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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

#241

Post by crpatino »

orbifold wrote: post #170
crpatino wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Hm so that would mean assuming this rate of exponential growth that in ~150 days there would be ~ 1 million cases and roughly a year to reach 100 million. I wonder how well they can model travel patterns, then you could write down an ode for the disease on say a country level and couple them.

I am not saying that this will grow exponentially for ever. For what I know, disease expansion is modeled with a sigmoid curve: exponential at first, then slows down once a saturation level in the population is reached.

According to Wikipedia, the total population of the 3 most affected countries - Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - is roughly 20 millions. So there is at least that upper bound.

The real risk of pandemia comes from the fact that as the number of cases grows, the more likely it is that some of those cases travel through a porous border into other countries which lack the infrastructure and professional discipline to contain new outbreaks. If/when that is the case, each new region will start its own sigmoidal worth.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#242

Post by micro_cam »

hga wrote: post #233
micro_cam wrote: post #230

This is a great semi formal interview with a local infectious disease specialist I heard on montana public radio yesterday that gives a rather unique view: http://mtpr.org/post/missoula-doctor-ebola-front-lines As he explains, Montana has one of the few labs in the country (actually in the small town I live in) where you can work on live ebola cultures so we have medical people trained to deal with ebola etc and some…

Not many BSL4 labs in the whole world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level And only 15 in the US planned or capable of operating at that level. At least a couple will only do BSL4 work if surge capacity is needed.

And I bet Rocky Mountain Labs is the only such facility to include a log cabin on the grounds ;)

Actually the history of RML is pretty cool. It was founded in a tent in the early 1900s to study Rocky Mountain Spotted fever and early researchers included the founder of the frozen foods industry (Clarence Birdseye).

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/organization/dir/rml/pages/hi...

(The BSL 4 is in a modern building that, amongst other measures, maintains a negative air pressure os any leaks are leaks into the building.)

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#243

Post by Gustomaximus »

arrrg wrote: post #85
andrewchambers wrote: post #49

I personally would be concerned if I was sat next to that person on the flight back home. Even if the fear is unrealistic. Don't tell me you would happily sitting and eating next to someone with confirmed ebola for 8 hours plus, because they haven't started showing symptoms at that very moment. I would at the very least go to a doctor to be sure.

The Director of the CDC just said in the press conference that the person with Ebola didn’t have any symptoms until a couple days after they arrived. They departed on the 19th of September, arrived on the 20th, showed first symptoms on the 24th, sought care on the 26th, were admitted to the hospital and isolated on the 28th. As the Director emphasised again and again, Ebola is only transmittable when you are showing…

Any KNOWN people they did have contact with will be monitored for the next 21 days.

4 days loose is quite a reasonable amount of time to infect others. If they had been using public transport or being in densely populated events e.g. attending a concert/conference it could be quite a lot. I guess we wont know for a couple of weeks. Here's to a functioning health system, a bit of luck.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#244

Post by kenjackson »

giarc wrote: post #184
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.

Europe isn't an affected area. No one on my flight from London was checked. It certainly wouldn't be hard to get from Liberia to Europe with no fever, and then board a plane with fever and sweats.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#246

Post by candu »

thenmar wrote: post #205
polemic wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would a socialized healthcare system have fewer resources?

Because it uses said resources more efficiently ;)

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#247

Post by snowwrestler »

atom-morgan wrote: post #21
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?

To a certain extent, yes. We obviously have much better equipment but I say this only extends to handling a few "single" cases of Ebola in specific hospitals across the nation. However, now that Ebola is actually in the US, what precautionary measures do hospitals and healthcare workers take? If I show up to a hospital in Texas right now with symptoms such as a high fever, sore throat, and diarrhea, do you treat me a…

The typical precautions in a U.S. hospital will prevent most transmission of Ebola. Doctors and nurses already wear gloves, wash their hands frequently, and avoid contact with bodily fluids to the greatest extent possible.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#248

Post by robomartin »

ctdonath wrote: post #229
robomartin wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, no, it has to be taken very seriously before it spreads. This is the kind of thing that could completely upend the entire planet if not taken seriously. What would happen if the entire world had to self quarantine for three to four weeks and all transportation grounded for the same period of time. No, this is a huge deal. I have long believed that some kind of bacteria or virus is going to take out all or a huge…

Insult unnecessary. At this point, prayer & science have similar influence over curing someone of Ebola. Contradictory to say you'll "choose science thank you" yet don't have (per hyperbolic statement) any sensible tangible preparations to meet an Ebola epidemic with.

Calling nonsense "nonsense" is not an insult unless you believe in said nonsense. No religious person would find the statement "belief in Thor is nonsense" objectionable or offensive at all. In fact, most would agree without reservations.

You also missed my point about taking a scientific approach to something like ebola. Gas masks are utterly irrelevant and pointeless. We know how the virus is spread and we know that if caught reasonably early it is easy to kill. Even if your entire neighborhood consists of people with ebola you and your children are safe as long as you don't swap bodily fluids. I don't know about you, I can't remember the last time I swapped bodily fluids with my neighbors. So, yeah, others can pray --which is utter nonsense-- I'll stick with scientific knowlege --which is not.

Here's the difference with science: If tomorrow someone offered true evidence that ebola is now airborne and prayer kills it, I could not imagine a single scientist who, when presented with the evidence, would not accept these findings to have a high degree of probability of being true.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#249

Post by robomartin »

ctdonath wrote: post #229
robomartin wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, no, it has to be taken very seriously before it spreads. This is the kind of thing that could completely upend the entire planet if not taken seriously. What would happen if the entire world had to self quarantine for three to four weeks and all transportation grounded for the same period of time. No, this is a huge deal. I have long believed that some kind of bacteria or virus is going to take out all or a huge…

Insult unnecessary. At this point, prayer & science have similar influence over curing someone of Ebola. Contradictory to say you'll "choose science thank you" yet don't have (per hyperbolic statement) any sensible tangible preparations to meet an Ebola epidemic with.

> At this point, prayer & science have similar influence over curing someone of Ebola.

This is so ridiculous I had to separate it just to say:

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING! SURELY YOU MUST BE BECAUSE NO INTELLIGENT EDUCATED PERSON COULD POSSIBLY HOLD THIS RIDICULOUS BELIEF.

The fact that we have people on this planet in 2014 who can actually believe something like this is the root of many of our problems.

Re: CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

#250

Post by dpcan »

HillRat wrote: post #234
dpcan wrote: post #159

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 i…

Let me set your mind at ease: I was actually at the hospital in question all day today (disclaimer: non-medical personnel, just coincidence) and I was in more danger from the sushi at dinner than the Ebola in the ICU. Yes, there is a small chance of a multifocal outbreak, though CDC has moved quickly to identify and isolate potential contacts. There is an infinitesimal but still nonzero chance of an honest-to-god epi…

Unfortunately, this doesn't put me at ease.

Of course being in the same building doesn't matter, and you may be fine.

But if you were one of the doctors who saw him the first time he came in, and then proceeded to help other patients that day after assuming this guy just had the flu... well, that's another story.

Or maybe if you rode in the same ambulance he did over the next couple days.

The thing is, the number of people who may have just been exposed is huge, and how many of those will get caught before it spreads even further?

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