BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?

Subject: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Jul 14 - 04:08 PM

There only seems to be about a 50% fatality rate, way better than the usual 90-95%, but still - I read the Hot Zone and worry.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jul 14 - 05:44 PM

I heard the death rate is still around 90%. But there are common-sense ways to avoid catching it, like not taking the body home and then everyone touching it during the funeral.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 08:12 AM

Quite alarming, given its transmissibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 11:23 AM

SRS makes a good point. In many cultures, it would not be transmitted to nearly the same extent.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr at work
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 05:41 PM

From today's internet just now quote "WHO reporting 844 cases including 518 deaths since the epidemic began in March" I get .614 which is great, for ebola, way lower than usual. I think. Why aren't the international airports in West Africa all closed?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 05:50 PM

Because it isn't airborne and when you are contagious it is pretty clear that you are ill? It isn't a first world disease. I would think that if you can afford to fly, you are probably much less inclined to catch it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 06:20 PM

Travel Health Notice, from Canada:

The risk of infection is low for most travellers, although the risk may increase for those who are working in a health care setting since most human infections result from direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected patients. The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends travellers avoid all direct contact with a person or corpse infected with the Ebola virus. Also, avoid contact with or handling an animal suspected of having Ebola. Travellers should immediately seek medical attention at the first sign of illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 10:53 PM

I've been following this moderately closely - national NPR programing, as well as local programming on WUNC (local NPR affiliate) have had some good coverage on 2-3 shows recently regarding both the cultural barriers and technology barriers to getting information out that would 1. decrease the likelihood of spreading the virus and 2. lead to identifying and getting people who have been infected to treatment facilities much more quickly.

I wonder if the better stats for survival reflect the spread to more populous areas where people who develop symptoms may be identified more quickly and treated earlier in the course of the disease?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 08:09 PM

you had better have an immediate and thorough way of disposing of the bodies, which might conflict with cultural customs, but nevertheless do it. I presume burning but I don't know for sure. You have to save the living and the medical workers.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 10:27 PM

And how would you get that message out and make sure your instructions are followed, mg?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 10:37 PM

Want to make clear I am not being sarcastic. I agree, mg, that following those practices would reduce the spread of the disease. One can not simply bark orders, clap one's hands, and 'make it so,' however.
Actually, in some few countries, a ruler (very strong-armed dictator) can come very close to do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 02:17 PM

Start with martial law. Set up quarantine areas. Protect the water supply from bodies. Burn all trash and human and animal waste. Kill or control animals that could eat bodies. Ask for international help.   Get any militia,police military involved. Get churches, witchdoctors, healers involved. Limit people assembling. Design rituals that honor the deceased but protect the living. Get any radio or broadcast and cell phone messages going. If there is air power drop body bags, gloves, beach, big tongs or whatever to move the dead. Move rapidly to isolate the sick and dead and clear land so animals can not get in. Provide whatever comfort is possible to victims but focus always on halting spread of disease.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 02:29 PM

I would also get with the diaspora of whatever country, esoecially doctors, nurses, clergy, famous actresses, sports figures..well also those in the country and have them contact all they could..giving explanations of what was required to save their lives.

Bark orders and clap hands. Have whistles and bullhorns. It is your first line of defense. If there is internet take pictures and videos and ask advice. I have barked orders before and will again if needed

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr at work
Date: 17 Jul 14 - 06:29 PM

It is unclear how airborne it can be, see the Hot Zone for a terrifying read.

Now numbers are (from Google News' Ebola heading)
As of July 12, the cumulative number of Ebola virus cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone was at 964, including 603 deaths. The death toll has almost doubled in a month's time; reported deaths in the three countries in mid-June was 350.

603/964 still only about .62 death rate, still very low for Ebola. And I am finally hearing about RCI not allowing refugees from the stricken areas across the border - (1) about time and (2) yikes, they need refuge.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jul 14 - 07:00 PM

getting people who have been infected to treatment facilities much more quickly

There are no treatment facilities for Ebola. All medical staff can do is act as jailers for the dying.

There are very good reasons for hiding from the medical "care" system with a disease like this (as there were during the First World cholera epidemics of the 19th century).

What's needed is some kind of cheap portable containment that can be taken to people's homes to reduce the risk of spread without subjecting people's relatives to a lonely death in a concentration camp.

Start with martial law. Set up quarantine areas.

The sort of thinking that the mg's of the Middle Ages used when burning Jews to stop the plague.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 17 Jul 14 - 08:49 PM

"I have barked orders before and will again if needed"

Did anyone listen?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Jul 14 - 10:03 PM

Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Jul 14 - 10:18 PM

There are treatment centers and WHO is involved in some. It sounds like not much can.be done except rehydration and i hope nutrition and palliative care. Some people have recovered enough to be released. But quarantine has to be done in a disease this virulant. Any of us could have to be quarantined..our ancestors surely were against cholera, scarlet fever, diptheria etc. I suspect a cure of sorts exists...some aromatherapy products are quite antiviral. Coconut has antiviral properties and ks said.to.burst the viral membrane. Medicine does not seem to do too well against viruses but keep trying. Lead, follow or get out.of the way and dont say nothing can be done. Put our heads together and see what we come up with. Could be coming soon go a tlwn near you.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 17 Jul 14 - 11:30 PM

Time will tell.

Keep yourself healthy, eat right and sleep right.

Of far greater, current concern, is the MERS out of the middle east at the end of the Hajj Pilgrimage.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

sjjjhlepping with camels is satisfying and far worth the risk.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:57 PM

Ebola has reached Lagos, Africa's most populated city.

Article

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 08:08 PM

I am going to read up on ultraviolet light. I think it was used on viruses.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jul 14 - 02:07 PM

Have WHO been chasing the other people on the plane to with that one poor vic? I don't seem to be able to find out.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 03:52 AM

It is reported today that a 33-year old US doctor has tested positive for the disease in Liberia. He is under treatment in a hospital.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 04:28 AM

Yes, a lot of medical personnel treating ebola patients get infected, it's the nature of the disease.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 03:11 PM

I am finding myself annoyed (to put it mildly) at headlines in US press about how "2 Americans have Ebola!" like, oh, *now* we care?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: gnu
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 05:08 PM

4 countries now?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 06:15 AM

A bit more here on medical personnel and the risks they face:

Top Liberian doctor becomes latest vitctim of ebola outbreak

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 11:36 AM

Brave people. We need more of these, Kirk, many more.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 04:25 PM

West African countries announce new measures to stop ebola spread

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 04:02 PM

And today, doctor at the forefront of the fight against the disease in Sierra Leone dies: Article

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 06:14 PM

UK's Chief Medical Officer now feels it's only a matter of time before it escapes Africa: the Lagos case flew from Liberia, there has been at least one case where the family "liberated" the patient.

The virus is not contagious in the incubation period, but once symptoms appear, the very nature of the symptoms (bleeding from mucilaginous tissues, principally mouth, nose and bum) leads to gross propagation of the virus. In particular, irritation can cause coughing up of blood in aerosol form, which can migrate. One study has also shown that the worst form can transmit by air.

Sadly, the UK's isolation hospitals have almost all been converted into flats (Colney Hatch, Enfield Highlands). I don't think I'd like to own one of those if the need has to be reversed...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 06:19 PM

They'll pay attention once it shows up in a "first world" country.

Until then, dead wogs won't bother anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 10:50 PM

I dunno, Mrrzy, maybe I just don't read the right news. I'm not much of a news hound, for the most part just listen to NPR and scan the headlines of a few mainstream media outlets on line. But I don't think more than 3 or 4 days have gone by since this outbreak began that I haven't seen or heard front page news regarding it- maybe not one of the top 5 stories, but still front page.

As of mid July, since the Ebola virus first appeared and was identified in humans in 1976(?) there were 3584 confirmed human cases known to the world, of which 2270 people died. (I know both numbers have gone up in the last 2 weeks, and will continue to climb in the course of this current outbreak.) Obviously a very deadly disease. But when countries, especially African countries regarding Ebola, decide how to use resources (or how they want helper countries to use resources) for research or public health, they have obviously had to focus on more prevalent and widespread diseases that threaten and kill many more people (at least so far.) Think Malaria. Think AIDS. Think Cholera.

Because the virus is so rare and clinical trials on humans so very expensive, pharmaceutical companies have not been much involved - they would go bankrupt very quickly from the cost of the trials, given the very limited potential market for any vaccine or drugs developed.

Because the USA identified the virus as a potential bioterrorism weapon against which our government desires to develop the means to protect our own population, the US government has by far been the largest spender on research - Dept. of Defense, NIH and NIAID. There doesn't appear to be any central place to look to find total funding of research by US tax dollars so I can't quote figures. Found two grant projects going back to 2007 that add up to about $132 million. I expect there are more dollars that are included in grants to study multiple diseases in the same category. That is not a lot of money - except it is a lot of money in proportion to the actual number of infections and deaths caused by Ebola over the past 40 years until now when compared to tax funded research per infected person for other diseases historically.

Regardless of the original motives that can get Congress to appropriate funds, the research is not proprietary, as would be the case with for profit funded research, and the USA has an excellent record of sharing health related publicly funded research freely, and to encourage use of such findings as are made to promote public health and disease prevention around the world.

I am certain, in addition to the many health care volunteers from around the world, including the USA, that our CDC, DOD, NIH, NIAID and a number of other federal agencies, not to mention knowledgeable people at university research centers around the country and around the world, are offering all the assistance and expertise they can and that is accepted, to the countries in Africa experiencing this current outbreak.

Let me confess, neither my doctor brother-in-law nor my doctor nephew are in Africa now, treating Ebola patients. But their specialties would not make them very useful treating infectious diseases in general- both are anesthesiologists. But both have been to Africa several times with different aid organizations. I am acquainted with 3 doctors and 2 nurses who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in west Africa. I know many other health care providers who yearly take time from their regular practice to volunteer in Africa and other 3rd world countries to provide health care that never makes the news. I know other health care professionals at the university medical centers in my region who are spending much time and effort in training and consulting with "people on the ground." These individuals who make the choice to go put boots on the ground are able to do this because of networks of others - family, friends, church or synagogue or mosque or ashram, colleagues in their private practices or at their institutions or employers, and the institutions or employers themselves, some governmental, some with some governmental funding, some entirely private or corporate, who support them. Money, supplies, expertise, computers or computer networks - all manner of in kind help and support.

And where I live and who I know is not unique in terms of our society or our locale. So don't tell me, Greg, that "dead wogs won't bother anyone." You insult countless people and institutions with that blanket, ignorant, thoughtless, statement. Not just in the USA, but in first world countries where ever they are.

Mrrzy, mg, and Gref F. Do you donate time or money to efforts to help others? You may well do so.

mg, while I am sure your measures would be effective, I am always struck by what seems to me a very simplistic paradigm that does not give any weight to cultural differences or the rights of individuals. That dynamic between the social and the individual is always a messy and ever shifting fulcrom, but not to you. I respect and understand you are entitled to your paradigm, but it is pretty scary to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 11:57 PM

My familial sources with the NIH and CDC makes my awareness of the situation in Liberia only slightly better than Janie who has a realistic handle on the current out of control scourge of Ebola.

The suggestions by mg are but some of the tools that used to be the strengths of WHO and the CDC but since the take over by megalomaniac financiers the budgets of the CDC has been cut three times over and is currently weaker than FEMA before Katrina. Who has also suffered an economic collapse since member countries have not paid their dues since all the money has been concentrated among a very greedy few.

Money desperately needed by the CDC is now spent by our Congress to investigate the CDC instead of funding them.

Liberia does not have the resources to even put people in quarantine.
The next sudden surge of Ebola is expected when the countries of Nigeria and Senegal experience contact infections which has not yet begun despite examples of a returning traveler dying in Nigeria.

Believe me the budget concerns I mentioned are paramount in both the runaway early infectious spread of Ebola and next waging a global response which is currently economically impossible. Not to put too sharp an economic point on this historic outbreak, but Wall St. took more than schools, libraries, food pantries, homes and main street business. They took lives beyond measure by shrinking the CDC to less than a third of their budget. It has made for a perfect storm of an inability to respond effectively. The non chalance by Liberia to respond in dangerous.

The accurate numbers regarding mortality rates range from 60 to 70 percent and only rises to 90% in cultures that traditionally wash the dead.

10 years ago I wrote about Ebola out breaks and bio warfare right here on Mudcat along with other unsavory future risks. I was told to stop it. Futurist discussions quickly broke down when I inartfully used the word prophesize instead of deduce or reasonably deduce. Still Ebola is a subject like nuclear weapons. It is about when, not if.
Most of my favorite disaster discussions back then such as economic collapse, corporate pathology, fresh water doomed by gas drilling and of course disease, today have their own Nat Geo TV series.

In short Ebola is officially out of control and is months away from a burn out of all infectious people. Short of a terrorist intentionally bringing Ebola to the US we stand a good chance of keeping our shores safe. The only animals to transfer Ebola to man are a few primates and bats. Bats have had a recent die off in the DC area from a fungus epidemic or synthetic nicotine pesticide. Bats to the north were first effected.

The worst enemy to our response at this point is Congress. Obama could be the executive order hero to the world except for Republicans0 if he responds quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 12:26 AM

btw Ultra violet light will work on BACTERIA control but not on virus so small that it can be measured in angstroms or wave lengths.

People lets not let the Dustin Hoffman movie Outbreak go to your head.
Still, this has not been a very lucky month so far.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 03:02 AM

BBC reports: from the Liberian minister of information:
There will be a 30 day suspension for Liberian workers. The Liberian Army (security force) will enforce limited movement of people who may be fleeing for various reasons. They call these actions as tough and extreme. A call for quarantine has been made again despite the difficulty of staffing select schools that are being repurposed.

Think for a moment and thank the nurses and doctors who are working at the front lines of this war on certain death. The Von Stauffenberg like courage it takes to suit up in plastic field protection and duct tape in 115 degree heat and then remove the protective garb one glove at a time and then the hood and suit with bare hands. These are not like the NASA like suits with separate air supply. They are thin and up to usual disposable standards.
These few nurses and doctors are all that stand between you and the virus that takes 6 or 7 days to incubate and then presents with a preliminary 101 fever that is exactly the same as normal flu symptoms.

So far the global response is far less than what Haiti received after their earth quake and we all know how inadequate that was.

Congress leaves Washington tomorrow and the only sure vote that will be taken is to sue Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 10:20 AM

Yes. My life has been on the line since i was twenty to go wherever i was sent. I have monthly autokatic payments to mercy corps, catholic relief, portland rescue mission, and i contribite to heifer and smiletrain when i can. I built a water well in chad.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 10:34 AM

Furthermore i beg your pardon but i am highly offended. I have worked for departments of epidemiology and infectious diseases. There are things you have to do. If you dont many more people will suffer and die.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 02:52 PM

I have also made 112 Kiva loans in 48 countries not that I consider this to be anybody's business.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 05:25 PM

In 2012, one disease killed 460 000 children before their fifth birthdays.

482,000 CHILDREN,
in ONE YEAR

There were 207,000,000 estimated cases that year.

The disease: malaria.
It's fairly preventable, so it's not really much of a threat to "us". It's also treatable, has a much lower fatality rate, and the symptoms are, IMO, quite a bit less terrifying than Ebola virus disease.

Malaria is already endemic in many parts of the world*, and I think it's important to prevent Ebola from spreading. Consider, however, what we're accustomed to when it comes to malaria.

Once it was endemic in North America, and is partially responsible for the USA defeated the British in the American Revolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 05:39 PM

Don't count your chickens yet where malaria is concerned, it is generally believed climate change is already extending the range of the disease into first world countries.

And full drug resistant Tuberculosis is a large headache for epidemiologists looking towards the near future.

Meanwhile, the present ebola outbreak has so far claimed 729 lives and Measures against disease are increased.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 06:01 PM

Gref F. Do you donate time or money to efforts to help others? You may well do so.

Yes, Janie, I do - quite a lot of both in fact and on a regular basis every week and sometimes every day, thank you.

So don't tell me, Greg, that "dead wogs won't bother anyone."

You are giving a vast number of people a great deal more credit than they deserve, Janie. Spend more time in the real world.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 06:05 PM

Re the above, Janie, re-read your own comments about how the first world views Malaria and its death toll...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 06:08 PM

Or for that matter, African Trypanosomiasis.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 09:22 PM

I didn't make any comments, Greg, re how the 1st world views Malaria and its death toll.

I commented that in terms of the governments of African countries and their decisions regarding how to direct both their own resources and foreign aid, those countries, at least until now with this much larger outbreak of Ebola, have given much higher priority to public health measures for diseases other than Ebola for some sound reasons from the perspective of how to deploy public health resources based on numbers of deaths within a given population. I used malaria, AIDS and cholera as 3 examples of diseases that have posed a much greater health threat to the populations of many African countries in terms of numbers infected and numbers killed thus far.

mg, I am sorry you are offended. That was certainly not my intention. I asked a question that you chose to answer. I appreciate that you did answer, but you had no obligation to do so. I also tried to convey clearly that I was inquiring, not challenging. I admire your practicality. I also think I place more value on individual choice than do you. We are simply different about that. That doesn't make either of us right or wrong - I think the success of our species has been largely due to the diversity among us as well as the dynamic balance between the individual and the social. You and I weigh in on different points and on different sides of that dynamic scale. I mistakenly thought it possible for me to express my own discomfort with your position that focuses more on the benefits of social control and less on the costs without you taking personal offense. I was wrong. I happen to think it important to humankind for people to be able to acknowledge, confront and discuss these differences in perspective in order for us to continue to be a successful species. Again, I am sorry you are offended.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 09:29 PM

Nicely put, Janie, from one who wasn't involved with the offense...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 09:56 PM

The virus is past through contact with bodily fluids.

Count yourself blessed to be in a region WITHOUT recycled waste-water.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Imagine...one defective, "water treatment plant" on line to a hospital ... sprinkling the morning dew of county golf courses?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 10:27 PM

There is no such thing as "risk free" Garg. Your comment invites the observation, however, that we in more resource rich countries live with much less risk, and are therefore less intolerant of risk. "Higher standards of living" could be understood to mean, in one respect, being more protected from risk. Also feeling more entitled to protection from risk? Wondering how realistic that sense of entitlement is.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,.gargoye
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 10:47 PM

Janie,

Your posting makes no sense.

