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Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#71

Post by timr »

benreesman wrote: post #25
throwaway920102 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it could evolve to be airborne in the wild or in a research lab doing intentional gain of function research (a practice for which funding was temporarily halted by Obama) and hybridization much like has been done at BSL-4 facilities worldwide unchecked including by EcoHealth alliance with bat coronaviruses via US funding at the WIV prior to the Covid outbreak in Wuhan. https://www.science.org/content/article/n…

Why is parent getting downvoted? The lab leak theory is pretty mainstream these days. And gain of function research is 1: real 2: fucking insane and 3: a plausible way we would have a true captain trips style pandemic.

I'll go: because while the parent comment is (loosely, tangentially) based in fact, it's an enormous leap to go from the kind of differences we're talking about with SARS-CoV2 engineering, and the differences of type required to aerosolize a filiovirus.

Is it "possible"? Yes, theoretically. But it's not at all trivial, and far down my worry list. It's bit like worrying that sharks are going to evolve wings and start flying around eating people.

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#72

Post by IX-103 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #41
VBprogrammer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started wearing a mask pretty early on. The first one was a fabric one my mother in law made as it was still at a time when PPE for healthcare workers was a bigger priority. I kept wearing a mask until the overwhelming majority of people around me had long given up. I believed it was the right thing to do regardless but I'm not sure I'm as optimistic as you regarding their effectiveness.

I've been wearing masks from early on and only recently stopped wearing them regularly. Now I only wear them when in a crowded situation. I feel how masks were handled was completely botched in many ways. There is the politicization and communication errors. However, I also remain somewhat shocked how we never made any effort to address the biggest, obvious issues with masks to make them more effective. I saw so many…

I still wear a mask when I go out. I'll probably stop eventually -- probably next summer when it gets hot again.

But I definitely agree that mask for should have been a big push. I'm not sure that sealing the gaps around the nose is that much of an issue from a transmissibility perspective, but it can make a significant difference in terms of comfort for those wearing glasses. And masks that are not comfortable don't get worn.

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#73

Post by hammock »

cmrivers wrote: post #27

The outbreak in Uganda is troubling, but a forecast that goes out 6+ months is silly. No professional infectious disease modeler will forecast out more than a few weeks because the trajectory of the outbreak changes in response to interventions and behaviors.

How far out did the Covid forecasts look, to justify global lockdowns?

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#74

Post by yamtaddle »

jryhjythtr wrote: post #38
cmrivers wrote: post #27

The outbreak in Uganda is troubling, but a forecast that goes out 6+ months is silly. No professional infectious disease modeler will forecast out more than a few weeks because the trajectory of the outbreak changes in response to interventions and behaviors.

>a forecast that goes out 6+ months is silly. Sure is, which is why it's odd we've been bombarded with endless graphs with months of predictions, over the past 2.5 years.

How've I not noticed this? I've instead seen a whole lot of graphs with no prediction whatsoever and lots and lots of people in positions of authority who seem totally unable to extrapolate from those in their heads, resulting in idiotic back-and-forth on various restrictions for the first 18 or so months of the pandemic.

Shit like schools releasing plans ahead of the school year that they then immediately ignore because otherwise they'd have to close in the first two weeks of school, when it was fucking obvious the numbers would be like that around that time, just from looking at the graph and knowing more-or-less how disease spreads. Or "Ok stop masking and open up restaurants wait oh shit it's going up again I thought the tiny dip we saw would continue forever, for no good reason". Just baffling levels of data-illiteracy.

But not a lot of long-term prediction graphs. Who was publishing those?

[EDIT] Wait, I did see total-deaths-at-time-X predictions with/without measures, and with/without vaccination at high rates. That's true.

[EDIT EDIT] Is there a tone issue or is my having seen vanishingly few graphs for all of COVID that tried to predict trends more than a week or two out an outlier experience, and those were in fact extremely common in, perhaps, media I didn't look at? Truly, the main problem I saw locally was an astonishing near-complete failure to consider trends and likely projections, over and over again and often by the same people, who seemed weirdly incapable of learning a very clear lesson, rather than too many projections looking too far out.

