Slashdot Mirror
Texas Ebola Patient Dies
BarbaraHudson writes Thomas Duncan, the ebola patient being treated in Texas, has died. "It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in an emailed statement. If he had survived, he could have faced criminal charges in both the US and Liberia for saying on an airport screening questionnaire that he had had no contact with an Ebola patient. UPDATE: Reports of a possible second Ebola victim in Texas are coming in. From the article: "The patient was identified as Sgt. Michael Monning, a deputy who accompanied county health officials Zachary Thompson and Christopher Perkins into the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed in Dallas. The deputy was ordered to go inside the unit with officials to get a quarantine order signed. No one who went inside the unit that day wore protective gear."
The conservatives seem to want to turtle and ban all travel from those nations ... which would, of course, be a death knell for any aide workers traveling there to help out. They seem to think that will prevent it from spreading when, in fact, that's just increasing the odds that ebola spreads more rapidly inside Africa and ensures that it becomes a global catastrophe. But that's pretty typical of conservative ideals. I'm still waiting on those 'trickle down' economics to get to me.
Some of the conservatives in the South are real dirtbags. It's really quite ridiculous.
Whether he lied or not, some accounts say that he believed the woman he aided had malaria, not Ebola. And the woman's family themselves may have lied to the people aiding them.
Ultimately, the biggest breakdown occured with the hospital, which was told twice that he had just traveled from Liberia on the first visit, and has since admitted this information was available to all providers. This has caused the tilt to the other extreme, with even the most innocuous cases of fever, adominal distress, and similar, with no travel or other history that would point to Ebola, being handled as such "out of an abundance of caution".
Keep in mind that viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are nothing new in the US. what happens in the United States with other fatal VHFs, that, like Ebola, are only spread via direct contact with bodily fluids and can be easily addressed in first world nations:
Hanta: http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/...
Marburg: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...
Lassa: http://www.cdc.gov/media/relea...
Hanta is especially on point, as the US typically has dozens of cases -- and dozens of deaths -- each year, all of which are rapidly contained. The cases of "imported" VHFs, like has occurred with Marburg and Lassa, result in identification, isolation, and either the recovery or death of that person -- and that's the end of it.
Also, Ebola is NOT airborne. Ebola researchers will AT MOST say things like:
Peters, whose CDC team studied cases from 27 households that emerged during a 1995 Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo, said that while most could be attributed to contact with infected late-stage patients or their bodily fluids, "some" infections may have occurred via "aerosol transmission."
"Those monkeys were dying in a pattern that was certainly suggestive of coughing and sneezing â" some sort of aerosol movement."
"May". "Suggestive". "Some sort".
Even if we change all of these statements to absolute certainty, it still does not translate to, "Ebola is airborne," in the meaning of "airborne" in the context of disease transmission.
Airborne transmission occurs when a droplet nuclei containing a virus (or bacteria) is small enough (10 μm) occurs when droplets of saliva or mucous (or even blood) containing the virus are projected during a sneeze or cough and and projected directly onto someone's eyes, mouth, or mucous membranes. This kind of transmission is usually within 3', and is NOT considered "airborne" transmission.
"Droplet" transmission can certainly occur with Ebola -- or any disease that spreads via bodily fluids and is present in saliva or mucous. VHFs are not airborne diseases, and a study of one strain where monkeys in adjacent cages sneezed on each other and passed the disease does not make it "airborne".
Being able to get something from having someone sneeze or cough droplets onto you and airborne transmission are very different things.
The quickest way to have a threat of possible airborne transmission of Ebola via mutation would be to not aid Africa in this fight, and let Africa fend for itself, creating an environment where the cases could skyrocket into the millions (due to Africa's infrastructure and inability to deal with the onslaught), thereby increasing the statistical likelihood of the feared airborne mutation -- which, if a foothold were to be gotten in the West as an airborne disease, would truly be a catastrophe worthy of fear and panic.
In reading much of the news coverage, online commentary, and this thread, this article struck me as very relevant:
http://www.nationaljournal
I have very little sympathy for a man that lied on a form and endangered the health and lives of many, many people. Hopefully no one else turns up infected and the threat he posed is over.
Did he turn into a zombie?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm not going to touch this one.
...when trying to use the carat symbol. Fix here:
Airborne transmission occurs when an droplet nuclei containing a virus (or bacteria) is small enough (under 5 um) to travel on dust particles, and can invisibly hang in the air or travel on air currents in large spaces long after someone has sneezed or coughed, and travel great distances, and can infect when breathed in.
There is NO EVIDENCE that Ebola is, or has been, spread in this way. In fact, the evidence is that Ebola is almost exclusively spread via direct contact with bodily fluids.
Droplet transmission (over 10 um) occurs when droplets of saliva or mucous (or even blood) containing the virus are projected during a sneeze or cough and and projected directly onto someone's eyes, mouth, or mucous membranes. This kind of transmission is usually within 3', and is NOT considered "airborne" transmission.
"Droplet" transmission can certainly occur with Ebola -- or any disease that spreads via bodily fluids and is present in saliva or mucous. VHFs are not airborne diseases, and a study of one strain where monkeys in adjacent cages sneezed on each other and passed the disease does not make it "airborne".
