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Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

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Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#71

Post by hn_submit »

contubernio wrote: post #26
hn_submit wrote: post #22

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…

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 trustw…

By insisting on these rituals there will be a permanent, low-level Ebola epidemic which could spread outwards quickly if the conditions become favorable. Even in Africa people are becoming more mobile making the spread of the disease a real possibility.

At the moment Ebola isn't a severe threat because of the fast incubation and mortality, but if it does become more widespread governments should claim the bodies of the victims and burn them in a large firepit.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#72

Post by water-data-dude »

mppm wrote: post #23
gucci-on-fleek wrote: post #12

(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…

Note to self and others who have read Richard Preston's "Hot Zone": The 1989 Reston (US) incident was NOT caused by a single-base mutation of Ebola, but by a distinct monkey virus. Preston seems to have made that up to dramatize events.

I read that book when I was probably way too young for it, and that incident made me spend a lot of time staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night. I'll have to dig into it more!

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#73

Post by im3w1l »

MarkusQ wrote: post #69
paimapi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is more of a curiosity and not pushback but are there mechanistic reasons why viral mutations are subjected to tradeoffs in terms of lethality vs infectiousness? is it that the more lethal it is, the earlier it is that people become symptomatic (and thus are far more likely to isolate and/or be immobile)?

The faster you kill your host, the less time you have to infect new hosts. Sure, you can loot the host to make a lot of new viruses, but when the host dies, they die too. Ideally, a virus "wants" to make the host live a long, gregarious life, touring the world and kissing babies. But that takes energy away from making more viral payload, so yeah, it's a tradeoff.

I don't think it's really a tradeoff and rather that Ebola is simply bad at its job. Why? Because it's primarily a bat virus (and it's basically asymptomatic in bats) that ended up where it doesn't belong and wreaks havoc because it hasn't learned to play nice.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#74

Post by gucci-on-fleek »

xienze wrote: post #63
thinkcontext wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has travel restrictions, therefore you are incorrect that "western countries don't even entertain the possibility of preemptively denying travel from these countries until things get under control" https://www.cdc.gov/ebola/situation-summary/returning-travel...

OK, guess I missed that one. Score a point for mean ol' Trump I guess. But, you're ignoring that it's also not exactly a blanket ban on travel from the DRC, just "within the last 21 days", which... does that make a meaningful difference? And, where are the other western countries doing the same? Kinda my point. If it's done at all, it's a day late and a dollar short.

> But, you're ignoring that it's also not exactly a blanket ban on travel from the DRC, just "within the last 21 days", which... does that make a meaningful difference?

What's the alternative here though? It's not really okay to lock your own citizens out of the country indefinitely, so there has to be some way for people to be able to come back home eventually. Requiring an Ebola test on entry would be one option, but those Ebola tests would probably be better used on patients in Africa, so it would be hard to defend such a policy from an allocation of resources perspective.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#75

Post by MarkusQ »

im3w1l wrote: post #73
MarkusQ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The faster you kill your host, the less time you have to infect new hosts. Sure, you can loot the host to make a lot of new viruses, but when the host dies, they die too. Ideally, a virus "wants" to make the host live a long, gregarious life, touring the world and kissing babies. But that takes energy away from making more viral payload, so yeah, it's a tradeoff.

I don't think it's really a tradeoff and rather that Ebola is simply bad at its job. Why? Because it's primarily a bat virus (and it's basically asymptomatic in bats) that ended up where it doesn't belong and wreaks havoc because it hasn't learned to play nice.

In bats, it reproduces more slowly, doesn't kill the hosts, and thus the hosts live to spread it.

This is exactly the tradeoff I described.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#76

Post by robocat »

MarkusQ wrote: post #69
paimapi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is more of a curiosity and not pushback but are there mechanistic reasons why viral mutations are subjected to tradeoffs in terms of lethality vs infectiousness? is it that the more lethal it is, the earlier it is that people become symptomatic (and thus are far more likely to isolate and/or be immobile)?