Do you understand that recycled water is piss from the hospitals and baby poo from the toilets....and that little men at big plants determine wether it is fit to atomize across entire city scapes?

How much error time is needed? 10 hour, 10 minutes, 10 seconds.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

I won't view below the line...I won't I won't.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 11:05 PM

Sorry it doesn't make sense to you, Gargoyle. Maybe it only makes sense to me.

All the best,

J

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:37 PM

one thing i worry about is it seems that cases so far have been in rural villages..not too high a concentration of people..perhaps they mostly walk rather than take buses...what happens when you have this loose in a heavily crowded slum area? Or a university? Or a big marketplace...or cities with lots of bus travelers...

Not just the exponential rate of transmission, but where do you quarantine? In a rural setting you can make clearings in the jungle or rope off the grassland and set up tents...where do you bury or burn people?

and you have many mobile people in parts of africa and other places this can travel to...miners, soldiers, possibly prostitutes, truck drivers..all of whom have been involved in aids transmittal..

and watch the animal transmission..sounds like primates, fruit bats, rodents, pigs can all be involved. If there is a big rat population, as there could be..I would assume it could be a host. Part of the problem is eating these animals, including the fruit bats.

A couple of things I read suggest that crushed garlic might help and also a particular detergent used to scrub pigs...could you not scrub humans as well? Also, could you have people wash in very mild bleach solutions, which will kill viruses..and they do use on corpses of those who died...some people are told by doctors here to take a mild bleach bath before surgery because of mrsa issues. also some essential oils, tea tree, I think thyme, clove perhaps, are antifungal.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:38 PM

by which I meant antiviral

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 09:47 PM

From npr interviews with on site reporters I was quite struck by how challenging the poverty is in Senegal in that they only have 4 ambulances to cover a 4 hour driving time area.

70 of 100 Liberian and WHO doctors have died from Ebola.

THE CDC is NOW able to afford to send 50 fifty more DISEASE WORKERS to Liberia Senegal and Mali.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 12:38 PM

They are bringing it voluntarily to the States. I am not at all sure that is a good idea. Not at all, at all, at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 02:14 PM

Ah, but NOW somebody will notice and start to care, Mrrzy - just so soon as White Folks - particularly AMERICANS! - are at risk or start to die.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 02:40 PM

Americian Doctor with Ebola Arrives in U S for Treatment

I'm down with a virus this week so reading about Ebola puts me in a rather delicate frame of mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 02:49 PM

A bit off topic:

The UK has never been completely malaria-free. The Hoo peninsula (my stamping ground) has long been the hotspot, and the vector was seen again here last year or the year before.

When did "body fluids" become referred to as "bodily fluids" and why? Is it not another example of a different viral infection? The infection of the worlds languages by American usage? "Bodily" is an adverb.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:10 PM

"When"?
About here.

Hospitals here have quarantine procedures and facilities set up to use them. There's less of a chance of it spreading.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 10:45 PM

Thanks for the Dr. Strangelove link. Hot Zone scared me rigid.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 06:20 AM

Looks as if the entire Sierra Leone "Commonwealth Games" team, currently in Scotland,will be asking to remain here and live in Britain,as they are all TERRIFIED of going back to their own country.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 01:32 PM

Yes, there have been issues with football, West Africa has a large presence there. Maybe that will make people take notice. I just had a fight with a good friend that resulted in our having to drink a lot to stop taking each other so seriously about the whole "second american has ebola" crap in the news...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 05:13 PM

I suspect that 1st world governmental resources were deployed very quickly at the start of this outbreak, and were at the ready for previous outbreaks that were not so widespread. Working for the government myself for most of my career (though not for the past 7 or so years) I perhaps have a different perspective from those who are certain that 1st world governments are the root of all evil and absolutely and never give a rat's ass about what happens elsewhere in the world unless it appears to immediately threaten the security or safety of a 1st world country, or unless it suddenly becomes 'news worthy' in the 1st world press.

Not defending, just suggesting a reality check.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 05:33 PM

Dear Messy.

I hope, you DO realize Hot Zone is fiction?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

But....so are Stoker, King, and Shelly.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 06:55 PM

This information from CDC might help.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 07:25 PM

Emirates has cancelled flights to Guinea.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:00 PM

Um, no, it' not, dear.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:03 PM

Double-checked - the Hot Zone is non, repeat, non-fiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 09:55 AM

those who are certain that 1st world governments are the root of all evil

Hardly all, Janie - but certainly a significant amount.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 03:02 PM

Define "first world" pls - do you mean Africa? If not, what makes it first? New term for me...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 05:35 PM

The richest.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: gnu
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 07:23 PM

What's this I was told was on CNN? A cure?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 07:33 PM

Only 10 MERS cases reported...according to news sources in Oman...at the end of Eid.

My call was wrong on this one.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Any reports on what the "anti-capitalists" in China or Russia have contributed to Ebola cures/aid? Pravda reports nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: gnu
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 09:49 PM

Fuck yer full of yourself. Why can't you act like an adult? Tiny and dainty font in an odd colour? I have eyesight issues you twit. Hmmmm.... maybe you actually do make sense once in while but I just can't read it?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 10:48 PM

They said today that Ebola, scary as it is, is far less infectious than MERS and a number of other good stuff like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 04:30 AM

I heard on the radio recently that a few people have a natural immunity to ebola. I have also heard that a few people have a natural immunity to HIV, and that a few have a genetic resistance to bubonic plague.
The first thought that comes to mind is 'Are the same people/families resistant to all three diseases? The next thought, whether or not that is the case, is 'Could people with a genetic immunity provide the means of making a vaccine?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 07:42 PM

topsie, the report of natural immunity comes from research by IRD, a French institute specializing in overseas research.
The report is not new (2010). To see a translated summary, Google "337- Possible natural immunity to Ebola?"

It is suspected that they might have come in contact with the virus through saliva of fruit bats on their fruits. Bats are suspected of being the natural reservoir of the virus.
Labs in several countries are working towards a vaccine. How much this will be helped if at all by the high percentage (15%) of Gabonese with immunity, I don't know.

Emory University hospitals (Atlanta) is one research institution leading vaccine study. See http://news.edu/stories/2102/12/ebola_virus_protein_decoy/index.html (or Google "Ebola virus uses protein decoy to subvert the host immune response."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 09:23 PM

I think they are giving the repatriated Americans an experimental vaccine?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 09:43 PM

It's not a vaccine, but a serum/drug. There's an article on "ZMAb" in Newsweek. The first study, published in 2012, looked very promising.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 05:09 AM

Reports are identifying the sirum results as miraculous.

www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/aug/04/ebola-san-diego-biotech/

(Another example of the resounding success of free enterprise and capitalism)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 06:09 AM

Surely it was all the fasting and praying that made them better?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:21 AM

Today I learn that USA and Russia still have stockpiles (if that is the right word ) of SMALLPOX , for Heavens sake !! WHY ??? As for Ebola ; those infected should stay where they are, not be jetted around the world , which is asking for trouble .Why do we never learn ??

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:31 AM

NPR interviewed a woman from Sierra Leone who says said to be of many Ebola deniers who claim big government is lying about Ebola and that there is no such thing, This kind of fear, ignorance and ill reasoned thinking reminds me of our own Bachman, Palin Overdrive of the extreme right wing.

Beyond the virus itself the enemy is also human behavior and customs that include handling the dead, kissing the dead and drinking the blood of the dead having the highest stature. Then there are the people scared of government response to Ebola that they run away if they are suspected of being sick.

Should even one infection unknowingly reaches Cairo, this African disease be responsible for a global pandemic. (insert De Nile comment here)

Experts in the field feel as though the current spread of Ebola is just a dress rehearsal for an eventual global pandemic.

The three synthetic anti viral agents combined into a serum may or may not be effective when scaled up to help millions. To protect billions however could take years.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:47 AM

There's no such thing as AIDS, either, Donuel. Or global warming.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 10:00 AM

The ebola hysteria in the U.S. media is meant to soften us up for a medical/military dictatorship. Curfews, quarantines, line up and take your shots. Don't fall for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 10:54 AM

Denying Ebola makes as much sense as denying evolution. Americans should be all for it.

I wish I were kidding.

Back to data, from google news' ebola department, headlines only: cases up to 1700 with 932 deaths is a .54 death rate which is great for ebola, you almost have an even chance of surviving this strain. Much better odds than usual.

But there are now 5 people in Lagos with it... but we haven't heard of anybody else from the plane getting sick, all those are health workers with direct contact with the one guy from the plane. And by now if they were going to get it they would have, so that's good.

I still worry most, selfishly, about my own folks in Abidjan, but it seems to not be there yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 10:57 AM

Also, I would like to note that my complaint with the US press is hardly that they are being alarmist, I find them being jingoistic. It's not that they are saying Ebola is here, run for the hills, but that they are saying 2 americans sick with ebola are headline-worthy and hundreds of Guineans, Sierra-Leonians and Liberians dead from it aren't.

I do not see anything in the mainstream press about how we should be scared. That's one of the reasons *I* am scared.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 11:33 AM

"It's not that they are saying Ebola is here, run for the hills... "

But, Mrzy, I think that is exactly what they are saying. It seems to me that the media is stepping a fine line between sensationalism and pragmatism. Who knows what the next move will be- I think it is quite possible that alarmism will win, at least for the short term.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 12:23 PM

Two American medical workers active in the Ebola region are brought back for treatment at Emory Medical Center.
Reason enough for comprehensive reporting on the so-far incurable disease. We are all hopeful that it will not spread to other areas, and especially not to our countries.

The Zmap serum being administered to the two being treated in Atlanta is the result of cooperation among a number of agencies, private and public. Companies involved are Mapp, Leaf Bio and Toronto-based Defyrus Inc.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is the Defyrus partner in Canada,
The U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (located in Maryland) is the driver behind much of the work. Other partners in development of treatment and vaccines are in Asia as well as the U. S. and Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 12:52 PM

The above, and much more, is reported in Forbes, 8/05/2014; David Kroll, "Ebola Secret Serum: Small Biopharma, The Army, and Big Tobacco.
There are more comprehensive articles, but Kroll's column is clearly stated.
Tobacco enters into the story because Nicotiana bethamiana is a common plant molecular biology tool. The antibodies are produced in an Australian strain of the tobacco plant at a facility (Kentucky Bioprocessing) owned by Reynolds America Inc. (parent company of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco).

Funding for the research comes from several sources, including three U. S. government agencies; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects, and Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

The serum prevented the death of six infected monkeys in research at the Maryland facility of the U. S, Army Medical Research Institute. Research here is led by microbiologist Gene Olinger.

Comprehensive reports have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Sciences Translational Medicine.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 01:21 PM

Great idea if cigarrettes can cure ebola!

I am not seeing anything but the tabloid press talking ebola-is-scary. WashPo, Slate, NYT, are not.

Example search for "ebola" on WashPo yeilds these:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html?st=ebola&submit=Submit

including an article on how the tabloid press was being irresponsible in trying to foment fear, and how they failed anyway.

Yet I think it was a bad idea to bring it here on purpose. I hope that it turns out I was wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 04:02 PM

It has been here for at least ten years, in laboratories where research is being carried out.

I don't see the tabloid press, but factual reports on BBC and Al Jazeera are scary enough.
BBC today- "Ebola: Global Experts begin Emergency Talks at WHO."

There is a possibility that the WHO will declare a global health emergency in two days.

Also, BBC- "Why Ebola Is So Dangerous."

British Airways has suspended flights with Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 05:17 PM

It seems to me that the media is stepping a fine line between sensationalism and pragmatism

All the media deals with these days IS sensationalism. Pragmatism and real news died with Edward R. Murrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 06:05 PM

That looks like government funding for a potential cure to me. Capitalism? I think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 07:37 PM

Reynolds has put millions into their affiliate doing plant molecular biology. Mapp Biopharmaceuticals, LeafBio and Defyrus Inc. are only three concerns investing in research in this field, there are others worldwide.
Government funding is "seed" money to support research and manufacture. (Republicans are limiting this funding, but it is hard for them to attack items in defense budgets.

The U. S. maintains a number of research institutions, some within or borderline with defense and anti-terrorism departments, which is the case here. The possibility of disease use by terrorists/enemies is a continuing concern.

When an effective vaccine is obtained, private concerns will make and market it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 08:11 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-docs-condition-downgraded-idiotic-220113802.html

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 08:52 PM

"Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world."

Those are Ann Coulter's words. hahahahhahhahahha

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 08:56 PM

On the way to work this morning listened to an NPR Morning Addition interview with David Quammen, author of "Spillover", a book that traces the cross over and evolution of diseases such as Ebola and HIV that cross over from animals to humans. As human populations over run the earth and spillover more and more into wild areas, more zoonotic diseases (diseases that cross from one species to another) will occur more frequently in human populations. When asked if Ebola is "the next big one" in terms of danger to human populations, he expressed that no, he doesn't think so, but it is a rehearsal for "the next big one."

The Bubonic plague, transmitted by fleas to rats to humans (actually responsible for 3 human plagues) was transmitted to human populations around the world in the 14th century. Probably first spread along the land route of the Silk Road from central Asia, and a little later by merchant ships. Estimates vary but it seems the plagues, caused by variants of the bacterium yersinia pestis, killed off anywhere from 30 to 60% of the world human population during the 14th century. The historian Barbara Tuchman estimated 1/3 of the population of Europe died from the 'Black Death during that century.

Here is a link to the Quammen interview this morning with a written synopsis.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/08/05/338059797/the-ebola-outbreak-a-dress-rehearsal-for-the-next-big-one

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:13 PM

May have got that a bit backwards. Not fleas to rats to humans, at least commonly, but from rats to fleas to humans, i.e. fleas bite many more humans and rats than humans and rats bite one another. Don't know if the bacterium sickens rats or not or fleas or not. But definitely sickens and kills humans.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 11:27 PM

Ebola is not transmitted through intermediaries, you can't get it from something that bit someone with it. You have to be contacted directly by their fluids, which is why having it turns you into a virus bomb as everything between skin and bone turns into a body fluid whose cells are 99% virus and only 1% whatever the fluid was supposed to be, like organ or muscle or blood or whathaveyou. Unless you can fight it off, which you have a much better chance of being able to do if you are genetically from where the virus comes from. Like smallpox. Only that has a vaccine.

And with it being slightly more likely that you will die instead of survive by fighting off the virus well enough not to liquify too far inside your skin, I think it a great idea to take all extreme precautions against getting in contact with those fluids. There is no treatment nor vaccine. It *should* be feared. It *is* an epidemic and nobody in their right mind should be flying in or out of any of those three countries nor accepting passengers who have been there even though being picked up elsewhere.

The ONLY recourse is isolation, as it was with the plague which is now eminently treatable, plus European ancestry confers immunity anyway since otherwise your grandparents wouldna been here. Because when it broke out people didn't do the right thing so it killed most of them and the few people with natural immunity survived.

I don't want that kind of natural selection happening when we know better now. There would be no excuse.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Aug 14 - 12:47 AM

Vaccine testing is at least a year away.

A vaccine that works for Americans and/or Europeans is at least a year away.
The vaccine likely would be useless in Africa because Africans have different antibodies in their systems (Director, Wistar Institute Vaccine Center). Antibodies influence how a body receives the vaccine.

NIAID director Anthony Fauci says there are 3-4 vaccine candidates in preclinical trials. The FDA may approve the first one for testing in September, but is will be the end of 2015 before testing is ended.

The vaccine itself is a virus, engineered to lack the gene necessary for replication. It is equipped with two Ebola genes that, once the vaccine enters the body's cells, will cause the body's immune system to produce antibodies.
The work is being done on non-human primates.

There also is continuing work with a drug treatment, developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical of San Diego (ZMapp) financed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

"Why the Ebola Vaccine Won't Be Administered in Africa," Joe Kloc, Newsweek, 8/6/14

Note- Dr. Kent Brantly, now being treated at Emory Hospitals in Atlanta, not only received the ZMapp serum, but previously received blood from a survivor, according to Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham. Samaritan's Purse is working with the Emory unit.
The idea was that the blood contained antibodies that would help the infected person.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Aug 14 - 04:36 AM

What a vile ignorant woman Coulter is.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Aug 14 - 08:44 AM

What a vile ignorant woman Coulter is.

That's being kind, and there's plenty more TeaPublican slimeballs just as bad or worse where she comes from.


Don't know if the bacterium sickens rats or not or fleas or not

Yup! Kills the rats, too, so the fleas go to humans for a meal. It also eventually kills the fleas.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Aug 14 - 12:39 PM

Comparisons between bubonic plague, a bacterial disease carried by fleas, and ebola, transmitted by a virus carried in bodily fluids, are tenuous.

Ebola is believed to be reservoired in fruit bats; fluids from the bats on fruit are capable of transmitting the virus; moreover the virus affects many animals, including other primates, antelopes, porcupines, rodents, dogs, pigs and other animals.

Eating "bush meat" can transmit fluids containing the virus. Some cultures eat fruit bats (Guinea has banned consumption).

It is possible that birds harbored the virus in the past, and this may be so today (David Sanders, Purdue University). The virus enters human cells in much the same way that similar viruses enter bird cells.

Thomas Monath, Harvard University School of Public Health, has suggested that the virus may be a mutation from a non-pathogenic one from insects, and that this might be the source of the infection in bats. The disease was first detected in Central Africa in 1976.

There may be other theories.

The potential for the use of the virus in bioterrorism worries defense experts.

"Ebola's deadly Jump from Animal to Animal," Discovery News, Jul. 30, 2014.

With a physician in the family, interested in the outbreak, I try to keep up with reports, accounting for my repeated posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Aug 14 - 03:32 PM

Keep posting. Nice to have someone with medical ken rather than journalism in the thread

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 07 Aug 14 - 09:25 PM

Thanks Greg. I wasn't patient enough to get clear about that on my own dime.

