MedPage | Flu Deaths Hit Epidemic Threshold
Higher than normal rates of influenza-like illness seen across the USA
Higher than normal rates of influenza-like illness seen across the USA
Thank You Very Much for your post, Zack Morris.Zack Morris wrote:Good thing level-headed Obama and his supremely-competent scientifically-minded administrators are in power here. If it were the Republicans, they would have succumbed to fear and paranoia, blown the epidemic out of proportion, banned travel, and incited panic. Obama's foes don't even believe in basic tenets of biology like evolution. Their ability to understand epidemiology and virology is questionable.
IMHO not so much.....level-headed Obama and his supremely-competent scientifically-minded administrators
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... oCard.htmlThe doctor currently being treated for Ebola in New York lied to police about travelling around the city for six days before he was quarantined, it has been revealed.
Dr Craig Spencer initially told officers that he had isolated himself in his Harlem apartment after returning from Guinea where he had been treating people for the illness.
It was only when cops checked his MetroCard and bank statement that they realised he had been roaming the city for nearly a week, visiting a sandwich shop, taking an Uber cab, and going bowling.
It was only when officers rang Dr Spencer and confronted him with the evidence that he confessed, according to the New York Post.
Ahh Excuse me. I posted stats because many here seem to think the crisis is over. Previously I posted articles highly critical of the CDC because the CDC screwed up in its initial guidance, and of the WHO because it completely under estimated the out break initially. Even began to close down its response just as the Ebola really started to break out. But more concerning is that Ebola is a serious threat to the WORLD. Particularly the third world. If it were to get loose in some of the other slums of the third world the loss of life would be absolutely devastating. TO THE POINT IT WOULD BE BIBLICAL IN MAGNITUDEZack Morris wrote:All you've done is post updates with no commentary except to bag on Obama, the CDC, and now the WHO. It's totally transparent: you are blaming big government and the much-hated "experts" for this but can point to no superior model. Big and inefficient bureaucracies are easy to pick on but what would you rather have? A decentralized response? Nothing at all? Until you and your peeps drop your relentless cynicism and foaming-at-the-mouth outrage at everything the government and international organizations do, and propose a specific vision of how international society should be structured, you'll have to endure my mockery.
I fart in your general direction!
http://www.dw.de/ebola-death-toll-goes- ... a-18172023Ebola death toll goes past 8,000: WHO
The UN's health agency says the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed at least 8,000 people. Sierra Leone had the biggest increase in fatalities since last week.
British health workers lift a newly admitted Ebola patient onto a wheeled stretcher in to the Kerry town Ebola treatment centre outside Freetown December 22, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
More than 8,000 people have died in West Africa in the Ebola outbreak there, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
The WHO said that the 8,153 deaths were among 20,656 known cases of the hemorrhagic fever in the three countries, representing a mortality rate of 39 percent. It said 2,915 deaths had been reported from Sierra Leone, 3,471 from Liberia and 1,767 from Guinea.
Sierra Leone had the largest rise in fatalities since the previous figures were issued on January 2, recording 88 deaths.
In other words the death toll is certainly higher than is being reported. Maybe as high as the 20,000 predicted, or even more. With no sign of anything but continued spread of the virus.Liberia struggles with how to bury dead from Ebola - Live 5 News
"A new burial site for Ebola victims was prepared in Monrovia on Monday as the Liberian government put an end to the cremation of the dead from Ebola. Cremation violates values and cultural practices in the West African country. The order has so disturbed people that the sick were often kept at home and, if they died, were being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections. At the new burial ground at Disco Hill, Christians and Muslims are now buried according to the religious traditions in separate blocks of the graveyard. "When they were burning people, at that time, because it wasn't our culture, we were not feeling fine (happy)," said Elijah Voka, one of the men working in graveyard. The head of the workers at the gravesites say they work daily to prepare around 25 graves a day for those who died of Ebola. A U.N. health agency said on Monday that 3,471 people have died from the disease in Liberia. The Ebola virus is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, vomit or feces."
Zack Morris wrote:Yet somehow I am still unaffected by this.
Ebola got most of the attention in 2014. It killed about 8,000 people. Meanwhile, over the same period of time about 3.6 million people died from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The truth is that despite great progress in healthcare, much of the world is still blighted by preventable disease, with the poorest people suffering the most. The good news is that tackling these diseases turn out to be an extraordinary good investment.
