record of scientists predicting "the future" is no better than that of anyone else.

Indeed. But we have a whole batch or rules and laws that have no record of failure. I think people who have a record of failure when it comes to the scientific realm can be stripped of the title. Because they fundamentally don't understand what science is.

[noddy]

huge difference between a closed system with a single variable and an open system with chaotic variations in terms of predictability.

you can find "rules" in the former, in the latter you can only find "statistics".

predictions are borderline useless, all you have is paranoia and bravery and the lines between..

[Mr. Perfect]

Well there is science, which is infallible, the measure of cause and effect with no deviation. Then you have statistics, which is the measure of correlations, and it measures deviation.

People fall into trouble when they can't differentiate. Statistics is useful, but is not science. And statistics is all we have when the science cannot be determined, due largely to complexity.

Epidemiology is statistics, which is fallible, but much better than the headless chickens in the much defended liberal MSM.

[Doc]

Speaking of science . . .

WSJ | Canada Launches Clinical Trials of Ebola Vaccine

Initial Results Expected as Early as December

Tip of the hat to the Canadians. While everyone else has been arguing and panicking, they've been quitely working on a Ebola vaccine for years.

VSV-EBOV

Zmapp has been around for years as well However Obama never spent the money to move it forward into clinical trials and production

Anyway let hope even at this late date that the vaccine works and is available sooner than later