Being able to get something from having someone sneeze or cough droplets onto you and airborne transmission are very different things.
M-O-O-N ... That spells Ebola!
. . . what about the patient with Ebola, who came to the US from Africa . . . and didn't go to the hospital . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
slashdot isn't the only website on the net, it doesnt need to cover _everything_.
Instead of "Walking Dead", lets consider Ebola.
Benefits could be my student loan balance.
There's a lot of high-tech going on wrt ebola. Just look at the efforts to predict its spread using different models. These models could eventually bias the debate over whether extreme measures such as total border closures should be taken. Then there's the race to test different medications, and as was pointed out in an earlier article, the ethical questions surrounding control groups, with only a partial solution being the step wedge (giving different people the same treatment at different times).
Only 774 people died in the last SARS epidemic. We're already way, way beyond that, with no end in sight.
This is a human disaster unfolding as we watch, and at least a few of us here are still humans.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It's going to turn into a racist issue and/or a malpractice suit.
Already is... Jessy Jackson showed up in Dallas YESTERDAY, even before Duncan died, to get the ball rolling on that.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It looks like there may be another Texas ebola case.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
I assume that there are biology, immunology, etc. nerds on Slashdot as well as mathematicians, physicists, and programmers. I'll agree that this article is probably stretching the bounds of that more than a little, but if a researcher made an interesting discovering regarding the disease, it would be hard to complain about it appearing here.
There a probably a few posters here who do have some valuable insights they could offer, but again this story is stretching the bounds of relevance as it has more to do with the individual rather than the disease itself and the individual is only noteworthy because they have died from this disease, not because they found a cure, etc.
Some have wondered why President Obama is sending 3,000 American troops to Africa, when it would make more sense to send 3,000 medical workers instead.
Troops are being sent because unprotected aid workers are being butchered to death. Also, troops are really good at logistics, like setting up field hospitals - something desperately needed in the rush to try to contain the spread of the disease.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
True, but for now, it's not that easy to contract Ebola. Assuming we don't overwhelm the healthcare system here and can effectively isolate all known cases it's not going to be very bad. Assuming we can keep secondary infections to a minimum, we can likely keep it under wraps. Should Ebola go airborne and pass like the flu, then prepare for the destruction of a healthy percentage of the world's population.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This year 50,000 people will die of the flu in USA.
Ebola so far took 1.
A little perspective?
Next time you're at a hospital being helped by an immigrant nurse or doctor, think about that.
Troops are being sent because unprotected aid workers are being butchered to death.
In addition, many of those troops are medical workers.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Never let facts get in the way of a good ol' xenophobic rant. ;-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Troll.. Sheesh
Wrong. Different strain, VERY bad source, did not happen through ventilation system. It happened to monkeys in adjacent cages without direct contact, through "some sort" of aerosolized transmission in very close quarters. I.e., droplets.
Fearmongers or people who think "the government" is "lying to stem panic" always trot out this story. It does NOT mean "Ebola is airborne".
It took Africa, with some of the worst healthcare, sanitation, and infrastructure in the world, 10 MONTHS to get to the ~7400 cases there are now. If it were airborne, it would be much, much worse. Ebola is not airborne; stop spreading your bullshit.
Thank you.
I'm glad Jon Stewart finally called Harry R. out on the Koch business. Heard from him --H.R-- about that lately?
Shill harder, statist.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/06/354054915/firestone-did-what-governments-have-not-stopped-ebola-in-its-tracks
thats pretty much how ebola works too, poor hydration is what kills you. whatever caused inadequate hydration can be anything, from poor care to weakened organism.
call it "ebola related death" if that tickles your fancy.
why did they kill the dog.
On average, 12.5% of the US population will get the flu in a year. That amounts to 39,500,000 individuals getting the flu. 50,000 people means the mortality rate of flu is 0.126% of cases. We have had 1 death due to ebola with 1 case of infection that was not intentionally tranfered to the US for treatment. That's a 100% mortality rate with current non-intentional US cases. Ebola's average mortality rate is 50% though it varies between 25-90% depending on the outbreak studied.
I think a little perspective is certainly justified.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Assessing things in a rational way is just sooo 20th century (or may 19th even). These days people want to have their lowest instincts confirmed and will pick everything that does the trick and then will stop looking. The 21th century will be the century of believing. Of course being rational would be the only way out of the mess we have created but since we created this mess by being not rational I doubt very much we will change now.
Now, Ebola. Ebola is more like HIV than the flu when it comes to catching it. There was a recent study that showed that even living in the same household as an Ebola patient only lead to infections if there was physical contact. It's basically a matter of having bodily fluids coming into contact with broken skin or mucous membranes (eyes, mouth etc.).
Immigrant doctor? The AMA won't allow that.
I say put his cadaver into the stockade... That'll teach him
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The military has troops trained and equipped for exactly this. That's who they're sending.
Probably the biggest concern is the possibility of a mutation occurring that would allow the virus to go airborne.
Were that to happen, you are then looking at every SciFi/Fantasy end-of-days horror movie fan's highlight reel. The Stand meets Outbreak with a dash of The Walking Dead minus the zombies. The government bombing population centers in a vain attempt to contain th...