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#75

Post by SoftTalker »

bergenty wrote: post #59
exhilaration wrote: post #4

The headline is scary but #1 Ebola isn't airborne and #2 it's super deadly which means it kills before it really has a chance to spread widely.

I mean it’s not all that hard for it to become airborne. If that happens it’s doesn’t kill fast enough to not spread like crazy.

Isn't it? Some viruses are airborne, and some are not. I'm not aware that it's "not all that hard" for one type of virus to become the other, but I'm no expert.

As far as I have heard, ebola outbreaks are almost exclusively in poor third world areas with generally bad sanitation and cultural practices (such as washing the recently deceased body) that contribute to transmission by contact with infected bodily fluids.

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#76

Post by michaericalribo »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #36
VBprogrammer wrote: post #5

This title made me wonder, what ever happened to monkey pox. Turns out that it has more or less died away.

Monkeypox was always a money grab perpetuated by fear mongering media conglomerates. Those companies found some other "boogeyman" to chew on for the time being. And I'm not denying Monkeypox was real, it was just completely overblown and being used to scare people into clicking on spooky headlines.

I think this is needlessly pessimistic. A virus spreading uncontrolled in one of the world’s largest cities? It would be journalistic malpractice _not_ to report on it in the current climate

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#77

Post by jimbob45 »

hammock wrote: post #73
cmrivers wrote: post #27

The outbreak in Uganda is troubling, but a forecast that goes out 6+ months is silly. No professional infectious disease modeler will forecast out more than a few weeks because the trajectory of the outbreak changes in response to interventions and behaviors.

How far out did the Covid forecasts look, to justify global lockdowns?

The fear with COVID was mutation of the disease into something more deadly and more contagious. What looks like fearmongering now was cautious behavior around mutation at the time. Conversely, Ebola isn't likely to mutate now, so we don't need that same level of caution.

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#79

Post by hamburglar »

jryhjythtr wrote: post #38
cmrivers wrote: post #27

The outbreak in Uganda is troubling, but a forecast that goes out 6+ months is silly. No professional infectious disease modeler will forecast out more than a few weeks because the trajectory of the outbreak changes in response to interventions and behaviors.

>a forecast that goes out 6+ months is silly. Sure is, which is why it's odd we've been bombarded with endless graphs with months of predictions, over the past 2.5 years.

We have? I’ve certainly been bombarded with graphs showing trends, but six month predictions? Where are you seeing these? Can you point me to some?

Re: Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

#80

Post by benreesman »

mikeyouse wrote: post #52
benreesman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a lot more controversy than you’re implying, even among serious scientists, but an HN comment thread is probably not the right place to litigate a complex issue that is also a partisan political football. I’ll leave it at this: I would encourage everyone to do their own research on this and try to look past the elephant in the room of the politics angle.

I've got a busy day so don't want to get into it again -- but I cannot express how incapable the average (even educated!) person is to "do their own research" on something as complex and nuanced as molecular engineering and the probabilities of covid genetic engineering. Even some expert 'pre-reviewers' that received the advance of the most recent bombshell paper that supposedly proved an unnatural virus with lab ori…

No layperson is qualified to understand any advanced technical field these days. Semiconductor fabrication is utterly out of reach for the typical voter, but they still have to form an opinion on the CHIPS act. Most of us aren’t lawyers, but still sometimes need to hire them. This is the dilemma inherent in not having a /u/PhdInEverything.

But the answer isn’t “go away and let the grownups decide”, the answer is to try to learn what constitutes an expert, try to understand what degree of consensus does or does not exist amongst those experts, try to ferret out some obvious biases (e.g. red team / blue team idiocy) and be as informed as possible.

The standard model of particle physics, or Wiles FLT proof, or 1000 other things are every bit as technical as anything in virology, but you’ll notice the mathematicians all agree: the layperson doesn’t have to look very hard to know what the takeaway is there.

It’s medicine’s (including virology’s) job to get its shit together on the public’s behalf, not the other way around.

This kind of condescension infuriates me, I’m working hard to be as polite as possible here.

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