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Ebola Forecast: Scientists Release Updated Projections and Tracking Maps
An anonymous reader writes Scientists of the Northeastern University, in collaboration with European scientists, developed a modeling approach aimed at assessing the progression of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and its international spread under the assumption that the outbreak continues to evolve at the current pace. They also considered the impact of travel restrictions, and concluded that such restrictions may delay by only a few weeks the risk that the outbreak extends to new countries. Instead, travel bans could hamper the delivery of medical supplies and the deployment of specialized personnel to manage the epidemic. In the group's page, there's also an updated assessment of the probability of Ebola virus disease case importation in countries across the world, which was also invoked during the Congressional Ebola debate. The group also released a map with real-time tracking of conversations about Ebola on Twitter. Policy makers and first responders are the main target audience of the tool, which is able to show a series of potential warnings and events (mostly unconfirmed) related to Ebola spreading and case importation.
Because panicky idiots with nothing to fear don't talk about the flu just because someone halfway across the country has it without symptoms yet.
Scientists, as has been readily confirmed by all news outlets, arent a part of this discussion. Here are the latest forecasts from the newsdroids you trust(c) most:
November: cold front of phobia and ostracization provided through state quarantines and youtube videos of isolated ebola victims. Viewers should expect to vote based entirely on ebola, and ensure they include ebola in casual conversations at least 4 times per day. At no point should viewers stop consuming the product, or attempt to calmly rationalize this situation. Purchase precisely what television doctors prescribe, and adhere to name brands only.
December:Ebola will be entirely forgotten, do not include ebola in any conversations. Focus on black friday, cyber monday, spendy saturday, and subprime mortgage sunday. Holiday spirit, Bing Crosby, and santa trackers will be hauled out of cold storage and our graphics department will ensure concerns of this "disease" are re-applied solely to african and east asian nations far out of the grasp of American geographic knowledge. Drive directly into inexorably sprawling suburban traffic to your largest supermall or box store and purchase nose hair trimmers, cologne, candy, and oil drum sized tins of popped corn. Assume/insist ebola has been cured.
January sneak peek: after guzzling champagne and shitting your weight in cakes and pies, prepare for the next Avengers film, government shutdown, internet advocacy trend, exercise resolution, civil unrest, and iProduct. and hey, thanks for another great programming year!
Good people go to bed earlier.
Travel restrictions are epidemiology 101, but politics gets in the way...
I see the media panicking. I don't see the American public panicking.
If anything there is concern that the government is not taking proper choices do to politics (such as restricting / checking people who travel to ebola and requiring that doctors spend 21 days (or so) at home or in a nice isolation ward at the hospital with TV and all the take out menus they want.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Where I live, a school recently had to shut down because of a rumor that a student there might have Ebola (and so all the parents kept their kids home). Turns out that there was no such student, the school principal had to personally call every parent to assure them of that, and even then some parents STILL kept their kids home for several more days.
OK. Maybe some panicked. :- )
I live in NYC. No panic here. Not even close.
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Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
One of the nurse's is supposed to be quaratined and instead is out for a bike ride http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...
. ... Due ... DUE .
Due
"Do" is to perform and act, "Due" is because of.
Fucking illiterate morons.
I'm finding it hard to gain anything useful from the websites provided. This appears to be just about useless for us lay types. Since I consider myself tech and science literate I shudder to think about politicians trying to make policy decisions based on using it.
One bit of advice/insight several paragraphs in, travel restrictions only delay the arrival of cases in other countries. Delayed is really the real question. Overall peak severity given various travel restrictions seems more germane, both here and elsewhere. The concern seems to be that travel restrictions will be bad for the badly hit countries – it is unclear to me the will be bad in the short run for developed countries. That said, it it Africa turns into a festering pool of Ebola, then yes, very bad for us all.
There are so many conflicting priorities here I fear we will do far from the ideal. We need to protect our own citizens, we want to help others, maybe some don't want to help too much and see this as the final solution for Africa, but will hide their agenda under concern for those here.
I really was hoping to see better to understand trends based on combinations of aid and travel restrictions.
Letter To Iran
For the CDC to get it's shit in order.
You are aware that experts at both the CDC and the World Health Organization are saying that is likely to make the outbreak worse, and they both recommend against travel restrictions?
So here we have every top medical organization, vs one random slashdot poster. Hmm. Dunning-Kruger much?
The only way to reduce your own risk of being contaminated is to stay isolated.
Slashdot readers live in the basement and never go outside.
If ebola goes on a rampage world-wide, the only survivors will be people who stayed in isolation.
The future belongs to the nerds.
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we can not and must not allow things in or out of the infected area! ... but so reluctant to help other people with the same objective, containment.
Because according to the CDC and the World Health Organization that does NOT help the effected areas, but makes it worse for them, which (even according to TFA!) merely causes a slight delay in importing cases to other countries. It is harmful in the end, which is why all major expert organizations are advising against that policy.
