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The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

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Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#171

Post by learc83 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #72
learc83 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebola isn't rapidly changing. At least in comparison to a virus that does mutate rapidly like influenza.

That used to be true. But TFA points out it's not true now. Ebola used to be too lethal to be efficient: It killed its host so quickly it didn't have time to spread. But because this outbreak is in urban areas, it does have the ability to spread. Which means it has many more opportunities to evolve.

>Which means it has many more opportunities to evolve

More opportunities to evolve doesn't mean a rapidly mutating virus, relatively speaking. It may be mutating faster now because of more opportunities, but the virus still mutates orders of magnitude less rapidly than influenza.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#172

Post by tripzilch »

DanBC wrote: post #121
ghshephard wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Where do you make the cutoff with your drug experiments? " I don't know where you make the cutoff, but I'm comfortable saying that its somewhere below having a disease with a 50% mortality rate in under 14 days. I'm pretty much okay taking any risk at that point.

What if the risk was survival but with locked-in syndrome and constant very high pain? Or survival but severely brain damaged - no ability to feed yourself; or talk; or understand the conversations of other people.

Or how about if you're fine, but your children will be born with disabilities.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#173

Post by bewo001 »

jfoutz wrote: post #148
narrator wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American perspective is to solve every problem with the military or money. We believe that violence and more money are the only effective solutions to every single problem the world faces. Original thinking just doesn't happen. A creative solution would be to temporarily halt all regulations on anti-ebola drug development and let them experiment on any willing person in Liberia who wishes to receive treatment. Th…

I'm from the american southwest, there's a kind of snake here who's effects of venom are remarkably similar to the effects of ebola. All the crazy regulation has been holding up any US research, but in northern mexico, a Doctor Stanley has been doing monkey trials. His unique combination of mineral oil seems to boost immune response, while the venom inures the cells to ebola's most harmful attack vectors. I realize t…

You mean, a kind of oil made with snakes? A snake-oil?

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#175

Post by dredmorbius »

swombat wrote: post #99
kijin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forcing them to stay in their village violates their basic human rights Better-informed villages, towns, and cities have every right to refuse to admit, or interact with, individuals from superstitious villages. Self-defense is a powerful right, and I'd say it easily trumps a potentially infected person's right to visit a cousin. People are free to die for their beliefs, whether such beliefs are true or not. But th…

That sounds reminiscent to what happened during the Black Death. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like it worked particularly well, considering the Plague still took a sizeable percentage of the human population at the time.

Mechanism and agents of infection weren't understood at the time of the Black Death. We know what causes Ebola, and how it is transmitted. We know how to selectively allow what we need for survival (water, food, other commodities) to transit between infected and noninfected zones.

No, not every individual knows or understands this, particularly in primitive areas. But the global system as a whole does.

As for the Black Death, there are instances of specific villages or households (or castle-holds) who sealed themselves off and had sufficient stores to see themselves through the plague.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#176

Post by dredmorbius »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #23

Going 'meta' for a moment, this is a tragedy of huge proportions, the question I have been considering is whether or not it is even possible to avoid? Updates from MSF which highlight the level of mistrust and superstition amongst the infected population, where people hide their sick relatives from isolation wards and take them back to their village. We cannot exactly put a giant fence around the place (and not that…

Understanding systems effects (see Donella Meadows Thinking in Systems) is hugely important for understanding complex interactions.

The factors feeding into the Ebola crisis, and emerging from it, are sobering both in their interactions and how they tend to lead toward a fairly inevitable conclusion.

As for whether or not this is possible to avoid: human population and impacts on the world are unsustainable. Something is going to happen to bring numbers down. Voluntary population control, disease, starvation, war, social disruption, or other catastrophe, are pretty much the only real operators.

In that sense, yes, I'd argue that the general concept is pretty unavoidable.

I'm not saying Ebola (or this particular outbreak, or even necessarily disease) is "the one" and that the End Times have come. But it's a bit like an old-school video game. The challenges will keep coming harder and faster until we fail one.

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