Just for those of you wondering somewhat about the risks of Ebola becoming airborne - it has been shown to be transferred without contact before: http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-...
The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
31–40 of 176 posts
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#32Going 'meta' for a moment, this is a tragedy of huge proportions, the question I have been considering is whether or not it is even possible to avoid? Updates from MSF which highlight the level of mistrust and superstition amongst the infected population, where people hide their sick relatives from isolation wards and take them back to their village. We cannot exactly put a giant fence around the place (and not that…
Perhaps we could quarantine air & sea travel.
Even with air and sea travel the chance of someone being infected outside those areas is minimal (unless they give you a nice bloody hug or you are feeling frisky). Much less an outbreak or something of that nature.
Most of the infected cannot even afford to travel.
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#33The article this Wired post is mostly reblogging is quite a bit better imo, at least in having a higher ratio of facts to commentary: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=2...
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#34Going 'meta' for a moment, this is a tragedy of huge proportions, the question I have been considering is whether or not it is even possible to avoid? Updates from MSF which highlight the level of mistrust and superstition amongst the infected population, where people hide their sick relatives from isolation wards and take them back to their village. We cannot exactly put a giant fence around the place (and not that…
There's an interesting parallel of this with some of the discussions on (computer) security - if someone's machine is part of a botnet, infected with malware, or possibly running insecure software, does it give us the right to "invade" them and forcibly perform actions which we believe are "for their own good"?
The prevailing attitude there seems to be "yes", but the difference is that in those cases the worst that could happen is people lose money, data and maybe their personal information gets leaked; whereas here, with Ebola, people will actually die. Not that I'm advocating either side of the argument, but it's something to think about...
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#35My fear is that we're not able to stop a simple stomach flu which is spread almost the same way, through bodily liquids, so I don't think it will be easy to stop once it hits first world countries like most people currently assume...
Wait a minute, when was the last time that the stomach flu was an epidemic?
The last flu epidemic with a major death toll was the pandemic of 1918, which is estimated to have killed more people than World War I. A less deadly version of the same strain was officially listed as an epidemic in 2009.
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#36[deleted]
ClO2 can be used to carve out safe zones at best. It could definitely be used to control airborne transmission in hospital, or other controlled, high risk settings - but it fundamentally is not a cure. We cannot simply fumigate entire cities at 0.3ppm for weeks at a time until an outbreak dies out. Other means will always be needed.
And as a nice aside, here's a nice paper about ClO2 use to control flu form a Japanese pharmaceutical company, referencing amongst other things one of their products that acts as a stable low level ClO2 gas generator.
http://benthamopen.com/toantimj/articles/V002/SI0008TOANTIMJ...
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#37I hate to be the cynical one here, but the countries with the power to stop this outbreak aren't going to start taking it seriously until more people from western nations start dying. It is true, it will be really bad if it is not stopped soon. Containing an outbreak of >5000 is out of the reach of most of the states affected by the disease and quite honestly very expensive for any nation. Once this spreads closer to…
> Containing an outbreak of >5000 is out of the reach of most of the states affected by the disease and quite honestly very expensive for any nation
Many African nations have a history of dealing with problem regions, such as regions that have the wrong politics, tribal affiliation, or religion, by going in with their military and killing everyone in sight.
What are the chances some of these countries might decide to deal with the problem of Ebola infected regions that way? Especially regions where superstition or ignorance lead the people there to avoid treatment? If the rest of the world waits too long to come up with a solution for the problem, I fear we may see a lot more deaths from this than just those who are killed by the Ebola virus directly.
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#38I had a discussion with a friend, and he pointed out that Malaria infects something like 200 million people a year in Africa, and kills around half a million. It's brutal.
So this new paper is projecting that Ebola deaths in Africa will be about as common as Malaria deaths.
I guess I'm trying to draw any conclusions or imply anything here other than life in Africa is pretty freakin' tough.
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#39[deleted]
ClO2 can be used to carve out safe zones at best. It could definitely be used to control airborne transmission in hospital, or other controlled, high risk settings - but it fundamentally is not a cure. We cannot simply fumigate entire cities at 0.3ppm for weeks at a time until an outbreak dies out. Other means will always be needed. And as a nice aside, here's a nice paper about ClO2 use to control flu form a Japanes…
All of which is irrelevant in places where there isn't reliable electricity, roads, supplies of precursors or a population who won't believe you're actually affecting chemical warfare on them.
Taking a short dip into the chemtrails-nuts in the west should convince you how well this would go over. Ebola is fundamentally a result of a myriad of causes, where "poverty" would be a headlining one (followed shortly by corruption and ineffective governance).
Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
#40[deleted]
Chlorine Dioxide falls into the category of ways to kill a virus that will also kill us. Your second source argues that it is effective at levels "below the long-term permissible exposure level to humans, namely 0.1 p.p.m.", but I would imagine there are still health concerns to using this method. Additionally, that figure is the needed concentration to control the influenza virus (in mice), it is not clear how well this number generalizes to other viruses.
While it is nice to have a worst case scenario plan, I suspect the reason the CDC isn't testing it is because they do not believe we will be in a situation where using it is better then the alternative. If we were in a situation where Chlorine Dioxide was a good idea, I suspect even the pharmaceutical companies would be supportive.