Ebola on the horizon?

[T.Lex]

More or less on cue, WHO updated numbers as of 5 Oct 2014: 8033 cases and 3879 deaths.

Spike in reported cases/deaths - both in absolute and average.

Trendline using prior ^3 polynomial predicts <12k by the end of the month, which would represent a slowdown.

Interestingly, now, a ^4 polynomial curve better fits the existing data points, and would show a diminishing rate of increase by the end of the month.

 

[harrna02]

Since I don't eat many monkeys or bats, and I am a firm believer in avoiding contact with bodily fluids of people who bleed from every orifice, I don't think I'll head to the bunker just yet.

I think the panic a disease like this could generate in the US would be far more destructive than the disease itself.

i agere, but there is nothing wrong with being prepared just in case. think of the alternative. it happens and ur not prepared!

 

[T.Lex]

21 days infected and no symptoms? that is really scary. do you know at what stage you become contagious?

There does not seem to be reliable data on an average/mean/typical time from exposure to symptomatic/contagious. What I have seen described is that it takes at least 2 days from the time of exposure and is resolved by 21 days.

Basically, there is a 3 week period after exposure in which someone may start showing symptoms and become contagious. That's why they quarantine people for that long.

 

[dusty88]

Apparently dogs can carry it. Lovely.

probably not so easily as implied

In a prior study showing some seropositive conversions (meaning the dogs were exposed but not sick), the dogs were all likely in areas where they had eaten the bodies of other infected animals (such as bats).

The euthanasia of the dog in Spain was either precaution or paranoia. I haven't studied enough yet about the transmission to decide which.

 

[DanSwanky]

When I read that they killed her dog rather than trying to quarantine it made me wonder how I would react if I got the news that gov officials came in a killed my two dogs as a "just in case" precaution.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=123359

U.S. Southern Command: "There is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa. If it comes to the Western Hemisphere, many countries have little ability to deal with an outbreak. If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States."

 

[DanSwanky]

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=123359

U.S. Southern Command: "There is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa. If it comes to the Western Hemisphere, many countries have little ability to deal with an outbreak. If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States."

I think the result of the panic ebola will cause will greatly outweigh the actual damage of ebola itself.

 

[indiucky]

I just had a conversation with a young gentleman I did a transfer for...I could tell by his accent he "twerent from around here" as it were...As he he was filling out his 4473 he placed his country of birth as "Liberia"....After I called him in, got approval, and gave him his Glock I said, "Brother, I hate what your Country of birth is going through right now and I hope if you still have people over there that they are all okay.."

That's when he told me that in the last thirty days he has lost his father, mother, aunt and some cousins to Ebola....He said a month and a half ago, his father, a US citizen and retired from the US Army went back to Liberia to try to bring his mother to the US...He called three days after arriving, said all was well...Three days after that he got another call from his father telling him that he and his mom were both sick but not to worry...One week later his aunt called to tell him that both his father and mother had passed and then a week later the aunt who had called him had passed as well.....


This was thirty minutes ago when he told me this...He also said that when the rainy season ends in a month and all of these isolated villages can be reached via automobile that we will get a true look at the death toll.....He said that what we are hearing from the media here and what his dad described that he saw before his passing are not on the same page.....

It was the scariest conversation I have had in years......

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Marine Corps holds pandemic outbreak drill

http://freebeacon.com/national-secu...rns-of-ebola-like-disease-outbreak-in-uganda/

 

[PistolBob]

I'll say it....the CDC and the WHO and the Obama Administration have no handle on anything certain when it comes to this virus. They are making educated guesses. This thing made it's debut in 1976, WHO has had almost 40 years to work on it, but no. We had the whole world studying AIDS instead.

We don't know what we're dealing with yet.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Simpsons called it

 

[dusty88]

Informative press release on the "Ebola and dogs" issue:

Ebola Virus & Dogs: Where Do We Stand?

 

[T.Lex]

Well, some developments in the ebola overnight roundup.

Spanish nurse's condition getting worse:
Spanish Ebola patient's condition worsens, doctor says - CNN.com

Some workers in the Spanish hospital have quit and others are saying the precautions are not extensive enough.

"Probable" case in Paris:
Ebola: Paris authorities investigate 'probable' case - Europe - World - The Independent

That article also mentions a suspected situation where a British national died in Macedonia from ebola-like symptoms.

And, in today's, "Thank you Mr. Obvious" headline from the BBC:
BBC News - Ebola spread 'bigger than expected' - WHO

Yes, it certainly does appear that the current ebola outbreak was "bigger than expected." Which begs the question - why?

When what you used to do doesn't work anymore, it may be worthwhile to figure out what changed.

 

[Expat]

Which begs the question - why?

The hubris of man...
We like to think we are omniscient and omnipotent, but we aren't.

 

[ghuns]

We like to think we are omniscient and omnipotent, but we aren't.

Speak for yourself mortal.

 

[T.Lex]

This is an article linked from Drudge that talks about the statistics of the ebola outbreak.

The ominous math of the Ebola epidemic - The Washington Post

It is a pretty good article, but still has some alarmist quotes. For instance -

“The situation is worse than it was 12 days ago. It’s entrenched in the capitals. Seventy percent of the people [who become infected] are definitely dying from this disease, and it is accelerating in almost all settings,” Bruce Aylward, assistant director general of the World Health Organization, told the group.

The 70% stat is particularly unhelpful. I'd like to know where he gets that. The mortality rate, as extracted from the stats from his own organization, shows much less than that - less than 50% now.

It may be that there are people dying from ebola that aren't being tracked. In fact, I'd bet on it. But, if they aren't being tracked formally, how does he "know"? Is he questioning his own group's data?

Things like that bother me. It is alarming enough without making stuff up.

 

[T.Lex]

I've read this case as being anywhere from "suspected" to "confirmed."
Ebola crisis: Man in Brazil hospitalised with symptoms of deadly virus - Americas - World - The Independent

So now, waiting for confirmation/exclusion of cases in France and Brazil. Meanwhile, WHO warns that with East Asia's rising travel with Africa generally, and West Africa specifically, they are a potential "hot spot."

Sometimes, this honestly seems like a real-time (or even slow motion) movie plot.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

AP: BREAKING: Records given to AP show Ebola patient was released from ER after registering 103-degree fever.

 

[ghuns]

I'll just leave this here...

How the NRA is making the Ebola crisis worse

 

[Robert Richardson]

Did I hear correctly that the man in Texas died?