No, wait that's what CNN wants you to believe to drive click traffic and Geico commercial video pre-rolls.
Disinfectant hand washing and passenger screening will stop this. But that doesn't boost web traffic CPM, so let's sell the worst case scenarios. It's crucially important for everyone in the sound of my voice to believe we're all going to die from a horrible wasting hemorrhagic fever, melting like the wax nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Give us dirty laundry.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
If I remember my documentary correct, several of the people who worked there were infected by the airborne ebola but never demonstrated symptoms.
Ebola has mortality rate of 50% according the WHO and there is no vaccine. The mortality rate of typical flu is .1% .
Current estimates say that upwards of 700,000 Liberians will die of Ebola before this outbreak is contained, out of a population of 4.5 million. If, as some research has suggested, survivors can become reservoirs for the disease, you'll have an additional 700,000 mostly health and mobile disease carriers for at least a few months afterward. The odds of a full blown outbreak in a major western country are slim, because it's hard to spread and relatively easily contained. But we will not be returning to the old status quo of Ebola being a disease only of isolated villages in West Africa.
by infected, I mean tested positive for ebola
The flu kills people who are already sick (or elderly or infants) before they got the flu.
Ebola kills people who are perfectly healthy at the time of infection.
Which you certainly knew, but just decided to be deceptive about.
You mention all of the relevent numbers but then fail to see their significance. It's HARD to get Ebola in a country with modern sanitation systems. Yes, if 12% of the population catches Ebola we're screwed. But they wont.
because big gov't == BAD
Why did you use a test, and not an assignment operator?
the flu kills plenty of people who are _apparently_ perfectly healthy.
but we're digressing, the original theses i was objecting to was that somehow restricting immigration was going to help to save lives. and that is simply asinine.
Seriously why did you comment?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Someone should do a FOIA request on the amount of money that was spent at the hospital and for cleanup... I assume the public taxpayer is footing the bill, we should be able to know how much one patient costs. Then we can compare that to the cost of keeping our borders open to vs. restricting some "tourist" visas.
A little perspective? Ok.
Last I checked, every person infected infects 1.7 more.
But lets say 2 for worst case, then it's easier to grasp for geeks.
October 5, 8,011 cases, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
2^1-12 = exponential
2^13 = 8192, October
2^14 = 16384, November
2^15, 32768, December
2^16, 65536, January 2015
2^17, 131072, February 2015
2^18, 262144, March 2015
2^19, 524288, April 2015
2^20, 1M, May 2015
2^21, 2M, June 2015
2^22, 4M, July 2015
2^23, 8M, August 2015
2^24, 16M, September 2015
2^25, 32M,
2^26, 64M,
2^27, 128M,
2^28, 256M,
2^29, 512M
2^30, 1B
2^31, 2B
2^32, 4B
2^33, 8B
2^34, 16B, July 2016
All data so far indicates exponential growth.
Next time you're at a hospital might be.. July 2016? Probably no waiting time then.
Bah, that disease was caused by the federal government. The modern outbreak of it was caused by infected animals kept insecurely who transmitted carrier ticks to deer who swam from Long Island to Lyme, CT. It's not a coincidence that Lyme is the closest City to Plum Island disease research center. But it was the FDA, not the CDC that caused it. It's all part of the master plan to blame the federal government for everything. We should disband the federal government. Isn't that the goal of the conservatives? That's the ultimate states rights move. Civil War II!
Learn to love Alaska
at least its clear now what the FEMA black coffins are for.
The selfishness bringing this terrible disease to your county... immoral fucking asshole
Part of that "modern sanitation system" involves being aware of things and taking action. In other words, without taking any precautions or action we could have 12% of the population with ebola because we would no longer have a modern system in place.
All of the passives out there seem to forget why it *appears* that we can be passive. It is because we are generally active in fighting things like this, which includes the actions that many are stating are unnecessary.
Look a "chupacabras" !
I wonder what the govts has in mind now that this "crisis" appears.
PS123:
"I see what are you trying to do.."
"I See What You’re Trying To Do, But It’s Not Working"
"I see what you trying to do, that's not even kinda new"
You might want to check your temperature. You're clearly delirious.
Travel much?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Troops are being sent because unprotected aid workers are being butchered to death
I wonder how true this is. I've heard a lot about massacred aid workers. Raids on hospitals. "Natives" deliberately exposing themselves to bloody corpses and generally acting like superstitious chimpanzees.
I heard about all of these things from the mainstream American and British news media, just as you probably did.
In fact, I heard about them on the same news programs that told me that you can only catch Ebola by fellating a corpse or doing something equally ridiculous.
Except now we're starting to hear about victims who had only passing exposure to an infected patient. Funny, I remember being told that was more or less impossible.
You grasp how an exponential works. You do not grasp that the 1.7 infections have to happen to uninfected individuals. I don't mean to imply that we can ignore this disease, but by presenting a worst case scenario discounting a large part of reality is fear mongering.
Too late. See Rev Jesse Jackson holding press conferences with family.
