Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

I chide the people in Africa for not following up on best health practices as far as Ebola victims are concerned. It seems there's a ritualistic need for people in Africa to touch and kiss the deceased before they're buried. This is a bad idea as far as Ebola is concerned. There've even been cases where family members attacked UN hospitals to remove their loved ones remains, perpetuating the spread of the disease.

A couple hundred years ago they didn't know any better so you could forgive them. But these days we do know better and to still insist on rituals that lead to the spreading of Ebola is just plain dumb.

As far as I'm concerned there should be stronger travel restrictions for people from Africa, especially the ones near the Ebola outbreak.

I get the feeling the reason this is out of control is the political climate, at one point in time, a good US president or EU council would've sent aid, doctors, equipment, etc to help tackle this, now everyone is so broke (allegedly) and angry that it's just political suicide to say you're sending money to help "foreigners" in Africa.

The face of rich people and philanthropy has changed too. The billionaires (and nearly trillionaires?) don't need to pretend to care anymore. They have a moat right now where it's fine to be hoarding all the money while thousands die from something which we could stop if the resources and political clout was available to help.

China was entering into this space but seems not to be helping now either, I guess because the west isn't helping, they don't need to pretend anymore that they're the good guys.

Obviously, it's the right thing to do is help, even if just for selfish reasons, ie we don't want this thing in other countries, but you cannot do that anymore because it's just political suicide to do so.

People on the street, so to speak, don't know better even in advanced nations with strong educational systems. Look how much rejection of vaccination there is in spite of "knowing better". In many African nations there is very reasonable suspicion of European authorities - as there is a long history of abuse and degradation that has moreover been weaponized politically kn the post colonial era. The solution is trustworthy and pedagogical people on the ground doing a lot of hard work and that requires lots of institutional support.

>Were it to spread to Europe, I imagine contact tracing and societal norms would result in a drastically lower r naught and basically make community spread a non-factor.

It depends where in Europe. COVID created or revealed a crazy underbelly in a significant part of the population. And I don't see hospitals keeping up well with an influx of patients requiring very strict isolation protocols against any symptom of bleeding (and there are more people having abnormal bleeding than one imagines, especially with the aging of the population. Now imagine every one of them is a maximum level alarm).

And despite the idea that public health is weak in Africa, African doctors and nurses are better trained and efficient against epidemics that their European counterparts.

The caveats to your comment are in my opinion as follows: Bundibugyo the current strain has not previously been responsible for material outbreaks, as such it has therefore received significantly less scientific attention.

Additionally Ebola (Zaire) has previously been shown to be potentially spread via aerosols. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00811, the CDC and associated institutions resolutely claim this is not possible, yet also insist on full respirator PPE. For any institution to claim we know much about this strain isnt true. An alarming fact to update ones prior is the current size of the outbreak and its rapid development compared to ALL previous outbreaks (yes conditions on the ground maybe confounding this), but the scientific approach would be to say, we simply do not have enough evidence to make any claims of significance.

I am quite worried about the potential for this situation in the DRC (a country of ~116m people, ~55% rural) to 1) not burn itself out, 2) act as a smouldering viral reservoir where occasional spillovers occur to the western hemisphere.

2) Is interesting politically for Western countries, because even if a mass pandemic DOES NOT occur (this is my base case), the pressure of containing a handful of regularly appearing and likely high profile Ebola cases by public health authorities will be acutely felt politically and socially. It is very possible some sorts of lockdowns are implemented. Yes vaccines are in development, yes rapid antigen testing is possible. But this is no Covid, 50%+ CFR is a totally different beast! I think this is potentially close to some sort of worst case scenario from a social and political perspective even if the public health impact IS limited.