First off Ebola is a tragedy and is worthy of all efforts at control and eradication, not because I may someday be at risk, but because real people are dying. However.... The posting links to an "updated assessment" which you can view. Looking there, one is led to believe that on Oct 24, the number of Ebola cases are 30,000 worldwide. But if you look really closely, this is just a projection based on data accumulated 30 days ago. Is this the most current data we can view on which to base our assessment? Look now at the bottom of the page and you will see updated assessments including one for Oct 29 (yesterday). Look for the WHO situation reports further down. Currently the stats are: approx 13,000 confirmed or suspected cases total approx 6,000 cases confirmed. approx 5,000 deaths approx 1,000 total cases of live people testing positive for infection And the big news..... Cases in the past 21 days approx 1,500 vs. 30,000 My question is why are we trying to inject this fear into our people? Why the over inflated assessment for the purpose of publication? Is the author guided by an alternative motive, or are they just too lazy to look? Again.. Ebola is a huge concern and a tragedy to humankind. We need to do everything we can to fight this outbreak. But we should be given accurate information not scare tactics.
It's not their fault, they were not properly edumacated.
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If our President initially came out, armed with scientific facts and results of studies like this one as the rationale for not imposing a travel ban, it would have gone over much better with the American people.
Instead, we've witnessed nothing but a "FUD campaign" - with a strong sense that nobody in charge really knows what the h*ll they're doing with this stuff. First, the hospital in Texas got blamed for screwing up and not following procedures. Then it was revealed they never received any official procedure in the first place for dealing with ebola.
There's conflicting information about how contagious the ebola virus is ... with claims that you can't get it without direct contact with the infected person's bodily fluids, but medical workers wearing hazmat suits while going near the people. (If people are supposed to believe their chances of getting the virus while on an airplane with an infected person are "pretty unlikely" -- then how is it we have concerns about hospital workers catching it, even after wearing protective suits and everything else? I don't think people are convinced you can have this BOTH ways at the same time.)
And sure ... people also recall the H1N1 "swine flu" situation and how that panned out in reality.
IMO, the travel ban would just be good common sense to impose -- while setting up some exceptions for medical staff legitimately traveling to/from the high risk areas for the purpose of aid. I *love* how the government makes it out to be an "all or nothing" proposition -- where we simply can't impose the ban without risking inability to provide medical assistance over there. Seriously?! You can't come up with scenarios allowing SELECTIVE travel for appropriate people and some extra steps they're required to go through upon re-entering the US?
... guys have to pee in the woods.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Really? An "ebola forecast?" That's the degree of paranoia you've allowed the cable news outlets to work you up into?
Give me a fucking break. First of all, unless you're currently sitting next to somebody with an active infection or you've just cut yourself dissecting an infected animal, the chances of ebola spreading through North America are virtually zero. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be precautions taken, of course...in fact those precautions are exactly why you _don't_ need to be worried, because they've proven quite effective. These same media outlets seem to liken a number of the African countries affected to being about as clean as a prison toilet...yeah, that's not biased at all. Like Newsweek printing a cover with a chimpanzee on the front talking about how ebola could make its way from Africa to the continental U.S. via "infected bushmeat." Seriously, that's something that an American news outlet actually printed. They're basically _telling_ you that your best chances of catching the thing would be subsisting on a diet of infected monkeys and you're _still_ fucking terrified. They did the same thing with SARS, they did the same thing with H1N1, they're doing the same thing with ebola...yet all three of them haven't killed as many people as the common flu does, every single year.
People need to stop being afraid of their own shadows just because CNN and the government tell you to. I can sympathize, these people have been using your fear against you for decades. Communists, terrorists, "weapons of mass destruction" (incidentally, the US is sitting atop the largest pile of WMD's on the face of the earth, which they could willingly irradiate until the end of time if they actually pushed the button). The boogeyman of the day is ebola. They want you to be afraid because people who are afraid are easier to control, they're prone to making irrational decisions based on their gut feelings rather than, you know, actually thinking about it.
You want something to be worked up over, worry about heart disease...it's becoming so prevalent that odds are it's what _will_ kill you long before ebola ever does. We don't need an "ebola czar," we don't need an "ebola forecast." What we do need is for people to use their fucking heads for five seconds because if they did, they'd realize that there's a better chance of being struck by lightning than a plague of ebola decimating the entirely of North America. Stop playing into the hands of the media outlets. I gurantee you that if you stop "tuning in" so to speak, the ebola "issue" will disappear from the headlines so fast that you'd think it was a distant relative of Vanilla Ice. They don't give a fuck about ebola, or you for that matter, they give a fuck about the advertising space they're probably selling hand over fist these days.
Yah. I'm a fking moron - either that or I didn't review my post properly. Which, according to you, probably makes me a fking moron. Notice, I also forgot to close the parentheses and wrote a run on sentence. Bad me. (Slapping my wrist.)
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Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
a whole lot of hooblaa without actually saying in clear are we fucked or not
You mean the same experts who gave the OK for Amber Vinson to fly knowing she was exposed and had a fever? Or the doctor who returned from Guinea who admitted he wasn't feeling good but decided to ride the subway multiple times, go bowling and eat out? Or the nurse who also returned from Guinea and refuses to err on the side of caution and quarantine herself? Everybody knows it is super easy to pinpoint the exact moment you become contagious and only then take preventative measures. Yes, these people know everything and we can trust them completely.
Transport flights full of medical supplies and specialized personnel can go in.
Mil staff understand incubation period and the need for quarantine on return.
The lack of bed space in negative-pressure rooms around the world is the interesting number to consider.
The number of transport pods ready, the filters, protective clothing in place and ready to use.
How many regional, teaching, state, city medical sites have the expert care ready? One bed? A few beds?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I was under the impression that travel bans would just impact ordinary civilian and commercial craft, not military air vehicles or airplanes which are designated specifically for transporting medical supplies to an area where they are so vitally needed. So why would such travel restrictions still cause delays in treating the outbreak, exactly?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
'A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know that.'