Not suggesting that Ebola is the same as bubonic plaque. What they do have in common, as is the case with other diseases, is they are zoonotic. The published interview I linked to came about in response to this terrible outbreak of Ebola, but looked at a broader picture also. For me, it provided both context and additional perspective and 'food for thought.' Did not mean for it to be thread drift.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Aug 14 - 07:19 PM

Its seems that Greg took my sarcasm literally and brought away the opposite message but such is the internet.

There are a few inaccuracies regarding Ebola carriers. Carriers are some primates, humans and bats. What ever feeds of infected humans is not automatically going to spread the contagion forward.


There are always holocaust deniers of every stripe. I am not a journalism however I will do my level headed best to speak of the common sense issues;

What to do:

Preparations similar to hurricane preparedness will do no harm.

The limited outbreaks that may happen in the US will be isolated and controlled ten times better than a poor country. At worst it could decimate a population instead of halve it.

More dangerous than limited outbreaks are the unintended consequences that arise from personnel that either can not do there work or intentionally quit. Once an absentee rate of 25% is reached many systems and institutions begin to fail. Transportation, nuclear facilities, police, truckers, grocery and utilities are but a few examples of the vulnerabilities in our society that we rely upon to run smoothly. More lives can be lost to these institutions failing than to infection alone.

'Unintended consequences' is what media must limit while still providing awareness and helpful direction.

Not since 1914 has a pandemic of magnitude hit the world. Please do not argue the merits of AIDS being a pandemic, it is, however it does not kill in 18 days.

I can not forgive the inhuman rants of a Coulter or Ingram however a more subtle message that can be gleaned is that Hollywood movies Contagion and Outbreak are not an accurate representation of your experience of a pandemic in the United States.


When I was born this world supported nearly 3 billion People. Today we have over 7 billion people. It is not unreasonable to foresee populations return to the good old days. Once India and China must reckon with Ebola it is possible a level of preparedness will result in losses of 1 in 10 which is the definition of "decimated".

That concludes my common sense remarks.







Now for full goose bonker remarks:

I wonder if our collective fascination with the zombie apocalypse phenomenon was but a foreshadowing of our future.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Aug 14 - 08:38 PM

Janie, David Q. also said verbatim on npr that he thinks the cat is already out of the bag.

It is the NIH that deserves virtually all the credit for medical breakthroughs from MD to Malaria. We know some of the people involved in the malarial cures.

Capitalism is late to the party, steals someone's date, takes their money and brags about their conquest.

The only breakthroughs the March of Dimes created came from the NIH but they never tell the public that truth.



Dear Mr. Richard Bridge,
Were you possibly a proof reader for the New York Times?
If so, did they welcome your strict standards or sigh in exasperation? (smile)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 14 - 12:09 AM

So should we just give up all of our rights now, so government can protect us from ebola? Should SWAT teams kill those who refuse to take the tobacco company vaccines? Can we give Obama a Nobel Prize for Medicine now that he's decided to fight the spread of ebola by opening the US/Mexican border to contagious people? Should we canonize him?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Aug 14 - 09:51 AM

Its seems that Greg took my sarcasm literally and brought away the opposite message

Not at all - just commenting on some of the OTHER greatest hits of Bachman, Palin Overdrive.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 14 - 12:48 PM

Thanks must be given to the drug companies who set up production facilities and rush the latest approved vaccines and medicines to market.
Their cooperation with and support of medical research is needed; it should be encouraged.

They make a profit, but that is the system the world over and is not likely to change.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Aug 14 - 10:59 AM

Nigeria has sent it to the United Arab Emirates...

Also, the death rate for this outbreak is really, really low, for Ebola. Even with the new numbers it's still under .6 - almost a coin flip.

Wonder what human experimental trials in the middle of an epidemic will do for medical ethics... which would be worse, waiting till it's known to be safe, or trying to save all those folks without knowing side- or after-effects? Is this how the strain mutates to become airborne?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Aug 14 - 01:15 PM

There's a song about it finally!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 01:06 PM

Yesterday's numbers:

·         Suspected and Confirmed Case Count:         2240
·         Suspected Case Deaths:         1229
·         Laboratory Confirmed Cases:        1383


So, is that a.54 death rate, a .62 death rate, or a .89 death rate?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 03:55 PM

if the 1383 is counted in 2240 i would call it .54 although there may be other ways of computing...

there was some awful raid where people stole blood-stained mattresses from some clinic and other supplies and they are afraid this could have very bad consequences. One thing we surely could do is give them plastic mattress covers or even big garbage bags as well as all our old sheets etc. cluttering up our linen closets. One thing we can not do as Americans any more (american being very inclusive word) is get stuff from point a to point b. surely there are ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Charmion
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 12:24 PM

I don't think West Africa lacks bed linen or plastic sheeting, mg. The entire region is, however, pitifully short of sound infrastructure (e.g., roads for transport trucks to roll on) and competent, credible public authorities with the influence and resources rquired to do what's needful.

Sending stuff (that isn't requested drugs and other medical supplies) to the epidemic zone just results in stacks of goods lying around in port cities. The Red Cross usually asks for money -- lots of it -- so the people on the ground can buy from local sources.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 12:36 PM

I suspect they lack almost everything in some dire places. If there were sufficient coverings, why were mattresses soaked with blood? I know they prefer money but we have huge amounts of useful things that could be transported...maybe not by truck. Maybe part of the way by donkey or by porters. And whatever is languishing in port cities should be distributed to poor people in port cities if it can't be taken further. I am sure they would find ways to keep it going further and further inland.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 03:18 PM

here is some shipping from new york to west africa. http://globalcitynyc.com/2012/10/15/west-african-new-yorkers-ship-large-goods-and-profits-across-atlantic/

it is done all the time. people find ways to get it to destinations..never underestimate the power of the human spirit...never say never...never say we can only move stuff by air and helicopter in a disaster..there are never going to be enough. When Katrina came they waited for 4 helicopters when they were surrounded by pretty shallow water that swift boat veterans were prevented from going in for rescuing people and bringing supplies. When Haiti had its earthquake we were so close to US landmass..oh dear the docks are wrecked..get it there anyway..send a zodiac with a couple of people and as much water as can be loaded and say that further supplies are on the boat...every able bodied person there will start commandeering small boats and building rafts and swimming to tow whatever back. there are sometimes animals that can be used..if they have a supply of newfoundland dogs..who knows..donkeys, mules, llamas, camels, water buffalo, dogs..we do not have to think only in US terms..rickshaws...wheelbarrows, backpacks..all can and will be used. it was awful watching fukishima surrounded by water and they were not using it..at least that is how it appeared. get stuff close by and people there will figure out how to get it further. And how to use those mounds of clothes people are so worried about. They can distribute them on site, they can see that they get taken further in, they can be used to stuff furniture and quilts, used as diapers, bandages, rugs. Do not spend one second worried that a wedding dress will make it into the mix as did somewhere...Guatamala..people have worried about that for years. Some bride was probably very happy.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 04:03 PM

Just on RTE news: The Health Service Executive of Ireland is examining a possible case of Ebola in Co Donegal.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 11:19 PM

Yeah, there are "possible" cases in a lot of places, as lots of people have traveled to West Africa and then get (most likely ramdomly or at least not Ebola-ly) sick later. I hope people assume that they should be quarantined until proven otherwise rather than the other way around...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 03:45 AM

Well, the case is that of a building contractor who worked in Sierra Leone. He died shortly after his return, it was the funeral director who brought the body to Letterkenny general hospital.

Probably a case of better safe than sorry. No mention of the funeral director getting quarantined after handling the body.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 11:52 AM

Why would you bring a body to a hospital..autopsy perhaps..but still that does not make sense...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 12:09 PM

Can they stop people making international flights in that transit section when you are out of one country and not yet in another, for a month (or even the original 40 days) of quarantine? With instant whisking to hospital in isolated van at first fever?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 05:52 PM

This week's numbers, I've been gone:

Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 3069 (137% of last week's)
Suspected Case Deaths: 1552 (126%)
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 1752 (127%)
Death rate .85 to .51, not changing much. But the outbreak is months old, and the numbers went up about a third in the last week or so, that can't be good.

How does one calculate the death rate from these numbers, which are from the CDC website?

A week ago the numbers were:

Suspected and Confirmed Case Count:         2240
Suspected Case Deaths:         1229
Laboratory Confirmed Cases:       1383
And my question had been, So, is that a.54 death rate, a .62 death rate, or a .89 death rate?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 07:01 PM

All cases now it seems traced back to the funeral of a "traditional healer" - and possibly a single zoonotic source (maybe). Over 300 mutations since this outbreak started. My fear is of this being as nasty as the medieval Black Deaths/plagues - which halved the population of Europe and might have killed 200 million - not least in that I am far from clear that pneumonic transmission can conclusively be ruled out and the survival period of the virus outside a host can be up to 50 days at 4 degrees Centigrade.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 07:21 PM

I think things can never be ruled out when it comes to epidemics and viruses..oh you can't get it by kissing, oh you can't get it from mosquitos, or whatever. Viruses are smarter than us by far.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 11:35 PM

No, they are just tiny and have very short generations and mutate like crazy. They have no intention or intelligence... unfortunately, or they could be bargained with. This strain of Ebola does not appear to be airborne, so far.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 01:42 PM

I was just making coffee and turned on the BBC radio 4 news. It was reported that a nurse who had been airlifted home and was on a new drug has now recovered and left hospital. He has no plans to return to Africa - and as his passport was one of the things incinerated in an effort to destroy all possible sources of infection it will be a while before he can go far at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 12:08 PM

New numbers as of end of Aug:

Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 3707
Suspected Case Deaths: 1848
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 2106

Death rate .88 to .57.

And the numbers are climbing more steeply.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 10:21 PM

Looks exponential to me. Wait for the lift-off in the numbers of Nigerian cases.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 05:54 AM

From: Rumncoke
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 01:42 PM

I was just making coffee and turned on the BBC radio 4 news. It was reported that a nurse who had been airlifted home and was on a new drug has now recovered and left hospital. He has no plans to return to Africa - and as his passport was one of the things incinerated in an effort to destroy all possible sources of infection it will be a while before he can go far at all.

An update on that:


William Pooley : I am going back to Sierra Leone

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 12:03 PM

Wow. Does survival give you immunity?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 12:05 PM

Apparently "probably" and if so, "probably" only to the particular strain of Ebola you survived.

Blicky

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 07:11 PM

This is an eye-opener about how difficult it's going to be to stop this spreading.

infection by doorknob

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 12:24 PM

Remember, not airborne doesn't mean not easily transmissible!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Sep 14 - 12:33 PM

From the below article:

At this point, the number of people infected is doubling approximately every three weeks, leading some epidemiologists to project between 77,000 and 277,000 cases by the end of 2014.

Blicky to whole article: Click.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Sep 14 - 12:38 PM

Another snippet: Every mechanism we have for caring—touching, holding, feeding, playing, warming, comforting, caressing—every mechanism that we use to bind us to our families and our neighbors, is preyed upon by Ebola.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 19 Sep 14 - 12:48 PM

Mrzzy, I know this can be fixating, but keep a balance. Simply to project a particular exponentiality presumes a homogenous population, unreactive to the problem until its too late. In this instance, the fear dynamic is important, but is not the only one: there is also a counter-dynamic in the conspiracy theorists on the ground, denying the disease and making themselves prime candidates to become victims.
Another important vector which seems to be under control is international transport, without it being readily available it might be a concern, but as it is, possible victims are being identified before they contaminate others.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 19 Sep 14 - 09:52 PM

I disagree that all caring is done through touch. There is radio, i ternet, letters, gifts, phoning, visiting through glass barriers, shouting from a safe distancd..some of these options not available in dire poverty of course...prayer vigils,.group singing, drums, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Sep 14 - 01:04 PM

Right. Your child is ill, go drum but don't touch their forehead.

I don't see that, somehow, without a lot more education, and a lot of those sterile-ish gowns, gloves and masks.

International transport isn't really a problem, you aren't contagious before you have symptoms (thank you mother nature and lady luck), and it isn't airborne anyway (thank you mother nature and lady luck again).

Yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Sep 14 - 11:37 PM

Interesting article here...

If there can be a faint silver lining to this outbreak, it's that researchers have been able to study the evolution of the virus in a way no previous Ebola epidemic has allowed. With thousands of cases documented to date, investigators have been able to track mutations in the virus' RNA genome—and they found hundreds of mutations just in viruses examined before the publication of a paper in Science in August. In a tragic footnote, five of the authors of this paper died of Ebola during this outbreak.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Sep 14 - 11:41 PM

Latest numbers from the CDC, updated 9/11:

Total Case Count: 5347
Total Deaths: 2630
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 3095

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Sep 14 - 03:20 AM

I'll believe the Nigerian outbreak is contained when one can trust ANYTHING said by the Nigerian authorities.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Sep 14 - 03:36 PM

Also skeptical.

It only takes one traveller. The emergency section of the Royal Alexandra in Edmonton, Alberta was closed for a time because of a suspected case (travel history and clinical condition was suggestive).
Thankfully, it was not Ebola.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Sep 14 - 09:43 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/health/ebola-cases-could-reach-14-million-in-4-months-cdc-estimates.html?_r=0

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Sep 14 - 04:47 PM

Lots of data < href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/sep/23/the-data-behind-why-this-is-the-biggest-ebola-outbreak-ever">here. Amazingly low death rate, really, in this particular outbreak, apparently, well, under 80%.

You have almost a chance in 5 of surviving, rather than less than 1 in 10.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Sep 14 - 04:48 PM

oops
Lots of data here.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Sep 14 - 02:32 PM

Early August:
Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 3069 (137% of last week's)
Suspected Case Deaths: 1552 (126%)
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 1752 (127%)

End of Aug:
Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 3707 (120%)
Suspected Case Deaths: 1848 (120%)
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 2106 (134%)

Nearing end of Sep:
Total Case Count: 6263 (170% of last month's, over twice a month's before)
Total Deaths: 2917 (160% / almost twice)
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 3487 (165% / very nearly exactly twice)

My friend who'd lost his niece has now lost 2 niblings and his sister.

Anybody else know anybody from Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia?

Also, does the US have a special responsibility for Liberia, do you think?

Is it time to declare martial law, barricade everybody and just take over? I don't mean the US, I mean the world, especially the Guineans, Sierra Leonians and Liberians, but also Ivorians, Malians, Senegalese, and Guinea-Bissauans. Anybody with a border on the 3 affected countries.

And I reiterate the harm that calling all people from Africa Africans instead of Liberians, Kenyans or what have you - now some are afraid of people from Kenya, which is I think farther from Sierra Leone than the East Coast of the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Sep 14 - 08:05 PM

Hopefully, a vaccine in early 2015.

Obama has joined in calling for action; I hope it will be swift, but much complacency.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 14 - 05:41 PM

3 days later:
•Total Case Count: 6574, up 311, just over 100 people a day
•Total Deaths: 3091, up 174, not quite 100 people a day, high death% of those 311 though
•Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 3626, 139, only 40+ a day...


Is it time to declare martial law, barricade everybody and just take over? I don't mean the US, I mean the world, especially the Guineans, Sierra Leonians and Liberians, but also Ivorians, Malians, Senegalese, and Guinea-Bissauans. Anybody with a border on the 3 affected countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Sep 14 - 06:58 PM

Another important vector which seems to be under control is international transport, without it being readily available it might be a concern, but as it is, possible victims are being identified before they contaminate others.

I wouldn't count on it. Flu epidemics spread at the same speed now as they did 100 years ago. Fast unchecked transport makes no difference, so slowing it down or monitoring it won't help.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Sep 14 - 07:10 PM

Of course, the word "vector" isn't being used correctly. I think he just meant to say it was a contributing factor.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 05:56 PM

Flu epidemics spread at the same speed now as they did 100 years ago says the above. The question is where the PEOPLE to whom it spread can go which is way, way farther than THEY could 100 years ago.

First case in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 07:50 PM

As guest said - http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6875311/first-case-of-ebola-diagnosed-in-the-us-cdc-reports

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 09:20 PM

Flu epidemics spread at the same speed now as they did 100 years ago says the above. The question is where the PEOPLE to whom it spread can go which is way, way farther than THEY could 100 years ago.

The point is the speed of transport makes no difference. Compare the current ebola epidemic to the 1918-19 flu pandemic: there were tens of millions dead all round the globe within six months from the first known cases (about the time that's elapsed since the ebola epidemic started). Steam was plenty fast enough. The only places to escape were islands that shut themselves off, like American Samoa.

I suspect the very worst measure that could possibly be taken would be to involve the military, as some control freaks here are suggesting. Historically soldiers have been among the worst disease vectors ever to prey on humanity. It only takes one psycho uniformed rapist thinking "that one's too cute to waste" and down goes a regiment.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 09:23 PM

Has it been definitively established that Ebola contamination is NOT airborne? Seems like that knowledge would have to be one of the first lines of defense.

If it is not airborne concerts and plane and train travel would still be OK. If an occasional case contracts it through someone's cough or sneeze or just plain breathing, I should think that staying away from crowds or close quarters would be a first step.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 12:19 AM

It is definitively established it is NOT airborne.

Infected fluids during symptomatic phase like Saliva, urine, fecal fluid, mucosa or sweat must come into direct contact with your mouth, wet eye areas, nostril or a micro abrasion or cut in your skin to pass on the infection.

The virus does not survive long outside the body or body fluids dry However once a fluid dries it is still important to help the virus die with bleach. Toilet water for example can be safe to flush with bleach.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 12:22 AM

there is ABSOLUTELY nothing to worry about.
The Secret Service has been tasked with tracking down possible Ebola contactors.


wha... too soon?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:11 AM

Not too soon.
In Texas now.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 03:37 PM

The US case is put in a different light now officials have admitted that the Ebola patient was sent home by medical staff despite telling them of his recent return from Liberia:

Ebola patient told hospital staff about his travel to Liberia but was allowed home

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:58 PM

That Guest above was me, sorry.

Yeah, it's here, now we care.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 03:10 AM

Apparently 18 known contacts in the USA - but what about passers-by? This could easily get out of hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 03:30 AM

Just goes to show you can have the finest quarantine facilities, it's the human failure that will turn out to be the weakest link.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,donuel needs a cookie
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 12:42 PM

I think we are all on board the ship that will not allow rational fear or irrational conspiracy theory to sink our spirit or live in panic mode that would cause us to make bad choices.