Yes but it has the potential to kill so man more. Magnitudes more Also the potential for mutations to more easily transmitted form is based on how wide spread it is among humans. If for example it managed to go airborne game over for the human race. Or at least the world as we know itTyphoon wrote:Lomborg | Ebola kills far fewer than Aids, TB and malaria. What should we prioritise?
Ebola got most of the attention in 2014. It killed about 8,000 people. Meanwhile, over the same period of time about 3.6 million people died from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The truth is that despite great progress in healthcare, much of the world is still blighted by preventable disease, with the poorest people suffering the most. The good news is that tackling these diseases turn out to be an extraordinary good investment.
Any disease can mutate. Nothing we can do about this aspect of nature or predict it.Doc wrote:Yes but it has the potential to kill so man more. Magnitudes more Also the potential for mutations to more easily transmitted form is based on how wide spread it is among humans. If for example it managed to go airborne game over for the human race. Or at least the world as we know itTyphoon wrote:Lomborg | Ebola kills far fewer than Aids, TB and malaria. What should we prioritise?
Ebola got most of the attention in 2014. It killed about 8,000 people. Meanwhile, over the same period of time about 3.6 million people died from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The truth is that despite great progress in healthcare, much of the world is still blighted by preventable disease, with the poorest people suffering the most. The good news is that tackling these diseases turn out to be an extraordinary good investment.
The number of reported cases is dropping in West Africa, World Health Organization officials report.
Okay The Spanish Flu had a death rate of 2.5% Ebola typically has a death rate of over 60% Though with intensive treatment it is possible that it can be brought down.Typhoon wrote:Any disease can mutate. Nothing we can do about this aspect of nature or predict it.Doc wrote:Yes but it has the potential to kill so man more. Magnitudes more Also the potential for mutations to more easily transmitted form is based on how wide spread it is among humans. If for example it managed to go airborne game over for the human race. Or at least the world as we know itTyphoon wrote:Lomborg | Ebola kills far fewer than Aids, TB and malaria. What should we prioritise?
Ebola got most of the attention in 2014. It killed about 8,000 people. Meanwhile, over the same period of time about 3.6 million people died from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The truth is that despite great progress in healthcare, much of the world is still blighted by preventable disease, with the poorest people suffering the most. The good news is that tackling these diseases turn out to be an extraordinary good investment.
The H1N1 influenze virus mutation infected, in 1918, about 500 million people, killing between 50 to 100 million of them which was 3 to 5 percent of the world's population at that time.
The black death [bubonic plague] plague killed off between 30 to 60 percent of Europe's population in the 14th century.
Oddly enough, humanity survived both.
Fortunately, we know a lot more know about disease and how to deal with it.
The Sci | Ebola Epidemic on the Wane?
The number of reported cases is dropping in West Africa, World Health Organization officials report.
Ebola has the potential to become truly airborne in transmission. Nonc is right in saying little is known about this disease relative to other diseases. Now that it has occurred in the US I expect a lot more to be known about it very quickly relative to the speed it was being studied at prior to this outbreak. As now people (That have money relative to people in Africa who don't) are paying a lot more attention to it.Zack Morris wrote:Epidemics are not parameterized only by their death rate but also by how the disease spreads. Think of the concept of expectation: the expected value of an outcome is the probability of the outcome occurring multiplied by the value of the outcome. You can dial one number down and dial the other one up to end up with a situation where the scenario assigned the lower value has a higher likelihood of occurring.
Zack Morris wrote:
Above all, it is important to give praise where praise is due: the Obama administration, which successfully prevented a biological 9/11 that came out of nowhere!
Just to say the WHO blew the initial response in Africa and the CDC blew the initial response in the US by giving out the wrong guidelines. As for what the scientists said -- it is closer to what I said they said than what you said they said.Zack Morris wrote:I don't think anyone is against more research. But don't pretend that public health officials and epidemiologists were ill-informed -- there is already enough understanding of infectious diseases in general, and hemorrhagic fevers in particular, to mount a competent response. The possibility of something like Ebola or Marburg becoming airborne is real but not any sort of imminent threat. That previously unknown, deadly, and highly contagious diseases can emerge and strike at any time is certainly a problem that has been contemplated for a very long time now.
I think you guys should settle down. Next thing you know, you'll be clamoring for the experts to address climate change and asteroids. As far as this Ebola epidemic is concerned, it played out pretty much exactly like scientists said it would. None of your wild speculation and fantasies of African carnage came close to coming true.
Above all, it is important to give praise where praise is due: the Obama administration, which successfully prevented a biological 9/11 that came out of nowhere!
