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Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

arstechnica.com

111–120 of 133 posts

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

#111
post #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?

The US has about a 50% higher gdp, while having 30% less population. Not only this, but the EU can barely fund it's military obligations, let alone others. You frame it as the US failing, but I think it's more the US winning since they didn't really lose anything. I would argue they gained, since now the EU and it's competitors are having to spend money to solve things like this, and the EU and Asia are far closer to Ebola outbreaks and spreading due to population movements than the US is.

Why should the US fund some people in Africa who can't control the outbreak of a very easily contained disease, instead of it's own people.

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

#112
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…

> if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives There are ~197 countries in the world, you should also criticize the other 196 for also not wanting to pay for the exact same thing.

Pillai again dodged questions on why an American doctor infected in the outbreak and another exposed were sent to Germany and the Czech Republic, respectively, and not to the US.

I criticise one country for denying re-entry of their own infected citizens.

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

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yip, outside the US BYD cars are absolutely everywhere, pretty awesome cars, and crazy cheap - like < $15k. Apparently < $10k within China itself.

The price is not the important part, it basically doesn't matter. On top of subsidies and government policy aiming to undermine manufacturing in EU and elsewhere, domestic consumption in PRC is laughably low and government policies act to transfer wealth from households to manufacturing. Locals won't buy the supply, PRC literally has to get these cars somewhere or trash them. Now if those cars are actually good, pric…

Do you have any references for your statements?

The majority of car sales in China are EVs (which is more than the UK, the EU and the US) so locals are buying the supply right now.

Reference: https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales

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

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

The US is an economic miracle for white collar workers.

For blue collar it's been nothing but off-shoring, downsizing, and shutting down for 50 years now. Those are the people who elected Trump.

That's why he goes so hard on tariffs (protect industry prices) and immigration (protect worker pay leverage). Both of which are very populist

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

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebola isn't like most people think. It isn't airborne, isn't respiratory and requires direct contact with blood/semen/feces/etc to spread. It's also only known to be contagious once symptoms are present. The risk of a global outbreak is very low. Africa has a large array of unique circumstances that make it much more 'viral' there, including various cultural funerary rituals that involve contact with corpses that can…

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.

Ebola thrives in African animal populations, so it has basically forever to do whatever you think it might do - though I'd add that in basically all scenarios viruses become more mild over time. It's not just good luck but because it maximizes transmissibility - killing your host usually means you die too. And that may well be why ebola remains so nasty to humans - we're not its primary reservoir, it's fruit bats which maintain persistent asymptomatic ebola infections, and are often the source of the first human infection in outbreaks.

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price is not the important part, it basically doesn't matter. On top of subsidies and government policy aiming to undermine manufacturing in EU and elsewhere, domestic consumption in PRC is laughably low and government policies act to transfer wealth from households to manufacturing. Locals won't buy the supply, PRC literally has to get these cars somewhere or trash them. Now if those cars are actually good, pric…

Do you have any references for your statements? The majority of car sales in China are EVs (which is more than the UK, the EU and the US) so locals are buying the supply right now. Reference: https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales

Sure.

China domestic consumption is laughably low: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household... (lower than Kosovo, Sri Lanka, lower than world average) https://bst-europe.eu/economy-security-trade/more-and-more-w...

Locals won't buy EV supply: https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/china-s-domesti... https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/

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

#117

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.

Ebola thrives in African animal populations, so it has basically forever to do whatever you think it might do - though I'd add that in basically all scenarios viruses become more mild over time. It's not just good luck but because it maximizes transmissibility - killing your host usually means you die too. And that may well be why ebola remains so nasty to humans - we're not its primary reservoir, it's fruit bats whi…

Yeah, I didn’t know that about Ebola. That being said animal populations are not going to do anything to counter the virus. It’s only going to face resistance when it makes it into humans and that’s what is going to end up pushing mutations and evolution.

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

#118
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "coughing up blood" symptom can cause you to come into contact with fluids involuntarily.

Avoid anybody who is coughing up blood. Noted. I tend to do this naturally. Even people who sound like they might cough up blood.

The problem is that the ill people need water and food to have some chance to survive. Think of the nurses!

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

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any references for your statements? The majority of car sales in China are EVs (which is more than the UK, the EU and the US) so locals are buying the supply right now. Reference: https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales

Sure. China domestic consumption is laughably low: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household... (lower than Kosovo, Sri Lanka, lower than world average) https://bst-europe.eu/economy-security-trade/more-and-more-w... Locals won't buy EV supply: https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/china-s-domesti... https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/

The articles you provided were relatively light on relevant facts, but did cite two important values - 60% of all vehicles purchased in China are now EVs, and domestic sales of such are about 1.4 million per month. The data they conspicuously left out is, well how many EVs are sold elsewhere per month? In the US, ostensibly the largest consumer market in the world, the figure is 0.082 million per month. [1]

Even if we scale US sales to adjust for population differences, the Chinese are picking up electric vehicles at a dramatically higher rate - and the single highest in the world. And this is almost certainly due to companies like BYD and others providing quality electric vehicles at prices below even cheap ICE vehicles.

[1] - https://www.anl.gov/esia/light-duty-electric-drive-vehicles-...

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. China domestic consumption is laughably low: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household... (lower than Kosovo, Sri Lanka, lower than world average) https://bst-europe.eu/economy-security-trade/more-and-more-w... Locals won't buy EV supply: https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/china-s-domesti... https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/

The articles you provided were relatively light on relevant facts, but did cite two important values - 60% of all vehicles purchased in China are now EVs, and domestic sales of such are about 1.4 million per month. The data they conspicuously left out is, well how many EVs are sold elsewhere per month? In the US, ostensibly the largest consumer market in the world, the figure is 0.082 million per month. [1] Even if w…

How is it relevant how many EVs are sold in the US? The country obviously prefers internal combustion engines.

I am saying that PRC is a command economy, EV production is strongly subsidized, no labor protection, falling domestic sales and crazy low domestic consumption in general, a lot of excess of EVs to the extent that they are trashed instead of resold, and so comparing EVs by price to European EVs is silly. Nothing you say contradicts me.

Yes Chinese buy lots of EV so what? And if you mistake this for choice or how great Chinese EVs are, I have news for you. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/bogof666/shanghai-car-licens... https://www.cpopartners.com/chinas-green-push-shanghai-2025-...

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