I am not a Johnny come lately on this subject nor am I a professional epidemiologist.

The four ongoing concerns are:


1 Treatment and emerging cures.

2 Where is Ebola in humans and animals today?

3 Best and worst case scenarios

4 Social and Economic effects caused by Ebola


The issues of who caused this, who will prosper from this and who will who will suffer intentionally are in my opinion conspiracy theories that will not help anyone.

My opinion on how and why is economic. The US has not even paid all their dues to the World Health Organization. Back in April was the time we could have invested half a million dollars to end the outbreak.

In May for the price a rich person spends on restoring a 57 Chevy Belaire, we could have stopped the epidemic.

By August the money a wealthy person spends to restore a classic car could have supplied the infrastructure and supplies to stop the outbreak.

By September a well organized Army could have slowed the epidemic to a controllable level.

We are at a stage now that as little as 3 carriers could inflict pandemic effects upon our nation.

It was the LACK of money that allowed this plague to get a foothold.
Drug companies do not invest in R&D for tropical diseases. It is up to the Government. But the Government has been struck with a Sequestration that has crippled everyone in the Government from the Secret Service to CDC.

If you think a republican Congressman understands the gravity of the work the NIH and CDC does, you are mistaken.


So I will limit my contribution to
1 Treatment and emerging cures.

2 Where is Ebola in humans and animals today?

3 Best and worst case scenarios

4 Social & Market effects




OCT 2 2014
1 (((( We are doing vaccine trials. We have tried about a dozen times so far. We have a couple anti viral serums we are very hopeful about. It may have helped half the people who returned to the US for treatment so far to survive but we are not sure yet. Treatment is palliative and a strong push of fluids. Part of treatment should be quarantine after flights. Hell they quarantine fruits and Bonsai trees until they die or become inedible but we don't have routine quarantine for people yet.

2 (((( Ebola victims are currently confirmed in the US, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. The animals such as African bats and Bonobo monkeys have tested positive but the bigger threat is the importation of African bush meat to every cultural mom and pop market across the US and many other countries thus infecting people in their own neighborhoods.

3 (((( The best case scenario for the one and only US Ebola victim is not to have infected anyone while he was sick with symptoms of nearly 5 days.
For every victim the likely infection rate is 2 more people infected. If a priest for example giving communion infected all the wafers from a cut on his fingers the rate of infection would be of course much more. Transmission is not guaranteed.
It will take about a year for all transmission to be stopped in the best case. In the worst case it will go around the world in 3 waves and burn out after killing over 3 billion people. If/when the Ebola virus mutates it could lose its fatal characteristics or become airborne and become worse for humans.

4(((( The news of Dallas exposure to Ebola could have stock market effects but it can not be proved. So far all goods and services are unaffected in the US but is disrupted in All but Nigeria in Africa.



Conspiracy theories that make the epidemic worse are:
The government wants our blood
Its all to make big Pharma richer
They are lying about Ebola not being air born.
They have a cure but will only give it to the rich.



The above current observations are subject to change.
Best case is it gets better in 6 months, worst case the death toll toll reaches 1.2 million people principally in Africa. If it hits Hong Kong Cairo or Mexico City before Christmas...game over since infrastructures will worsen all responses to the epidemic and become a true pandemic.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 01:17 PM

By September a well organized Army could have slowed the epidemic to a controllable level.

Bollocks. Armies always spread epidemic disease. The Scottish army brought the Black Death to Scotland after a raid on England, the armies sacking Italy around 1500 spread syphilis round Europe, 19th century armies spread typhus, the Americans spread gonorrhoea round South-East Asia in the Vietnam War.

Soldiers are rapists and looters, however "well organized". That is not safe behaviour in an epidemic.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 05:43 PM

CDC lady said they are working on other vaccines... getting them from tobacco cells of all things ... go figure huh

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 05:47 PM

A well-regulated force of strong nurses? With the ability to enforce quarantine?

I have been saying all along that people coming out of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia should have a month's quarantine, most easily done by WHO or MSF or the UN between nations, in the transit areas of the airports. It takes up to 3 weeks to show symptoms if you, say, got exposed on your way out of the country at the last possible second; give it an extra week to be sure. The clock resets when any individual gets sick, if any. If it inconveniences a lot of people, that's a lot better than a lot of alternatives... anybody hear about hysteria in Texas? How would you feel if your kid was on a team sport with poor someone whose poor dad got sent home, sorry oops by mistake, with ebola leaking out of his every pore and then some new holes too? I'd be terrified.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 06:08 PM

Yup - now that U.S. white folks have been potentially exposed, they're startin' to pay attention.

God bless Amerika.

(PS: been paying attention to what passes for a "hospital" in Africa?)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 06:08 PM

I am dumbfounded that someone could go to an ER, say they have been to Liberia, and not be quarantined. Why should America tremble?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 06:27 PM

He lied three times to the airport authorities and said he wasn't exposed. Today we find out he was caring for an ebola patient and living with him. should have terrorism charges against him I think

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 06:36 PM

Stupidity hasn't been criminalized, Dan, More's the pity.

We really do need a criminal stupidity statute on the books, especially in light of Rick Perry, Rand Paul, and a host of others.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 08:32 PM

Suppose you are right. Go figure I hope they have it secured sounds like they do

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 09:40 PM

Still, the hospital sending him home after he DID say he'd been in Liberia, I mean, really.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 10:22 PM

For sure that's insane..

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 12:07 AM

When public officials start telling us that they are in control of the situation, it it is time to worry.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 04:55 AM

Yes, communications breakdown within a complex team prevented the information that the patient had just returned from Liberia filtered through. An Ebola checklist was completed during the assessment.

I read this Reuters article yesterday. The way this case has been handled, you have a problem there.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 05:17 AM

Sorry, this was the article I was thinking of above.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 10:12 AM

I heard the situation described on a radio interview yesterday. The four were coming and going and not always available for the twice-daily check on their temperatures. So now they're confined to one apartment where now they are sleeping on mattresses on the floor and I wonder if someone is delivering food and other requirements? This story is evolving. They're talking about this on the Diane Rehm show (NPR) right now.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:58 AM

Supreme stupidity or as I call it human nature has always defeated some of our best intentions.

We* did not think through a proper procedure to quarantine or even who would ever clean up exposed linens and furniture. (* the corporate we or the wealthiest we)

As long as Isis seems to be a priority Ebola will not get the attention it deserves.

Beheadings be damned ! Saudi Arabia had several dozen of their own this year, Americans have seen plenty of beheadings. Ghostbuster 2 had 11 beheaded victims on pikes as they entered the subway river of slime. OK but real or not I don't think our leadership is focusing the public on the REAL threat.

The new American    $$$$ conspiracy anti Obama conspiracy theory   $$$$$    is that big pharma has plenty of vaccine and are in fact rife with cures but African markets can't afford the price drug companies want to get. Only after America gets truly desperate will drug companies sell the vaccines at huge profit to the government.
Again this conspiracy theory is whacko. What is true is that Drug companies run with a new drug after the Government has painstakingly developed it such as the new malarial cure. Drug companies do not spend $ on R&D today the way they once did.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 12:12 PM

Kudos to the great posts by; mg, Richard Bridges, Mrrzy and Q.
These people I could understand. The silent ones baffle me.
Recent events have made my Ebola song in the thread 'Ebola songs' even creepier.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 12:58 PM

GOOD NEWS


Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University has made a test for Ebola infection that works in as little as 10 minutes even on asymptomatic patients.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 04:53 PM

BAD NEWS

npr just reported 2 men in the DC Metro area are now in hospitals after traveling from West Africa with Ebola symptoms

A Nigerian man is at Shady Grove Hospital and the other is at Howard University.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 05:27 PM

As long as everyone is getting hysterical over Ebola, remember that there are 7 or 8 cases of BUBONIC PLAGUE!!!!!!! in the U.S. every year & also one or two of pneumonic and/or septicemic.

BE AFRAID!!! BE VERY AFRAID!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Elmore
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 08:37 PM

Thought it was kind and caring of Sarah Palin to extend condolences to the people of Ebola.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 08:51 PM

White folks don't get plague, though, unless we have AIDS. So we're not afraid, not very afraid. Sigh.

And the handling by Dallas authorities is scarily bad. The nephew is who called the CDC to say My uncle has Ebola and the hospital just sent him home!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 01:11 AM

New numbers as of beginning of October:

Total Case Count: 7470 + 20 in Nigeria, 2 in Senagal and 1 in US=7493
Total Deaths: 3431 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 3439
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 4087 + 19 + 2 + 1 = 4099

Reminder of end of September case count:
Total Case Count: 6263
Total Deaths: 2917
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 3487

So we'vegone up in a couple of weeks by 1230 cases, roughly 100/day.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 01:51 AM

More than a hundred a day just in Sierra Leone
BBC.
A leading charity has warned that a rate of five new Ebola cases an hour in Sierra Leone means healthcare demands are far outstripping supply.

Save the Children said there were 765 new cases of Ebola reported in the West African state last week, while there are only 327 beds in the country.

Experts and politicians are set to meet in London to debate a global response to the crisis.

It is the world's worst outbreak of the virus, killing 3,338 people so far.

There have been 7,178 confirmed cases, with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea suffering the most.

Save the Children says Ebola is spreading across Sierra Leone at a "terrifying rate", with the number of new cases being recorded doubling every few weeks.

It said that even as health authorities got on top of the outbreak in one area, it spread to another.

The scale of the disease is also "massively unreported" according to the charity, because "untold numbers of children are dying anonymously at home or in the streets".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29453755

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 10:12 AM

Get a grip.

"More than 226,000 Americans are hospitalized with flu and approximately 36,000 die from flu-related complications every year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 02:44 PM

Just because something else is worse doesn't mean something isn't bad.

The flu has vaccines. THe flu has treatments that work. Ebola has neither.

Besides, *this* *isn't* *about* *Americans* *it* *is* *about* Guineans, Liberians, Sierra Leonians, and so Ivorians, Malians, Nigerans (not Nigerians), Senegalese, and Guinea-Bassauans first and foremost. The West African nations in or bordering the current outbreak/epidemic.

The idea that now that there is a case in the US we should care more, or that diseases that kill more Americans are more important, sickens me,

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 03:07 PM

The idea that now that there is a case in the US we should care more, or that diseases that kill more Americans are more important, sickens me

Me too - but it is what it is.

Dead wogs don't signify.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 06:26 PM

Ugh. yeah, I know. But ugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 12:44 PM

Up to 100 contacts of the first US case, now, and he is critical. So much for the US's ability to treat Ebola. Or to contain it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 01:58 PM

Your turn's coming, RB. Let's see how well you handle it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 02:37 PM

And now there is a homeless man who rode in the ambulance with the first US Ebola case - and he is missing. Not a good scenario.

Well, Ebbie, the BIG difference with the UK is that we have a National Health Service (until the fucking conservatives finish selling it off) so people are not afraid to go to hospital in case they get bankrupted. Bear in mind that the general assumption is that people who are asymptomatic are not infectious, so if people go straight to a doctor or hospital (and do not lie, for fear of cost, that they have not been exposed) when symptoms show, the prospects for containment are better.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 03:39 PM

Just so as we don't get complacent here in the UK, the victim changed flights in Brussels. That put him one contact and one Eurostar journey from London.
The simple reality is that this will get out sooner or later, either by stupidity or malevolence. It has already escaped from its first locus into the rest of West Africa, and this Texan incident was just a taster of what happens when, sooner or later, someone knows better. The UK is very much in common with the rest of Europe, although our longer-term provision is better, in that if you even think you have a problem, you see the quack for nowt.
On the other hand, the question then might arise about the scale of the epidemic overwhelming the medical resource. That may lead to neighbourhood quarantine: we nearly had to go there in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, indeed within a quarter of a mile of where I write this in London is an entire housing estate which has only just been returned to private use by the NHS, inside the last 10 years, which was built for these victims. It still has just two entrances, supermarket and medical centre. One wonders if it is still on the books as a reserve...at least the local kids would be happy, as the troops enforcing the enclave would have to be based in the school opposite.
1918 was bad, coming on the heels of the death toll of WWI. But it was not as bad as the death toll of the cumulative waves of plague in the 50 years which followed on the Black Death of 1347-9, which caused complete economic collapse in some parts of Europe, and therefore came within a hair's breadth of doing so across the entire continent. Between 50 and 75% of the population died, more slowly, and the way found out of the economic collapse was specialisation, a policy which we have continued since. However, we have taken it far further: what would happen, say, if the whole of Silicon Valley died?
Or the people who keep a continual process plant running smoothly?
It may be we have futures as acoustic performers after all...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 04:58 PM

They found the homeless guy in Dallas.

One guy who got all better is now back in hospital, but they say it's a diffeent flu so far, although I bet having just gotten over Ebola isn't very good for your upper respiratory system.

If he changed planes in Brussels he probably didn't go through Customs, plus, he didn't have it yet so they'd be fine even if he had sweated, profusely, on them. You aren't contagious till symptoms and he didn't show symptoms till he'd been Stateside for days.

Only another couple of weeks till we know if it spread anywhere.

The only people likely are the EMTs and the immediate family, who may have gotten into bed with him while he was sick. I wouldn't even worry about the guy who cleaned up the barf, or the fact that the barf was simply hosed off into the neighborhood street.

But what really frosted my buns this morning was the headline on the Sunday Washington Post first page - how "they" "failed" to stop the epidemic, now that there is ONE case in the US suddenly it is not contained? SOMETIMES I (delete a lot of stuff) mean really! The they in question being the international health people, btw.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 10:21 AM

On the other hand, the question then might arise about the scale of the epidemic overwhelming the medical resource.

Not likely, since the Flu was airborne transmission & the Plague either airborne(pneumonic) or transmitted by flea bites. Ebola requires direct contact with bodily fluids.


what would happen, say, if the whole of Silicon Valley died?

The world would be considerably better off overall and I wouldn't have to constantly deal with oblivious idiots barking into their cell phones & texting in their vehicles.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 01:53 PM

The "Spanish Flu" was an H1N1 avian virus, according to current research. The severity is suspected to be the result of cytokine storms affecting the immune system.
See Medscape.com article on Influenza Transmission, from American Journal of Epidemiology.
Person-to-person transmission seems to be low compared to seasonal influenza transmission.

As noted in previous posts, it is spread by contact with bodily fluids rather than through the air like Spanish Flu.
However, aid workers need masks and protective clothing, because patients coughs spread fluids to those in contact.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 03:45 PM

Emphasising again the risk to medical staff caring for Ebola patients, the first known infection outside Africa: a nurse who was looking after a repatriated missionary in a Madrid hospital.

Nurse in Spain tests positive for Ebola

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 06:22 PM

One of my flags just got tripped (and I used to be a manager in the European crisis management centre): the Spanish nurse who picked it up from the Priest brought back from Liberia nursed him, cleaned up the room after he died, AND THEN WENT ON HOLIDAY. They don't know for sure that it isn't communcating by air, its incubation period can be between 2 and 21 days, and it was only when she became symptomatic - ie transmissible - that she sought help. How long was she contageous before that: and among holidaymakers. Yet the Spanish Minister of Health continues to be proud of her Sector's professionalism. That kind of pride, continuing in the face of the evidence that they cocked up in the most dangerous way possible, is a recipe for disaster: should they even have repatriated the priest in the first place, even? That's wisdom after the event, but now the risk is they've let it out of a medical environment and into holidaymakers. Next stop Rochdale or Eltham?
Now we must pray for the next three weeks. Oh, and in passing, a male who recovers still has infectious semen for up to eight weeks...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 09:31 PM

8 weeks, great, does the wife of the texas case know that or the people monitering her?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 05:30 AM

Yes, an Ebola infected goign on holiday is a worry but possibly more worrying is the fact the infection happened in the first place when you consider the precautions it jumped:

Health authorities on Monday said that health professionals treating Ebola patients in Spain always followed protocols outlined by the World Health Organisation. The nurse would have entered García Viejo's room just twice, said Alemany, and would have been wearing protective equipment on both occasions. "We don't know yet what failed," said Alemany. "We're investigating the mechanism of infection."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 09:26 AM

The two suspect patients reported on npr turned out negative.

The cases in Spain regarding a nurse and partner are now reported in the media. My apologies for reporting it 5 days prior to confirmation.


The very bad no good dangerous conspiracy theory from FOX is that we have run out of Ebola vaccine and blaming Obama.

There still is not a vaccine and never has been folks.

A vaccine may be ready next year. Anti virals and anti replicating drugs for viri are being tried.

Now that Saudi Arabia has its hands on Ebola is not a comforting thought.


There is an obscure report that a Ugandan .radiographer (X-Ray technician) in Uganda died Sept 28th 2014 from the Marburg virus which is a hemorrhagic fever.At this time it is only possible that this is true. If so, it is a totally different difficulty.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 09:39 AM

Marburg is closely related to Ebola.
4 hospitalised, 28 possible secondaries under observation, first couple came up clear, for the moment. They'll only really know in three weeks.
The good news for her is that she was exposed 25 Sep, left 26 Sep, reported symptoms 28 Sep, still with us 12 days later so possibly responding, secondaries should know either way in 12 more days. We can therefore add rumour control to the charges, the rest of the world had the right to know. They can trace her family circle, but what about the rest.
The failure seems to be in disrobing, the hospital staff are riled to the max because they've had no specific training, the bloody quacks seem to think it's like anything else.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 10:59 AM

Yes, I also read about Marburg in Uganda. And apparently the Ebola in Nigeria, which stayed contained, was not the same Ebola as is breaking out in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Anybody heard a great report on NPR about what the Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia did about the epidemic when it started up in their compound?

Some EXCELLENT epidemiology was done there. Blicky.

As an aside, if the quacks are bloody, don't touch them.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 04:14 PM

<>The very bad no good dangerous conspiracy theory from FOX is that we have run out of Ebola vaccine and blaming Obama.

What the fuck? Even for Faux News, that's preposterous bullshit. But at least 25% of the U.S. populace - who believe the horseshit Fox/Murdoch put out- is going to accept.