>The flu kills people who are already sick (or elderly or infants) before they got the flu.
This is false. The most dangerous flu variants kill healthy people in their prime.
>Which you certainly knew, but just decided to be deceptive about.
Awesome to see someone who's spreading falsehoods call someone who's telling the truth "deceptive."
the original theses i was objecting to was that somehow restricting immigration was going to help to save lives. and that is simply asinine.
You're right - it is asinine to restrict immigration to control ebola. You have to restrict travel. 21 day quarantine before you're allowed in, if you have been anywhere that doesn't quarantine. We're all in this together, so let's keep the quarantined area as small as possible.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Wait, the best part of this sad and frightening story of Ebola in Texas is that the second Ebola patient was one of the sheriff's deputies who was the first to enter the house of the first patient. When offered protective gear, he declined, and entered the man's apartment without gloves, or even a facemask. Being Texas, he probably had his gun drawn, figuring that if he saw any Ebola he'd just shoot that sumbitch.
The over/under on when Texas goes full Walking Dead is now Thanksgiving. If there's one place that's not going to do will in an Ebola outbreak, it's a state where no goddamn government scientist is gonna tell me I gotta wear a facemask. Plus, post-Darwin biology is not really their strong suit, so it's doubtful they even believe there's such a thing as a "virus". I'm betting the churches and gun shops are gonna be doing big business in the coming weeks. Well, they're already doing big business, but you know what I mean.
I understand that (and I'm not joking) that in the past days Alex Jones has been talking about home remedies for Ebola that the government doesn't want you to know about.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's not "passing exposure" if you're near the person when they are coughing or vomiting. Both acts result in aerosolized bodily fluids, which are effective at transmitting the disease; you can't get Ebola through skin unless it's broken, but inhaling it or getting particulates into your mucus membranes will have a high likelihood of infecting you.
"mucous membranes", mea culpa.
No, not another day, it's going to take a bit longer than that. I think the 5-21 day gap between contracting Ebola and showing symptoms is going to slow this down. It's not an emergency until we have either unexplained cases outside the original case confirmed where the isolation efforts in place clearly isn't effective in containing an outbreak. If we start seeing distant contact cases pop up over the next 20 days or so, THEN it's panic time.
I'd start stocking up on essentials if you have the chance. Should this thing go bad, it will be pretty quick once panic sets in...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It's HARD to get Ebola in a country with modern sanitation systems.
I'd love to see you make that same post 10 days from now when the number of confirmed cases in the US skyrockets.
6/178 animal handlers who handled the infected animals tested positive for reston-ebola antigens (meaning they were infected). Airborne was never established as the vector. (and is considered unlikely to have been). I'm not sure where linked article gets its information about the only connection being via airborne vectors. The CDC determined the monkeys to have been cross-infected during the delivery flight.
I'm sure the CDC has a protocol for this. Cremation would be effective, but the issue is as always, how do you contain and transport that much bio-hazard material? I don't know, but I'm sure we don't have to depend on the collection process used in Africa.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I was watching RT News yesterday, and the news anchor was having a talking head session with a couple of 'experts,' one of whom stated that when Duncan first tried to enter a Dallas hospital, the staff who initially questioned him told him to leave, sending him out, apparently not wanting to deal with an Ebola case. Such action could be a critical factor in delaying his treatment. If such allegation is true, the hospital is potentially in deep doo-doo. I'm sure the ambulance chasers would be heavily salivating.
I upgraded it to cynicism. It's much more in sync with the challenges of our time.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most Republicans I know would gladly take a shot of Ebola instead of coming to Seattle
'
Given it took 10 months to reach the 7000 or so cases in Africa, why would you think the cases in the US is going to skyrocket?
Ebola is scary because it is deadly, not because it is particularly communicable.
Enola is mot transmitted by _non existent-_ sanitation systems, but by touching soerm, blood or spit or similar fluids of your infection source.
Or are you diggin every day in shit? And do you realy believe that an ebola virus survives in human shit?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I read The Hot Zone many years ago and I keep thinking that I remember reading that the Ebola Reston strain was considered to have been spread by airborne means.
I thought maybe I was wrong but then I found this on Internet Scientific Publications (http://ispub.com/IJPRM/2/1/12768)
"And, indeed researchers discovered that this was a new species of Ebola virus, which they named Ebola-Reston15, 28, 29. The new virus was highly pathogenic in monkeys but apparently not in humans. The researchers also dispelled the idea that filoviruses were found only in Africa, because the monkeys had been imported from the Philippines. The investigators documented a high likelihood of aerosol transmission outside a controlled laboratory setting, because the virus appeared to pass between rooms to infect susceptible monkeys. Specimens from animals that died or were killed to eradicate the outbreak yielded fertile ground for research in new Ebola virus detection and identification techniques and the virological and pathological events associated with infection. "
If they have since determined it was not aerosol transmission, that's interesting.
I shudder to imagine an Ebola strain that spreads via aerosol and affects humans (Ebola Reston does not affect humans).
As you pointed out, it would be a much worse situation.
I certainly believe you should shift your right index finger approximately two centimeters to the left.
RT isn't a particularly credible source. The general idea has been reported elsewhere, but there's no official explanation yet.
