Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Ebola Wars

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 129 posts

Re: The Ebola Wars

#111

Post by authatheist »

mblevin wrote: post #78
suprgeek wrote: post #43

The description of the conditions in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone and the over-whelming odds that the doctors there are facing was heartbreaking to read. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is as much a function of poverty as it is of the Ebola Virus. One of these all of us can fight.

As someone who has spent extensive time in West and Central Africa, poverty is as much a second order (or third or fourth) effect as the Ebola outbreak, and much harder to fight. System fragility (whether it's relative to disease, famine, or other natural disasters), is a function of poor leadership more than anything. What is scary is that there is plenty of evidence that government to government aid does more harm…

By "poor leadership" did you mean "warlord rulers taking the vast majority of the aid money thrown in their general direction"?

Re: The Ebola Wars

#112

Post by deelowe »

suprgeek wrote: post #43

The description of the conditions in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone and the over-whelming odds that the doctors there are facing was heartbreaking to read. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is as much a function of poverty as it is of the Ebola Virus. One of these all of us can fight.

How? Throwing money at the problem doesn't yield results (as is typically the case). The issues in Africa seem to be fundamental; they are issues of culture, resources, and structure.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#113

Post by mblevin »

authatheist wrote: post #111
mblevin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has spent extensive time in West and Central Africa, poverty is as much a second order (or third or fourth) effect as the Ebola outbreak, and much harder to fight. System fragility (whether it's relative to disease, famine, or other natural disasters), is a function of poor leadership more than anything. What is scary is that there is plenty of evidence that government to government aid does more harm…

By "poor leadership" did you mean "warlord rulers taking the vast majority of the aid money thrown in their general direction"?

"Warlord" implies a military bent. Many of the worst culprits are bureaucrats - spending most of their time wearing $10,000 suits while being wined and dined by Western leaders and skimming millions into the accounts of their inner circle. Power is not always held by physical force.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#114

Post by maxerickson »

hga wrote: post #106
maxerickson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, the danger of handling the bodies of those who die of Ebola will sink into the public consciousness there. The worst case scenario assumes no modification of burial practices. Note that the article dragonwriter linked says safe burials would have the outbreak ending soon after January: If, by late December 2014, approximately 70% of patients were placed either in ETUs or home or in a community setting…

Indeed, there can and eventually inevitably will be changes that decrease R-nought, presumably below 1 where it will then "burn out". Eventually the afflicted region(s) will be decided into those whose behaviors, for whatever reason, do not divided transmission, and those that do, with the latter containing a few survivors (of the myriad other things that kill weakened people as well as of Ebola). But I'm pretty sure…

You now say with emphasis, "we don't know", but I have to say, I think my post is less speculative than the one I replied to.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#115

Post by jerf »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #38
jerf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then my point is even more important given the proportion of it actually spent on infectious diseases. If that's so allfired important than why were they doing anything else with that money? The answer, of course, is that it wasn't considered so important until a couple of months ago, and thus, it wouldn't matter how much money was thrown at them, it wouldn't have solved the fundamental priority problem. Contra to so…

I am not trying to be difficult, but I don't understand your point. Ebola is a vanishingly unimportant concern as far as infectious diseases go. This current "outbreak" has resulted in 2 transmissions in the US to date. The reason it appears that the system failed is that the system correctly reacted to a low value threat, but it was amplified into a hysteria because of dynamics in media economics and US political cy…

The response to Ebola vs. the other things isn't that different. I see no reason to believe the CDC is caught flatfooted by "Ebola", which is indeed as you say a relatively minor issue that one could almost consider a practice warmup for the "real thing", but will suddenly be a well-oiled machine when the real crisis hits. That is not how human organizations work.

If the CDC is suddenly able to handle Spanish-Influenza-Bird-Flu-2015 with stunning competence, it will only be because we got lucky and got a wakeup call with our complete unpreparedness for and blithering incompetence with Ebola.

Unless, of course, enough people keep covering for the CDC because by golly, they're government so of course they're competent, ignore your lying eyes, in which case we will learn nothing and have the same CDC when the real crisis hits. And next time, it probably won't be Ebola. (Unless someone somewhere gets the bright idea of just how much havoc they could wreak with a simple trip through New York via Liberia... which will be vicious anti-government smearing right-wingnut fear mongering right up until the moment it happens....)

Re: The Ebola Wars

#116

Post by [deleted] »

monsterix wrote: post #97
smtddr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Don't be stupid, I'm not complaining about racism. But earlier you said: >>It'd be really interesting to find out the correlation between the users who down-voted and the color of their skin. I am pretty sure about the outcome. That's the only reason I downvoted you and replied. We all read(or should have read) the article here. It was a tough call; some people claim it was the wrong call. I say they made the righ…

People who down-voted != People who took the decision of taking away the medicine from Dr. Khan. Are you even reading anything? Yes, some of the users on HN are definitely racist. Don't mix it with the subject of knowing names of doctors as per OP's article. Until we see the trail of those debates and discussions between doctors there seems to be no need for me to assume anything.

[deleted]

Re: The Ebola Wars

#117

Post by oldmanjay »

monsterix wrote: post #98
throwaway5752 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is rather more absurd to withhold the medicine from a dying patient simply to manage "public perception" sir." That would be awful it it were true. Why do you think that is the case? Neither the submitted article, my Lancet link, nor my CBC link contain those words. However, the CBC article notes: "The drug had never been tested on humans. What if it caused an allergic reaction that killed Dr. Khan?" "His blood s…

> That would be awful it it were true. I totally agree with you. My intent to know the context of discussions, people and debate that went on for three days while Dr. Khan's health degraded was simply this: Could groupthink have been responsible for the outcome and been avoided? If so, can it be done in the future? If you look at my original comments closely, I only complained about racially driven down-votes from so…

you have pretty clearly formed (and expressed) your opinion already.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#118

Post by monsterix »

oldmanjay wrote: post #117
monsterix wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would be awful it it were true. I totally agree with you. My intent to know the context of discussions, people and debate that went on for three days while Dr. Khan's health degraded was simply this: Could groupthink have been responsible for the outcome and been avoided? If so, can it be done in the future? If you look at my original comments closely, I only complained about racially driven down-votes from so…

you have pretty clearly formed (and expressed) your opinion already.

So have you.

Besides if you're hiding the reasons and the team that led to the death of someone of another color it could of course be for noble reasons. Nice sell. And just look at the number of down-votes, lame comments and attempt to cull the discussion. HN at its very best. And it's fucking racist to the core.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#120

Post by johnnybravado »

You idiots wouldn't recognize propaganda if it were wearing a name tag... "I'd like to poke them in their prying eyes with things they'd never see if it smacked them in their temples." -Arctic Monkeys
Post reply on HN