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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

#151

Post by 001sky »

zo1 wrote: post #132
guscost wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death toll from malaria throughout history is orders and orders of magnitude beyond that of Ebola. I don't see how there is any way you can accurately describe it as "a far more dangerous pathogen."

I think people find ebola more frightening. Even if it's caused a tiny amount of deaths compared to other, less frightening diseases.

This is true, but Its a Biosafety level 4 pathogen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level

So its "literally more dangerous".

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#152

Post by privong »

guscost wrote: post #119
001sky wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is missing the point. Ebola is a far more dangerous pathogen. I dont think this needs further explanation.

The death toll from malaria throughout history is orders and orders of magnitude beyond that of Ebola. I don't see how there is any way you can accurately describe it as "a far more dangerous pathogen."

You are taking "dangerous" to mean "total number of people killed", while an equally reasonable definition is "likelikhood of dying if you contract it". It all depends on what criteria is being used to define "dangerous".

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#153

Post by guscost »

bsder wrote: post #148
guscost wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And a random asteroid has the potential to totally like explode the planet and kill everyone. The difference is that I'm talking about present reality.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#154

Post by scarmig »

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…

Malaria has a steady death rate. It's obviously a serious issue that doesn't get enough attention in the West, but immediate action will affect it only marginally.

The issue with Ebola isn't how many people it's killed so far (although the number is already tragic), but the number of deaths it can potentially cause. If left entirely unchecked at this point, it would kill over a million people in the next year. A half assed response limits it to hundreds of thousands, while a solid response limits it to tens of thousands (conceptually, numbers pulled out of ass but reasonable, I'd argue).

Outbreaks grow exponentially unless contained; the point of fast action is to prevent or curtail the exponential growth.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#155

Post by NearAP »

NearAP wrote: post #123
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…

> Have you been to Africa recently.. Considering that there are still regular flights from African countries to the US, that would be a large number of people. Maybe that screen should be applied only if you have developed a symptom like a high fever...?

Edit here - Just realized my comment might have come across the wrong way. I was responding to the OP's suggestion of using the screen of 'Have you been to Africa recently?'. I wasn't actually asking if the OP had been to Africa recently

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#156

Post by polemic »

DanBC wrote: post #140
comrh wrote: post #4

Am I correct in assuming that cultural differences concerning death and the dead along with our healthcare system mean Ebola in America would be relatively containable?

Your expensive health care system may cause people to delay seeing a doctor, which means they might be symptomatic and spreading disease for a few days before being quarantined. A patient zero on a new york subway could infect a few people and they would be hard to trace. Although it's not probible it is scarier than "can't happen"

This is a great point. A free (or heavily socialised) health care system is probably better equipped to handle an outbreak than a fully privatised one, even if it has fewer total resources.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#158

Post by jleader »

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

You're comparing a fairly stable, relatively well understood danger with a rapidly growing, less well understood danger.

Elsewhere in this discussion, someone quotes a CDC estimate that by the end of the year the number of ebola cases could reach 100k to 1.4 million. Taking the lower end of the range, that's 100k new cases in 3 months, so the number of cases grows by a factor greater than 10 in 3 months.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#159

Post by dpcan »

Hi, I'm in the freaking-out crowd...

Everyone with the "stay calm" attitude is lucky. This whole virus seems like such a "matter of time" situation. #1 finally showed up in the U.S. Do you really think it will just stay at 1? What are they doing with the beds he slept on, the towels he used after a shower, the glasses he drank out of? Did he go to a restaurant? A ball game? Who knows?

How much time do we have until it's in a school, on a subway, or your neighbor has it. Nobody even knows what to do. The first thing Americans do when they get sick is GO TO THE STORE. They go get some over-the-counter med. Literally, the first thing people in this country are going to do is go out and expose more people once symptoms start to appear.

Bodily fluids. A sweaty, feverish person is going to touch a door handle, counter, and anything else along the way. We won't even be able to pump gas without rubber gloves.

My checker at Fred Meyer today blew her nose and proceeded to touch every one of my groceries and scan them. It was disgusting. I literally sterilized yogurt containers when I got home. People have no sense of how to keep their germs to themselves.

Ebola starts with fever and vomiting and diarrhea, from what I've read. How are our sewer treatment facilities going to fare? Seriously, this is going to become a nightmare.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#160

Post by mrgriscom »

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…

It's almost as if people don't understand the concept of exponential growth...
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