Ebola cases on rise for first time this year, WHO says
GENEVA Thu Feb 5, 2015 12:23am IST
(Reuters) - The number of new weekly Ebola cases rose for first time in 2015 in all three of the hard-hit countries of West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
Sierra Leone accounted for 80 of the 124 new cases of the disease confirmed in the week to Feb. 1, it said. Guinea recorded 39 cases while Liberia had just five.
"Weekly case incidence increased in all three countries for the first time this year," the WHO said in its latest update.
Community resistance to aid workers, increasing geographical spread in Guinea and widespread transmission in Sierra Leone remain "significant challenges" to ending the epidemic, it said.
The statistics I cited are just the projections from what had already occurred up to the point in this outbreak.Nonc Hilaire wrote:These statistics are not informative because ebola is just too unknown and unpredictable. It's been a long time since I have read anything about the actual disease or the public health models now in use.
Now everybody is panicking about measles returning in the US. Somehow the handful of people who do not want their kids vaccinated are demonized under an incredibly flawed 'herd immunity' model, while the same voices applaud the thousands of unvaccinated immigrants the government is importing.
WHO, USPHS, CDC, NIH and a 'public health czar' all 'contributing' and we still are at risk for ebola, HIV, measles and autism. Makes no sense to me.
Doc and folks,Doc wrote: The statistics I cited are just the projections from what had already occurred up to the point in this outbreak.
manolo wrote:Doc and folks,Doc wrote: The statistics I cited are just the projections from what had already occurred up to the point in this outbreak.
The Beeb announced last night that President Obama has defeated ebola in Africa and is bringing all the US personnel back home.
How does he do it?
Alex.
By not caring. An ebola outbreak is over when there are no new cases for 21 days. This has not happened as of yet and is very similar to what the WHO did at the beginning of this outbreak which has lead to as of yesterday 9,152 deaths up 150 from three days ago. Which means it is getting worse not better and your guy is bugging out.manolo wrote:Doc and folks,Doc wrote: The statistics I cited are just the projections from what had already occurred up to the point in this outbreak.
The Beeb announced last night that President Obama has defeated ebola in Africa and is bringing all the US personnel back home.
How does he do it?
Alex.
WHO: Ebola Deaths, Infections on the Rise
VOA News
Last updated on: February 10, 2015 6:08 PM
The number of deaths from Ebola has risen to 9,152, a sharp increase following weeks in which the outbreak appeared to be weakening.
The death toll reported Tuesday by the World Health Organization represents a jump of nearly 150 deaths since the agency's last update three days earlier.
The WHO said the number of new cases climbed by 303, with 136 new cases in Liberia, 113 in Sierra Leone, and 54 in Guinea.
Dr. David Nabarro, the U.N. special envoy on Ebola, told reporters in Geneva that the new numbers showed the outbreak was not yet under control. He said the goal is to reduce the number of new cases to zero.
"Good progress is being made, but the outbreak still represents a grave threat," Nabarro said, "and we really hope that there will be no complacency in anybody involved in the response. We have to really work hard to get zero cases, zero transmissions."
Health experts have cautioned West Africans against becoming complacent about the disease. The WHO recently said a single unsafe burial in Guinea last month caused 11 confirmed Ebola cases.
Those killed by the virus remain contagious and must be buried by workers in protective equipment.
At the United Nations on Tuesday, a letter from three world leaders said the Ebola outbreak had exposed the "weakness'' of international crisis response.
The letter, from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Ghanaian President John Mahama, was given to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It asked the U.N. chief to create a high-level panel and to commission a report on how nations can react more quickly and with better coordination in the face of disaster.
A large-scale trial of two potential Ebola vaccines began earlier this month in Liberia. Organizers of the study, led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, aim to enlist a total of around 27,000 healthy men and women for the trial.
The WHO has said there is an urgent need to end the outbreak before the wet season begins and access to remote areas becomes more difficult.
People should be concerned about measles:Nonc Hilaire wrote:These statistics are not informative because ebola is just too unknown and unpredictable. It's been a long time since I have read anything about the actual disease or the public health models now in use.
Now everybody is panicking about measles returning in the US. Somehow the handful of people who do not want their kids vaccinated are demonized under an incredibly flawed 'herd immunity' model, while the same voices applaud the thousands of unvaccinated immigrants the government is importing.
WHO, USPHS, CDC, NIH and a 'public health czar' all 'contributing' and we still are at risk for ebola, HIV, measles and autism. Makes no sense to me.