Ebola

[Bocefish]

:whistle:

 

[mynameisbob84]

"Carry on with your business and remain calm until we know for certain what we're dealing with" sounds like a healthier public announcement that "the sky is falling, we're outta here", even if the people charged with making that announcement are worried themselves (and really, it sounded like they were joking).

 

[Shaun__]

There is zero to gain from panicking every time someone sneezes or coughs. Remember how SARS, the swine flu, and the bird flu were all going to kill everyone.

 

[AerynShade]

There is zero to gain from panicking every time someone sneezes or coughs. Remember how SARS, the swine flu, and the bird flu were all going to kill everyone.

Yeah, but SARS had a 9.6% fatality rate. R0 of 2-5.
Untreated Bubonic plague has a fatality rate of 40-60%. R0 of 1-3.
Compare that to Ebola's fatality rate of 25-90%, with the average being 50%. R0 of 1-4.

Personally, I think what makes Ebola so frightening is partially due to how you die. I really don't want to die vomiting blood and bleeding from my eyes. That's straight-up horror movie shit right there. Anything as bad, or potentially worse than The Black Death is bound to inspire terror.

 

[Ambers Troll]

Ebola is usually not much threat as it infects and kills everyone before it spreads to far. That this strain is on the mild side, and that people are not adequately afraid of it, has resulted in the problems we now face. Ebola in these regions is not so rare, traditionally roads would be closed, villages cut off, and isolationist views imposed, stopping it's spread.
This is why effective aid comes down to personnel, not medication, it is all about slowing the spread enough for it to burn itself out.

 

[BarbieLuv]

Okay, first off, I am a HUGE hypochondriac, so whenever stuff like this happens I tend to research it a bunch to figure out whether or not I should actually be freaking out. So here's a quick rundown of the numbers and facts about the Ebola outbreak in Africa, based on the two of the most affected countries:

Sierra Leone
Total population: ~6.092 million
Total Ebola cases (so far): 2,789
Total Ebola deaths (so far): 879
% of Ebola patients who die: 31.51
% of total population who have contracted Ebola: ~0.000047

Liberia
Total population: ~4.294 million
Total Ebola cases (so far): 3,924
Total Ebola deaths (so far): 2,210
% of Ebola patients who die: 56.32
% of total population who have contracted Ebola: ~0.0000981

Keep in mind that these are also essentially 3rd-world countries who are still recovering from years of civil war, with little to no healthcare infrastructure, death/caretaking rituals that put all involved into contact with the bodily fluids of those who are ill or deceased, hundreds of thousands of HIV/AIDS cases, rampant malnutrition (resulting in lowered immune systems) and where the average life expectancy is a whopping 45-55 years or so. And yet their 'outbreak' numbers are still infinitesimal percentages compared to the overall population. I also haven't seen any breakdown of data on how many of the casualties had HIV/AIDS which contributed to their eventual death from the Ebola virus.

Yes, it's a horrible disease to die from, based on the final symptoms. But it is actually incredibly hard to spread unless you're having DIRECT contact with someone who not only has Ebola, but is also symptomatic (e.g. has a fever). And even then you have to come into contact with their bodily fluids, since Ebola is not airborne and also is very unstable when outside of the host body (as compared to other communicable diseases such as the flu, cold, or even HIV,) making it very difficult to contract via anything other than direct, prolonged contact with either an infected and symptomatic animal/human or a corpse. Actually, the most risk that a human stands of getting Ebola is really touching the corpse of someone who was infected, thinking it's 'safe' - again, burial rites in the African countries affected by this outbreak are fairly primitive by Western standards; they also generally include some form of touching the body, communal hand-washing in a single basin, and (before the Ebola outbreak/panic spread) were frequented by family members and members of the general public alike as a social event of sorts. This created quite a volatile environment for the spread of the disease, and is why it spread so quickly through the population; though as I already mentioned, the numbers of Ebola vs. total population are ridiculously low.

