Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly" • Hacker News Board

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#11

Post by arjie » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

> the US has “abdicated its longstanding role as a leader in global health and humanitarian response.”

It’s interesting to note that in the end, there was no one else coming: we were it. A large amount of disease containment and control was just fronted by the United States. As the US declines, it’s not that a new leader will come in. It’s not that the Chinese century will have their massive industrial engine put to the tasks that America put hers to. It’s just that things won’t get done.

Sobering, really, that despite all the ascendance of new powers (who do not yet share the norms) and the noble aims of the old (who are too weak), one year after the US left no one has filled the gap.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#12

Post by hedora » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

Like Trump 1.0’s handling of COVID, this outbreak is going to spread further and faster than it would have if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives.

Those initiatives inevitably cost far less than the economic impact of outbreaks (the US is currently diverting international travelers), but the best deal maker in the history of the universe says they’re a “bad deal”, so the rest of the planet gets to suffer.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#13

Post by ineedasername » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

aleister_777 wrote: post #5

[flagged]

A scan of headlines doesn't show any "scream of apocalypse", not across multiple news aggregators, incognito mode, etc. Out of dozens I noticed maybe one or two that might have seemed a bit much.

Other than that, I think it bears considering that any specific level of fear may be a factor in the safeguard that have been put in place to mitigate outbreaks. Without some level of fear, not much would be done. I don't know if it's the direction your thoughts were going in, but an unreflected gut reaction of "just fear, it's never amounted to much" is the potential catalyst for removing guardrails that have prevented worse outbreaks. It's important not to reason solely from that sort of counterfactual premise but chesterton's fence should apply when considering "was the fear justified, has it played a part in directing responses and if so has that response been calibrated to the reality or too much by the fear?" We need to get past this tendency to leave things a hot-takes and gut checks.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#14

Post by TFNA » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

rjsw wrote: post #6

scotty79 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think an outbreak, in for example Belgium, would be 24/7 news in Demorcatic Republic of Congo?

The DRC is a former Belgian colony, so yes.

Have you ever been to the DRC? Its former colonial master plays almost no role in Congolese society. Belgium made little effort to spread its culture to its colony, rather like the Dutch in Indonesia. Then, after independence, most of the population became isolated from the outside world as central government and education broke down, and the main impact on the country’s politics from outside came from larger, stronger powers than Belgium was.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#15

Post by zulux » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

christkv wrote: post #7

You are only infectious during illness and it requires contact with fluids. It's exasperated by local funeral rituals where people interact with the dead body and get infected.

"relatives slept in the same room as the body, stayed beside it continuously, or had direct physical contact during overnight mourning."

I’ll do my best to avoid the overnight cuddle vigil with an Ebola corpse.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#16

Post by BJones12 » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #12

Like Trump 1.0’s handling of COVID, this outbreak is going to spread further and faster than it would have if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives. Those initiatives inevitably cost far less than the economic impact of outbreaks (the US is currently diverting international travelers), but the best deal maker in the history of the universe says they’re a “bad deal”, so the rest of the planet ge…

> if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives

There are ~197 countries in the world, you should also criticize the other 196 for also not wanting to pay for the exact same thing.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#17

Post by nekzn » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

SilverElfin wrote: post #3

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

This unfortunately won’t be news again until, and I think this is now an until versus if, we find evidence the disease is spreading uncontrollably outside the DRC.

I think that’s going to be true if any disease whose previous outbreaks were only in a “third world” place. The rest of the world easily ignores it. If it was contained but in let’s say - some European country - I bet it would be in the news 24/7 still.

[flagged]

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#18

Post by ineedasername » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

srameshc wrote: post #8

aleister_777 wrote: post #5

[flagged]

> headlines screaming apocalypse. Same bat country, same fear cycle From the article "deaths reported at 177, and around 1,400 contacts now being traced". People are dying on the planet we all belong to.

There is a certain mindset that looks at any series of a problem that didn't get worse as evidence that any reaction to it was unwarranted, without considering if it was the why behind the lack of catastrophe. The opposite failure modes are things like security theatre and reasoning from any remotely plausible hypothetical to any desired response, and it's continually frustrating to see people who see neither modes or have a pet peeve against one of them and so jump in the other direction rather than reflect a second on some middle path.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#19

Post by jmpman » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

Grok is very defensive of Elon's role in the current Ebola outbreak. However if you push on Elon impacting Ebola monitoring, it will eventually admit that Elon's DOGE cancelled "some" Ebola prevention efforts very briefly, but in reality many Ebola related contracts and programs were not fully restored. "Surveillance capacity in eastern DRC weakened, contributing to the current Bundibugyo Ebola strain circulating undetected for an estimated 6–8 weeks before confirmation."

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#20

Post by hedora » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

arjie wrote: post #11

> the US has “abdicated its longstanding role as a leader in global health and humanitarian response.” It’s interesting to note that in the end, there was no one else coming: we were it. A large amount of disease containment and control was just fronted by the United States. As the US declines, it’s not that a new leader will come in. It’s not that the Chinese century will have their massive industrial engine put to…

I think you are reading the situation incorrectly. The US was previously the center of international collaboration for science and technology, and that took decades to establish.

The organization has been burnt down in 12 months, but the expertise still exists. There are signs that the international community will finally start working on climate change now that the US has pulled out of the treaties. The Chinese are a decade ahead of the west when it comes to building cars.

The WHO admits they screwed this outbreak handling up badly, but, by my understanding, they screwed up less than the US did in Wuhan in 2019, and they’re exhibiting the will to improve instead of shifting blame (remember all the “investigations” of the Chinese biological weapons research programs that were co-funded and co-operated by the US with federal funds?)

I think we’re going to see some more dark years before a one-two punch that improves things dramatically:

1) international organizations step up to fill the vacuum the US left

2) After the 2026-2028 new Dust Bowl / Great Depression the US is heading into, voters (state and federal) in the US are going to demand progressive and populist candidates that will actually attempt to put the US back on competitive economic footing.