Oh, ye nation of morons.....

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 04:48 PM

with something so deadly i think it is insane to say it can't be spread through air or whatever...stuff on air anyway gets onto surfaces...take serious extreme precautions if you want to control it. if you don't care, if you would rather philosophize than act, then ok.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 05:56 PM

And since the virus incubates, screening without quarantining the healthy is useless, so screening is useless.

I've been saying all along, quarantine quarantine quarantine.

Apparently the nurse in Madrid *did* use all precautions and caught it anyway. That is very unusual.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 06:26 PM

with something so deadly i think it is insane to say it can't be spread through air

No, Mary its fucking FACT that it isn't spread atmospherically. Get a fucking grip, will ya?

We don't need any more bullshit on this issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 10:16 PM

Now, now.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 11:00 PM

cnn is running this on line only

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Oct 14 - 11:03 PM

It is not airborne except for the body fluid that is flung int the air and lands right in your eyes and mouth. A sneeze can in this rare scenario can be equated with vomiting in your eyes.

Is that airborne?
NO not in the the way flu can be airborne and even survive dry for some time.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 09:03 AM

It is NOT fact it cannot be spread by aerosol: it mutates, and its brethren can (Reston Virus, which may be on the loose in Virginia: it's got very low pathogenicity in humans and may even be the basis for an innoculation). Experimental research HAS shown airborn transmission from pigs to and between primates can happen, see below. As at this point, it has not jumped the air gap, but that does not mean to say it cannot, will not, or is not doing so now.

The Spanish nurse affirms she took every precaution against the known normal pathology. As she was infected none the less, then the pathology has changed, and the pressure is on to discover why. In the mean time, those involved must be ultra cautious: there is, for example, an obvious discrepancy between the air control in the Royal Free setup and the "let's swan around in the open" in Madrid. Watching them, they only double-glove, for example, which is one layer too few: one for the patient, one for the environment, and one for you.

See:
Johnson E, Jaax N, White J, Jahrling P (Aug 1995). "Lethal experimental infections of rhesus monkeys by aerosolized Ebola virus". International journal of experimental pathology 76 (4): 227–236. ISSN 0959-9673. PMC 1997182. PMID 7547435.
Weingartl HM, Embury-Hyatt C, Nfon C, Leung A, Smith G, Kobinger G (2012). "Transmission of Ebola virus from pigs to non-human primates". Sci Rep 2: 811. doi:10.1038/srep00811. PMC 3498927. PMID 23155478.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 10:08 AM

I see you've quite gone over to the hysterics!

As at this point, it has not jumped the air gap, but that does not mean to say it cannot, will not, or is not doing so now.

Nor does it mean that it can, will, or is doing so right now.

The Spanish nurse affirms she took every precaution against the known normal pathology. As she was infected none the less, then the pathology has changed,

Right, she "afffirms". Uh hunh. Or she screwed up & the pathology hasn't changed.

Good thing we're neither pigs or non-human primates, innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 10:33 AM

They simply don't know how she got infected. Like the situation in Dallas, it's the response that is the greatest worry:

[url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/08/spanish-ebola-nurse-symptoms-quarantine]Nurse reported symptoms three times[/url]

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 10:39 AM

Sorry, I'll try that again:

Nurse reported symptoms three times

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 11:26 AM

And unless you stay careful after getting out of the room - you can get infected taking off your quarantine outfit and then wiping sweat out of your face, without it having gone airborne, the virus that is, not your face. Or your quarantine suit.

And great, she got tylenol when she tried to tell them she had Ebola. Sounds like Texas.

But let's not insult each other, OK? Even if one of us says something dumb, let's not call then a fucking idiot, but argue with their premise? Can we do that in this thread, at least? Thank you in advance.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 12:39 PM

The Liberian in Texas has died. At least just coming to the States is no longer a cure.

Spain is about to kill the nurse's dog in case it's a vector. That does horribly make some kind of sense...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 01:33 PM

coming to the States is no longer a cure

Never was, never will be.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 01:47 PM

Boneheaded English racists

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 02:20 PM

Not because it's a vector, but simply because it's less cruel than cleaning it of the ebola virus it's undoubtedly carrying. Constant deluging in chlorine will gas it, leave its coat burning, and skin irritated beyond care. =

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 05:49 PM

If it's carrying the virus then it IS a vector... that is a great reason to kill it, which they have done. But it is quite doubtable that it is carrying it at all - nonetheless, if it were me, I would not take the chance. We know Ebola incubates in mammals. Mammals in close contact with victims are scary and dangerous, and you know it, to paraphrase K.

Now a cop in Dallas has "symptoms consistent with Ebola" which means what, they have a fever? It's one of the cops who went to deal with the apartment, although what form dealing with an apartment takes is unclear. I'd be terrified if it were me, and I had a fever, after being in close contact with a victim or their juices.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr at work
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 06:00 PM

New numbers:

Total Cases: 8033 = +643 in 3 weeks or more than 200/week now
Laboratory-Confirmed Cases: 4461
Total Deaths: 3865...for West Africa. Add 2 confirmed and 1 dead for the rest of the world.

Recap of old numbers:

Beg of October:

Total Case Count: 7470 + 20 in Nigeria, 2 in Senagal and 1 in US=7493
Total Deaths: 3431 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 3439
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 4087 + 19 + 2 + 1 = 4099

Reminder of end of September case count:
Total Case Count: 6263
Total Deaths: 2917
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 3487

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 06:00 PM

"symptoms consistent with Ebola"

Yup. Which symptoms, in the initial stages, are consistent with what - several thousands of diseases?

Wasn't there once a rock group called Question Mark and the Hysterians? Time for tham to make a comeback record.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 07:31 PM

What I meant was that all the people repatriated to the US already with Ebola had survived.

Question Mark and the Hysterians? I love it!

And over 200/week is less than 100/day!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 08:27 PM

It's time to get you clued up, just in case.
The space occupied by someone with a virus gets contaminated by the virus. Any virus. Including Ebola. Most viruses break down outside of a live body, but Ebola survives in a dead body, so it probably survives on surfaces too. Sweat, skin cells, you name it. I'm a tad worried about water supply, even: urine's infectuous too.
Given that, then it's not what's in the dog, but what's on the dog, which was a primary cause of concern. Don't minimise this one until we know what kills it: many bugs don't like the cold, SARS didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 09:10 PM

so it probably survives on surfaces too

Probably?

Don't minimise this one

Lets us not maximize it either.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 09:55 PM

The Ebola virus has been demonstrated to survive outside a host for up to 50 days. But that is at fairly low temperatures. Under 10 days is normal.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 11:40 PM

Please define "host" for the above (9:55 PM) post. Richard, do you mean a person, or an individual cell that has been shed by a person or other mammal, or a cell in a petri dish, since you're saying "demonstrated?"

Please define "survive" for the above post. Do you mean the coating remains recognizable and continues to coat some dna that stays recognizable, or do you mean the virus remains actually capable of infecting a new host, which will now be defined as either an individual cell in a petri dish, since we're talking research, or an individual (human, let's say)?

Because while all the research is very important for future knowledge, right now the crux is Can this strain of the virus actually infect another person.

And so far the epidemiology suggests no, not unless there is contact with a lot of virus in a body of bodily fluid that is still fluid.

Like a pool of blood or a pond of sweat, but probably not even a jizz of semen. There is no evidence at all in the epidemiology of this outbreak to suggest you can get it from a place a droplet of sweat once fell or, in point of fact, from just sex. This is not considered a sexually transmitted disease. If you have sex with someone sick with fever they will sweat, and you'd get it from their sweat.

The people being infected have all cared for the dead or dying and been in direct physical contact with their blood or sweat. The Texas guy had carried a dying pregnant 19-year-old neighbor to a taxi after she was already bleeding out. The nurse had not been trained on how to get back *out* of a *contaminated* hazmat suit safely, so she also is incredibly likely to have had direct contact with blood or sweat.

And we do know that the virus lives in but does not sicken many other mammals, but I don't know if we know that dogs are one of them. There is no evidence at all, nor any indication at all, that there is a danger from Ebola from the outside of other mammals, since the virus doesn't infect the outside of mammals. Unless, I guess, you drench it in blood or sweat, and even then, once that dries, the animal is no longer a danger.

The blood/sweat is the danger, not everywhere it has been.

The reason dead ebola victims are so infectious is that the virus has turned their entire insides (pretty much everything but bone and skin) to one big bodily fluid that, contained within the skin, stays fluid. The phrase Ebola bomb is descriptive and was used in The Hot Zone.

And since everybody checks people for fever by feeling their foreheads, one of the first things humans do is catch the virus from the people they are concerned about, who *are* feverish and likely to be sweating since that is part of the human fever response to infection.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 03:47 AM

It's not where I first saw it, but it's close enough - http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/res/psds-ftss/ebola-eng.php

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 03:50 AM

"The Ebola virus can survive for several days outside the body, including on the skin of an infected person,"

From here. Follow your own link.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ebola-virus/pages/ebola-virus.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 06:51 AM

Whatever you think of Christians, they provide much of the health care in central Africa.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/10/missionary_doctors_treating_ebola_in_africa_why_people

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 10:42 AM

My link is no good.
Slate magazine a few days ago.
"Like it or not, though, we are deeply reliant on missionary doctors and nurses. The 2008 ARHAP report found that in some sub-Saharan African countries 30 percent of health care facilities are run by religious entities. That system is crumbling due to declining funding, possibly motivated in part by growing Western suspicion of missionary medicine. We have a choice: Swallow our objections and support these facilities, spend vast sums of money to build up Africa's secular health care capacity immediately, or watch the continent drown in Ebola, HIV, and countless other disease outbreaks.
As an atheist, I try to make choices based on evidence and reason. So until we're finally ready to invest heavily in secular medicine for Africa, I suggest we stand aside and let God do His work."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 10:43 AM

I may be wrong on the surface survival - it's being quoted as hours on a dry surface, days on a wet one. In a body, it survives 2-3 days.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:20 AM

So far, the real success story has been the thoroughly secular intervention of the Nigerian state. Contact tracing isn't something you could expect a Christian church organization to be much good at.

Not to knock them for what they are doing, of course. But it's likely to become ever less relevant to the progress of the epidemic.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:39 AM

Here's some exerpts from your article, Keith. Seems them thar missionaries are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

... When I write about medical issues, I usually spend hours scouring PubMed, a research publications database from the National Institutes of Health, for data to support my story. You can't do that with missionary work, because few organizations produce the kind of rigorous, peer-reviewed data that is required in the age of evidence-based medicine...

There are serious questions about the quality of care provided by religious organizations in Africa. A 2008 report by the African Religious Heath Assets Programme concluded that faith-based facilities were "often severely understaffed and many health workers were under-qualified." Drug shortages and the inability to transport patients who needed more intensive care also hampered the system.

There is also a troubling lack of oversight. Large religious health care facilities tend to be consistent in their care, but the hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller clinics in Africa are a mystery. We don't know whether missionary doctors are following international standards of care. (I've heard murmurs among career international health specialists that missionaries may be less likely to wear appropriate protective equipment, which is especially troubling in the context of the Ebola outbreak.)

There are extremely weak medical malpractice laws (and even weaker court systems to enforce them) in much of sub-Saharan Africa, so we have no sense whatsoever of how many mistakes missionary doctors are making. We don't know how many missionaries are helping to train new doctors and nurses in the countries where they work—the current emphasis of international health delivery.

In his Lancet article, Lowenberg quotes a missionary who insists he does not proselytize, even though he tells his patients, "I'm treating you because of what God has given me and his love for me." That statement—which strikes me as obvious proselytizing— suggests that some missionaries are incapable of separating their religious work from their medical work. Whether implicitly or explicitly, some missionaries pressure their patients, at moments of maximum vulnerability and desperation, to convert.
... When I write about medical issues, I usually spend hours scouring PubMed, a research publications database from the National Institutes of Health, for data to support my story. You can't do that with missionary work, because few organizations produce the kind of rigorous, peer-reviewed data that is required in the age of evidence-based medicine...

There are serious questions about the quality of care provided by religious organizations in Africa. A 2008 report by the African Religious Heath Assets Programme concluded that faith-based facilities were "often severely understaffed and many health workers were under-qualified." Drug shortages and the inability to transport patients who needed more intensive care also hampered the system.

There is also a troubling lack of oversight. Large religious health care facilities tend to be consistent in their care, but the hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller clinics in Africa are a mystery. We don't know whether missionary doctors are following international standards of care. (I've heard murmurs among career international health specialists that missionaries may be less likely to wear appropriate protective equipment, which is especially troubling in the context of the Ebola outbreak.)

There are extremely weak medical malpractice laws (and even weaker court systems to enforce them) in much of sub-Saharan Africa, so we have no sense whatsoever of how many mistakes missionary doctors are making. We don't know how many missionaries are helping to train new doctors and nurses in the countries where they work—the current emphasis of international health delivery.

In his Lancet article, Lowenberg quotes a missionary who insists he does not proselytize, even though he tells his patients, "I'm treating you because of what God has given me and his love for me." That statement—which strikes me as obvious proselytizing— suggests that some missionaries are incapable of separating their religious work from their medical work. Whether implicitly or explicitly, some missionaries pressure their patients, at moments of maximum vulnerability and desperation, to convert.
... When I write about medical issues, I usually spend hours scouring PubMed, a research publications database from the National Institutes of Health, for data to support my story. You can't do that with missionary work, because few organizations produce the kind of rigorous, peer-reviewed data that is required in the age of evidence-based medicine...

There are serious questions about the quality of care provided by religious organizations in Africa. A 2008 report by the African Religious Heath Assets Programme concluded that faith-based facilities were "often severely understaffed and many health workers were under-qualified." Drug shortages and the inability to transport patients who needed more intensive care also hampered the system.

There is also a troubling lack of oversight. Large religious health care facilities tend to be consistent in their care, but the hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller clinics in Africa are a mystery. We don't know whether missionary doctors are following international standards of care. (I've heard murmurs among career international health specialists that missionaries may be less likely to wear appropriate protective equipment, which is especially troubling in the context of the Ebola outbreak.)

There are extremely weak medical malpractice laws (and even weaker court systems to enforce them) in much of sub-Saharan Africa, so we have no sense whatsoever of how many mistakes missionary doctors are making. We don't know how many missionaries are helping to train new doctors and nurses in the countries where they work—the current emphasis of international health delivery.

In his Lancet article, Lowenberg quotes a missionary who insists he does not proselytize, even though he tells his patients, "I'm treating you because of what God has given me and his love for me." That statement—which strikes me as obvious proselytizing— suggests that some missionaries are incapable of separating their religious work from their medical work. Whether implicitly or explicitly, some missionaries pressure their patients, at moments of maximum vulnerability and desperation, to convert.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:00 PM

Early symptoms are fever, muscle pain and weakness, and sore throat.

These symptoms apply to several infections. Norwalk type viruses are common, and have similar symptoms; spread commonly by hand contact or contact with contaminated surfaces.
Enterovirus D-68 is current in parts of U. S. and Canada; muscle weakness a symptom. A big problem in Alberta and my city of Calgary at the moment.

Health care workers are faced with identification of the patient's disease, and of course the more common ones are the first guess- isolation and special protective measures cannot be extended to each patient, so blaming the health care worker in Texas for the late treatment for Ebola is wrong- unless the history of the movements of the patient and his African contacts was available at the first contact with the patient.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:36 PM

BBC report 5 Oct. 2015, "Ebola biggest challenge since AIDS." Includes maps of disease density.
The disease is obtained through close contact with animals- Fruit bats, forest antelope (both items of food) and chimpanzees.
It an be spread by indirect contact, through contaminated environments (How long surfaces, etc., are affected depends on several factors.

A patient who recovers may still be infectious up to seven weeks after recovery, since their blood and secretions still contain the virus.

Cases, although concentrated in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, extend across Africa west to east, from Senegal to Uganda, including South Sudan, Gabon, Conge, DR Congo, Uganda.
Hopefully, the disease has been contained in Senegal and Nigeria.
Liberia has been most affected, with 2200 deaths up to Oct. 5.
Close contact with dead relatives is a cultural trait in many of the societies, and is a cause of transmission of the disease.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:47 PM

Lumping all the Christian efforts in the same pot is a mistake.
My ophthalmologist is active part of the year with the Seventh Day Adventists, treating eye disease in Africa. A number of doctors are involved in treatments offered around the world by the SDA, and proselytization is not part of their treatments.

The old type of bible-banging missionary, those still in existence, should be consigned to the pot, a source of protein.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:06 PM

A 2008 report by the African Religious Heath Assets Programme concluded that faith-based facilities were "often severely understaffed and many health workers were under-qualified." Drug shortages and the inability to transport patients who needed more intensive care also hampered the system.

That's an unreasonable complaint, unless local standards for secular-provided care are significantly better. In much of rural West Africa I very much doubt there is a better alternative on offer. If they're willing to do what they can with poor resources in a desperate situation, they deserve credit, not blame, for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:31 PM

Thanks for the clarifications and data.

The people who clean the planes that come in to JFK are striking, and I don't blame them. If my job were to clean up barf, right now I'd be terrified.

I think if we eliminate the close contact with the bodies of fluid, the huge bulk of tranmission would stop, and we could deal with the few that could maybe still get it from once-wet surfaces. That were wet very recently. And had a big viral load in them. The bodies of infected fluid, I meant. A few cases here and there would be dealable-with.

And if everybody stopped repatriating the ill, we'd stop sending more of these few cases here or there.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:38 PM

Greg, it was a balanced article, and you just extracted one side of it.
I gave the conclusion.
Jack, yes they will become less relevant as the big agencies and militaries move in.
When they all go home the Christians will still be there.
The disease was first identified in a dying nun who contracted it caring for the poor and sick by the river Ebola.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:45 PM

The disease was "first identified" by someone WHITE in a nun maybe. You can be sure the people who had it, and who'd had had it for possibly millennia, had a name for it already.

I think you meant, the disease first came to the attention of Western medicine, or Europeans, in that dying nun.