The faster you kill your host, the less time you have to infect new hosts. Sure, you can loot the host to make a lot of new viruses, but when the host dies, they die too. Ideally, a virus "wants" to make the host live a long, gregarious life, touring the world and kissing babies. But that takes energy away from making more viral payload, so yeah, it's a tradeoff.

> energy

That is almost irrelevant.

Our immune systems, and environments are mostly security-by-obscurity.

Viruses randomly mutate to find vulnerabilities.

Their biggest issue is finding solutions using a genetic optimisation algorithm.

Their biggest strength is that it is a massively parallel search. Think of 10^x monkeys bashing at all points in their reproduction (maybe 10^18 for peak covid in human hosts).

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#77

Post by ForHackernews »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #48
BoxOfRain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also events like Partygate in the UK really didn't help, people were already pretty done with the pandemic lifestyle after nearly two years of it on and off including fairly heavy-handed enforcement; the British government then lost all its practical moral authority to impose restrictions when it became clear the very people imposing them had been having massive boozy parties throughout the worst parts of the pandemi…

Well for Covid it became clear that the risk was indeed quite low if you were not elderly or with an underlying condition while the restrictions were drastic and poorly targeted: Young people suffered a lot even when Covid was really no worse than the flu to them (and most people). Countries like Sweden that didn't go into lockdown also proved that strict restrictions were over the top. Now, again Ebola is very serio…

>Now, again Ebola is very seriously deadly

Says who? Bunch of 'experts', I'd wager. We've 'ad enough of their rubbish.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#78

Post by Gerard22Aug »

biorach wrote: post #14
gucci-on-fleek wrote: post #12

(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…

No one worth listening to is claiming that there will be a COVID-style pandemic. The concern here is the very high mortality rate. Granted the transmission rate is low, but in countries where facilities and health-care workers are scarce this disease is still capable of being a real problem.

"No one worth listening to is claiming that there will be a COVID-style pandemic." That means exactly that. The war(s) were not enough and run out of steam. We need the next thing.

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#79

Post by Arodex »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #48
BoxOfRain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also events like Partygate in the UK really didn't help, people were already pretty done with the pandemic lifestyle after nearly two years of it on and off including fairly heavy-handed enforcement; the British government then lost all its practical moral authority to impose restrictions when it became clear the very people imposing them had been having massive boozy parties throughout the worst parts of the pandemi…

Well for Covid it became clear that the risk was indeed quite low if you were not elderly or with an underlying condition while the restrictions were drastic and poorly targeted: Young people suffered a lot even when Covid was really no worse than the flu to them (and most people). Countries like Sweden that didn't go into lockdown also proved that strict restrictions were over the top. Now, again Ebola is very serio…

Sweden, you mean the country with the highest level of single-occupancy housing, and universal health care?

Re: Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

#80

Post by MarkusQ »

robocat wrote: post #76
MarkusQ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The faster you kill your host, the less time you have to infect new hosts. Sure, you can loot the host to make a lot of new viruses, but when the host dies, they die too. Ideally, a virus "wants" to make the host live a long, gregarious life, touring the world and kissing babies. But that takes energy away from making more viral payload, so yeah, it's a tradeoff.

> energy That is almost irrelevant. Our immune systems, and environments are mostly security-by-obscurity. Viruses randomly mutate to find vulnerabilities. Their biggest issue is finding solutions using a genetic optimisation algorithm. Their biggest strength is that it is a massively parallel search. Think of 10^x monkeys bashing at all points in their reproduction (maybe 10^18 for peak covid in human hosts).

Viruses don't reproduce by mutation, they reproduce by getting the host to manufacture more copies of the virus, which takes resources (which ultimately come down to energy) away from the host.

The "monkeys" aren't trying huge numbers of variations, they are making huge numbers of identical copies with very rare (and usually non-functional) variations when they fail to copy exactly.

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