Re: Ebola fears
Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 12:09 pm
Seems Legit.
Another day in the Universe
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https://www.onthenatureofthings.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3062
Nonc Hilaire wrote:I remember when AIDS was first identified. People were afraid of mosquitoes and water fountains.
With luck, this will make wearing particulate masks in public as acceptable here as it is in Japan. It wouldn't do much for ebola, but it would help during flu season.
Doc wrote:How does HIV spread? 75 million infected world wide and it is harder to transmit than Ebola.
Yes.Doc wrote:Let me put it to you this way. I believe you have been to Brasil in the past. What would you think would happen if someone with Ebola entered the slums of Rio? DO you think the Brasilian government, like the governments of Britain and France, should ban flights and recent travelers from West Africa?
It is in the news in Japan, but not at the ENN breaking news level.Nonc Hilaire wrote:The Ebola fear porn is out of control. It is pervasive here.
Surely the US is not the only country with African travel. What is the Ebola scare like in other countries?
Get a flu shot. Its not perfect but can really help. Wash your hands, and stay home if you get sick. Around 24,000 people die each year in this country from seasonal flu. That is what people should really be paying attention to.Typhoon wrote:Nonc Hilaire wrote:I remember when AIDS was first identified. People were afraid of mosquitoes and water fountains.
With luck, this will make wearing particulate masks in public as acceptable here as it is in Japan. It wouldn't do much for ebola, but it would help during flu season.
Wearing a mask does help prevent flu spread if the wearer has the flu.
Apparently, not so effective in preventing a healthy individual from becoming infected.
Actually, it would be far better if people with the flu just stayed home until they got well, rather than having to demonstrate their company loyalty by show up sick and infecting others.
Nonc Hilaire wrote:The Ebola fear porn is out of control. It is pervasive here.
Surely the US is not the only country with African travel. What is the Ebola scare like in other countries?
Exactly.kmich wrote:Get a flu shot. Its not perfect but can really help. Wash your hands, and stay home if you get sick. Around 24,000 people die each year in this country from seasonal flu. That is what people should really be paying attention to.Typhoon wrote:Nonc Hilaire wrote:I remember when AIDS was first identified. People were afraid of mosquitoes and water fountains.
With luck, this will make wearing particulate masks in public as acceptable here as it is in Japan. It wouldn't do much for ebola, but it would help during flu season.
Wearing a mask does help prevent flu spread if the wearer has the flu.
Apparently, not so effective in preventing a healthy individual from becoming infected.
Actually, it would be far better if people with the flu just stayed home until they got well, rather than having to demonstrate their company loyalty by show up sick and infecting others.
Typhoon wrote:Doc wrote:How does HIV spread? 75 million infected world wide and it is harder to transmit than Ebola.
Aids never became the predicted plague in the industrialized world.
Like Ebola, it is effectively transmitted through ignorance.
Yes.Doc wrote:Let me put it to you this way. I believe you have been to Brasil in the past. What would you think would happen if someone with Ebola entered the slums of Rio? DO you think the Brasilian government, like the governments of Britain and France, should ban flights and recent travelers from West Africa?
My guess is that the favelas would be quarantined.
Maybe. More as a symbolic gesture to reassure the population.
It has reached a critical mass. It is going to happen sooner or later CSTyphoon wrote:I'll think about it when it actually happens.
Ebola outbreak: 'Five infected every hour' in Sierra Leone
A leading charity has warned that a rate of five new Ebola cases an hour in Sierra Leone means healthcare demands are far outstripping supply.
Save the Children said there were 765 new cases of Ebola reported in the West African state last week, while there are only 327 beds in the country.
Experts and politicians are set to meet in London to debate a global response to the crisis.
It is the world's worst outbreak of the virus, killing 3,338 people so far.
There have been 7,178 confirmed cases, with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea suffering the most.
Save the Children says Ebola is spreading across Sierra Leone at a "terrifying rate", with the number of new cases being recorded doubling every few weeks.
It said that even as health authorities got on top of the outbreak in one area, it spread to another.
The scale of the disease is also "massively unreported" according to the charity, because "untold numbers of children are dying anonymously at home or in the streets".
Up to 30 September
3,439
Deaths (probable, confirmed and suspected)
2,069 Liberia
739 Guinea
623 Sierra Leone
8 Nigeria
Source: WHOGetty
"We're in a race against time," said Justin Forsyth, the organisation's chief executive.
Speaking on the BBC's Today programme he said that the figure for Sierra Leone could rise to 10 people every hour before the end of the month if urgent action were not taken.
Meanwhile the head of the UN's mission to combat Ebola warned that the disease was spreading "very rapidly" and that a "massive international response" was required to deal with the crisis.
Anthony Banbury, who is in Liberia, said more needed to be done to educate remote communities about how to protect themselves from infection.
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Watch this short video explaining how the virus attacks human cells
"Cases are doubling every 20 days," he said. "The disease has now reached every county in Liberia."
Earlier this month, Britain said it would build facilities for 700 new beds in Sierra Leone but the first of these will not be ready for weeks, and the rest may take months.
Safety trials for two experimental vaccines are under way in the UK and US, the WHO said on Wednesday, and will be expanded to 10 sites in Africa, Europe and North America in the coming weeks.
Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.Anthony Banbury comments on the challenges in tackling Ebola
It said it expected to begin small-scale use of the experimental vaccines in West Africa early next year.
The Ebola Donors Conference in London on Thursday is being hosted by the UK and Sierra Leone governments. Its main agenda is to discuss what the global community can do to provide an effective international response.
Ministers, diplomats and health chiefs were due to arrive from about 20 different countries, including the US, France, Japan, Australia and all of the West African nations hit by the disease.
UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond asked the international community to back an emergency pilot scheme to stop the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone.
He said that the initiative involved setting up community health care centres to isolate patients at the early stages of infection when Ebola is less contagious.
"The alternative is allowing this disease to progress," said Mr Hammond, citing a worst-case scenario issued by experts that one and a half million people could be infected by January.
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The current outbreak is the deadliest since Ebola was discovered in 1976
The conference was also attended by William Pooley, the British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone but has since made a full recovery.
He said he did not know what would happen if the "horror and the misery" he witnessed was repeated a million times.
The president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, cancelled his attendance at the last minute.
The UK Foreign Office said this was due to his presidential jet breaking down before take-off.
An FCO spokesman said that delegates were hoping Mr Koroma would instead participate via video link.
The event has been billed as a "pledging conference" designed to raise millions of pounds for a UN fighting fund.
So you have talked to all 8 million people? Right.Zack Morris wrote:Nobody here in New York is worried or talking about it. Nobody.
The constitution "Provide for the common defense"And what right does the government have to quarantine people?
In Sierra Leone a country with a total population of 6 million, there are 5 new infections of Ebola reported per hour. Which is projected to go to 10 per hour in one week. What happens Zack Morris as that spreads And it does seem like it will spread as the relief and containment efforts appear to be completely swamped. What happens when this disease spreads to the rest of the third world? The places where those making less than $2.50 per day live? What happens when those 3 billion people are exposed? What are you going to say then about quarantines? "Well at least their rights weren't violated"?This is a violation of fundamental human rights. "Statistical probabilities" are no basis for depriving one of the rights endowed by their Creator. This is even more egregious than vaccines like Gardasil. Just because some secular Darwinists at the CDC claim it's "likely" HPV will be contracted doesn't mean it actually will. Likewise for Ebola (which sounds suspiciously like Obama, doesn't it?). Statistics is the best example of "fuzzy math" after all. Mark my words, this is all going to end with Obama herding us into high-speed trains bound for FEMA camps.
Well Like I was saying the Admin keeps making it worse by making announcements that "This will never happen" then within days or even hours it happens. Plus the head of the CDC does not seem to like to answer questions. That is the worse thing they can do when addressing the public.kmich wrote:While Ebola is relatively new to the US and Europe, it is hardly new for Africa. There have been dozens of outbreaks there in the last 30 years. While I have been to Africa on medical missions several times, I have not encountered Ebola in my practice, but I know physicians who have. Experience in containment and control has indicated that it is transmitted by fluids or droplet infection, and this outbreak appears to present the same pattern. If the current virus was airborne like flu, there would be hundreds of thousands dead in West Africa rather than the current estimated death toll of several thousand.
Ebola It is similar to meningitis in transmission and outbreak, and I have been in the midst of one of those in Uganda several years ago. Even though that was on a much smaller scale than the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the challenges are pretty similar from what my colleagues have told me and what I experienced. The problem is more social, cultural, and political than medical. Fear, panic, and stigma are by far the greatest danger which promotes uncontrolled spread and fragmentation of existing political and health systems. This appears to be the problem in Liberia. On the other hand, Nigeria seems to have gotten this one right with their quick identification, as well as capable, rapid, systemic responses after Ebola's introduction to Nigeria in July. They have not had a case identified since August 31 and have reported a total 20 cases and 8 deaths.
If we can’t do as well or better than Nigeria, we are in sorry shape here. The recent screw ups in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas are not particularly encouraging. Still, hysteria is absurd and counterproductive and only creates confusion with false reports, and more dangerously, people not reporting due to fear of quarantine. Cool it. We so sophisticated Westerners can actually learn from the African experience.
Parodite wrote:Here there is no panic at all, just vigilance.
kmich wrote:Ebola control at this stage is entirely a local challenge where community health systems will need to follow the algorithms and procedures that have been developed and they have trained on for years for percutaneous or droplet exposure. That is where people should be directing their efforts, questions, and attention. While national policy on something new and scary like Ebola is guaranteed to attract the partisan gadflies, particularly those with perennial distrust of the current administration or the government in general, it is not really that important at this stage in control.
There are many outbreaks, particularly in rural areas, that never get reported, particularly if they are isolated and of smaller scale. Also, community leaders prefer to hide disease outbreaks in their districts to maintain agricultural commerce and their reputations. Reporting has certainly improved over the years, but is still not reliable in Africa.Doc wrote:BTW that is very interesting you were in Africa during a outbreak I used to get a news server email feed of outbreaks of contagious diseases back in the 1990's SO I probably read about the same outbreak you were involved in. I don't know what happened to the news server. I just stopped getting the email at some point.