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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

#181

Post by ceejayoz »

MaysonL wrote: post #27
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.

As someone who's had an attack of shingles, saying that chicken pox isn't serious, is bullshit.

It can be very serious, yes. For most, it's not, and anti-vaxxers seem to consider their own lived experiences to be better evidence than stats like "thousands die from flu every year".

I have a medically sensitive daughter and the folks who go "flu's not that bad, just get it and move on" drive me insane.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#182

Post by buyx »

davycro wrote: post #112

Could be worse. The pandemic will start if Ebola spreads to a low-resource country with a large urban population. Worst case, in my opinion, would be an Ebola case diagnosed in Johannesburg.

It would be cause for concern if it started spreading in the South African public healthcare system, where infection control (or doing their work) is not a high priority for many staff (http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?pid=S0256-95742010000700...).

On the other hand, private hospitals have the same, or similarly trained nurses, who do a great job. So hopefully the nurses' self-preservation instincts will kick in, and similar levels of isolation to those found in advanced healthcare systems will be deployed quickly if it starts spreading in the public healthcare system.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#183

Post by ck2 »

For something that is supposed to be hard to spread, sure is mysterious how people are getting it. This person wasn't a doctor.

Also, we are relying on another country to screen people at airports before they leave. Somehow I suspect this is not being done in a serious manner, ala-TSA.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#184

Post by giarc »

kenjackson wrote: post #168

If you were on a plane coming back from Europe and the guy in the seat next to you said he was just coming back from spending a year in Liberia, what would you do? Would you sit there and just make sure he didn't spit on you? Or would you go sit in the bathroom for the flight? Curious as to how people would react...

As stated by the director of the CDC in the press conference, all air passengers departing the affected countries are screened for fever. Fever is most often the first symptoms present, and therefore you can logically believe that if the passenger left Liberia and is on a plane, he does not have Ebola (or is not symptomatic for Ebola). Therefore I would be fine sitting beside him.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#185

Post by ceejayoz »

gwillen wrote: post #146
georgemcbay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Jobs had a rare variant (pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor) that's much more survivable.

> Overall 5-year survival rate is about 42%.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/isletcell/H...

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#186

Post by seanflyon »

MaysonL wrote: post #27
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.

As someone who's had an attack of shingles, saying that chicken pox isn't serious, is bullshit.

"somewhat true" implies not entirely true. Iv'e had chicken pox. It wasn't serious, but as you point out, that's not the whole picture.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#187

Post by pdeuchler »

djcapelis wrote: post #115
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…

> * The number of cases of infected patients is fairly small. This is no longer true. We have no idea how many people are infected anymore because Liberia has too many patients to even keep track. They're literally thousands of beds short and it's actively doubling. The CDC estimate is 100k-1.4m by the end of the year. > * The vector of transmission is fluid exchange, so that reduces its ability to spread. To some de…

> "The U.S. government and international organizations recently announced commitments to support these measures. As these measures are rapidly implemented and sustained, the higher projections presented in this report become very unlikely."

From the abstract of the report[0] you're citing. Essentially, it's rising exponentially (at smaller numbers) right now so of course if you extrapolate over long enough you're going to get a big scary number. The situation is bad, but we still haven't even engaged the outbreak with anything close to full force yet (a valid indictment on policy makers, not the situation). There's a difference between spreading caution and FUD, let's try and avoid the second.

[0] http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6303a1.htm?s_cid=... (cool read)

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#188

Post by nl »

davycro wrote: post #112

Could be worse. The pandemic will start if Ebola spreads to a low-resource country with a large urban population. Worst case, in my opinion, would be an Ebola case diagnosed in Johannesburg.

Johannesburg has a population of ~10 million (including connected urban areas) and is quite a long way from the affected areas.

OTOH, Lagos has a population of around 20 million and is within hundreds of kilometers of active cases. It's almost 10 times more densely populated than Johannesburg too (20,008/km2 vs 2,900/km2).

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#189

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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?

Well, besides media sensenationalism, the idea is that we should be fearful of a possible pandemic BEFORE it becomes a pandemic, and that that's how we take the measures and care we need to contain it. (Being fearful of something like that AFTER it becomes a pandemic goes without saying).

That said, in Nigeria there were abour 3,000 deaths and 6,000 cases. I wouldn't call that "fairly small". Plus stuff like that have a way of skyrocketing if they pass a certain threshold.

In Nigeria at least, they had very good reasons to be fearful, and with modern travel, a few stray travellers could have wiped out similar numbers in other places, or even more.

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