No, there's no vaccine yet. And nope, no cure. But considering the odds of even getting it in the first place in a country with an established healthcare system, little to no contact with corpses, protocols to lock down infectious diseases, and a public population who is A.) aware of how diseases are spread/are used to taking normal precautions that would protect you from Ebola during flu season anyway and B.) are willing to do WHATEVER it takes to not get sick (masks, long sleeves, not licking the floor of the subway, not playing with random corpses, etc.), it's unlikely that an outbreak of Ebola would ever spread beyond a very small number in the U.S.; at the most, it might involve 20-100 people in a very isolated area, not unlike what happened in the contained outbreak in Nigeria - this is also pretty much what we're seeing in the Dallas case right now.

tl;dr - You're not going to die of Ebola, I'm not going to die of Ebola, your mom isn't going to die of Ebola. Calm yo tits.

 

[weirdbr]

tl;dr - You're not going to die of Ebola, I'm not going to die of Ebola, your mom isn't going to die of Ebola. Calm yo tits.

I think that is the point of view from the majority of the world - the 'OMG PANIC!!!' message is just the 24 hour news networks (which have an horrible history of blowing things out of proportion) and random programs (either news or daily shows) making this a bigger mess than it needs to be (after all, they need to fill their program with some content).. And to add to the fun, isn't it election time in the US? Politicians *love* to be seen to be doing anything at all during election time, even if it's just complaining loudly/giving bad suggestions on how to handle issues.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Okay, first off, I am a HUGE hypochondriac, so whenever stuff like this happens I tend to research it a bunch to figure out whether or not I should actually be freaking out. So here's a quick rundown of the numbers and facts about the Ebola outbreak in Africa, based on the two of the most affected countries:

Sierra Leone
Total population: ~6.092 million
Total Ebola cases (so far): 2,789
Total Ebola deaths (so far): 879
% of Ebola patients who die: 31.51
% of total population who have contracted Ebola: ~0.000047

Liberia
Total population: ~4.294 million
Total Ebola cases (so far): 3,924
Total Ebola deaths (so far): 2,210
% of Ebola patients who die: 56.32
% of total population who have contracted Ebola: ~0.0000981

Keep in mind that these are also essentially 3rd-world countries who are still recovering from years of civil war, with little to no healthcare infrastructure, death/caretaking rituals that put all involved into contact with the bodily fluids of those who are ill or deceased, hundreds of thousands of HIV/AIDS cases, rampant malnutrition (resulting in lowered immune systems) and where the average life expectancy is a whopping 45-55 years or so. And yet their 'outbreak' numbers are still infinitesimal percentages compared to the overall population. I also haven't seen any breakdown of data on how many of the casualties had HIV/AIDS which contributed to their eventual death from the Ebola virus.

But then again, without massive intervention those infinitesimally small numbers could grow to half a million by January according to the latest model from the CDC. Roughly equal to 11.6% of the population of Liberia. And if that is allowed to happen the chance for spreading it to other populations becomes astronomically higher. We can handle a few isolated cases easily. Having clusters pop up all over the country and I'm not confident at all. This Government has never handled crisis well. Thoughts of the bungled up FEMA mess after a hurricane come to mind.

We may not be at high risk now, in industrialized areas with more advanced healthcare, but I'd say there's still more than enough cause for concern.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...585bf8-402e-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html

Edit: This article also explains that we have launched a massive campaign there to help out. So hopefully the above projection won't come true.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

Jerry I'm not sure if you missed Gemma's point... Ebola is a disease which needs certain circumstances to develop, such as very close contact (enough to transmit bodily fluids). It thrives on poor sanitation and places where people are living close together. Yes this is a really big threat in countries where this happens but in places like the UK and the US? It's extremely unlikely it'd spread because it's not airborne and we have access to clean running water so aren't risking contamination that way. It is also a fast acting disease meaning it only starts becoming contagious around when symptoms arrive so people don't spend long going around spreading it before they get ill.
The whole point is that even if people somehow got it in countries like ours it would be extremely difficult to spread from one person to another. Yes it is a very scary disease, especially scary because there are people on the other side of the world dying from it, but unless we all suddenly completely changed the way we live this isn't something we need to worry about spreading throughout our countries. If it were an airborne disease on the other hand I would be shitting myself.