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Christie's controversial Ebola quarantine now embraced by Nobel Prize-winning doctor
Dr. Beutler, an American medical doctor and researcher, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 2011 for his work researching the cellular subsystem of the body’s overall immune system — the part of it that defends the body from infection by other organisms, like Ebola.
...
Beutler reviewed Christie’s new policy of mandatory quarantine for all health care workers exposed to Ebola, and declared: “I favor it.”
Unfortunately, while the doctor’s support might provide much-needed credibility for Christie as he threatens to quarantine ever more healthcare workers returning from the Ebola fight in West Africa, it also comes with some chilling words.
“I favor it, because it’s not entirely clear that they can’t transmit the disease,” Beutler said, referring to asymptomatic healthcare workers like Kaci Hickox, a Doctors Without Borders nurse returning from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone who was quarantined in New Jersey for 65 hours before being transported to her home state of Maine on Monday afternoon.
“It may not be absolutely true that those without symptoms can’t transmit the disease, because we don’t have the numbers to back that up,” said Beutler, “It could be people develop significant viremia [where viruses enter the bloodstream and gain access to the rest of the body], and become able to transmit the disease before they have a fever, even. People may have said that without symptoms you can’t transmit Ebola. I’m not sure about that being 100 percent true. There’s a lot of variation with viruses.”
Meanwhile, Obama hires a political hack as "Ebola Czar".
So your point is that these people don't follow your advices (even if you are the top expert in epidemiology) and this as lead to a disastrous situation in the US
You mean the same experts who gave the OK for Amber Vinson to fly knowing she was exposed and had a fever?
How many people have been infected by contact with Amber Vinson?
Or the doctor who returned from Guinea who admitted he wasn't feeling good but decided to ride the subway multiple times, go bowling and eat out?
How many people have been infected by contact with this doctor?
According to the legend, the color of the regions is determined by "number of mentions". This type of map is called a choropleth map, and it's a big no-no to color regions of a map based on raw count data with out normalization based on area. If this is the case, somebody at one of those organizations should be chastised.
That wasn't a typo. You spelled exactly what you meant to write. You didn't understand the difference between "do" and "due" and you were called out on it. Now you're trying to act like it was a simple typo to save face.
What an oversimplified analogy. Limiting certain people's travel from Western African countries doesn't mean limiting aid to those places.
Why is it that people in africa cannot follow science or these top expert's advice? Why is it that all 3 people mentioned above bt the GP have demonstrated that they cannot follow the science? Why is it that with everyone being an expert and the science already settled, is the outbreak still happening and people who know better are getting infected?
Here is the problem which is the same problem that happens in engineering, software development, sports, and quit a bit of other things in life as we know it. What works on paper, what works in theory, does not always work in practice. There are a number of reasons for this, a lot of them may not even be in your control. We just had a rocket explode on launch and i'm certain that everyone involved thought they did everything correctly, everything was right- until it was obvious it wasn't.
Almost- if not every state that requires a drivers license also requires the use of a seat belt for at least the driver when operating a car. Cars are completely safe and damage is rare when the rules are followed yet people mess it up all the time.
The experts can say anything they want. The mortality rate with Ebola is sky high compare to getting cancer and dieing from smoking yet we banchildren from doing it and restrict where people can smoke. Doing the bare minimum with Ebola is not rational considering the risks results in death more often than not. Statistically, you are less likely to die from a gunshot if a gun is shot around you than you are if you get Ebola. Quarentine is akin to wearing seatbelts, to laws against discharging firearms in certain areas, to smoking in certain areas, to wearing helmets while operating motorcycles.
Idiotic, politically-correct statement from them. How would preventing Africans from coming to the US make the outbreak worse?
That's true. It wasn't a typo. Sometimes when writing quickly I write the wrong word: to instead of too, add instead of ad; for instead of fore; pray instead of pray. That's why you're supposed to proofread before sending out an important email. Mea culpa. I didn't proofread my post. If I had I would have clarified my remarks and *probably* would have caught *do* as opposed to due.
I proofed this post and found that I wrote "proof read" instead of proofread. And, if I had let go through - would that be a sign of a lack of education or something else? A lack of attention to to the spelling and grammar on an insignificant post.
It is, however, a faulty assumption to hold that transposing homophones is a sign that the writer can't distinguish between the two words
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The thing they both have in common: news sources will say "it's all under control" as long as they can print.
No arguments about this from me. But that doesn't change the fact that the whole thing runs counter to reassuring the public that they're at relatively low risk of catching the stuff if they wind up around someone who has the virus while on mass transit.
I get it.... If they're not at the stage where the vomiting and diarrhea begin, it's different. But those people are still a ticking time bomb in that regard. Do YOU want to be the guy sitting next to one of them on a plane, betting they won't START in with the vomiting and coughing and so forth, until after you're safely away from them at the end of the flight?
Quarentine is akin [...] to wearing helmets while operating motorcycles.
Not really. Quarentine would be much more like to forbid anyone to operate a motorcycle.
Careful. Ignorance is contagious.. Don't get too close.
Proofed it quickly and missed "prey instead of pray." WHACK!!! Another slap on the wrist.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I don't get it. Why does a travel restrictions have to be an all-or-nothing proposition?
It's real bloody simple. Let medical staff, military, and those working directly to address the Ebola epidemic travel. Those that wish to travel for leisure or other business related reason, banned from doing so. Exceptions are if you wish to return home to Africa to be with your family, but knowing full well you can't leave until after the epidemic subsides.