Perspective is always justified. Alarmism is not. I have heard Ebola jokes on Friends....
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
It's pretty damn unlikely for Ebola to ever become "airborne", as a virus- it's too damn big. You just can't fit enough of them in an aerosol-sized droplet to stand much of a chance at infection.
The "mutation" required to make it an effective aerosol pathogen would shave off 90% of its genome.
That isn't to say that it can't be transmitted by a good sneeze or a cough over the air, but even in those cases- it's not so easy, as again, the virus is rather large, and it takes a certain amount of viral load for an active infection to actually occur.
It's not "passing exposure" if you're near the person when they are coughing
Yes it is.
The CDC determined the simians were infected while en route while stored with other infected animals.
The only thing supporting the theory of aerosol transmission was default option. They couldn't find anything there that could have spread it, so it must have spread via the air. The logic is pretty flawed, really. Of the over-100 humans that handled the animals, only 6 showed antigens from exposure, making airborne transmission highly unlikely.
There. Problem solved. Lean Forward, motherfucker.
It must be so hard to live being scared of your own shadow. What a miserable coward you are.
Says the Anonymous Coward.
My iPD and as well, the spelling correction is broken, but
I will try the 2cm approach!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You're forgetting the 4 people in Texas who tested positive for ebola in 1990 who never had symptoms.
The flu kills people who are already sick (or elderly or infants) before they got the flu.
Ebola kills people who are perfectly healthy at the time of infection.
Which you certainly knew, but just decided to be deceptive about.
Flu may kill 50,000... but millions of people who get the flu in the United States wont die. In fact they'll make a full recovery. Of the 7000 odd Ebola cases, over half of them have already died. Flu has got a much lower chance of killing you.
Winter has just finished here in Australia and I got two cases of the flu from co-workers who refused to stay home... I'm happy to report I didn't die, or even become severely dismembered but did take a few days off work (so if you are sick, stay home and get some rest instead of making your colleagues sick).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
in what way quarantining has anything to do with immigration?
My god.... as in Hallelujah??
Just wondering..
Dallas is a major, cosmopolitan, city with one of the world's busiest international airports. It is inevitable that at some point someone with a life-threatening and contagious disease will come to such a city. I'm sure it has happened before and that it will again.
I'm not a medical professional, but to my untutored eye the preparedness of Dallas' medical professionals is tragically lacking. It seems the original patient's first contact with the medical system was mishandled, the family were reportedly treated badly and now a sheriff's deputy has contracted the disease.
It's not enough to just offer the guy gloves, he needed good advice and someone to ensure he followed it (I'll bet he got neither).
If Dallas' medical profession is going to conduct itself in this way, then maybe African airports should consider closing to mitigate the risk of contagion from Dallas
Nullius in verba
All the internet Einsteins said, as with the government's statement, Ebola simply couldn't reach America. Then, that even when it reached America, we had the means to keep it spreading to anyone, because the only way to get it is to basically give a victim a blowjob and swallow at the end, because it's very difficult to contract and those filthy heathens that aren't in America only spread the disease, because they liked to drink and bathe in the bathwater of dead Ebola victims and that every precaution anyone might suggest in this country was just the result of ignorant fear-mongering. Are you telling me all of these junior-college keyboard-geniuses are *gasp* possibly wrong?
Well, ten days ago, these guys were saying it could never spread beyond the original source patient, because this is America. Ten days before *that*, these guys were the ones saying it could never even reach America, because... I don't know.. America and shit. Then throw in some comments about how people in the countries this is spreading around in right now drink the bathwater of those who died of Ebola and blah blah blah.
I mean, why take precautions for anything? Clearly precautions are just wastes of effort by the paranoid who don't realize we're fucking Americans and therefore fucking impervious to everything!
Considering how fucking easy it is to keep Ebola from spreading, there is no excuse for anyone in the country having it other than a patient coming into the country under protection for direct treatment. Shit, you can't bring your dog into the country from practically anywhere without a couple weeks quarantine, but someone with Ebola fresh from Ebola land is totally cool with us.
are you suggesting that quarantine should be selective based on citizenship? talk about logic..
You're being hysterical.
I agree that we should get more serious about tracking travelers from infected regions and enforcing quarantines. The answer isn't to invent a nonexistent pattern of official misinformation and then switch into pitchfork and torch mode.
So imagine you're an ISIS terrorist train to be a suicide bomber and somehow, I can't imagine how but bear with me, somehow you manage to get to Washington D.C.
Now imagine that you see all this brouhaha about Ebola on the tube -- you know, people panicking for no reason and all that -- and you get this crazy idea that maybe rather than splattering your body all over one Metro subway station you'd kill a lot more infidels by catching Ebola, waiting for the first symptoms to show up which look like the flu, and then spend the day making like Divine in Pink Flamingos and leaving your bodily fluids on surfaces in all of the subway cars.
Seastead this.
Well, ten days ago, these guys were saying it could never spread beyond the original source patient, because this is America.
Who said that? And it hasn't spread beyond the original source patient, so if anyone actually did say that (which is unlikely), they're correct for now.