 

[Red7227]

But then again, without massive intervention those infinitesimally small numbers could grow to half a million by January according to the latest model from the CDC. Roughly equal to 11.6% of the population of Liberia. And if that is allowed to happen the chance for spreading it to other populations becomes astronomically higher. We can handle a few isolated cases easily. Having clusters pop up all over the country and I'm not confident at all. This Government has never handled crisis well. Thoughts of the bungled up FEMA mess after a hurricane come to mind.

We may not be at high risk now, in industrialized areas with more advanced healthcare, but I'd say there's still more than enough cause for concern.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...585bf8-402e-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html

Edit: This article also explains that we have launched a massive campaign there to help out. So hopefully the above projection won't come true.

Unlike SARS, bird flue, and other airborne diseases, Ebola cannot be a pandemic, it has very limited means of transmission and kills too fast. These African communities have been dealing Ebola for centuries so the CDC model is a crock, just like the worse case scenarios they produced for SARS and swine flu.

 

[Bocefish]

Some good news is that Nigeria has managed to eradicate it with zero new cases since Sept with strict counter measures. However, while Nigeria is sighing a breath of relief, transmission of the virus continues in the hardest-hit West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. According to the World Health Organization's latest report, there have been over 3,865 deaths and 8,033 total cases worldwide to date with an average of 5 new cases per hour in Sierra Leone.

Nobody needs to be concerned in the U.S., the government will protect you and you can totally trust them not to fuck it up. :lol:

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Jerry I'm not sure if you missed Gemma's point... Ebola is a disease which needs certain circumstances to develop, such as very close contact (enough to transmit bodily fluids). It thrives on poor sanitation and places where people are living close together. Yes this is a really big threat in countries where this happens but in places like the UK and the US? It's extremely unlikely it'd spread because it's not airborne and we have access to clean running water so aren't risking contamination that way. It is also a fast acting disease meaning it only starts becoming contagious around when symptoms arrive so people don't spend long going around spreading it before they get ill.
The whole point is that even if people somehow got it in countries like ours it would be extremely difficult to spread from one person to another. Yes it is a very scary disease, especially scary because there are people on the other side of the world dying from it, but unless we all suddenly completely changed the way we live this isn't something we need to worry about spreading throughout our countries. If it were an airborne disease on the other hand I would be shitting myself.

I understood all those points. My point was the CDC - Center for Disease Controls, those experts who kind of know about diseases better than anyone on this forum or probably most the entire world, would also know those points. And they probably considered them all when they came up with the projection saying half a million people by January if left unchecked.

Just guessing at that, but I'm willing to believe them.

That doesn't mean it's the likely option at all. It just means in the current environment that's the best estimate for the most spread at that time. Let's not confuse worst case with most likely like Red7227 did. They give worst case scenarios to bring attention to how bad things might be so people can take action to avoid those numbers.

 

[Red7227]

I understood all those points. My point was the CDC - Center for Disease Controls, those experts who kind of know about diseases better than anyone on this forum or probably most the entire world, would also know those points. And they probably considered them all when they came up with the projection saying half a million people by January if left unchecked.

Its statistical modeling. As always it vastly inflates the the possible numbers for some reason best known to the CDC.

The ABC on the other hand posts much more useful information rather than scaremogering

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-10/h ... la/5803250

 

[weirdbr]

Its statistical modeling. As always it vastly inflates the the possible numbers for some reason best known to the CDC.

It is for the same reason we do it in computer science and other areas: we look at best, worst and average cases. Then look at the probabilities of each one happening and budget accordingly: if the worst case has a relatively high probability of happening, then you worry a lot more about it and prepare for it. If the odds are very low, then you can pay a lower price and run at the cost of the 'average' case.