Also I've opened a thread on the question of the religion being in the way, as I believe that may be a side issue? Can we temporarily move discussion of that aspect over there? I ask this as a courtesy, please. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 03:45 PM

The disease is mutating; the virus may not have had severe effects a hundred years or more in the past or was nor transmissible from animal hosts.
We cannot predict the effects in the future; like the "Spanish Flu," it may run its course in a few years or on the other hand, become a scourge for a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 03:51 PM

Nice infographic here in WashPo.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 07:50 PM

There are over 11 million tweets on ebola so far.



1 Treatment and emerging cures.

2 Where is Ebola in humans and animals today?

3 Best and worst case scenarios

4 Social and Economic effects caused by Ebola

5. Conspiracy theories.


1: Mr. Duncan was given an experimental drug but the results are unclear since treatment began so late.

2: It is my concern that Ebola will never be reported in the country directly bordering Liberia to the South. Why? Because that is where 75% of all the chocolate in the world is grown and harvested. Shh By some miracle the Ivory Coast has immunity?!?

4: THIS WEEK HAVE YOU HAVE SEEN THE LARGEST DROP IN THE STOCK MARKET THIS YEAR?

5: Dr. Rush Limbaugh is reporting that the Muslim President Barak Ebola is insisting to allow all the Ebola victims into the USA as a Liberal revenge against historic slavery. Democrats and Liberals are to blame.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 07:55 PM

I'm from Ivory Coast and the last time I looked, south of Liberia is the Atlantic Ocean (well, Bay of Biscay). We are east of Liberia, and Ivorians have not yet reported any cases, which I find unbelievable, personally, but I also have read that they aren't going to Liberia to do business nowadays which is one of the reasons Liberia is suffering economically as fallout from the epidemic.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:22 PM

A group of chimpanzees in Ivory Coast has Ebola. One Swiss scientist who worked with their bodies contracted Ebola. Luckily, she recovered.

Ivory Coast has closed its borders with Guinea and Liberia. See Stanford University article, Ebola Cote D'Ivoire Outbreaks.

Just a matter of time?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:01 PM

Good! Last I heard, the borders were still open.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 03:27 AM

'south of Liberia is the Atlantic Ocean (well, Bay of Biscay)'



Bay of Biscay? Really? Maybe not start lecturing pother people on matter relating geography yet!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 06:14 AM

Stanford University
In 1976, Ebola (named after the Ebola River in Zaire) first emerged in Sudan and Zaire. The first outbreak of Ebola (Ebola-Sudan) infected over 284 people, with a mortality rate of 53%. A few months later, the second Ebola virus emerged from Yambuku, Zaire, Ebola-Zaire (EBOZ). EBOZ, with the highest mortality rate of any of the Ebola viruses (88%), infected 318 people. Despite the tremendous effort of experienced and dedicated researchers, Ebola's natural reservoir was never identified. The third strain of Ebola, Ebola Reston (EBOR), was first identified in 1989 when infected monkeys were imported into Reston, Virginia, from Mindanao in the Philippines. Fortunately, the few people who were infected with EBOR (seroconverted) never developed Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF). The last known strain of Ebola, Ebola Cote d'Ivoire (EBO-CI) was discovered in 1994 when a female ethologist performing a necropsy on a dead chimpanzee from the Tai Forest, Cote d'Ivoire, accidentally infected herself during the necropsy.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 04:07 PM

Yikes Bight of Biafra! Oh my ears and whiskers!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 04:11 PM

I believe that the first outbreaks known to Europeans happened in the '70's, but the idea that it could never happened before since we hadn't noticed it yet is naive. But shutting up now anyway. Perhaps they do know from the dna that it couldn't have ever happened before we noticed it, but even if not, side issue. I just prefer that we get into the habit of saying "first known to us" instead of "first known" about stuff that happens outside of our narrow little culture.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 11:16 PM

When I started this thread, there were 8 hundred-some-odd case.

That was July.

Now it's 8 thousand some-odd-cases.

Time to do something.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 05:13 AM

NBC 12 hours ago.
Meanwhile, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday that Ebola infections rates are expected to climb.

"In Guinea and Sierra Leone, the number of infections is projected to double every month. In Liberia, infections are projected to double every two weeks," Power said at a General Assembly session on Ebola.

Power praised countries that "have punched far above their weight." She cited the example of Cuba, "a country of just 11 million people" that "has already sent 165 health professionals to the region and plans to send nearly 300 more."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 01:07 PM

"Time to do something"? What can be done other than what is being done? Snap one's fingers?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 01:11 PM

All countries could stop using their armies to fight each other and send them there to isolate each and every village from each other and every manageably-sized urban area from each other and close the borders tightly to isolate the affected countries from the rest of West Africa and man the stations in the transit areas of airports where anybody coming from there should be isolated from the country they are trying to enter for at least 3 weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 01:45 PM

Inertia!

Sierra Leone has been forced to let families take care of their Ebola patient(s). An increase in cases is sure to follow. Officials said they would begin distributing painkillers, rehydrating solutions and gloves.
"It's basically admitting defeat," said Dr. Kilmarx of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team in Sierra Leone.

Expected increase in numbers because of familial and village contacts.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 01:48 PM

Sorry, did not include source of the article on the "defeat" in Sierra Leone; see NY Times, Oct 11, 2014.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 02:30 PM

"All countries could stop using their armies to fight each other and send them there to isolate each and every village from each other and every manageably-sized urban area from each other and close the borders tightly to isolate the affected countries from the rest of West Africa and man the stations in the transit areas of airports where anybody coming from there should be isolated from the country they are trying to enter for at least 3 weeks."

They could. But America will give up its fixation on guns L O N g before that ideal happens. Just ain't gonna happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 02:42 PM

It is the UN who must marshal support from its members.
The U. S. should provide support, but cannot be the sole contributor of money, supplies, and trained workers.

The hoped-for vaccine will not be available in usable and abundant form for a year.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 02:54 PM

UK has sent nearly 800 military medics plus a warship and helicopters.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 07:55 PM

Well, if nobody does what it takes, then it may actually become the pandemic that will be the common enemy that unites all of humanity.

What's left of them, at least.

But we'll end up with a planetary government, which is long overdue.

Also no overpopulation problem.

Hey, maybe this is a *good* thing for the human species and the planet!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 08:19 AM

Carer infected by US case.
It must be very easy to catch!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 11:25 AM

It may now be time to stop airflight from the affected areas: no need to make it easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 12:49 PM

WHO estimates 416 aid workers have contracted Ebola, and 233 have died.

The apartment and car of the nurse who contracted Ebola in Texas have been cleaned by the hazardous materials unit of the Dallas Fire Department, as well as the public areas of the apartment complex. CNN News.

Burial customs in parts of the area involve much handling of the corpse, and are a factor in transmission of the disease.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Frontiers) says it is completely overwhelmed and is turning patients away. BBC News Africa

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 12:56 PM

CDC 'deeply concerned' about Ebola protocol breach at Dallas hospital

DALLAS — The director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said Sunday that the agency "is deeply concerned" to learn that "a breach in protocol" at a Dallas hospital resulted in a health-care worker becoming infected with the Ebola virus.

"At some point, there was a breach in protocol," Dr. Tom Frieden said. "And that breach in protocol resulted in this infection."

Texas health officials said early Sunday that the worker, who Frieden said "had extensive contact" on multiple occasions with Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, had tested positive for the virus. She was found to have a "low level," Frieden said.

The worker's contacts with Duncan came during his second visit to the hospital, when he was admitted with serious symptoms. He was released from the emergency room after his first visit last month.

Read the rest at the article page.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 01:10 PM

The article goes on to say that the nurse had on full protective gear, according to Texas Health Resources.

I watched a video that showed protective gear being sprayed before removal, &c. It seems that it is difficult for the person wearing the gear to effectively sterilize the gear without help.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 03:38 PM

Right, it's the getting back out again that is so hard. More than half my training in using gloves for mice in research involved taking the gloves off, and that was just gloves. It's bloody hard to get out of a hazmat suit covered in haz mats.

I read an interesting chronology which I won't link to because it was on (shh!) wikipedia, where we know all is true. Seems to have started with patient 0 just before new year's; I started reading about it in May, and started this thread in July. Now there are probably about 10 thousand cases in probably more than 3 countries, since it's statistically more likely that there are people dying in uncounted scores upcountry, given that they are dying in counted droves in cities and towns, than that every single ill person is in a city or town given that this is West Africa, and the idea that the virus stops at the borders still bothers me... just because no one's been identified with it in a decent hospital in, say Abidjan, doesn't mean it isn't all around villages bordering Liberia and Guinea, and I repeat, the scary thing isn't it getting out into the developped world, the scary thing is what it's doing right now to real people right there.
I feel like the poor schmuck under the table with the irrepressible chick admonishing him to stop repeating himself in What's Up Doc - I am not repeating myself I am not repeating myself o my word I'm repeating myself

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 01:39 AM

Mid-october case count:

Total Cases: 8400

Laboratory-Confirmed Cases: 4656

Total Deaths: 4033

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 04:16 AM

Will we welcome the swallows back next summer?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 11:33 AM

Folks in the USA can view PBS documentaries on the news show Frontline and the science show Nova. It's possible that folks outside the USA can access these via youtube - they're both listed when I look, but access seems a bit political. Both are very informative - the NOVA discusses the current treatment and ethical discussions around giving the Americans the untested treatment. The Frontline shows the logistical difficulties involved.

My son is in the Army Reserve, trained as a mechanical technician specializing in setting up and maintaining hospital equipment. He feels his group is preparing for deployment in about a year. We're watching this outbreak closely.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 12:29 PM

Thanks! And thank your son!

Deployment in a year means they don't think it's coming under control any time soon. Yikes.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 12:31 PM

New case In Texas the nurse that treated the guy is now infected

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 12:37 PM

Annual US cases of Influenza ± 31,816,763
Annual US death toll from flu is ± 36,000.

Annual cases measles worldwide is 20 million
Annual deaths from measles worldwide is 164,000

Annual cases malaria worldwide is 207 million
Annual deaths from malaria worldwide is 627,000

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 12:45 PM

Racism in the US healthcare system's response:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/09/ebola-scare-race-frisco-dallas-texas-monnig-duncan

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 01:00 PM

No, deployment in a year means deployment in a year. It makes no statement about the reason for the deployment, just an assessment of that unit's readiness. Often, they deploy to third-world countries for educational (and, I'm sure, propaganda) purposes. If they don't actually set up and use the hospital, they stand to lose their expertise. If this epidemic spurs the formation of a world-wide emergency medical team, they might be a logical part. Certainly, we're hoping this epidemic will be controlled within a year.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 01:06 PM

The report cited by Jack Campin from the Guardian is just a shit-stirrer. Read it and draw your own conclusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 02:27 PM

Trials began in Maryland today of a Canadian-developed Ebola vaccine.

These will be the first human tests of the vaccine, developed by the Canada National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

The vaccine proved effective with primates and other animals. The U. S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency is working with the Canadian developers (BioProtection Systems).

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 02:29 PM

CBC news (13 Oct. 2014) the source of the article on the Canadian Ebola vaccine.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 05:30 PM

If a highly trained nurse can get it with protection gear. I want a travel ban

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 05:42 PM

How in the world do you test a vaccine where there are no patients with the disease, in Maryland?

How on earth do you think you can *ethically* test a vaccine where the patients *are* right now, being Guinea, SLeone and Liberia?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 06:01 PM

Mrzzy, how many glove layers do you use? My hazardous environments paramedic mate uses 3, so you've always got a layer between you and anything potentially nasty: outer layer splits at the wrong time, you've still got a second you can clean, and a third to get that one off once "clean - we think".
The UK is a bit more stringent, I think, than Spain or the US: nobody goes into the hazardous area, the staff work through half-suits from outside it. At the moment, at least. I suspect they also use negative pressure in that area.
The biggest worry is someone travelling to the nearest hospital by bus because they don't drive and the ambulances are on strike ( as they were this morning).

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 07:18 PM

I was trained on 2, but 3 makes sense, although the CDC says more isn't necessarily better.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 07:19 PM

Another vaccine plus booster technique, successful with monkeys, is being tested on human volunteers. It was developed jointly by NIH (U. S.) and the Swiss Okairos, a biotech company owned by British GSK.

Like the Canadian vaccine test, it is being used in varying concentrations on 20 volunteers.

These are first phase tests.

A third vaccine, Johnson & Johnson, is moving towards tests in early 2015.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 08:17 PM

how do you ethically test? When people are dying like crazy? Ask for volunteers in that area of course. Especially the health care workers. Ambulance drivers. People whose lives are on the line. You will get volunteers. Also, the vaccine might not work or it might do awful things. At this point in the game, it is a risk quite a few people would take.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 09:13 PM

Get a grip, eh?

Annual US cases of Influenza ± 31,816,763
Annual US death toll from flu is ± 36,000.

Annual cases measles worldwide is 20 million
Annual deaths from measles worldwide is 164,000

Annual cases malaria worldwide is 207 million
Annual deaths from malaria worldwide is 627,000

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 09:32 PM

Right, they will volunteer for ANYTHING. Can't do informed consent in those cases. Can't test ethically. Doesn't mean don't do it, just don't pretend you're doing it ethically.

And testing a vaccine in Maryland, really, will only test for side-effects of the vaccine, which while a good thing to know is hardly the critical aspect.

And we have a grip, GregF, nobody is saying other diseases aren't bad, but this thread is about ebola breaking out. And again, who cares how many *americans* something like this kills, it's about Sierra Leoneans, Guineans and Liberians.

Malaria is treatable.
The flu is treatable.
Measles are treatable.
Ebola is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 14 - 10:35 PM

The US gvernment is working on a vaccine for rabies/ebola.

http://beforeitsnews.com/prophecy/2014/10/what-rabies-ebola-hybrid-vaccine-in-the-making-government-patented-proof-i-dont-make-this-stuff-up-2464566.html

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 12:40 AM

In two days a nurse and a ship medic are now in hospital with ebola.


Exactly one province in Liberia is Ebola free perhaps due to 3 rules.
Quarantine
No travel .
Pay faith healers to stay out

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 12:41 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 12:46 AM

was saying that i believe it probably is treatable. some people recover. some combination of immune strengthening, antiviral medicine, coconut oil, bleach, sunlight, good basic medical care, quarantine, ultraviolet light, essential oils, nutrition, chinese herbs, prayer, music therapy, whatever...will cure a lot of people. we have to be willing to suggest everything, we have to throw things at it that may or may not work, we have to look for local cures that might be under our noses..i don't think it is noncurable but i think it spreads so fast you don't have the luxury of time to sort it all out.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 10:12 AM

The flu is treatable.

The flu and measles, as viruses, are "treatable"with palliative care only -

Just like Ebola.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 10:46 AM

Ebola is usually fatal.
Those others usually are not.
Ebola is an epidemic yet to be under control, and likely to be a pandemic.
It is being compared to AIDS, except it kills much quicker.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 11:52 AM

Checck out the ebola. Robot that kills viruses with uv light.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 12:01 PM

the ebola Robot that kills viruses with uv light.

Is that being marketed by Ron Popeil or Ronco?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 12:49 PM

MMRV vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella, varicella since 2005. Provides fairly long-term protection. Stimulates the active immune response.

Flu vaccines are different every year and provide protection against the current crop of viruses. These vaccines provide "significant protection," hence not totally effective. They will not protect against flu strains not included in the mix.

Some of the Ebola vaccines being developed will include protection against some other viruses. 2016?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 01:18 PM

Ultra-violet light (UVB) is used to kill bacteria. I haven't seen anything suggesting it's effective against viruses.

There ARE anti-viral drugs. I don't see a whole lot of detail regarding anti-Ebola drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 01:27 PM

OK, time for some questions we might be able to answer with internet sleuthing.

Who will profit from this epidemic? I'm sure the factories that manufacture personal protective gear (suits, masks, boots) are working overtime and churning out full capacity. Where are those factories? Are they well run? Are they run for the profit of a small group (family, for example) or anonymous shareholders? Who is responsible for quality control? Maybe a few emails letting whoever they are know they are being watched could make a difference.

What are the side effects of ramping up production? I know chlorine is very toxic and yet it's the only stuff I've heard mentioned for decontamination. Who makes it? What are the consequences to ramping up production? Who's watching that? Perhaps the same could be said for the plastics in the suits.

When setting up ebola isolation compounds, what could be the unexpected consequences? Perhaps the hardest question of all. Remember, hospitals set up in Haiti that treated successfully many broken bones and crush injuries were directly responsible for a cholera epidemic that killed hundreds (or thousands, I'm not sure) because they neglected their latrines.

Perhaps we all could take some time to think about the ebola epidemic, not just watch it unfold.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 01:39 PM

Ultraviolet light is also anti-viral; it "disrupts their DNA, rendering them incapable of perfoming cellular functions."

Cannot be used at anti-viral levels with humans &c. Damage to skin, eyes and immune system.
Above from Wikipedia.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 01:44 PM

Those guest posts about research ethics were me, sorry, at work.

There are doctors using anti-viral drugs, mostly AIDS drugs, and seem to be having some success but one can't tell.

And they don't NEED hazmat suits, they need gowns and gloves galore.

Treating the symptoms of flu usually saves the patient; the flu, left unchecked, will not take over every organ and turn it into a liquid virus bomb. Treating the symptoms of Ebola does not, and the virus does.

Excellent questions above, also. Cui bono indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 01:54 PM

some essential oils are antiviral. i think tea tree for one. some can be taken orally if prescribed by a knowledgeable person but i don't know if the antivirals can. but at least stuff could be sprayed. we have not heard enough about burning of clothing, bedding, etc. i don't know how much should be or is being done. there is of course a shortage there of just about everything...but no shortage of textiles worldwide that could be donated.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 01:55 PM

Q, would portapotties with ultraviolet disinfection be possible? Should our army, which is setting up isolation compounds, be looking for them? Do they exist? I know UV is used in some sewage treatment plants, but I have no idea how they work or on what scale.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 02:00 PM

Who will profit? So far three possible vaccines, two of which (if accepted for treatment) are large drug concerns, Smith Glaxo-Kline, and Johnson and Johnson. In the end the large concerns have the means of producing the vaccines in large quantities.