Ten days before *that*, these guys were the ones saying it could never even reach America, because... I don't know.
Who said that? I never heard anyone in an official position say that. In fact, I heard some say that it could, and probably would reach America, but that it would be contained. E.g., this article from back in July 29: "Why Deadly Ebola Virus Is Likely to Hit the U.S. But Not Spread"
Your anecdote is no kind of proof. The news is already reporting Ebola victims are rising from graves. You're probably a goddamned zombie. You do scare me though. The movies have always made zombies out to be shambling stooooopids who want to eat brains because they have none. Well now your post just shows us all that zombies aren't as stupid as we thought! At least they can type. I'll be locked down in my bunker, kthxbai!
Quick, he's onto us.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Lethality in the 1918 Flu most often resulted from triggering an extreme immune response, where the person has a chance of running an extreme fever that destroys nervous tissue, or drowning in their own lung secretions. Initial description of cause of death was often "shock". This happens most in young, healthy people with great immune systems that can overrespond. The other group most hit had poor immune systems and died mostly with non-shock related symptoms, for example, many TB patients succumbed to the flu. My grandmother was a nurse during the 1918 epidemic, and used to tell me about how surprised people were to see young healthy patients, doctors and nurses go from asymptomatic to dead within a single day. She herself had only a mild case with essentially normal Flu symptoms - by the time she was feeling rotten, most of the people who died on her ward were already three days dead, and the word was getting out that for otherwise healthy, young people, the more sudden the onset, the more likely it was to be serious, but it was years after the epidemic that people really noticed the two distinct at risk populations as a pattern, and decades later that the phrase 'cytokyne storm' was first used to describe the immune system overload. Dear gram went off to WW1, got mustard gassed a bit, and lived to be over 100.
Who is John Cabal?
The 1918 flu had infection rates of around 50%, with a 20% mortality among those infected. The young and apparently healthy group of fatalities was actually larger than the old, sick or 'messed up before they got it' group, but most casualties fit one or the other of the two categories - reasonably healthy middle aged people seldom died of it. Yes, the mortality among the infected was lower than ebola is now, but we literally don't know how big a difference that may make from what will probably be much less than 20% infected but with 50% or possibly higher mortality. Right now, I wouldn't say much lower chance. Overall, even if ebola somehow completely overloads modern medicine in first world countries, the results in a worst case scenario would in fact be pretty similar to the 1918 flu, just fewer actually getting it but with a higher chance of dieing if they do, and similar overall numbers. By the way, the 1918 was determined to be an H1N1 variant, so people might want to get flu shots any year that's one of the three types they combine for that year's shot, even if they don't get them otherwise.
Who is John Cabal?
Correct in part. It doesn't mean ebola is airborne, but that doesn't mean (as many imply) that you would actually have to touch the patient or some noticeable pool of body fluid to catch it.
That said, I'm not making any plans to stockpile a bunker or anything. It really isn't a big threat here in the U.S.
The 1918 flu
Sigh, you do know the 50,000 dead is not from 1918 right, it's from recent years right?
You also know that in 1918, medical facilities weren't as common as they were today?
You also know that in 1918 there was no such thing as sick leave?
You do know it's not 1918 and the 1918 flu has no bearing on the discussion?
the 1918 was determined to be an H1N1 variant,
Which we had an outbreak of recently, there weren't that many casualties... Possibly because of the differences I alluded to above.
The statistic being bandied about that flu kills 50,000 in the US is from today, not 1918. It is taken from the millions of cases across all the strains of influenza active today. In 1918 workers pretty much had no choice but to come into work and infect others, they couldn't take time off to get better, they didn't have access to modern medical facilities, anti-biotics and anti-virals hadn't been invented yet. Finally, even the worst flu epidemics had nowhere near the fatality rates of Ebola.
The young and apparently healthy group of fatalities was actually larger than the old, sick or 'messed up before they got it' group
if you did your research on the 1918 epidemic you'd know that the reason for this reversal was in fact, a little war you may of heard of known affectionately as the first world war. One of the major causes of this was the fact that soldiers infected with a mild strain were kept in the field. and those with a serious infection were loaded onto trains and taken to crowded field hospitals where re-infection was rife and the deadlier strains were traded amongst the infected.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Nice fantasy casting yourself as the lone hero - but even though it's a common fantasy and it's not your fault Hollywood has brainwashed you it's fucking selfish.
When disasters hit the job of a citizen is to get off their arse and prevent their neighbours from dying AS PART of keeping that little cutie safe - in fact you can't keep that cutie safe unless someone is working to make sure that there is food and water getting in for her. It means precautions, protective gear and being co-ordinated by whatever bunch can accumulate a clue, but you shouldn't expect to get through a disaster by sitting on your arse and waiting for a food delivery when you are capable of doing something to help when everyone is overwhelmed.
You don't have to be a Doctor to be a hero. The people that got phones and Wifi going in Haiti after the disaster there were also heroes that saved lives because the doctors etc knew where they were needed and others could find out where to send food and clean water. In a quarantine situation where you can't get close to the people who drop off the food it would be just as important.
What would a trivial dismemberment look like? Losing only your little toe?