For some reason, the CDC considers the odds of the worst case (pandemic) being high enough to start ramping up preparations. It could be that their model is wrong or maybe they have extra information that we are not aware of or (just as likely) that someone high enough in the food chain decided to use this fear of ebola to bring in more funds for their department to cover recent budget cuts.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

My point was the CDC - Center for Disease Controls, those experts who kind of know about diseases better than anyone on this forum or probably most the entire world, would also know those points. And they probably considered them all when they came up with the projection saying half a million people by January if left unchecked.

It's funny because the article did not link to any report or article from the CDC and searching on their website I found nothing (though a ton of other info basically stating what several people including myself said in previous posts). When I used the website's search function it came up with a blog post from the director, but those statistics weren't shown in the post so it might have been someone commenting as there were a lot of comments. What I did find were a LOT of articles on google stating the same statement that was in the previous article, but again no links to the data. Now I'm not saying that CDC didn't say this, but I also know how news often works, one reporter states something and everyone else starts saying the same thing as though it's fact. Usually when it's something real it's very easy to find the source. Probably a longer search would come up with where the CDC gave these statistics, but at the moment I'm finding nothing.

On the CDC website though they were saying it's extremely unlikely that anything will happen in the US further than people who've contracted the disease in west Africa and flew over (and extremely unlikely other people on the plane would catch it). Those statistics were also for West Africa to begin with. The whole point is that Africa is a place where diseases like Ebola thrive. The US is not. Unless anyone fancies a sudden trip to Sierra Leone you're probably going to be ok.

 

[Bocefish]

Color me daft, but I don't quite understand why implementing a temporary ban on travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea would have devastating effects on them.

It just goes against all my common sense not to isolate the infected as much as possible and then deal with the pandemic instead of letting it travel all around the world.

In typical fashion, now that the government has fucked up the first few cases, what do they do?

Hold a F'n hearing!

At least Obama decided to cancel part of his fund raising schedule, it MUST be serious for him to do that. :lol:

 

[JerryBoBerry]

It's funny because the article did not link to any report or article from the CDC and searching on their website I found nothing (though a ton of other info basically stating what several people including myself said in previous posts). When I used the website's search function it came up with a blog post from the director, but those statistics weren't shown in the post so it might have been someone commenting as there were a lot of comments. What I did find were a LOT of articles on google stating the same statement that was in the previous article, but again no links to the data. Now I'm not saying that CDC didn't say this, but I also know how news often works, one reporter states something and everyone else starts saying the same thing as though it's fact. Usually when it's something real it's very easy to find the source. Probably a longer search would come up with where the CDC gave these statistics, but at the moment I'm finding nothing.

On the CDC website though they were saying it's extremely unlikely that anything will happen in the US further than people who've contracted the disease in west Africa and flew over (and extremely unlikely other people on the plane would catch it). Those statistics were also for West Africa to begin with. The whole point is that Africa is a place where diseases like Ebola thrive. The US is not. Unless anyone fancies a sudden trip to Sierra Leone you're probably going to be ok.

Here's the full report. It shows up in searches easier if you search for 'MMWR ebola.'
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6303a1.htm?s_cid=su6303a1_w
Down in the Results section is the numbers in question. Note that the number actually released turned out to be 550,000 and in reality once adjusted for underreporting it's at 1.4 million.

Here's that same report in handy dandy PDF format if you want to download it and print it up nicely.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/other/su6303.pdf

Again, I want to point out I'm not worried about these numbers. They were worst case scenarios designed to show what the current trends were without more aggressive intervention. If you read that report further, in the conclusion section they even state with the ramped up intervention those higher estimates are becoming unlikely.


That said there is still cause for concern. This is the worst outbreak of ebola ever. In fact there's more people infected right now than the combined totals of the past 38 years. So people who keep on saying this isn't that infectious and oh you can only get it by fluids and this and that... Uhm, yeah. The numbers seem to say it's easier to spread than you like to think.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/history/chronology.html#modalIdString_outbreaks
That page shows the number of reported cases going back to 1976. Look at the number at the top for this year, then add up all the numbers below. This is by far the worst.

