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CDC: Ebola Cases Could Reach 1.4 Million In 4 Months
mdsolar sends this report from the NY Times:
Yet another set of ominous projections about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa was released Tuesday, in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that gave worst- and best-case estimates for Liberia and Sierra Leone based on computer modeling. In the worst-case scenario, Liberia and Sierra Leone could have 21,000 cases of Ebola by Sept. 30 and 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the disease keeps spreading without effective methods to contain it. These figures take into account the fact that many cases go undetected, and estimate that there are actually 2.5 times as many as reported. ... In the best-case model — which assumes that the dead are buried safely and that 70 percent of patients are treated in settings that reduce the risk of transmission — the epidemic in both countries would be 'almost ended' by Jan. 20, the report said.
They're assuming cases are underreported by a factor of 2.5.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
It isn't an unreasonable projection. The growth rate of the number of cases has been exponential so far.
Wikipedia chart
This isn't Mexico.
Ebola is not spreading from contact in restaurants, schools, or businesses. It is precisely from staying home (which is a sentence of death by starvation in the countryside), in contact with an infected family member, and/or handling the infected corpse without a bunny suit, gloves, and a face shield, none of which are in stock at the (non-existent) local CVS / Home Depot / Target, that the pandemic is spreading.
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The death toll of the disease is 80% of all persons infected.
While the disease increases exponentially, the ratio of infected / dead is around 55% currently. But that still means that 80% will be dead three weeks later.
Source: http://healthmap.org/site/dise...
He's not actually referring to Ebola in that last sentence. He made an inappropriate segway by not starting a new paragraph, and by starting a sentence with the word "And" to suggest that the previous subjects were the same, but they are not. The clue is when he switches from singular disease to plural diseases.
1.2 million? I call BS. When things start to look really bad people will voluntarily stay at home, dramatically reducing transmission. And this is before we consider government action. This already happened during the swine flu scare in Mexico where everyone stayed home for a week and then on top of that the government ordered restaurants, schools and other businesses closed.
Despite the drug wars, Mexico at least has a functioning government. Sierra Leone and Liberia? They're at the bottom of the barrel. Their Human Development Index sits at 175st and 183rd> on the planet respectively. In terms of per capita income, they rank 180th and 181st.
Sierra Leone has already gone through the process of being a failed nation-state, and will be right back there if ebola continues to spread. Liberia has already admitted they could just cease to exist.
Besides, the H1N1 virus had a death rate of just 0.02 percent not the eye-popping 50% to 90% of ebola.
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Probably. Funerary practices in that part of the world are very home-centered, generally administered by the grieving family. That's a major current transmission route, and its emotional and traditional base gives it resistance to quarantine pressures. No one is just going to pile corpses outside waiting for the body cart, if they've spent weeks locked away caring for their dying loved one.
Dealing with the dead is a big part of epidemic management, and "doing it right" (to minimize infectiousness) is expensive, as well as insensitive to the survivors. So yeah, the dead will continue to infect the living, until it burns itself out, or until someone imposes draconian responses.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Here are some better interactive versions of the Wikipedia charts:
Ebola Outbreak Tracker
>has been doubling every 30 days
365/30 = 12.16 ish
2^12.16 = 4597 ish
2^24.33 = 21,137,967 ish
2^36. = 95,846,054,932 ish
It's the third year you need to worry about.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.