So without any further details, here's how I imagine it went down.
"Oh crap, there's an ebola outbreak and my family is affected! I better fly out there immediately and touch bodily fluids."
Definitely Darwin Award winner here, folks. Plus, lying about it to fly back to the US and putting the entire country at risk should be an executable offense.
There is no functional differences between the influenza and ebola as far as contamination and hardiness goes. Both virii are spread via contaminated body fluids and both can survive for up to 3-4 days outside of a host. If people maintained identical behaviors it would not be unlikely for ebola to achieve infection rates similar to influenza.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Well, ten days ago, these guys were saying it could never spread beyond the original source patient, because this is America.
Who said that? And it hasn't spread beyond the original source patient, so if anyone actually did say that (which is unlikely), they're correct for now.
Are you kidding me? You are saying that it won't spread in your very fucking post. Look below at what you fucking wrote. And yes, it has spread, due to exposure to the first guy.
Ten days before *that*, these guys were the ones saying it could never even reach America, because... I don't know.
Who said that? I never heard anyone in an official position say that. In fact, I heard some say that it could, and probably would reach America, but that it would be contained. E.g., this article from back in July 29: "Why Deadly Ebola Virus Is Likely to Hit the U.S. But Not Spread"
The media in general earlier this year was playing it down, saying shit would never reach America due to airport screening, how it's not very infectious, how Americans don't drink water used to wash the dead, or roll around in shit, etc. They were doing anything and everything to paint a picture that portrayed the affected countries as slop pits with people wallowing in disease and filth.
He told the hospital he was in the hot zone, when they turned him away. Before later accepting him. The great health care service in the USA doesn't help people (especially blacks), hence why there is such a stink over this. He should have been admitted the first time, and wasn't.
He wasn't "turned away." He was provided anti-biotics, which is the standard fare (albeit wrong*) for someone suffering from a cold or flu. Although it was stupid of the hospital doctors/nurses not to take note of his travel, and suspect Ebola as a possibility, given the CDC's messages at the time it might be understandable. In it's early stages Ebola presents similar symtoms to a flu.
Just because you go through the Emergency enterance, doesn't mean you need to be admitted. It just means that you get seen without an appointment. I've been to the Emergency several times (metal chips in eye despite safety glasses, bleeding head wound, heart issues) and never been admitted. Usually just stitched up and sent home. Even with the heart issue, I was "observed" for a while, scheduled for a stress-test, and sent home once they determined that it was not going to kill me right-now. (they also gave me an asprin and a nitroglycerine tablet while they observed me.)
The whole "turned away" thing is being drummed up by the Jessie Jacksons, etc. who are ambulance chasing for another chance to make themselves relevant, and stir up trouble at the same time.
* I can remember several times where doctors have said to me, "I don't know if it is bacterial or viral. I could take cultures, but that would take a while to get the lab work back, so meanwhile I will give you this anti-biotic, which will either work or will do no harm if it doesn't." This was a few years ago. More recently, with the increasing prevalance of resistant diseases, this practice seems to have diminished somewhat.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Are you kidding me? You are saying that it won't spread in your very fucking post. Look below at what you fucking wrote. And yes, it has spread, due to exposure to the first guy.
I'm an official? And no, it hasn't. Netcraft confirms it, the guy doesn't have Ebola. You're uninformed and ignorant.
Selfishly hiding in a bunker and expecting others to bring you food and supplies is not the act of a good citizen. Safely helping out the people around you when a disaster hits is the act of a good citizen. The "conservative" view is supposed to be to support your community instead of hiding in a hole. A guy with gloves, mask and wheelbarrow full of food and water that unloads the contents where his neighbours can pick it up later is both a "hero" that keeps people alive and someone with zero risk of spreading infection. I'm astonished that you didn't get that point before your two replies. It appears you took things far too personally despite the "but even though it's a common fantasy and it's not your fault".
Stupid fucking survivalist fantasies do not help in disasters, whether hurricane or virus. What helps is people that are not prepared to watch their neighbours die of cold or lack of food when normal infrastructure is not available. There's plenty that can be done without risking your life.
Say your cutie gets some sort of infection easily cured by antibiotics in your bunker. She dies even though with communication and dropoffs you could have saved her with some medicine from the pharmacist down the road with no risk of catching or spreading infection. That's a potential price of dropping out of society when you should be doing something to help keep it going.
Stop dreaming of apocalyptic disaster movies where infection control does not exist and think like a rational human being. It does indeed suck but you alone are not enough to get your kid through life, and the more of civilisation we keep intact when the shit hits the fan the more people survive.
Yes I suppose - selfishness and greed can be called conservative just like Communist East Germany called itself the Federated Democratic Republic but neither reflect the values the words are supposed to represent. Getting my point yet? Being an isolationist prick is counterproductive in a disaster situation and is likely to lead to more harm to the little cutie than sensible interaction with the community around you - despite the bullshit we've been fed by disaster and action movies. I'm not attacking you, just the bullshit you've been fooled into spreading. It's insidious and looks incredibly stupid when held up to the light, as show by the cretinous "first aid kit" attempted putdown above. You are not that stupid just playing a part. When shit hits fans (probably a very bad way to phrase things since Ebola can make that literal), we need to wake up and act like citizens instead of cartoon cavemen or useless Eloi.