 

[Deleted member 565]

There are so many different ways to die, and I agree that peoples panic about ebola is that it is a contagious disease that will more than likely kill you even if you live in a first world country but let's take a look at some more awesome statistics here people and do a little bit of math.


Deaths from ebola-4500 (approximately) to date.

Heart Disease

1-in-5

Cancer

1-in-7

Stroke

1-in-23

Accidental Injury

1-in-36

Motor Vehicle Accident*

1-in-100

Intentional Self-harm (suicide)

1-in-121

Falling Down

1-in-246

Assault by Firearm

1-in-325

Fire or Smoke

1-in-1,116

Natural Forces (heat, cold, storms, quakes, etc.)

1-in-3,357

Electrocution*

1-in-5,000

Drowning

1-in-8,942

Air Travel Accident*

1-in-20,000

Flood* (included also in Natural Forces above)

1-in-30,000

Legal Execution

1-in-58,618

Tornado* (included also in Natural Forces above)

1-in-60,000

Lightning Strike (included also in Natural Forces above)

1-in-83,930

Snake, Bee or other Venomous Bite or Sting*

1-in-100,000

Earthquake (included also in Natural Forces above)

1-in-131,890

Dog Attack

1-in-147,717


So, if we factor all that in and divide the amount of deaths from Ebola, comparative to the worlds population you come up with.
1-1,583,333 chance of dying from the disease as it stands currently. We should be more scared of the bees in our back yard than this disease. Hope this helps to calm any fears out there, and perhaps make folks realize that death is everywhere, just live your life and stop freaking out!

 

[LittleRedEnvy]

In case you weren't freaked out enough already, here is an article about the current ebola cases in the U.S.

 

[Kunra9]

Say what you will about FOX news, but this is the most responsible reporting of ANY news topic I have seen in years.



Calm down people. I live in Las Vegas. I meet people from all over the world every single day of my life. I shake hands with many of them. I am not scared in the slightest.

 

[Bocefish]

Say what you will about FOX news, but this is the most responsible reporting of ANY news topic I have seen in years.

Yeah, Shep seems to be a fairly straight shooter. His show and Kelly Files are about the only ones I usually watch.

 

[Bocefish]

Anybody know who or what patient zero was or how this all originated?

 

[Nordling]

We'll probably never know who the first human is who contracted ebola and gave it to other people, but CNN says the current outbreak probably started with a 2-year old child from Guinea.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/11/health/ebola-patient-zero/

 

[xtc]

There are so many different ways to die, and I agree that peoples panic about ebola is that it is a contagious disease that will more than likely kill you even if you live in a first world country but let's take a look at some more awesome statistics here people and do a little bit of math.


{snip}


So, if we factor all that in and divide the amount of deaths from Ebola, comparative to the worlds population you come up with.
1-1,583,333 chance of dying from the disease as it stands currently. We should be more scared of the bees in our back yard than this disease. Hope this helps to calm any fears out there, and perhaps make folks realize that death is everywhere, just live your life and stop freaking out!

The math of an exponential increase in ebola cases is the scary part. This hasn't yet happened, but I've seen about the same calculations in a couple different models.

The next 60 days will be interesting, and if things don't go well, this will get very bad very quickly.

http://currents.plos.org/outbreaks/arti ... d-liberia/

 

[Fay_Galore]

Anybody know who or what patient zero was or how this all originated?

I believe the virus had been around for years and years and a few people recently caught it again from eating infected animals (bat and monkeys).

I think the Fox News clips is great, but ridiculous at the same time because a bulletin after that they were already back to spreading the panic. The anxiety is definitely bigger in North America than anywhere else (except Africa).