Anything wrong with the proposed solution above?
Life is not for the lazy.
until after the election. The Administration is trying to keep a lid on it, but watch out after the election
Because they'd still come, but instead of having a nice list of all the passengers on a direct flight, you'd have a needle in a haystack job of backtracking every single person entering the United States to see if they're point of origin could have been West Africa.
Do YOU want to be the guy sitting next to one of them on a plane, betting they won't START in with the vomiting and coughing and so forth, until after you're safely away from them at the end of the flight?
Doesn't really matter to me, as long as they were diligent in checking their temperature/being checked. Ebola patients don't go from beginning of fever to vomiting in the span of any but the longest plane flights.
I think one of the big things the CDC should do, though, is mention that the joint pain and lethargy that a lot of the patients are experiencing are frequently a precursor to the fever. If someone in contact with an ebola patient has unusual joint pain (i.e. not a preexisting condition like a bad knee) or lethargy, that should be the signal to get them into isolation, instead of waiting for the fever. We've heard about one of the two being their first symptom from almost everyone who has had it in the US, and they're well-known symptoms of ebola in general.
Anything wrong with the proposed solution above?
You missed one thing: Any medical staff, military and those working directly to address the epidemic should be quarantined for 3 weeks when they leave (or better yet, before they leave. Might be tricky due to lack of resources).
The idea that travel restrictions prevent the movement of supplies and people INTO to region is absurd. It makes me question the motivation of people that suggest such things.
Anything wrong with the proposed solution above?
Yes. People will find ways to travel anyway, but you won't be able to track them, making the process of containing the disease that much harder. It's why every major medical organization is recommending against travel restrictions.
The hype will die down after the US election on November 4th. Till then, the political BS machines are spinning anything that gets people's attention into points against the other side.
How many people have been infected by contact with this doctor?
Don't know yet. I don't think he has been back in the U.S. for 21 days, yet.
Some ACs are just dicks. Don't try to rationalize a fucking typographical error with them.
The good time cannot be the time when he was back in the US. For him, the time is 21 days from the time he left West Africa (not from the US arrival), to see if anyone has been infected by the subway trip or bowling game it's 21 days from these events.
They don't consider the possibility of travel restrictions that allow medical professionals in and out of the country but not average Joe Citizen. I see no reason medical professions can't be an exception so long as they go through a quarantine on the way back. Quarantine is fair IMHO since I can't even bring a dog or cat across the boarder without AT LEAST A MONTH of quarantine.
They are saying travel restrictions.
As in normal passenger flights are restricted. Why do you think that medical personnel and equipment would not be allowed in?
I keep hearing that talking point and wondered who could possible believe that a travel restriction would include military and medical personnel. But then here we are.
Right in general terms, wrong on specifics.
It makes no sense to ban direct flights from the affected countries because there are no direct flights from the affected countries.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Proofed it quickly and missed "prey instead of pray." WHACK!!! Another slap on the wrist.
I thought that that was intentional. Way cool if it had been.
I see the media panicking. I don't see the American public panicking.
If anything there is concern that the government is not taking proper choices do to politics (such as restricting / checking people who travel to ebola and requiring that doctors spend 21 days (or so) at home or in a nice isolation ward at the hospital with TV and all the take out menus they want.
I see Americans panicking. You for example.
There is absolutely no reason to quarantine people for 21 days, it's a waste of money. Regular temperature checks and quarantine in case of symptoms are all that is needed.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
You do realise that the major part of the international effort has been civilian organisations like MSF? How do you think MSF get staff, supplies and equipment into and out of the affected zone? On regular scheduled airlines of course, they don't have their own fleet of planes.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
How about the passport? No matter how they try to get here, they still have to present that Liberian password at the border....sorry buddy... Sure the really, really determined could get in, but 99% would be stopped. If this was any other place except Africa then they politically correct crap would not be taking place. If, say, Ebola was rampant in Tonga, travel restriction would have be implemented long ago. The Administration is playing with out health for political reasons.....
What an oversimplified analogy. Limiting certain people's travel from Western African countries doesn't mean limiting aid to those places.
How do you think the aid actually gets to those places? Humanitarian agencies like MSF don't have their own fleets of planes. Sure, governments could arrange military transport, but then it would be on their timetable, and likely only when enough stuff/staff is ready to go to justify a flight. Not to mention the fact that setting up alternative arrangements would take time, delaying relief efforts.
I know, Dunning-Kruger and all, but it still amazes me how many people assume they know better than the experts in the field.
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I heard NPR say word for word that a travel ban would make it logistically impossible to get supplies to those countries. Riiiight, because I usually take an entire medical tent as a carry on when I fly commercial to West Africa. You're right. It's idiotic.
"why would such travel restrictions still cause delays in treating the outbreak, exactly?"
because the crushing majority of people helping in Africa coming from US or europe voluntary up to now are actually civilian. You do not want to put in difficulty to bring in medical personal and materials to where it is eneded. Furthermore travel ban would cause more chaos by making people less traceable. Because people WILL find alternative. Alternative for which we may have no tracing.
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People will find ways to travel anyway,
This argument is like saying that we shouldn't outlaw murder because people will find ways to kill anyway. Actually, it's not even an analogy. Taking yourself from an infected area to a non-infected area on purpose is on-par with murder. Not just any murder either. Mass murder. So yeah, the international community shouldn't sanction mass-murderers, because they are just going to mass-murder anyway.