Protective gear comes from several sources. Uline is one, a large company making all sorts of containers and packaging, warehousing equipment, protective clothing, &c.

Lakehead Industries and Alpha Pro Tech stocks have jumped, as investors bet that Ebola will increase, and increase the need for Hasmat suits and other protective wear.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 02:00 PM

don't know why not. there are also wands which could be waved over potties etc. burn. burn. burn. flame throwers on stainless steel? DOn't know. don't sit down too soon after.

here are some suggested antiviral oils..due diligence required of course.
http://www.sustainablebabysteps.com/antiviral-essential-oils.html

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 02:20 PM

This is going far afield, but see the Army Study Guide, Section on Field Facilities for Human Waste Disposal.
Most armies use similar guides, but one of the military units sent to Haiti used none, and they left open defecations near the rivers. A Cholera epidemic was the result.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 09:26 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/health/scientists-rein-in-fears-of-a-virus-whose-mysteries-tend-to-invite-speculation.html

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 14 Oct 14 - 09:49 PM

Right, GregF. That's why we aren't calling for hysteria but for the outbreak to be rationally dealt with.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 08:10 AM

Another of the carers infected in Texas.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 05:03 PM

some suggested naturopathic chemicals.

http://drsircus.com/medicine/ebola-saving-lives-natural-allopathic-medicine

http://drsircus.com/medicine/ebola-saving-lives-natural-allopathic-medicine

I suspect help will come quite a bit from this direction..not a cure all but maybe a way of saving some marginal lives, especially as there is probably a synergy between various of these suggestions.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 05:46 PM

Dr. Kent Bradley, the first American flown back from Africa with ebola, is now donating his blood plasma hoping it will do good. He was unable to donate to the man who died because blood types made that impossible. I think I remember this happening before in another outbreak (perhaps as seen on pbs's NOVA). Chances are it won't hurt.

The two new drugs are vaccines rather than treatments for already-infected patients. For the technical minded, the comments on the linked page are detailed and interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 06:48 PM

I should say that I have been potentially exposed, and I live in a very out of the way place. I won't trace the steps but it leads to Liberia very directly. I am not expecting anything of course, and we hopefully would have heard if she developed the disease. But that is how easy it is to spread. And I do not believe for a minute that it can't be spread until symptoms are active..at what point do you determine that? There is a whole lot of grey area there. I work for a university and we are under orders now to report any trips to high-risk places and there is a quarantine we are supposed to follow I think..I did not read it too carefully.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 08:28 PM

Yikes, mg. Read it, O do.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 08:58 PM

The two vaccines the WHO suggested for prioritized testing have been mentioned here before.
One is the U. S. government Agency NIAID plus GSK developed vaccine, the other the Canadian Government PHS and U. S. drug company, Newlink, vaccine.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Nina
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 09:08 PM

Oh my gosh, this week a guy got on a Metro bus in Los Angeles, a Route 33 that goes from downtown L.A. out on Venice Blvd. and he pulled off his mask shouting out that "He had Ebola and don't mess with me" to the driver. Driver of the Metro bus let everyone off the bus including this guy and he took off so the police are looking for him. They think it is a hoax though. I sometimes take that bus but not recently. How scary though.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 01:13 PM

Second nurse affected. She travelled on a commercial flight with 132 passengers and crew, who should be isolated.
The six crew members have been put on paid leave and observation for 21 days.

The CDC requires anyone who has had contact to use controlled transport only, avoiding public carriers.

Public Health authorities are trying to contact all 132 passengers.
This incident shows how the virus could be spread rapidly through contacts.

(Nonsense calculation brought too mind- say 3 of the 132 develop symptoms. How many people could they have come in contact with? &c.)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 01:26 PM

Dallas County judge Clay Jenkins issued an order that the 75 county residents being monitored "stay at home." Papers must be served individually to each of them.

The nurse who travelled had relatives at Kent State, Ohio; they have been asked to stay off campus for 21 days.

The above news from LA Times, Oct. 14, 2014.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 02:46 PM

Papers must be served individually to each of them.

Let me guess, they have to sign each one to acknowledge receipt and hand it back to the officer serving it?...

What's the approved form in Texas law for saying "Bring out your dead"?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 03:19 PM

here is something hopeful..

it says it would take 998 million to control it in liberia..that is amazingly small.

if 100 million working adults in us alone sent $10 there you go.

And of course, as it should be expected, they are revising their customs and practices and understand why they must. There was no doubt in my mind that they would, it was just a matter of how long it would take. You can see on tv that they are using handwashing stations all over, in a place where running water is scarce I believe, they are improvising gloves and booties and aprons out of plastic bags. Even in inpoverished places there are things that can be done..and there are resources that we throw away that they could use..cell phones..why aren't we trying to get millions of cell phones there. In the 1800s people used to have mission barrels for African missions. In 2014 we can't figure out how to get stuff there. It is one of the weakest points of our society and economy.

What do we have for robotics that can clean human waste out of a horrible clinic? We have roombas etc..surely there could be a roving shop vac..perhaps remote controlled..to clean..then a roving thing for chemigation of some sort. Then perfume..as in per fuma..through smoke I think..there are probably things, including of course aromatheraphy, that could be sent through the air to disinfect, to provide some comfort, even some medicine. There are vitamins that could be added to a nutrient drink..vitamins c and d are mentioned.

$998 million..how much will we spend on Christmas this year? Many times that I would think.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 03:29 PM

What's the approved form in Texas law for saying "Bring out your dead"?

Well, the Governor of Texas is brain dead ........

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 03:30 PM

From 14 years experience; "the pace and atmosphere at the NIH yesterday was the most frenetic to date".

Due to technical problems I may not be able to post on the internet from this station. Windows 7 has too many conflicts to keep working much longer.

Remember that with all the human frailties from ignorance to greed there will be needless yet inevitable mistakes that will allow breakouts of US Ebola in a variety of locations that could number from 25 to 100. The worst of these may claim a thousand or more lives but there will be no total pandemic except for the epidemic of fear.
Unlike AIDS, Ebola will burn out in less than 10 years.

Fact: BUDGET Funding needs to be restored to the NIH and CDC to pre sequestration numbers.

Fact: Poverty stricken states will succumb to the most tragic loss of life and family.

Fact: Since late March 2014 we have been aware of the Ebola outbreak. In comparison to previous outbreaks since 1976 we seem to have had a significantly more anemic response in terms of resources. For the fallen heroes who put up the most courageous battle with virtually no weapons, the world owes the debt of life itself.












History: It is unlikely even a single person who sees this post will associate it with my writings going back 13 years ago when I wrote profusely and obsessively about bio warfare and intentional pandemic in prose and verse. Looking back I believe those contributions caused no real harm nor help. Credibility was not my aim as it would be to a journalist. However I believe there are many rational people like myself who see and experience time differently and face Cassandra dilemmas through out their lives. When I painted the events of the twin towers destruction, the great tsunami, sea level rise and bio warfare, all at least 10 years before their occurrence, I always had a different explanations for putting brush to canvas and why. The great irony in my life is that I have always had speech difficulties and deficits. It reminds me of Kafka saying "I have no mouth and I must scream!" If all these examples of foreknowledge are coincidental,deductions or delusional imagination I have never allowed those "delusions" to rule my life. The emotions however still seep through the bandage of everyday life. I don't deny the truth of who I am. Insightful, intellectual but ineffectual.

Despite this; I HEREBY DISAVOW any connection between those early remarks and paintings to the events surrounding Ebola today. None of those remarks apply specifically to now.




From my virtual friend and actual acquaintance Doug,


DON'T PANIC

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 03:46 PM

And the people on the Cleveland planes, both of them, to and fro, and the people who next boarded those planes, aren't at high risk unless they touched a surface covered with that nurse's fluids. It isn't airborne.

So really only
the passengers on either side of her who likely rubbed elbows with her sweat
Her airstaff who would have served her drinks and taken her glass away (mine always wear gloves anyway in the cleanup phase, I've noticed that)
The one who had her seat after and used her tray, but not, probably, anybody after that in that seat using that tray
Anyone whom she bumped into on her way to or from either of her seats
Anyone who bumped into her getting past her seat
Anyone who bumped/was bumped by her at either of the airports or at any time since she became feverish
The people who cleaned up after her on the plane
How did she get to the airport? Public transport? Cab? ditto
The people who were with her while she was feverish at home
The people who were with her in Cincinnati, or bumped into her between the airport and her destination and back

But, not all the people on both planes, as with bird flu or something airborne.

Once she had a fever of any kind she should have known to isolate herself and the CDC should have isolated her and not okayed her travel! I can't believe the idiocy! On everybody's part! The one thing we know, they all, roundly, ignored! It's not as if we didn't know better, for crying out loud!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 04:14 PM

Second nurse flew to Cleveland an hour and half from me. I use that airport as much as buffalo. Great she even called the cdc before leaving with a low grade they told her it was ok where the hell is our safety net

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 04:34 PM

Where the hell is Obama and tell me again why no travel ban to affected areas

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: pdq
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 05:30 PM

"Where the hell is Obama and tell me again why no travel ban to affected areas."



                                        watch the video

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 05:57 PM

assume of course she never used the toilet..and they say you can go from 0 to 60 on this disease so you can feel fine and then bam..that can include diarrhea of course. How can you sanitize a toilet midflight.

Whoever at CDC told her it was OK to travel should be fired or perhaps sent to Liberia to help manage things..with proper supervision of course.

And that doctor who was quarantined and broke her quarantine? Isn't she on TV? TV station should fire her.

And I presume you are being sarcastic or perhaps hopeful when you say it is not airborne. By various twists of semantics they say it is not, but some are saying of course it is, perhaps not as traditionally defined, but certainly little particles in the air..and it takes 1-5 viri to infect someone perhaps..they say in one droplet enough viri to infect half a million people. All of this is subject to revision of course as facts become better understood.

Like one doctor spokesman said, you can't wait to prove everything before you take precautions. The more you take ahead of a big wave, the smaller the big wave will be.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Cassie
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 10:32 PM

To Mrrzy:

You mentioned many things but here is another one:

What about if she used the bathroom on the airplane? So she flushed the toilet and unless the lid is down, some particle become airborne.
What about the person who may have used the toilet right after her?
Within minutes after her maybe. Possible problem there?

Her flying was totally insane!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 11:04 PM

Ooh I forgot the bathroom how right y'all are! But airborne particles aren't the issue, it's fluids on surfaces, and if she sweated on the toilet seat, voila. Or on the sink surface, which the next person could touch while it was still wet.

her flying was imbecilic, both of her and of the CDC person who said it was OK even though she had a fever.

Well, not that stupid of her, she DID ask the CDC, sorry, boy did they drop the ball. But at the first sign of fever she should have gone straight into isolation, and she should have known that.

Do we know what was in Cleveland that was so important?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 11:10 PM

i think she was making plans for her wedding.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 11:14 PM

Ah, and she didn't start running the fever till she got to Ohio, so it's only the flight back that is the problem. She shoulda stayed in Ohio given that she'd been allowed to leave Dallas, which she oughtn't to have.

Blicky to Slate coverage of "timeline of many, many missteps" (itself with blicky to more ebola coverage).

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 12:38 PM

more good news..a woman by the name of murphy works in robotics at some texas university...she is calling for her robotics colleagues to develop helpful robots..one she mentioned was very important...mortuary robots she called them..designed to move the bodies. also i see a great need for waste management and cleanup robots. i do not know how the virus responds to fire..probably "kills" it but some could undoubtedly be released in ash or whatever..but how do you manage medical waste? or even ordinary human waste? they said in the hospital in texas medical waste was stacked to the ceiling. i find that very hard to understand. how must it be in cities in liberia with very poor plumbing, sanitation etc....in many respects i think it might be easier to deal with it out in the rural areas where you have space, hopefully wood for building shelters and using in fires, hopefully a source of water..and you have sunshine and fresh air which should be better for patients and way better for nurses etc. i don't know if they have stormy weather there or not.

i thought i bet they are going to call for Filapina nurses and sure enough they have.

and i am waiting for the world's assembled bishops to say come follow me..i will go there, or as close as I can get, and i will sell some of my pretty clothes to get supplies. at least one..two if we are lucky. no..they are too busy arguing if we can welcome gays in the church.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 01:22 PM

Well, the USA has boots on the ground in Liberia. The president has authorized call up of any needed reservists. I don't know how the army works in these situations. If they search by unit, my son's group is not appropriate - they're basically oriented to treat casualties of war with high-tech equipment (x-rays, operating rooms, ventilators, etc.) If they evaluate personnel individually for their skills my son, as an infrastructure technician, would be of more use. I'm scared. He's doing his monthly reserve thing as we speak, so there may be more news soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 01:43 PM

Weather is going into the long dry season; it will stay hot, mid to high 90'sF/low to mid 30'sC, maybe 10-20 degrees cooler at night, but away from the coast humidity may go down to 80% from 98%. Harmattan will bring dust that will get into everything and make a lot of things not work at some point, apparently they can't predict when.

I would be scared too, Bettynh.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 02:58 PM

Anybody else think the Ebola Czar should have been a medical person rather than a law person?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 03:21 PM

Time to watch this video.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 03:58 PM

yes it should have been a medical person but hopefully with law and military expertise.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 04:39 PM

He seems to be a very smart political circus master. With this being the most-read opinion in Liberia and Republicans in this country trying to link ebola to anything they think might get votes in a couple weeks (I see the latest is that the administration is targeting nurses for destruction by ebola), there's a very big circus out there. If someone can manage the circus well enough for the doctors and the army to get on with what needs to be done, I hope he's the best man for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 04:51 PM

don't we have a surgeon general? Wasn't it supposed to be Sanjay Gupta? I could not begin to tell you who it is. What is he or she doing?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 05:03 PM

Nope, we don't have a surgeon general. and Republicans vow to block any nominees. So it's up to the president to figure a go-around.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: pdq
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 05:45 PM

Nope, we don't have a surgeon general. and Republicans vow to block any nominees.


Oh, what a pile of crap.

Obama nominated a 36 year old Brittish national whose partents were born in India for SG.

The guy said his goal as Surgeon General was to ban guns. Health hazzard, you know.

Ever Senate Democrats don't want him because most then own guns too.

Obama refuses to withdraw his extreme "in your face" nominee.

The Republicans simply want an experienced, responsible SG, not another pathetic politacal hack.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 06:03 PM

Piss off, PeeDee- the RepubliCraps are following their publicly stated objective to nullify anything the President or the Democrats in Congress come up with.

Take it up with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 06:49 PM

I thought he was offered the position and declined it. I think the time now would be for an infectious disease person who knows how to mobilize military and civilian and religious assets and get stuff going. From here to there.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 07:03 PM

I don't play in political crap but I wanted the best damn doctor, and scholar we have in that position not a lawyer. Ebola is not a political game

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 09:20 PM

I agree, and we ought to have a Surgeon General, even if they do think that gun violence (not gun ownership) is a medical issue.

if we had a surgeon general they would be the ebola czar.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 04:41 AM

Senegal has managed to contain the epidemic by disseminating advice on how to protect against infection.
Another member of the Texas team is showing symptoms.
He is on a cruise ship off Mexico!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Stu
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 06:04 AM

White people in Ebola threat panic!!!!!!

30k + killed by guns a year in the US

30k + killed in traffic accidents in the US

Meanwhile . . . africans die in biblical numbers:

7000 from ebola in 40 years

1.7 million from tuberculosis a year

around a million from malaria a year

both preventable, both treatable but the demographic is wrong.

Your chances of catching ebola are infinitesimal. Worry about something else.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 10:18 AM

Another member of the Texas team is showing symptoms.
He is on a cruise ship off Mexico!

According to the news I can find, this person is a she and is not showing any symptoms.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 11:06 AM

White people...Your chances of catching ebola are infinitesimal. Worry about something else. Oy and double, no, triple vey!

It's not ABOUT distant people's chances of getting it it's about the actual Guineans, Sierra Leonians and Liberians who ARE getting it! By the thousands! For crying out loud, get your apparently white head out of your apparently white ass!

And the cruise ship person was a lab worker who handled Dallas ebola patient blood without precautions, and should not have gotten on that ship during the quarantine period. Not letting that person off the ship may make sense; not letting the ship dock may be excessive.

But ebola lives in mammals, ships have rats! I hear you cry. Well, ebola takes actual contact with the fluids, which poor cruise ship person had, there is a lot known about its transmission and it doesn't vector between people through mice like Hantavirus or bubonic plague, or the local dogs, or even bats. You can get it from butchering and eating the vector mammals, not by being in contact with them while they are nonetheless happily carrying ebola around and not getting sick.

Yet I don't want a population of mammals outside where ebola already is to harbor ebola. I think it's quite likely to be a good idea to kill all the known, US and European, patients' mammal pets. And I won't say euthanize since it isn't putting the poor pets out of their misery, the happy healthy doggies and kitties and bunnies. I just would not take a *known* risk. And we do *know* it lives happily in many mammals where it lives, if you want to look up how ebola works, be my guest, but this is not a claim, it's a fact. (That the virus lives in mammals whom it doesn't sicken and that's one minority way people get it, I mean, not that all pets should be killed on the offchance, which is also not a claim, but an opinion that is based on that fact.)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 11:36 AM

The BBC Report said she was in quarantine on the ship.
Glad to hear that she is OK.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 12:55 PM

The Carnival ship with 4000 passengers was denied entry to Mexico.
Passengers were allowed to disembark in Belize, but the vacationing care worker were not allowed off or to reserve on a flight to U. S.
The ship in now returning to Texas.

Officials finally issued a travel ban for workers at the Dallas Hospital who had come in contact with Duncan.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 01:17 PM

The last from NY Post, Oct. 17, 2014.

Disappointed passengers were given $200 credit against their bill, and offered 50% discounts on some future cruises.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 03:22 PM

If I were a passenger on that cruise I would sue the quarantined person, personally, for the full cost of the trip and for the cost of another one to take instead. I mean, really.

Meanwhile I have sent a request to my local hospital, my city council, and my local newspapers, to ask them try a time (I suggested a week, I'll be happy with a day) with no vanity surgery and send the supplies to MSF (doctors without borders) instead.

