Live data from Hacker News

Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

afro.who.int

31–40 of 85 posts

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#31
post #16

(Originally posted as a reply to a dead comment) While there was some controversy regarding how COVID spreads in the early days (droplets vs aerosol, how many virions you needed to be exposed to to become infected, whether asymptomatic transmission was possible, etc.), most of the details were fairly well understood within a year after the pandemic started. Plus, we were already aware that coronaviruses are capable o…

True right now, but what happens if it mutates? A few thousand is nowhere close to pandemic but it's enough to give the virus many opportunities to evolve against its new environment. On the plus side, most viruses become less deadly as they adapt to their host. COVID luckily did this, it seems. If Ebola does this it'll become like the flu, but we don't want yet another flu-level disease circulating.

> True right now, but what happens if it mutates?

There are more than a dozen viruses in the same family as Ebola, each of which have various strains, and none of them have airborne spread. Also, this family has been around for over 1k years [0], and any mutation allowing for airborne spread would be heavily selected for, which suggests that it's probably not "easy" (in the sense that it would only require a very small number of mutations) for the virus to acquire this trait.

That being said, evolution is messy and probabilistic, so it's certainly possible for this to happen (especially considering the high AIDS prevalence in Africa, which increases the risk of recombination), but the odds of this are so low that I wouldn't worry about it. Another novel coronavirus or influenza strain would probably be my biggest worry.

[0]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9151191/

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#32

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 ne…

How many decades have we been helping Africa for, and for what?

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#33
The documentary on the last outbreak remain relevant to this day, the causes are still local hygiene practices, and this will not be solved by dropping in medical teams and hospitals and the WHO holding conferences and getting more money.

What solved this last time was the local population learning the importance of washing ones hands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG1aY5OOR2o

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#34
post #27

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…

>I chide the people in Africa for not following up on best health practices as far as Ebola victims are concerned God, how can you say that with a straight face after the "ritualistic" response people in the West had during COVID? Fighting against wearing masks, having their mind break because they couldn't go drink in bars, going crazy for snake oil solutions and destroying public health care. We have had in almost…

Plus vaccines now

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#35
post #30

(Originally posted as a reply to a dead comment) While there was some controversy regarding how COVID spreads in the early days (droplets vs aerosol, how many virions you needed to be exposed to to become infected, whether asymptomatic transmission was possible, etc.), most of the details were fairly well understood within a year after the pandemic started. Plus, we were already aware that coronaviruses are capable o…

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…

> Additionally Ebola (Zaire) has previously been shown to be potentially spread via aerosols. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00811

Ah, I was not aware of this, so thanks for pointing that out. That does indeed look quite concerning, so let's hope that that won't apply to humans (although I'm struggling to think of a plausible biological reason for why it wouldn't).

> 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.

I agree that this is bad in the sense that something absolutely horrific is happening to a lot of people; I was just trying to refute the point that we could also somehow wake up with Ebola a month from now.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#36
post #27

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…

>I chide the people in Africa for not following up on best health practices as far as Ebola victims are concerned God, how can you say that with a straight face after the "ritualistic" response people in the West had during COVID? Fighting against wearing masks, having their mind break because they couldn't go drink in bars, going crazy for snake oil solutions and destroying public health care. We have had in almost…

I think that what happened with Covid was the big gap between the very strict measures enacted and the perceived risk.

When people think "it's just the flu" it's easy to become defiant.

On the other hand, Ebola has a known fatality rate of 50%+ and so refusing to follow best practices is plain suicidal.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#37
post #32

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 ne…

How many decades have we been helping Africa for, and for what?

When Ebola is eating your face you will find out for what.

Africa might be the least fortunate people but you don't get a pass for ignoring that and not helping, we're all in this together, like it or not.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#38
There's a Bayesian forecast from some folks at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that's useful to see if the outbreak has reached peak size: https://epiforecasts.io/BVDOutbreakSize/stable/analysis#Summ...

The last update finally had a growth rate confidence interval straggling 0, meaning the peak seems to be within reach: "The latest growth rate is estimated to be 30% -0.005–0.008"

There's a nice figure showing Rt over time: https://epiforecasts.io/BVDOutbreakSize/stable/analysis#Repr...

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#39

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…

> But these days we do know better and to still insist on rituals that lead to the spreading ...

Thus explaining why RFK has his current position.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people smuggle it in their luggage Really?

Yeah. There's a reason why customs is so strict about the sloppy importation of food: it's host to diseases and pests, capable of causing ridiculous damage because someone has to have that "taste of home".

It’s the fact or otherwise of someone having carried raw meat in their luggage that I’m questioning, not the fact of customs officials caring about food moving across international borders. I’ve had fruit confiscated at a border, but meat in luggage seems like… a different paradigm.
Post reply on HN