 

[SavannahMai]

Okay, first off, I am a HUGE hypochondriac, so whenever stuff like this happens I tend to research it a bunch to figure out whether or not I should actually be freaking out. So here's a quick rundown of the numbers and facts about the Ebola outbreak in Africa, based on the two of the most affected countries:

Sierra Leone
Total population: ~6.092 million
Total Ebola cases (so far): 2,789
Total Ebola deaths (so far): 879
% of Ebola patients who die: 31.51
% of total population who have contracted Ebola: ~0.000047

Liberia
Total population: ~4.294 million
Total Ebola cases (so far): 3,924
Total Ebola deaths (so far): 2,210
% of Ebola patients who die: 56.32
% of total population who have contracted Ebola: ~0.0000981

Keep in mind that these are also essentially 3rd-world countries who are still recovering from years of civil war, with little to no healthcare infrastructure, death/caretaking rituals that put all involved into contact with the bodily fluids of those who are ill or deceased, hundreds of thousands of HIV/AIDS cases, rampant malnutrition (resulting in lowered immune systems) and where the average life expectancy is a whopping 45-55 years or so. And yet their 'outbreak' numbers are still infinitesimal percentages compared to the overall population. I also haven't seen any breakdown of data on how many of the casualties had HIV/AIDS which contributed to their eventual death from the Ebola virus.

Yes, it's a horrible disease to die from, based on the final symptoms. But it is actually incredibly hard to spread unless you're having DIRECT contact with someone who not only has Ebola, but is also symptomatic (e.g. has a fever). And even then you have to come into contact with their bodily fluids, since Ebola is not airborne and also is very unstable when outside of the host body (as compared to other communicable diseases such as the flu, cold, or even HIV,) making it very difficult to contract via anything other than direct, prolonged contact with either an infected and symptomatic animal/human or a corpse. Actually, the most risk that a human stands of getting Ebola is really touching the corpse of someone who was infected, thinking it's 'safe' - again, burial rites in the African countries affected by this outbreak are fairly primitive by Western standards; they also generally include some form of touching the body, communal hand-washing in a single basin, and (before the Ebola outbreak/panic spread) were frequented by family members and members of the general public alike as a social event of sorts. This created quite a volatile environment for the spread of the disease, and is why it spread so quickly through the population; though as I already mentioned, the numbers of Ebola vs. total population are ridiculously low.

No, there's no vaccine yet. And nope, no cure. But considering the odds of even getting it in the first place in a country with an established healthcare system, little to no contact with corpses, protocols to lock down infectious diseases, and a public population who is A.) aware of how diseases are spread/are used to taking normal precautions that would protect you from Ebola during flu season anyway and B.) are willing to do WHATEVER it takes to not get sick (masks, long sleeves, not licking the floor of the subway, not playing with random corpses, etc.), it's unlikely that an outbreak of Ebola would ever spread beyond a very small number in the U.S.; at the most, it might involve 20-100 people in a very isolated area, not unlike what happened in the contained outbreak in Nigeria - this is also pretty much what we're seeing in the Dallas case right now.

tl;dr - You're not going to die of Ebola, I'm not going to die of Ebola, your mom isn't going to die of Ebola. Calm yo tits.

I'm the same, i panic over any little illness out there

 

[Nordling]

Decimal error I think.

The percentage of Sierra Leoneans who've caught Ebola is 0.046%, not 0.000047%, but still, the point is well-taken. In a country that is in no shape to fight against the disease, still few are catching it as a percentage.

 

[KylieJacobs]

This is some good news! Nigeria is expected to be declared Ebola-free after just a few months. Nigeria has not had a confirmed case of Ebola for 42 days. Now if the USA can keep this contained.


http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-expected- ... 26358.html

 

[eyeteach]

I'm currently dealing with what I hope is a pinched nerve in my upper back/neck. I've decided that if I have a choice between what I'm going through right now vs Ebola, I'd probably take Ebola because I know in three weeks I'd be over it.

 

[RedHerby]

More Americans have been married to Kim Kardashian than have died from Ebola.

saw this today on twitter, found it funny