The vast majority of sane, moral people will obey travel restrictions and give Mommy a phone call on her birthday instead of visiting. Under sensible travel restrictions, we allow only those with a true need to travel, and we quarantine them upon return. Stuff like this was done just fine 100 years ago. They held immigrants on Ellis island until they were well, or made them return if they had something that couldn't be released into the general population. So I don't want to hear all this bloody "we don't have the infrastructure and resources" crap either. Yeah, you might have to live in a FEMA trailer for a few weeks on some army base, in a field that used to be used for target practice. Tough noogies. It's damned better than doing nothing as these so called "experts" say.
I swear, the word "expert" is reversing in polarity, just like "smart".
Precaution and panic are not identical - especially when the powers that be are inconsistent and contradictory in their warning. Do we truly know when someone is contagious? We know that if the person is vomiting and generally incapacitated he is infectious and that the period from contracting the disease to becoming infectious is 21 days.
/their own apartment (if they live alone) or where ever is trivial compared to the cost to them if they infected family, friends, others.
But - in each of these cases we don't know when EXACTLY a person contracted ebola; nor is it EXACTLY 21 days to the minute.
So was the doctor who went bowling in Williamsburg a risk to those around him before he fell sick the next morning? There is no oops here. Contracting ebola is pretty much like playing russian roulette with 3 chambers filled.
I'm not saying that doctors have to be in solitary confinement for 3 wks after coming back - but it would be rather easy to isolate them in their own home or in a facility; give them internet. tv, cable, take out food - whatever. The cost to society is minimal compared to scrambling clean-up crews and tracking down people they came in contact with after-the-fact; and the inconvenience to the doctor in having to stay in a hotel room
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Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
No airline will fly to a place where such a few people are allowed to fly. Restrict people, or just outgoing flights to a place , and all commercial flights will shutdown.
Your own links contradict you. The director of the CDC (who is an MD, not a scientist) said a travel ban could make things worse. The WHO supports travel restrictions and controls, such as closing all but major entry points and implementing screening for sick people, and continuing low-risk activities such as fuel and supply deliveries, but cautions that overly broad restrictions could be counterproductive.
What makes you think these organizations are run by experts?
Airlines are perfectly willing to charter planes to people who don't have their own. It's actually cheaper to do it that way if you're flying a decent number of people. Yeah, it might take some coordination among the various agencies. They should be doing that anyway.
The mortality rate with Ebola is sky high ...
So far the mortality rate for people in the United States who were detected with Ebola early in the disease and got immediate high quality care is zero. Thomas Eric Duncan was already very sick by the time he got admitted. Maybe the mortality rate in Africa has more do do with the lack of resources to provide the kind of care available in the US than it does with some absolute number.
Awesome, so funny yet so true.
This line of reasoning makes absolutely no sense. For example, let's say there are three avenues of transport: land, sea and air. Any of these can be accessed legally or illegally. Now, we'll place a travel ban; legally, there are no avenues of transport. What the anti-travel ban people are saying, is that everybody will suddenly shift to illegal methods of transport. While it may increase the number of illegal travellers, it decreases the number of total travellers. I find it hard to believe that an entire population could utilize illegal methods of travel without drawing a lot of attention.
Modern health care can improve chances significantly. As long as the half-dozen beds available for intensive care and organ support at a hospital aren't already busy.
If there was an actual outbreak with a significant number of infected needing treatment at the same time we'd do better than Africa with a few percent, and possibly a bit more by using antibodies from recovered infected which is probably easier to do in a modern setting, but barring actual cures it would fall apart completely faced with anything near the number of cases they have in Africa.
Ask again in a week. She only flew two weeks and three days ago, and IIRC, the plane was used for additional flights for a couple of days after that before they went through and sanitized everything, so the worst-case incubation period doesn't end until a week from yesterday.
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No, in the case of Ebola, it's not. It's equivalent to the TSA performing body cavity searches on grandmothers and toddlers. It's medical safety theater that accomplishes very little except to pacify clueless fools with no understanding of the science.
Those are politicians spewing politically correct BS.
"travel bans could hamper the delivery of medical supplies and the deployment of specialized personnel to manage the epidemic"
Then allow those supplies and people to continue to come in while restricting people who are leaving. Duh! The US military is over there building field hospitals for use by these professionals. They could just was easily build quarantine centers at the airports and no travel visa would be issued to anyone who hasn't gone through them. Until those are built, the State Department could stop issuing travel visas to those nations and it wouldn't affect supplies or medical people getting in at all.
The entire argument that the CDC is giving is rubbish. It is the equivalent of saying: we know that condoms do not have a zero failure rate, so don't bother wearing one. If you catch something, let us know so we can treat it and track down everyone you've been with.
Yes, the CDC is correct in that saying the best way to stop this outbreak is to get it under control at the source. That also means containing it at the source and not allowing it to spread anywhere else. This includes more than people. Remember that animals are the original carriers and you don't want wildlife outside of Africa getting it either via the waste disposal cycle. That would only result in more future outbreaks in people who have had nothing to do with West Africa.
has it been 21 days (although the WHO suggests 42 days is a better guideline) since they interacted with the public or their family? If not, then the answer is unknown.
that's why travel visas and passports exist.
I find it hard to believe that an entire population could utilize illegal methods of travel without drawing a lot of attention.
