OT: Ebola – Global Pandemic?

[zk]

[quote=Aecetia][img_assist|nid=19156|title=Worst case scenario|desc=Black Swan Event|link=node|align=left|width=100|height=56][/quote]

Only if the virus mutates significantly. Otherwise, that’s not a possible scenario.

[spdrun]

Interesting question: Ebola combined with flu season. Could the flu symptoms (coughing, sneezing, etc) aerosolize the germ?

[zk]

[quote=spdrun]Interesting question: Ebola combined with flu season. Could the flu symptoms (coughing, sneezing, etc) aerosolize the germ?[/quote]

Ebola is not transmittable as an aerosol. Having the flu won’t change that. Only a mutation would change that.

[outtamojo]

Here’s the hazmat team cleaning up ebola vomit
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/10/workers-spray-ebola-patients-vomit-sidewalk-pressure-washer-protective-clothing-photo.html

[outtamojo]

[quote=zk][quote=outtamojo]
Signs of systemic failure do not bode well for not just Ebola. Faith in institutions is paramount to containment and lack of it contributed greatly to its spread in Africa.[/quote]

I’m not sure what “signs of systemic failure” and “faith in institutions” mean. But what contributed greatly to the spread of ebola in Africa is rituals involving touching dead bodies in a way that subjects persons to that dead person’s bodily fluids. Those are rituals that Americans are educated enough to avoid (or maybe, in some cases, just lucky enough not to regularly participate in).

I don’t think I understand the desire to be afraid of ebola or of armageddon in general. I wonder if maybe there’s an excitement factor involved. I think a lot of people are excited to be afraid of ebola or nuclear war or the christian armageddon or the collapse of capitalism or whatever world-changing thing it is they’re afraid of.

If you want to be afraid of a germ, might I suggest you be afraid of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. That is ten thousand times more likely to kill you than ebola, and the threat is growing. Not as exciting as ebola. But way more dangerous.

There are people out there lounging in the sun or eating big macs or not exercising or driving like idiots or riding their bikes on the road and at the same time freaking out about ebola. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Any of those habits are thousands of times more likely to kill you than ebola.

Heck, not flossing is more likely to kill you than ebola.[/quote]

Let’s not focus so much on the ebola virus but the bumbling that led to a deadly virus reaching our shores and how we failed to protect the general public. Sure nobody else has contracted ebola from the Dallas carrier but being sent home from a hospital after ebola had been all over the news forever and having told the hospital he came from Liberia? I’d say we are definitely more lucky than good.
I know that ER’s get overworked and things slip through the cracks but 2 people, the Nurse and the Doctor had the chance to prevent further exposures.
In the old days they would just be fired but nowadays they want to look at hospital procedures and see if they can call it a flaw in the system.
I get enjoyment from eating burgers and being out in the sun – those are my choices. I don’t think I would get any enjoyment at all from ebola.
I agree, ebola is not likely to kill ME but if I was one of those exposed after a carrier was sent home from a hospital I would not be too happy right now having to listen to the CDC tell everyone how they will stop ebola in its tracks.

[Zeitgeist]

I am sure some government, somewhere has a mutated, aerosolized version.

[moneymaker]

So there is a journalist headed to Nebraska Sunday night, now all we need is CA and NY and we will be ready for full scale pandemic. The media will be reporting Monday that the pandemic has doubled in a little more than a week, the markets will fall and hysteria will prevail. I hope the journalist, Ashoka Mukpo, can be saved for his sake and ours.

[FlyerInHi]

People get so scared… This will pass and there will be a summer movie next year. I can just imagine the script a la World War Z, with a bunch of good-looking medical heroes flying in black helicopters to save the day.

[Aecetia]

[img_assist|nid=19157|title=Protective gear|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=311|height=162]
Get ready

[Zeitgeist]

“synchronized incompetence”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnQVUf775VE&feature=youtu.be

[CA renter]

[quote=outtamojo]Here’s the hazmat team cleaning up ebola vomit
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/10/workers-spray-ebola-patients-vomit-sidewalk-pressure-washer-protective-clothing-photo.html%5B/quote%5D

If that is honestly a scene from the clean-up of that patient’s vomit, and if that’s what happened *after* the patient was officially diagnosed, and if this is the response received after the CDC said it needed to be cleaned up, then some people need to go to jail. This is incredibly shocking, if true.

[CA renter]

Here’s more about how the govt treated the apartment and the residents (including the man’s girlfriend, who probably had sex with him):

“Dallas, Texas (CNN) — A Dallas apartment where the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States had stayed is finally getting a thorough cleaning, days after the diagnosis left four people quarantined there with soiled towels and sweat-stained sheets from the Ebola patient.

After some delays, the first of three phases to clean the apartment began Friday afternoon. While the process will take days, at least sheets and towels that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan used have been removed.

Also out are the four people — the partner of the Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, her 13-year-old son and her two 20-something nephews — who’d been stuck there for days.”

————-

Why in the world were these people left there? We should have quarantine/isolation units in hospitals (and other places, if necessary) where the environment is fully controlled and where everyone and everything, going in or out, is sterilized and closely monitored.

Apparently, health officials found out that the soiled stuff was in the apartment from Anderson Cooper when the residents complained about it to the news media??? This is unbelievable!

Seriously, I’ve heard of a better hazmat response to a broken CFL lightbulb (not kidding). FYI, those CFL lightbulbs with mercury do *technically* need to be handled in a very specific way. (But CFLs are “greener”! /sarcasm)

http://www2.epa.gov/cfl/cleaning-broken-cfl

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

[CA renter]

As for how contagious this disease can be…this pertains to the most recent journalist/cameraman who is being flown to NE:

“She said her son did not know how he contracted the virus.

“He took all the necessary precautions and he was very aware of the precautions to take,” she said. “He helped decontaminate a car and he was wearing protective [gear] but he thinks maybe some water splashed on him.”’

…“Ashoka’s father is Dr Mitchell Levy, the medical director of the intensive care unit at Rhode Island Hospital. He told CNN it was unclear how his son got the virus, but added: “He was helping inside clinics disinfecting, whether it was a chair or some vehicle that had potentially been exposed, he remembers getting some of it in his face.”‘

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11139440/British-American-TV-cameraman-contracts-Ebola-in-Liberia.html

……..

So, the notion that you have to be “digging around” in a sick/dead patient’s blood, feces, urine, saliva, teardrops, etc. is a bit naive, IMHO. Apparently, it doesn’t take much contact with bodily fluids, and it can be transmitted via very casual contact, like carrying a pregnant woman with the disease to a taxi, or decontaminating a chair. And to claim that it’s not airborne, as if the virus dies suddenly when mucus/saliva is forcefully expelled from the body by a cough or sneeze, seems a bit too optimistic.

[joec]

Advice for everyone is to use common sense and to not trust the government this isn’t as contagious as they say…

All these people were being very careful and a microscopic amount from someone’s sneeze on a surface that you touch or accidentally breath in when you are in line waiting to check out or whatever (have someone sneeze on you is plenty enough…)

Also, if that’s really how they washed the surface, that seems like it would just get stepped on by people not in the know or flow into some bay/lake and get into contact with more people.

When you see these guys in Africa, they build like a moat filled with cleaners and they soak their boots/feet in it for long periods so walking around it looks like a definite way to catch/transmit it.

Guess we’ll find out in a week or 2 if anyone else catches this.

[outtamojo]

Let’s not forget the natural reservoir for Ebola is not humans but…animals. Again, better to be lucky than good.

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