You may want to take into notice that the 7400 cases and 3000 deaths are those of people with identified ebola virus disease. No one actually knows how much people died (or recovered) in the wild and in the small villages...
And being the stupid asshole to contribute to an epidemic by spreading deadly disease to prove how good a person you are isn't productive either. It just kills people.
You are putting harmful information out there and showing that you don't understand what you're talking about. I don't know in what world calling somebody an isolationist prick isn't an attack, but that's not what the word "isolationist" means either. Borderline illiterate people like you are the reason an epidemic here would be a disaster and not a short lived tragedy.
Go troll somebody else. I don't want to be bothered to give anybody the kind of attention you want.
I'm trying to point out that it's not a two choice thing between hiding in a hole with your child and "being the stupid asshole to contribute to an epidemic". There's a third choice of helping out without making things worse. Why isn't it getting through?
If anything is "harmful information" it's a suggestion to hide in a hole with a magic first aid kit that is not going to be able to keep the "cutie" alive in the example I gave above. People in disasters die of a lot of things other than the primary cause because they cannot get food, water and medicine for other problems.
Hold on cowboy - I didn't call YOU an isolationist prick since YOU HAVE NOT DONE THOSE THINGS, you are not acting like a Hollywood 2D survivalist character because you are not actually hiding in a hole today. It's hypothetical at this point and it's a label for a person DOING those things instead of someone DISCUSSING those things. Clear now? How many times do I have to write "I'm not attacking you" for it to come across that I'm going after the widespread conditioned attitude that you'll probably be grown up enough to shed when you really need to, and not yourself.
Now please calm down and consider my other post, especially the bit I put in bold text.
God damn it.
Let me make this simple for your lizard brain. Can you diagnose ebola on sight? If so, then get off StackExchange and go teach doctors how to do it. I'll just assume that you can't do what doctors can't. As in, you're not some magical unicorn or alien superhero.
So, you can't tell if your neighbor is infected, and you can't tell if they're contagious. But you're urging people to "help" by going door to door. Maybe they should make sure to french kiss their neighbors too since if even one of them is infected and they've taken a piss without washing their hands, they can pass it on. There's a reason the belongings and environment of people infected with ebola are burned and sanitized with pure chlorine, respectively.
You're not advocating for people "not hiding in a hole", there is no third option, my home isn't a hole, and what you suggest would make things worse. I've written this reply due to the possibility that you're just a simple moron and not a menacing threat to public health. And I won't be replying to you again.
The least you can do is get your language right. You say having common fucking sense is equivalent to having a Hollywood hero complex and then recommend that everybody has a virus orgy to save their neighbors. Please, for the love of God, say you're a troll so you can look like a threat to society instead of a total retard.
No, one more reply, just because you actually might be totally fucking ignorant and loud about it.
http://www.thelocal.es/2014100...
That's how easy it is to catch ebola. Yes, you're being a stupid asshole. Stupid because you don't know what the hell you're talking about when it comes to anything you've said whatsoever, from public health to politics, and asshole because you insist on spewing your bullshit despite being warned about the immense harm it could do. You're not saving your neighbors there, hero. You're trying to kill them.
So where exactly did I write about not taking precautions and not avoiding contact? I repeatedly wrote things like "A guy with gloves, mask and wheelbarrow full of food and water that unloads the contents where his neighbours can pick it up later" to directly address that.
Hide and hope for someone else to help get your community running again is the instruction that you give to children. Do the best you can without making things worse is the instruction you give to adults. Simple isn't it? That's what I'm trying to get across instead of the "OMG it's the end times, get a gun so you can shoot your neighbour if they come to get your food" infantilization from the movies. That stuff is poison doing "immense harm" while "do the best you can without making things worse" is not.
If you want to get more of an idea of what I'm talking about some non-fiction about communities dealing with the Spanish Influenza pandemic or "The Plague" by Camus based on his experience of a bubonic plague outbreak in Algeria give some ideas.
If you hide you'll be hiding for a very long time, so eventually you'll be relying on people who did not hide to bring you things.
Man, you sure look like a dumbass now. It's confirmed that the first guy infected at least 2 of the nurses treating him. Those nurses went on to treat other patients. The number of confirmed infections has tripled in the 7 days since my post, and the number of people exposed is now completely out of control.
Only 7 days later and the number of confirmed cases has tripled and the number of exposed has grown massively. I sure hope you come at me in 3 more days, though.
I've got 3 days to go, but the number of confirmed cases has already tripled, and the number of people exposed is now beyond accurate measuring. We're in full-on Kevin Bacon territory at this point. I had to wait less than a third of the alleged 21 day incubation period to be proven right.
Keep trusting the CDC and the Obama administration, though.
Nope, no skyrocketing, and his own fiancee and family, who had the closest contact with him other than healthcare providers, are out of the 21-day window and are confirmed to be Ebola-free. You were wrong :)
1 guy gave it to at least 2 others (nurses), we're still inside that 21-day period, and there are more suspected cases.
":)" all you want.