How about we all do that? Who knows, it might work. And if you live in a big city even if they do it for one day, it might generate a serious block of supplies for where they are actually needed.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 04:08 PM

We need to get agricultural people thinking about this..they have equipment that could be used to disinfect, clean, deliver food, tea etc from a distance...i am wondering how patients are cleaned. There is vomit, feces, urine, blood. You need fever sheds or whatever with impervious walls and floors, perhaps irrigation channels like cow barns, ways to hose down and disinfect and trap the water,...and then burn it down or wjatever. Every land grant university. Should be told. To put every brain to work on this..espdcially what can be improvised from local resources.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 12:45 PM

MG are you suggesting-
The ultimate would be "fever islands" where travellers from central Africa with or without fever and anyone with fever are quarantined for 21 days or whatever safe interval is determined.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 01:01 PM

No...something better for those now lying dying in the streets..we cant wait for perfect bospitals to spring up and we have to protect the caretakers by making it as no hands on as possible. If that can be done with bamboo sticks..if they have bamboo there, great.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 01:54 PM

Two sticks?
See CDL-4 recommendations by CDC.
Ebola information and misinformation thread.
Positive pressure suit, etc. for safety.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 04:39 PM

I think we have to assume positive pressure suits are not always available. Clean rags are probably not available. Hefty bags are probably not available. Likewise soap, bleach, water bottles, tarps. Probably they are on their way to many areas.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 05:58 PM

The quick-response team for within the USA will be from the US military.. I'm sure this makes complete sense logistically. Certainly, the military doesn't have to concern itself with taking volunteers or raising money for it. I can see the headlines about military takeover of US hospitals coming quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 06:36 PM

I don't want to get overly involved in these Ebola threads, as they seem to be full of insane paranoid fiction, out-weighing the occasionally intelligent comments. The medical professionals always have to deal with fear and nuttiness.

Military disaster response folks--medical, firefighters, and police--routinely (as in "required by regulation") engage in mass casualty/disaster response exercises with their civilian counterparts. (Can you say "FEMA"?)

This isn't about a "military takeover", it's about the military being designed to pack up and go anywhere, and coordinate between different organizations. It's about the military continuously training for biological warfare agent decontamination and treatment and having field hospitals that can be deployed and set up quickly, some of which DO have the capability of positive pressure isolation/quarantine.

It's also likely that, for a team such as that described, those on it did volunteer, and are also highly qualified.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 06:58 PM

Yes indeed.

And positive pressure isn't needed, it isn't airborne.

What is needed are barriers - gowns gloves masks and lots of them. Blankets even, if you can use a lot of them.

Local and distant military could be doing things in country, and isolation could happen in transit areas outside, technically, all countries, for travelers.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 02:08 PM

The Diane Rehm Show (a radio show) had an excellent overview of today's ebola circumstances.

Guests are:

Dr. Malonga Miatudila public health consultant; former public health specialist, The World Bank.
Dr. Rajiv Shah administrator, USAID.
Larry Gostin director, O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law School; and director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights.
Rep. Tim Murphy congressman, (R-Penn., 18th District).
Nell Greenfieldboyce science correspondent, NPR.
Dr. Clifford Lane deputy director for clinical research and special projects, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 11:48 AM

New case counts from the CDC website, updated yesterday:
Total Cases: 9216
Laboratory-Confirmed Cases: 4218**
Total Deaths: 4555**
**Numbers are lower than actual laboratory confirmed cases and deaths because stratified data are temporarily unavailable for Liberia.

I've watched both the NOVA and the Frontline on this, and the NOVA really seems to say the vaccine works. Does anybody know anything detailed about the vaccines?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 12:05 PM

The Center for Disease Control says a positive pressure suit is needed. Ebola virus is Biosafety Level 4.
Positive pressure personnel suit (PPPS) with a segregated air supply is mandatory.

Mrrzy says it is not necessary.?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 10:29 PM

Yes, they use that at the CDC in case it's airborne.

In the field you're so far apparently OK with coverings. See here, for example.

Also, things are looking up in Monrovia, they have managed to open 2 maternity wards. For months now if you had a complicated delivery, you just died.

This is an improvement.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 10:54 PM

Q wrote: "The Center for Disease Control says a positive pressure suit is needed. Ebola virus is Biosafety Level 4.
Positive pressure personnel suit (PPPS) with a segregated air supply is mandatory."

The CDC publishes guidelines for facilities. The suits should be worn when treating Ebola patients, period. Not "in case it's airborne". It's not airborne. The CDC guidelines are for hospitals in the US. I don't think the CDC actually has facilities for threating patients, so wouldn't use it "at the CDC" at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 12:37 PM

Mrrzy, there's a basic difference between vaccines and drugs for treatment of active disease. Vaccines are given to healthy people to prevent infection. The drug described in the NOVA program was an experimental treatment drug, designed to work after infection to prevent virus replication within the body. The drugs currently on trial with healthy people are vaccines. Even if they prove non-toxic, further research will be needed to establish dosage and length of protection. They won't be any use to infected persons although they would be very helpful for care workers and frightened healthy people.

Meanwhile, the WHO has acknowledged that transfusions from ebola survivors may be used for treatment of active ebola. It presupposes laboratory equipment and transfusion supplies that probably don't currently exist in Liberia.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 12:57 PM

CDC Training Course for healthcare workers going to West Africa; Ebola.
http://www.cdc.gov.vhf/ebola/hcp/training-course/index.html?s_cid=cs_021

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 08:31 PM

I must have misunderstood, I really thought they were talking about a vaccine, not a treatment.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 23 Oct 14 - 12:10 AM

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/testing-of-canadian-ebola-vaccine-moving-as-fast-as-possible-newlink-ceo-1.2065137

The Canadian effort is a vaccine!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Oct 14 - 01:41 PM

A treatment would be a great thing too, but a vaccine, from the word cow because that is how they were invented (cowpox), fun fact, would be invaluable.
Not that big pharma won't value it anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 06:04 AM

This study from Yale and Liberia looks pretty bleak:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141023193539.htm

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/yu-wsi102214.php

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 08:17 AM

Jack, a mathematical model that presupposes that no help is in place or coming fast to Monrovia and there is no response at all within the Liberian community itself is worse than useless. My respect for pronouncements from Yale University has dropped considerably.

From what I can see, the airport has been repaired. US troops have been building treatment centers and developing mobile labs. About 300 healthcare workers from Cuba have arrived. Both military and civilian training for healthcare workers is progressing rapidly. A full service hospital to treat healthcare workers who become infected will be finished within a month. The behavior of the people of Monrovia has changed to recognize diseased persons and isolate their contacts.

The response was delayed, that's true. But there IS a response and hopefully it will make a huge difference soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 11:45 AM

And shame on us for saying oh that is their culture we can not possibly get them to change. Lives were lost because of that. They can and did change, at great cultural cost of course, but hopefully the tide is turning now.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 12:33 PM

I am also getting the feeling that things are slowing or turning or something. Hope we're right.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 12:34 PM

a mathematical model that presupposes that no help is in place or coming fast to Monrovia and there is no response at all within the Liberian community itself is worse than useless

Of course it's useful. It shows what the consequences of inaction would be.

My respect for pronouncements from Yale University has dropped considerably.

Patronizing crap.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 02:08 PM

well, New York City now is. And surely a doctor coming from treating ebola patients, noble as he or she is, knows to lie low for a while.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 02:48 PM

New case counts, updated 10/22 but I added the Mali case which wasn't on the list. I hope these stay in columns...

Country          Cases          LabCases Deaths Dead%        Survivability
Guinea          1,540          1,289          904         59%        41%
Liberia          4,665          965          2,705         58%        42%
Sierra Leone          3,706          3,223          1,259         34%        66%
Senegal          1          1          -           0%        100%
Nigeria          20          19          8         40%        60%
Mali                  1          1          -           0%        100%
Total Africa          9,933          5,498          4,876         49%        51%
Spain                  1          1          -           0%        100%
United States          3          3          1         33%        67%
Total Else   4          4          1         25%        75%
Total World          9,937          5,502          4,877         49%        51%
Average death rate/survivability                28%        72%

Amazingly low death rate. There must be an absolutely tremendous advantage to getting IV fluids and decent medical care for the symptoms, allowing people's own immune systems to fight it off. Great news there.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 02:53 PM

Oh well. At least my bolding and italicizing worked... until the end. That last para shouldn't be bold.

At any rate, in the 3 main countries the survivability appears to be 51%; the numbers elsewhere are too small to be reliable but appear superb so far.

It's kind of neat (in the tidy sense) that there are 3 majorly affected nations, one an ex-French colony, one and ex-British colony, and one an ex-American settlement. If each of those rich western nations takes the forefront in helping the particular nation they originally helped found/imposed on the natives of the original local ethnic groups, it's a nice division of labor. At least they aren't all French; we (the US) really wouldn't care.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 04:15 PM

75% survived with I presume good care in one of the treatment places. No doubt that good medical care, hydration etc. works..strengthening the immune system should work, being in good shape to start with helps. keep it from spreading and then give everyone the best care possible. there is so much we could have sent..not sure ports are open now.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 11:26 PM

And the little girl in Mali has died after traveling by bushtaxi while bleeding out.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Bettynh
Date: 25 Oct 14 - 01:14 PM

A photo essay from Monrovia, Aug-Sept., 2014

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 14 - 02:14 PM

Dr. Spencer's girlfriend and two friends have been quarantined. Other friends are being sought.
He works at Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center, but has not reported to the hospital or seen any patients since his return.

The bowling alley has been closed.
CDC says dry surfaces can retain viable Ebola for several hours. The CDC sent a response team to Dr. Spencer's apartment building and his apartment cordoned off.

Ron Klein is Obama's "Ebola czar."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 14 - 02:28 PM

Article in NY Times, possibility of transmission in sneezes.

"Ask Well, Ebola on Airplanes, Ebola in Sneezes." Dr. Donald G. McNeil Jr. Oct. 13, 2014.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: pdq
Date: 25 Oct 14 - 02:52 PM

Every position that Obama has called "czar" is illegitimate because they are found nowhere in the Constitution.

The guy's name is Klain, not Klein, and he was chief-of-staff, at various times, for Joe Biden, Al Gore and Janet Reno.

He organized the post-election protest in Florida 2000.

He is a lawyer, not a doctor, and was given the job because he will get at least $170K per year, perhaps $300K or more.

Obama does not feel the need to get confirmation or even disclose how much the US taxpayers will be giving this hack.

Obama has called emergency meetings about ebola and Klain doesn't even show up.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 25 Oct 14 - 03:18 PM

I hope there are taxis such as flatbed.trucks with separate cabs. I thinkthere is no way to disinfect an old car.safely.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Oct 14 - 11:49 AM

"I've known Ron Klain for over 20 years. He is smart, aggressive and levelheaded; exactly the qualities we need in a czar to steer our response to Ebola. He is an excellent choice," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a statement.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/17/ron-klain-bio-resume-recount-stimulus-ebola-czar/17430563/

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Oct 14 - 06:31 PM

Obama is hardly the one who started calling project managers "czars" - the energy czar is the first one I remember, and that was in the 70's.

I would still rather have someone with medical knowledge managing this particular project.

Case count is over 10K in the 3 countries I first heard called the hot zone on the radio today. Still aprox 50% survivable, much more so with decent medical care.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Oct 14 - 03:16 PM

Any other Americans annoyed by ebola turning into an election issue? Or should it rightly be one?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Oct 14 - 05:33 PM

I am more than annoyed.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 28 Oct 14 - 12:29 PM

look at dr. mercola's site from a few days ago...he quotes a doctor who has a..not cure..not sure proper word..believes he can accomplish a lot with high dose vitamin c (I have also read D), ozone therapy (involving hydrogen peroxide..I did not read the whole article as my connection stopped)...and ultraviolet light..I believe to blood. He believes the entire process would cost around $10..it sounds like it would involve IV...ozone hurts lungs but there are ways to bypass it he says. Some of these therapies were used against Spanish Flu in 1900s...given a bit of time, there will be ..not cures..but greater survival, probably using cheap and handy items....the challenge is to hold the expansion of the disease steady while knocking off the disease itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Oct 14 - 02:29 PM

Interesting. And today is Salk's 100th birthday, yay!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Oct 14 - 10:21 AM

mg, you are seriously proposing experimenting on human beings with the sort of speculative bullshit Mercola promotes?

That's simply advocating mass murder. It's up there with the South African AIDS-denial cults.

A lot of useless measures were tried against the flu pandemic. None of them did a damn thing to stop it being the most lethal epidemic of all time. Nobody even knew what cytokines were, so of course they couldn't treat it rationally.

The Ebola virus is in every cell in an infected person's body. Yes you could kill it with UV, but you'd have to burn the patient to death in the process.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Oct 14 - 12:05 PM

I am seriously proposing trying various things in an attempt to save more people and prevent the spread of an epidemic, which will ruin the economies of the said countries and have an economic devastation that could be very widespread, even without massive disease deaths. I am for, with no time to waste, throwing the kitchen sink at it. How are you going to know if it works or not without trying? They do not have a good chance now unless they are in a good treatment center. For the poor souls on the floor of what looks like a pig pen, lying in urine and feces, yes, I would experiment, based on known health improvements with vitamin c, and d I would add. UV light has been used for a very long time..it is in sunshine..i also would recommend getting them out into sunshine if possible. I do not know anything about ozone therapy but there are engineers etc. on the internet trying to build O2 machines that might help. Might help. Is there time for good experimentation? No. Is there time for a worked to death and scared to death nurse to even take notes? No. Is there a reason to call it murder when people are trying to save lives? No. And lives have been saved with very simple and cheap means..washing hands for infection..limes for scurvy. if there is almost certainty that some in the worst situations will die at a rate of over 50%..heading towards 90% sometimes in some places..I personally would try anything and everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Oct 14 - 10:58 PM

Yes, and victims would likely want to try everything too, and therein lies a huge ethical pitfall possibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Oct 14 - 10:34 AM

Updated case counts: Total=13,676 cases, 7606 confirmed by lab, 4910 dead in the three most affected countries. Outside cases are still negligeable.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Oct 14 - 12:15 PM

Let's hope this keeps working

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/29/359878582/no-ebola-sil-vous-plait-were-french-the-ivory-coast-mindset

blicky

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Oct 14 - 01:17 PM

They've said the outbreak in the Congo was ebola Zaire, not the same strain as is beaking out in West Africa, but I can't find what strain it IS that is in W. Africa, does anybody know?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 31 Oct 14 - 02:30 PM

EBOV was formerly referred to as Ebola Zaire.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 02:16 PM

New case counts as of Halloween:
13540 total, 7702 lab-confirmed, 4941 deaths. West Africa alone in these numbers, everybody else is negligeable.

An inhalable vaccine is showing promise. Ethics of testing during an epidemic remain, but hey, there is the epidemic and there is the possible vaccine, what are you going to do?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 05 Nov 14 - 12:54 PM

"U.S. health authorities have expressed hope that a new vaccine will bring an end to the outbreak that has killed about 5,000 people and infected close to 14,000."

The article (Voice of America) goes on to say that the number of new cases is declining.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Nov 14 - 01:46 PM

In Liberia, yes. Increasing, however, in Sierra Leone. Decreasing also in Guinea, where this particular outbreak started.

The genetics are very interesting - from this article in Science, after which 5 of the authors died of ebola, it seems that the kid that got it from an animal in Guinea gave it to everybody who's given it to everybody else. There have been no new inputs from non-human animals into the human population. Furthermore, apparently a village's worth of people from Sierra Leone went to a funeral for a faith healer in Guinea who'd been treating ebola patients, and 12 of the women came back with 2 strains of the virus and every single case in Sierra Leone traces back to that one funeral.
Meanwhile apparently nobody in Mali has broken out with ebola since that poor child went home, but she died 10/24 so it hasn't been 3 weeks yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Nov 14 - 02:45 PM

The case 2, no 4 cases in Mali are not all related to the little boy, though at least one cared for someone they thought had kidney failure and whose funeral was widely attended, which means many many people fondled a virus bomb without knowing it. New case counts (over 5K dead for under 15K infected, though, makes way better odds, still, than earlier outbreaks):

Total Cases: 14098

Laboratory-Confirmed Cases: 8715

Total Deaths: 5160

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 10:39 AM

Given the panic that was induced by media and both CDC and WHO, their 'predictions' about a million or more people exposed to this Ebola outbreak by January seem a little far fetched at this point.

Brings to mind a cartoon that read "We've just determined that the best way to empty a crowded room is for people to panic and crawl over others on their way to the exits."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 12:06 PM

Interesting news item on trying to keep it out of Ivory Coast

Blicky

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 May 15 - 05:55 PM

OK, now *this* is weird: ebola lives on in the eyeballs of the cured?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 May 15 - 11:03 AM

It was announced today that Liberia is totally free of Ebola

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Oct 15 - 08:41 PM

And in new news...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 09 Oct 15 - 10:10 AM

UK Nurse re-admitted

Worrying!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Oct 15 - 02:30 PM

A promising vaccine is being trialled now.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 14 Oct 15 - 07:14 PM

Our thoughts are all with Pauline McCafferkey and sincerely hope that she will pull through.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 03:59 PM

More on that. Not a good thing. Poor woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Aug 19 - 11:17 AM

The current vaccine is looking good!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Feb 21 - 03:43 PM

It's bAAAaaack... In northern Congo.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: mg
Date: 08 Feb 21 - 04:31 PM

oh no. Dr. Mike Ryan was warning of a situation worse than COVID (which fortunately we could still reduce with early treatment but for political and financial corruption). Wonder if he was dropping hints..he is an Ebola expert I think. I love listening to him..looks like an Irish soccer coach...and I truly hope he is not corrupted or threatened.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Feb 21 - 05:31 PM

The news said that the woman who died is the wife of an Ebola survivor from the last outbreak, that there may be something about his old case that ties into this, but they need to examine the DNA of the strain.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Feb 21 - 08:02 AM

Dr Mike Ryan, Head of Emergencies in the WHO, is straight as a die, a truly decent person.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 04:07 PM

It is back in Guinea, too.