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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

#211

Post by FollowSteph3 »

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #53
giarc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well someone that hasn't been to an affected country, or been in contact with the current case won't have Ebola.

For now...

My comment is getting down other yet not that log ago it was said our system was so good that someone with Ebola would be immediately quarantined: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/06/30/could-ebola-spread-... I guess we missed the boat on that one. They were sent out and continued to expose people to the virus.

Also the odds of it leaving Africa and coming to the us were virtually non-existant: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/25/324941229/could-t... I guess that's another oops.

People are underestimating this virus and whenever you underestimate something you generally later regret it. Hopefully I'm wrong for example, but I see too many people sending their sick kids to school and so on. I just think that although we can stop it, it's not nearly as easy as it's made it to be. And we need to stop it sooner than later. I hope I'm wrong but I dont want to find out the hard way. Assuming were bettr than a virus is never wise...

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#212

Post by hga »

themgt wrote: post #175
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…

I will stop being concerned about Ebola as soon as I start seeing this log-scale graph start bending down hard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evolution_of_the_2014_Ebol... And note the WHO already did bend the curve down once before, back when there were only a couple hundred cases, and then they lost control again. Not confidence-inspiring.

It's not that they lost control per se: when the hard detective work of determining the cause was done, it was already rather late in the game. The foreigners showed up in force but the locals refused to cooperate, hiding it until it couldn't be hidden, at which point it was too late for those three counties, and very possibly a very large part of West Africa or worse.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#214

Post by GrinningFool »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #134
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…

>> "Obviously Fox takes the FUD crown, but I thought the NYT actually misrepresented it a bit.." I actually think they were closest to accurate. The other headlines all make it sound like this man caught ebola in the US. They are the only one to indicate he was abroad. I think they've undersold it a bit as he spent several days in the US before being isolated but everyone else has sensationalised to an extent imo (or…

Looking just at the headline, you only know that he was an airline passenger and not abroad. Too, you know immediately that he was in an airliner - a small metal tube, with hundreds of people breathing the same air!

It's actually a pretty masterful headline, in that it doesn't actually come out and say any of that. It seems calm and fairly accurate, but is worded very carefully to encourage fear.

Nothing accidental there.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#215

Post by smtddr »

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…

I can tell you that as someone with 90%+ relatives living in Lagos, Nigeria... they don't seem too concerned. But it is a real problem. Not the END OF THE HUMAN RACE ANDROMEDA STRAIN[1] like the western/UK media has been making it sound like, but a problem nonetheless. I also have a feeling if it even approached anything resembling a problem in a first world country, a cure/vaccine would magically be found and made promptly accessible to all......

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424600/combined

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#216

Post by [deleted] »

smacktoward wrote: post #122
frostmatthew wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hardly anyone is donating, for example. It might be beneficial to provide a link to where people could/should donate.

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders is the first organization that jumps to mind -- they've been helping to lead the response in Africa, more or less on a shoestring. Their US donation page is here: https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm Folks in other countries can find their local donation pages here: http://www.msf.org/donate EDIT - To give you a sense of how involved MSF has been in the…

[deleted]

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#217

Post by hga »

GrinningFool wrote: post #214
k-mcgrady wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Obviously Fox takes the FUD crown, but I thought the NYT actually misrepresented it a bit.." I actually think they were closest to accurate. The other headlines all make it sound like this man caught ebola in the US. They are the only one to indicate he was abroad. I think they've undersold it a bit as he spent several days in the US before being isolated but everyone else has sensationalised to an extent imo (or…

Looking just at the headline, you only know that he was an airline passenger and not abroad. Too, you know immediately that he was in an airliner - a small metal tube, with hundreds of people breathing the same air! It's actually a pretty masterful headline, in that it doesn't actually come out and say any of that. It seems calm and fairly accurate, but is worded very carefully to encourage fear. Nothing accidental t…

Until he was symptomatic, 4 days after arriving, he wasn't infectious. Or so we believe, with a fair amount of data; obviously we'll be drastically extending our knowledge over the next few years.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#219

Post by ekianjo »

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.

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

Based on what, really ? It may be exponential in some area but not in another with different climate conditions and genetic pool. We have NO IDEA at this stage.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#220

Post by brownbat »

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…

I think there's some exaggeration of ebola when you consider the lack of splashy headlines about heart disease, which by the numbers, is arguably far more important.

That said, if there are rare issues where sensationalism might be justified, this might be one. This is one of those areas where preventative aid funding is incredibly hard to muster, even though money spent in containing the outbreak now could have an oversized impact.

More at Radiolab on this: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/09/26/351515481/episode-...

Famines are similar, apparently aid workers all know they're coming, but just no one cares enough to donate until it's far too late to prevent.

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