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CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

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Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#141

Post by phkahler »

lee wrote: post #75

Am I one of the minorities who believe that this hype about Ebola is more sensationalism and news than an actual pandemic we should be fearful for? Let's take a lot at what we can agree on: * The number of cases of infected patients is fairly small. * The vector of transmission is fluid exchange, so that reduces its ability to spread. * The virus doesn't appear to lie dormant, and is only contagious when the patient…

Most interesting is that this guy apparently became symptomatic 3-4 days before going to the hospital. Arrived on the 20th, felt sick on the 24th, went to hospital on 27th, was isolated on the 28th. How many people did he come in contact with? How many contacts are being traced? This may be very interesting, and I doubt it will stop at just the one case.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#142

Post by arrrg »

lee wrote: post #110
arrrg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likelihood of any kind of pandemic is extremely low, sure. However, your dismissal of this epidemic and its impact is arrogant and disgusting. It’s still a disaster in the affected countries, with many knock-on effects. Also, it would have been better to spend more money earlier to prevent unnecessary deaths. This Ebola epidemic is actually something people hardly care about. Hardly anyone is donating, for exampl…

I don't know if you can call it a disaster. The total number of cases, as reported by the CDC, is less than 7000 so far. I don't mean to be callous, but compare that number to the number of total deaths to Malaria or even the flu, and that number pales in comparison. I am not callous to say that we shouldn't care about the Ebola outbreak, but if you look at the numbers, directing that money to buy more mosquito nets…

Donations are always tricky and effectively allocating resources to aid is hard … but can you at least recognise that similarly sized catastrophes get much more attention and money?

More than 3,000 people dead, potentially more, and many of the affected places don’t have enough resources to deal with it in a satisfactory manner. That’s the situation here. This could have been controlled better, probably.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#143

Post by DanBC »

arrrg wrote: post #142
lee wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you can call it a disaster. The total number of cases, as reported by the CDC, is less than 7000 so far. I don't mean to be callous, but compare that number to the number of total deaths to Malaria or even the flu, and that number pales in comparison. I am not callous to say that we shouldn't care about the Ebola outbreak, but if you look at the numbers, directing that money to buy more mosquito nets…

Donations are always tricky and effectively allocating resources to aid is hard … but can you at least recognise that similarly sized catastrophes get much more attention and money? More than 3,000 people dead, potentially more, and many of the affected places don’t have enough resources to deal with it in a satisfactory manner. That’s the situation here. This could have been controlled better, probably.

Recently an arsonist alledgedly set fire to a dog shelter in the UK.

They raised over £1m in a few days.

> The blaze, which was tackled by more than 30 firefighters, killed about 60 animals.

> Within 24 hours, more than £1m pounds had been raised to help around 150 surviving dogs.

This happened while Ebola was happening.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#144

Post by callahad »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #38
ArtDev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently traveled, self-admitted to hospital. Bad news.

Why? I thought Ebola wasn't transmissible until symptoms appear.

You're correct. For instance, there's a lot of ill-founded concern around the flight the patient took into the US. The CDC is doing its damnedest to quell fears around it -- the patient wasn't symptomatic until four days after arrival -- but reason isn't always effective at moderating hysteria. The New York Times' headline, for instance, is currently "Airline Passenger With Ebola Is Under Treatment in Dallas," which is downright irresponsible.

As for "bad news," the patient self-referred to the hospital, Ebola was not suspected, and the patient was initially sent home to recover. (S)he returned once conditions worsened and was then diagnosed with Ebola.

Specifically, the patient arrived in the US on the 20th, became ill on the 24th, visited the hospital on the 26th, and was admitted on the 28th. Which means that Dallas had someone symptomatic in its midst for four days, which is rather unfortunate.

Cite: http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/s930-ebola-confirmed-...

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#145

Post by arrrg »

guscost wrote: post #106
lee wrote: post #75

Am I one of the minorities who believe that this hype about Ebola is more sensationalism and news than an actual pandemic we should be fearful for? Let's take a lot at what we can agree on: * The number of cases of infected patients is fairly small. * The vector of transmission is fluid exchange, so that reduces its ability to spread. * The virus doesn't appear to lie dormant, and is only contagious when the patient…

One thing the news stories never mention is that the death toll from malaria every day is comparable to the total deaths in this recent Ebola outbreak: http://www.malariaworld.org/lastweek

And? I’m not sure what the point is. The effect on the affected countries is still disastrous. Do you think having to fight Ebola on top of Malaria is harmless?

Do you think it is worth considering whether a better response was and maybe still is possible to end this quickly (and be better prepared in the future)?

Malaria is a huge disaster. The Ebola epidemic is, too, in the affected countries. (I couldn’t care less about scared idiots in Europe and the US.) Both are.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#146

Post by gwillen »

georgemcbay wrote: post #22
ceejayoz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem there is the perception that those diseases aren't serious (and in cases like chicken pox, this can even be somewhat true). No such perception exists with Ebola, I'd say.