Unless they're from Latin America and they're practically ushered in. Unfortunately, it has become politically incorrect for governments to do one of their main functions: protect and maintain the integrity of their borders. As far as Ebola is concerned, the current legal methods don't offer much protection over illegal means.
the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms is 2 to 21 days (WHO)
I haven't found the exact spreading over time, but I suppose that it's not 0.1/19% between day 2 and 20 and 99.9 on the 21st day. And for now, the counter is still at zero. Let's wait. But this does not sound like it's the apocalypse that some seems to wait.
It is politically inconvenient. Next question?
Quarantine is fair IMHO since I can't even bring a dog or cat across the boarder without AT LEAST A MONTH of quarantine.
Vets can kill aggressive dogs so it's would be fair IHMO if meds could kill aggressive people.
No, its the same. But since the TSA already fondles grandma, then its a no brainer to quarentine them if for nothing other than the public's peace of mind. And yes, that is more or less why you cannot legally discharge a firearm inside the city limits or hunt within so many feet of a home in most states.
That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. (And no, it's not more-or-less why you can't discharge firearms so. It's not even remotely related.)
aside from the fact that it is racist.
What about all the doctors and others from other countries? Present a German passport, get in without a quarantine. Doesn't matter where you've been. The stamps can be removed, or not put there in the first place. Oh, and 1%-5% of Americans have dual passports, so there are millions of people that could travel to Liberia on one passport and back into the US on a "clean" US passport (clean from Liberian stamps, but ful of Ebola).
There hasn't been a travel ban that has been legal or made sense.
The quarantine people are asking for is prison without trial, abolishing the Constitution because they are afraid of a germ. Is that really what you want?
Learn to love Alaska
So you wouldn't be concerned at all if somebody you cared about sat next to amber vinson on that plane or shared a cab with that doctor who felt it was ok to tour the city after being exposed and not feeling well? It is pure luck that no other people have been infected.
Yes, who enforces it? How do you stop someone from the US from traveling there? They could fly to Amsterdam, train to Italy, ferry to Tunisia, and take ground transport from there to the affected area. Unless the affected areas seal their own borders voluntarily, it can't work. So the US has nothing to do with a travel ban, unless the US wants to ban all tourists in and out of the US, regardless of destination or origin.
Learn to love Alaska
Bullshit..lol. Way to take your thinking cap off and burrying where you won't find it for a good long while.
The reason you cannot shoot firearms inside the city limits is because people make mistakes and miss their targets sending stray bullets that could harm or kill someone else. This is no different because she could be mistaken and infect others or worse yet, infect the wildlife which will infect others.
In many states, you are forbidden from riding a motorcycle without a helmet. You will be fined if you do not have one.
In fact, there seems to be only 2 states that do not have restrictions on operating a motorcycle without a helmet.
http://www.bikersrights.com/st...
I'd be much more sympathetic to the "quarantine 'em all" approach if I had some evidence that quarantine-on-symptoms didn't work.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
According to a Nobel scientist quoted here: http://www.naturalnews.com/047...
"In voicing support for Christie's quarantine, Dr. Beutler -- current director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas -- told the website, "I favor it," adding, "I favor it, because it's not entirely clear that they can't transmit the disease." He was referring to currently asymptomatic healthcare worker Kaci Hickox, a Doctors Without Borders nurse who recently returned to New Jersey after treating patients in Sierra Leone and was quarantined in the state for 65 hours. She was eventually taken to her home state of Maine.
"It may not be absolutely true that those without symptoms can't transmit the disease, because we don't have the numbers to back that up," Dr. Beutler continued in his NJ.com interview. "It could be people develop significant viremia [where viruses enter the bloodstream and gain access to the rest of the body], and become able to transmit the disease before they have a fever, even.
"People may have said that without symptoms you can't transmit Ebola. I'm not sure about that being 100 percent true. There's a lot of variation with viruses," he added."
Also apparently sneezing can potentially spread Ebola for several feet and it can live on surfaces for days:
http://www.naturalnews.com/047...
http://www.naturalnews.com/047...
Ways to decontaminate with robotics UV:
http://www.naturalnews.com/047...
Some suggest vitamin C may help:
https://www.patrickholford.com...
Others disagree: http://scienceblogs.com/insole...
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
It's like gym membership, everyone is family. You'll suddenly find half of the USA has close relative or two in Africa. The only really amazing thing here is that people are naive enough to think travel restrictions work at this day and age.
We know that [...][ the period from contracting the disease to becoming infectious is 21 days.
No, we don't know that.
We know that the maximum time from contamination to symptoms is 21 days.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Airlines are perfectly willing to charter planes to people who don't have their own.
You seem to be overestimating the scale of the operation.
MSF currently have 270 "international" staff members in the field. They do 4-6 week assignments.
Chartering whole planes would be ridiculous.
http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-quarantine-can-undermine-efforts-curb-epidemic
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I'll wait until there is any evidence of an outbreak before I start panicking. As I've said before none of the people Thomas Eric Duncan was staying with including his fiance got sick even though he was mistakenly sent home the first time he went to the ER with symptoms. That tells me it's pretty difficult to transmit until someone gets very sick.
True. At least that what I had heard at first. Then some other news / scare outlets started mentioning that the time frame may be twice that (42 days).
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
"it might take some coordination among the various agencies."
Various other companies also charter cargo planes if it's mostly supplies that need to be delivered. Or smaller planes could be chartered from various other airports, such as in southern Europe or Morocco. The argument that regular passenger service needs to be maintained so that professional medical help can get into and rotate out of the affected countries doesn't really seem to hold water.
hindsight is sooo goood eh...
