51–60 of 176 posts
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No, R will stay the same. Or decrease as the population becomes more exposed.
He's taking about the number of people infected per unit of time, which will indeed increase over time if the reproductive number stays larger than 1.
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Those studies are from from Taiko Pharmaceutical. Are you actually really arguing that pharmaceutical companies are not interested in studying the subject of the studies that you present from a pharmaceutical company?
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I find it interesting that people worry about Ebola going airborne but not something like AIDS. I guess there's a biological reason....
If these things are damaged (as they are when the virus is exposed to the atmosphere, or to enzymes in saliva), they're rendered non-infectious. So many details would have to change about the cells the virus targets, and the way that it enters them that I can't see how it would be the same virus, with the same pathogenic effect if it were somehow to become airborne. There are tradeoffs in everything, and viruses face them too.
Going '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…
Going '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…
Better-informed villages, towns, and cities have every right to refuse to admit, or interact with, individuals from superstitious villages. Self-defense is a powerful right, and I'd say it easily trumps a potentially infected person's right to visit a cousin.
People are free to die for their beliefs, whether such beliefs are true or not. But they have no right to make other people die with them. If push comes to shove, better-informed villages will expel all infected persons (preferably into quarantine centers, not into the jungle), post armed guards at every entrance, and either isolate themselves or only admit visitors from villages that have enacted a similar policy.
I have seen this several places over the past week or two – is it actually true that people who survive Ebola are not at risk of re-infection? I can see where that might be true shortly after recovery (i.e., due to there still being antibodies in one's system), but how long would the immunity last?
> in particular by bringing in local residents who have survived Ebola, and are no longer at risk of infection. I have seen this several places over the past week or two – is it actually true that people who survive Ebola are not at risk of re-infection? I can see where that might be true shortly after recovery (i.e., due to there still being antibodies in one's system), but how long would the immunity last?
> in particular by bringing in local residents who have survived Ebola, and are no longer at risk of infection. I have seen this several places over the past week or two – is it actually true that people who survive Ebola are not at risk of re-infection? I can see where that might be true shortly after recovery (i.e., due to there still being antibodies in one's system), but how long would the immunity last?
Antibodies generally last a very long time [citation needed], but would they be useful against such a rapidly-changing pathogen ?
Does that explain why people are not immune from the flu after having it once – the version they have antibodies to is not the same as the mutated version which circulates later?
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I am not sure what relation your (or the article's) talk of trampling sovereignty has to do with the present situation on the ground. The articles I read describe the problematic issues being; a lack of running water in existing clinics, a lack of medical supplies, a lack of clinics and notably a lack of food everywhere - patients are escaping isolation in efforts to find food. Liberian officials have pleaded for hel…
The article references having burial specialists. This would require certain people having the right to take deceased corpses and burying without regard for the family/tribal/religious requests/requirements etc. This would at the very least be seen as impinging on the rights of the family, it would likely need armed support. If these burial specialists were say American, they would NOT be deployed without American ar…
Liberia does have Liberian burial specialists now, who do what you describe and it indeed is probably the most awful job in the world. Indeed, the Liberian government, with varying levels of competence, has attempted to do most of what you describe. Essentially, there's no evidence, no indication that the Liberian state would resist UN or US aid but also very little evidence of such aid. If anything, the Liberian government has done some stupid impingements on rights itself (quarantining the entire poor sector of Monrovia for example).
Yes, the Liberian state is already taking desperate and extreme measures but when most clinics without running water, their options are limited. I'm sorry, this stuff make me so angry I could ask what it says about you and your ilk when you're so eager solve things with guns that you don't notice that lack of food and water is the primary problem?
Obama some announcements about military assistance but I've read not article about anything materializing.
Seriously, we're talking pretty well unprecedented disaster - the response has been much than even the response to "typical" third world disasters, much less than the response to the Haitian earthquake for example.