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Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

arstechnica.com

101–110 of 133 posts

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#101
post #15
post #7

You are only infectious during illness and it requires contact with fluids. It's exasperated by local funeral rituals where people interact with the dead body and get infected.

"relatives slept in the same room as the body, stayed beside it continuously, or had direct physical contact during overnight mourning." I’ll do my best to avoid the overnight cuddle vigil with an Ebola corpse.

This is a great example of how some cultures are better than others.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what populism is, or do you think you know what populism is because you're inferring it from random social media posts?

Since you asked, I do. There's a matter of debate as to what populism is. And on both ends of that debate are Trump and Sanders. Sanders is the archetype of an ideological populist, related to socialism, and he believes in governing for the popular good, it is why he is an independent. He's a throwback to early 20th century social programs. It is relatively noble and good. He wants fair redistribution of wealth. He w…

Since when was Thomas Massie a populist?

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#103
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Viruses are viruses though. Becoming airborne and less deadly (like this current strain) would be a death knell for the world. The longer you let it hang around the longer it has time to adapt. This is why HIV medication is prescribed so overwhelmingly. One of the main goals is to stop all replication immediately or it rather quickly “figures out” how to get past the drug.

There has been a lot of HIV going around, I have yet to hear reports that it's gone airborne. But, yes, I would rather not have an outbreak of ebola.

HIV is a very weak virus. Ebola is significantly more robust.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mixing up different "you"s. If the American legislature got together and passed a law saying the American people just don't want to do so much foreign aid anymore, that would be a hard call. But that's not what happened. Elon Musk, a random rich guy who was not himself financing the charity, appointed himself dictator of all American spending programs. He promised his patron that he would make the government r…

> (and will be held accountable) Is this just a rhetorical flourish? I’m not up on the details, but it seems like Musk just screwed things up and walked away scot-free. What path do you see for him actually being held accountable for the damage he caused?

In 2029, there will be a new AG who I hope will make a firm commitment to prosecute Musk and other Trump officials for their crimes. I won't vote for anyone who doesn't promise to extract some level of accountability, although I could imagine being persuaded by an argument that letting Musk skate will allow us to ensure that someone else gets the sentence they deserve.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#105
post #19

Grok is very defensive of Elon's role in the current Ebola outbreak. However if you push on Elon impacting Ebola monitoring, it will eventually admit that Elon's DOGE cancelled "some" Ebola prevention efforts very briefly, but in reality many Ebola related contracts and programs were not fully restored. "Surveillance capacity in eastern DRC weakened, contributing to the current Bundibugyo Ebola strain circulating und…

I understand the need for charity, and we should be doing it to support these countries. But I don't see how to logically make the connection that when you pull that charity back, you are now responsible for any crisis. That is exactly the argument that people who are against foreign aid make. Like I will help you walk and feed your dog if you can't all the time, but if I stop doing that and your dog gets sick, that'…

Imagine if you fall seriously ill and a charity hospital comes to you and admits you in, giving you medical care and shelter, at no cost to you. You are in dire need of urgent care, so you accept. There are round the clock nurses and doctors and you're attached to a ventilator.

Then one day hospital management changes and the next morning, they fire everyone and turn off your ventilator, not even giving you time to find another hospital to move to. Many patients suffocate to death before noon.

Did the new manager do anything wrong?

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#106
post #19

Grok is very defensive of Elon's role in the current Ebola outbreak. However if you push on Elon impacting Ebola monitoring, it will eventually admit that Elon's DOGE cancelled "some" Ebola prevention efforts very briefly, but in reality many Ebola related contracts and programs were not fully restored. "Surveillance capacity in eastern DRC weakened, contributing to the current Bundibugyo Ebola strain circulating und…

I understand the need for charity, and we should be doing it to support these countries. But I don't see how to logically make the connection that when you pull that charity back, you are now responsible for any crisis. That is exactly the argument that people who are against foreign aid make. Like I will help you walk and feed your dog if you can't all the time, but if I stop doing that and your dog gets sick, that'…

Framing it as charity misses the point.

Power is always based on reciprocal obligations. Everywhere in the world, at every point in history. While modern societies try to formalize the obligations, there are plenty of informal expectations that are equally important.

Because infectious diseases do not respect international borders, someone must be in charge of international surveillance and response to outbreaks. When someone does what must be done for the common good, people tend to see them as a leader. If they stop doing their job as a leader, people interpret it as abandoning their responsibilities. And when someone fails to do what is expected from them, people will think poorly of them.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#107
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you constantly get villainized for being involved, that makes it a lot harder to justify to the populace that these things are worth doing. People actually do listen, but not always in the way one intended. At this point, is it any wonder that much of the populace is now convinced that non-involvement is the moral choice? (And I say this as someone who fears this state of affairs)

>When you constantly get villainized for being involved The vagueness of "being involved" is doing a lot of work in your comment. How often is the US vilified for these humanitarian programs and why should we pay attention to anyone who vilifies something that is obviously doing good in the world?

It is doing a lot of work. People who vilify the US rarely bother to make the distinction, to acknowledge the good (and the ones who do get crowded out). Human nature is not that forgiving.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#108
post #12

Like Trump 1.0’s handling of COVID, this outbreak is going to spread further and faster than it would have if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives. Those initiatives inevitably cost far less than the economic impact of outbreaks (the US is currently diverting international travelers), but the best deal maker in the history of the universe says they’re a “bad deal”, so the rest of the planet ge…

given how Trump is the direct cause of making flights so expensive that many countries are slowing down or stopping flights to or from them... there is a fair chance his incompetence is going to directly lead to a lack of spreading.

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#109
post #11

> the US has “abdicated its longstanding role as a leader in global health and humanitarian response.” It’s interesting to note that in the end, there was no one else coming: we were it. A large amount of disease containment and control was just fronted by the United States. As the US declines, it’s not that a new leader will come in. It’s not that the Chinese century will have their massive industrial engine put to…

> As the US declines, it’s not that a new leader will come in.

What's about EU? EU is bigger than the USA in total population and it has comparable if not larger total GDP. Why did not they step in where USA failed?

Re: Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

#110
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are reading the situation incorrectly. The US was previously the center of international collaboration for science and technology, and that took decades to establish. The organization has been burnt down in 12 months, but the expertise still exists. There are signs that the international community will finally start working on climate change now that the US has pulled out of the treaties. The Chinese are…

Trump is the populist candidate elected to put the US back on competitive economic footing. His economic policy has way more overlap with Bernie's than people tend to understand. Both believe immigration lowers wages, and both believe tariffs are imperative (you have to dig back to pre-2017 talk from Bernie, he changed his website/talking points after Trump won). Edit: People struggle so hard with politics because ev…

>Trump is the populist candidate elected to put the US back on competitive economic footing

The US is (and was when he was elected) something of an economic miracle, so if that was the reason, it was certainly misguided. The one economic issue that you could have pointed to was the US national debt, which Trump increased significantly in his first term and is now just exploding his second, so if that was the reason, it was certainly a bad idea.

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