Correct - stray bullets pose an immediate danger to everyone around them.
False - because she does not represent even the faintest most remote infection risk until symptoms arise that are completely unmistakable.
The two cases are not the same, not even remotely.
That's relatively easy. Let's imagine that one infected african comes to the US. Symptoms appears, he goes to an hopital, is isolated, is treated by a rested specialized team. He dies or he is cured. He infected 0 or 1 medical staff, which is treated early and don't die. Total: 0 or 1 dead, 1 to 2 people infected.
Now imagine he stays in Liberia. Symptoms appears. He goes to a temporary hopital. They have few places, he can be admitted or not. If he's not, he has good chances to infected several other people. If he's admitted, he's treated by a mix of specialized and non specialized staff, all tired of treating dozens of ebola patients since several month. They have more chances to get infected and less treatment opportunity. Total: 0 to several dead, 1 to several infected
Looks like that preventing Africans from coming to the US can make the outbreak worse. But maybe you only count US people?
The argument that regular passenger service needs to be maintained so that professional medical help can get into and rotate out of the affected countries doesn't really seem to hold water.
So you think that you know more than MSF, the WHO and the CDC?
Do we have to invoke the dread names of Dunning and Kruger?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
No "news" outlet has said that.
Fox "entertainement, not news" appear to hire people who cannot read.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I heard it somewhere, but I don't think it was Fox (as I rarely even stop there). I think it was the local news channel ( NY1 - the default when you turn on the TV). But that doesn't matter.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Then I guess they get their "news" from Fox.
The "42 days" nonsense is from people who don't understand that WHO declares a country as being ebola-free after two incubation periods with no cases.
42 days = 2 * 21 days.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
People begin to assume that the experts don't know everything when three of the Ebola patients here are medical professionals, two of whom had specific experience treating Ebola.
So it's clear that they aren't omniscient, and the cost of keeping someone in their home, or of limiting non-critical travel, compared to risking more lives here, is trivial.
Duncan came from a place with Ebola most likely knowing he had Ebola. It is highly probable that he instructed his family on what not to do as well as took steps himself not to spread it.. I would consider that to be an off case because the general public does not know who you are, if you are infected, and i have yet to hear that duncan was eating breakfast at the table with the kids, lounging on the furnature and interacting with the family as normal people would. In fact, we have been told he did none of those things and stayed in the bedroom which the family avoided.
These people running around are in completely different scenarios.
People begin to assume that the experts don't know everything when three of the Ebola patients here are medical professionals, two of whom had specific experience treating Ebola.
So it's clear that they aren't omniscient, and the cost of keeping someone in their home, or of limiting non-critical travel, compared to risking more lives here, is trivial.
So... your argument is that because the experts aren't perfect we should ignore them? Really?
As for the cost of restricting travel being trivial, you apparently need to RTFA.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I hope you get ebola.
Who said they (those particular "experts"). should be ignored? I will say that their words shouldn't be blindly accepted without question.
Other experts don't agree. Our own military has a policy of 21-day quarantine for troops returning from Ebola-stricken regions. Other African countries have imposed travel restrictions that have helped stop its spread within their borders.
And I did RTFA. Limiting travel doesn't have to mean their interpretation of it (forbidding flights from/to certain places). For starters, I'd restrict visas for non-US naionals from those places, regardless of where their particular flight originated. I'd restrict non-essential travel to those places (medical aid workers would count as essential).
Finally, asking people who have been in close contact with Ebola patients to quarantine if at all symptomatic isn't unreasonable.
Interesting !! I noticed (of course) that 42 was 2x 21 but had not heard that WHO declares a country as being ebola-free after two incubation periods w/o new cases.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
http://online.wsj.com/articles/who-declares-senegal-free-of-ebola-disease-1413574405
The WHO declared Senegal, which shares a border with Guinea, clear of the disease. The agency made the assessment after Senegal went 42 days—twice Ebola’s incubation period—without finding a new case.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I recall seeing that death rate from gunshot wounds is about 1 in 2 for rifle and 1 in 7 for handgun. Ebola death rate is what, about 2 in 3? So which one should we restrict?? /sarcasm
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
No, it is not false. A proficient shooter with capable back stopping presents not even the slightests risk of stray bullets hitting anything other than what was intended.
So what happens is people make mistakes, get careless, or even distracted and bad things happen. Now here is your problem. It can be up to 21 days but does not need to be that long befor symptons show. When this happens, where will they be? In a crowded subway? Eating in a restaurant that might not clean the tables as well as they should? Will they be at a park where kids play? So what happens when one of these Ebola exposed people make a mistake, get careless, or dustracted and harms or kills someone else? The CDC says droplets from sneezing can spread Ebola, it also says it can survive several hours on door knobs and tables but several days in body fluids like blood.
So they wake at 6am, take thier temp twice a day (6am then 6pm) but starts with symtoms like feaver at noon while eating lunch at their favorite deli. They then go biking which also fatigues the body as most excercise does, stop by a park and rest on a bench, whipe the sweat from their forehead and then get a drink from the fountain. Now 6 hours has passed and you cannot in any way shape or form tell anyone how many people got infected, could have been infected, or unknowingly was infected and infects others.
I don't agree with it, but the argument apparently is that if medical personnel knew that they would be put under quarantine upon their return, they may be less willing to volunteer to go and help in the first place... so in that respect, such restrictions could hinder the aid that those countries need.