I agree mostly, which is why I mentioned I don't think that would play out with Ebola. OTOH pancreatic cancer is pretty serious (though not communicable) and we still live in a culture where someone widely lauded as a once-in-an-era genius (and who had ample monetary resources to seek the absolute best medical health care in spite of how bad the economics of our health care system are) thought new age-y solutions wer…

You are being downvoted because the 5-year survival rate of pancreatic cancer is 5%. In all probability Jobs was going to die no matter what he did.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#147

Post by crpatino »

lee wrote: post #110
arrrg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likelihood of any kind of pandemic is extremely low, sure. However, your dismissal of this epidemic and its impact is arrogant and disgusting. It’s still a disaster in the affected countries, with many knock-on effects. Also, it would have been better to spend more money earlier to prevent unnecessary deaths. This Ebola epidemic is actually something people hardly care about. Hardly anyone is donating, for exampl…

I don't know if you can call it a disaster. The total number of cases, as reported by the CDC, is less than 7000 so far. I don't mean to be callous, but compare that number to the number of total deaths to Malaria or even the flu, and that number pales in comparison. I am not callous to say that we shouldn't care about the Ebola outbreak, but if you look at the numbers, directing that money to buy more mosquito nets…

Last week, the total number of cases was ~6500. One month ago it was ~3000. Two months ago it was ~1300. How do you call a process that duplicates itself every fixed unit of time (in this case, every ~3 weeks)?

Of course, we should not fall into panic. Many factors will affect what ends up being the total effect of this outbreak in the mid to long term. But dismissing it as a non issue because "there are just a few thousand cases" misses the point completely.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#148

Post by bsder »

guscost wrote: post #106
lee wrote: post #75

Am I one of the minorities who believe that this hype about Ebola is more sensationalism and news than an actual pandemic we should be fearful for? Let's take a lot at what we can agree on: * The number of cases of infected patients is fairly small. * The vector of transmission is fluid exchange, so that reduces its ability to spread. * The virus doesn't appear to lie dormant, and is only contagious when the patient…

One thing the news stories never mention is that the death toll from malaria every day is comparable to the total deaths in this recent Ebola outbreak: http://www.malariaworld.org/lastweek

Oy, look up the word "contagious", please.

This has the potential to make malaria look like a walk in the park.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#149

Post by harshreality »

nikolaj wrote: post #103

The headline variations are quite interesting: CNBC: First confirmed case of Ebola confirmed in the United States: CDC NYT: Airline Passenger With Ebola Is Under Treatment in Dallas BBC: First Ebola case diagnosed on US soil CNN: Ebola case is the first diagnosed in the U.S. FOX: EBOLA HITS AMERICA CDC identifies first case on US soil Obviously Fox takes the FUD crown, but I thought the NYT actually misrepresented it…

What is FUD about it? This is potentially how a epidemic starts.

Stopping this spread depends on everyone checking into a hospital when potential ebola symptoms start, which doesn't happen. Even the current patient didn't think to go to the hospital when he became symptomatic. He potentially infected others. Those contacts have to be traced and put in observational quarantine before they become symptomatic, if they do. If one contact was infected and is missed by the epidemiologists, then the whole process starts over, because whoever it is probably won't know it's ebola and will be symptomatic for days before getting more serious and going to the hospital.

We're also close to the flu season, which has a lot of overlapping early symptoms. If nobody else was infected, or if they proactively quarantine everyone who was infected before symptoms start, then we're good. Otherwise...

I don't understand why there are flights allowed out of ebola-stricken countries. We know ebola has an incubation period. This was just a matter of time.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#150

Post by privong »

marcelsalathe wrote: post #111
timr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the current media frenzy "sensationalism"? Yes. Is there a risk here? Yes, a small one. I understand, but am frustrated by, the number of people who keep repeating "it's not airborne", as if this is some kind of definitive argument that a virus cannot spread here. Something like 80% of cold/flu infections happen via "bodily fluids" -- people snot on a surface, someone else touches the surface, then touch their fac…

Your 80% number is misleading. There is no good data on that. Flu has long been thought to be mainly transmitted through droplets, which fall to the ground quickly, rather than being dispensed in the air, being able to travel large distances (which would be truly airborne). If anything, the latest data suggest that we have actually underestimated the airborne route (relative to the droplet route). Yes, a pandemic can…

> Flu has long been thought to be mainly transmitted through droplets, which fall to the ground quickly, rather than being dispensed in the air, being able to travel large distances (which would be truly airborne).

Actually, there was a study earlier this year[0] which showed, with better data and more rigorous treatement of the fluid dynamics, dropplets can travel much farther than previously thought. [1] has a summary of the research, in case the article is not available. But their basic conclusion is that, depending on the size, droplets can travel up to 200 times farther than previously thought, because they are carried along with the "cloud" associated with the sneeze.

[0] http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/sneeze-cloud_n_5110...

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