However, I do not think that this would actually impact many people in reality, most people would actually respect a quarantine that was imposed upon them, particularly if they had some kind of assurance that they would not suffer any sort of financial hardship as a consequence. To that end, I know that laws do exist that can require that employers hold jobs for people who are placed under an official quarantine, and in such jurisdictions, it is illegal to use such a lawfully excused absence from work as a basis for dismissal.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And I did RTFA. Limiting travel doesn't have to mean their interpretation of it (forbidding flights from/to certain places).
Uh huh. And when you eliminate most of the travelers, what do you think the airlines are going to do? Maintain their flight schedules with empty planes? Partial restrictions have much larger effects than just eliminating the restricted travelers.
For starters, I'd restrict visas for non-US naionals from those places, regardless of where their particular flight originated.
WTF? Why would you restrict people who haven't even been in the region? I'm resisting the urge to throw down the race card, but it's hard.
Finally, asking people who have been in close contact with Ebola patients to quarantine if at all symptomatic isn't unreasonable.
I don't agree, but even supposing I did have you thought about the effects of doing that? Like, for example, discouraging doctors and nurses from traveling to West Africa to help out? The biggest problem with controlling the epidemic there is the lack of healthcare workers, and unnecessary mandatory quarantines are going to reduce the number of health care workers willing to go.
Don't believe me? It's already happening, even with the limited state-based quarantine requirements. If the quarantines were actually necessary or useful, that would be unavoidable, but it's not, so quarantines are actively damaging the fight against the disease in the place where it's most needed, in order to assuage groundless fears of people who have 0% of ever contracting the disease.
People, not to put too fine a point on it, like you.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Anything wrong with the proposed solution above?
You missed one thing: Any medical staff, military and those working directly to address the epidemic should be quarantined for 3 weeks when they leave (or better yet, before they leave. Might be tricky due to lack of resources).
The idea that travel restrictions prevent the movement of supplies and people INTO to region is absurd. It makes me question the motivation of people that suggest such things.
You can't possibly be THAT dense. You really think a mandatory 3-week quarantine won't reduce the number of volunteers for 3-5 week missions?
Not true ... The larger the population of infected people.... The more likely it will spread world wide. There is growing concern that the virus might become endemic in the general populations of west Africa ... Like the chicken pox is in much of the world. Forecasts allow reasonable orders of magnitude to be calculated for accessing the requirements of a proper response and even more importantly, if the efforts of that response are being effective or not. Forecasts address real world important things like how much, how many, who is paying and can we even get what we need.... Or in assessing the return on the efforts required to restrict travel to a large heavily populated area on another continent.... Really what is the impact and what extra measures need to be taken to assure that the restrictions are not circumvented?... It cannot be an easy task to put a wall around a group of countries with 10's of millions of citizens ... Who might want to get the f*** out of dodge when we start confining them... Consider their view..... It may look to many that we would just be condemning many to die just because of their location proximity and nothing else. Whatever these costs are ... It certainly wont be cheap.
Forecasts are pretty damn important if they are done right ... Behind all the hysteria spun up by the press someone actually has to do some real work as there isn't a money faerie in my reality that will magically pop in and solve the problems, though I am sure many in congress do believe there is such a thing based upon the legislation churned out in evidence of this. Having an idea of how many people that are likely to die right now and over the next few months I think could be useful. Transmission from the dead to the living is rampant in west Africa so assessing the true requirements for proper handling of the dead might be of some importance as the scales of magnitude between 50,000 and 500,000 are not insignificant.
There is so much unknown about the ramifications of this disease running through a large population. This is our first experience. In the previous 40 years since it Ebola made its public appearance out of the jungle, there has been nothing like this..... If we assume we know all we need to know right now and allow ourselves to start questioning the necessity of many of the current extra precautions and measures underway internationally, while the virus is still spreading exponentially, sure feels like a lot of undue and untested confidence. Decisions made in a vacuum which could just make things worse. What's important right now is the mechanics at work in the hot zone. You can't change the media spinning shades of hysteria, its how they make money and you shouldn't allow yourself to get sucked up in the hype it drives, honestly who cares ... This is just noise. However, being very very concerned about a disease spreading exponentially with a 70% mortality rate is extremely reasonable.
Some things we are still discovering have far reaching ramifications...imagine ... Men may be carriers of the disease for 6 months after an Ebola infection... in their semen! Allowing Ebola to become endemic for a lack of planning due to poor forecasting could really be a big problem and not just for west Africa. This would affect everyone world wide in how we interact with people knowing how many carriers there may be out there, HIV takes years to kill and look how that has effected human behavior... Ebola transmitted the same way as HIV ... well... I can't imagine ... Really I just don't want to..
The virus changes all the time ... mutation is the norm in the virus world. Ebola mutates at a relatively mild rate as compared to HIV which mutates 40x more often than Ebola in any given time. Mutation will not necessarily make worse, in fact many feel that Ebola will moderate its self becoming less deadly if it becomes a reg
Allen E Hall
the WHO median number for the actual and unreported cases that was used in the baseline calculations of their forecasts last week were 2x the reported numbers in their WHO Ebola Response Roadmap publication that the news has been reporting the numbers from. The worst case scenario forecasts were based on a 3x the reported numbers. you can look at all the data and latest updates to the road map here: http://apps.who.int/iris/brows...
Allen E Hall