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WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

nytimes.com

201–210 of 260 posts

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#201
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower fatality rate (and longer gestation times) are things that make a disease spread farther (not necessarily faster -but we take care of that, with international travel). The OG Ebola had almost 100% fatality rate, and a short gestation time (I think only a few days). It didn't spread too far. The one that killed a few thousand people, though, had about a 50% fatality rate, and I think its gestation period was a b…

> COVID, I believe, had about a 1% rate, in the OG variant, and that brought the world to a standstill. The claims that caused lockdowns were 3-10% death rate. The world was brought to a standstill primarily due to massive fearmongering. The earliest high rates came from three things: Conflation of "infection" and "case", rationing of tests to people doctors were already pretty sure had been exposed (suppressing the…

I try to keep an open mind, and this is something that you might legitimately convince me of. However:

1. A comment on this forum is not really the place to convince people of such a bold claim. It deserves at least an article/blog post, and maybe even a short book.

2. There is a large jump between the claims [the initial fatality estimate was high] and [the world was brought to a standstill due to fearmongering]. This gap is perhaps something you could address in a longer blog post

This is exactly the kind of topic that I’d love to see gwern or slatestarcodex tackle. There might be some truth to your story, but it’s a complex topic and needs a _ton_ of discussion

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#202
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are you sure you aren't "metabolically unhealthy"? Are you sure that if you happen to die, we won't find any "underlying health condition" during your autopsy? Are you fine with you death being dismissed as "got what he deserved"?

I got COVID 3 times, was sick for about a week with a bad flu and then it went away. All my friends had similiar experiences. The only people I know that were struck the hardest were those that were obese and had other health issues.

Nobody deserves to die from the flu, but the flu doesn't give a damn about what you do or don't deserve, just about your body's ability to handle fighting off infections.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#203
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only actually serious one on that list is Covid That's the only one on the list that turned into a pandemic emergency. > they declared an international emergency, not a global one ...you're mincing words in a silly way. > there is no chance this spreads outside of sub-saharan Africa Not what the public-health experts are saying! We currently don't actually know where it's gone. Given multi-week incubation periods,…

Ebola will never create an epidemic anywhere with a working health care system. And it's not mincing words, a few countries on a single continent is not global in any form, the WHO never said global, that's just something the nyt made up.

What constitutes a working health system? I would say the definition varies wildly.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#204
post #8

First hantavirus now this. Look, there's valid reason to be concerned here but people who are fearing a repeat of the Covid-19 pandemic are seemingly missing why Covid was a pandemic. Covid spread so much for four main reasons: 1. It could spread airborne; 2. It spread relatively easily. Not quite measles-level of contagiousness but still, pretty good; 3. Unlike something like the flu, there really wasn't any kind of…

Covid turned into a pandemic because it wasn't taken seriously at the start. (Looking at you, China.) Public-health experts never seemed concerned about hantavirus. They are with this. It's appropriate to take their declarations seriously. > Ebola generally requires contact to spread "Human infection occurs through close contact with the blood or secretions of infected wildlife, such as bats or non-human primates, an…

China actually took COVID extremely seriously from the start. They were snatching people from the streets and killing them. The China crematoriums were running non-stop.

It was the US Administration and the Republicans that were the dipshits and turned a health situation into politics.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#205
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are you sure you aren't "metabolically unhealthy"? Are you sure that if you happen to die, we won't find any "underlying health condition" during your autopsy? Are you fine with you death being dismissed as "got what he deserved"?

What is this supposed to mean?

Is it not self evident that the vulnerable tend toward being that subset of the population that, on average, suffer the most.

This usually means the very young, the elderly / frail aged, and those with co-morbidities especially obesity and immunocompromising conditions. There’s also a socioeconomic aspect, where as wealth increases health also tends to increase.

How do we slice it in these cases? Was it the virus that resulted in the worst of the negative health impacts?

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#206
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower fatality rate (and longer gestation times) are things that make a disease spread farther (not necessarily faster -but we take care of that, with international travel). The OG Ebola had almost 100% fatality rate, and a short gestation time (I think only a few days). It didn't spread too far. The one that killed a few thousand people, though, had about a 50% fatality rate, and I think its gestation period was a b…

> COVID, I believe, had about a 1% rate, in the OG variant, and that brought the world to a standstill. The claims that caused lockdowns were 3-10% death rate. The world was brought to a standstill primarily due to massive fearmongering. The earliest high rates came from three things: Conflation of "infection" and "case", rationing of tests to people doctors were already pretty sure had been exposed (suppressing the…

Lockdowns were not after very very early numbers ever based on lies or fearmongering. The fatality rate we observed in the developed world was based on bad cases being able to receive prompt treatment.

Had it expanded faster it risked not only infecting a larger portion of the population pre-vaccination but also seeing more people who would have been salvageable with treatment dying innecessarily.

Pretending we could have experienced the death rate we did in our experience whilst also adopting a different strategy is farcical reasoning.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#207
post #8

First hantavirus now this. Look, there's valid reason to be concerned here but people who are fearing a repeat of the Covid-19 pandemic are seemingly missing why Covid was a pandemic. Covid spread so much for four main reasons: 1. It could spread airborne; 2. It spread relatively easily. Not quite measles-level of contagiousness but still, pretty good; 3. Unlike something like the flu, there really wasn't any kind of…

Most people don't think COVID-19 was/is "fake" per se. Most people just think the situation was overblown. It is a sickness most analogous to the common cold or flu. Both of which suck, both of which you SHOULD self-isolate for, although the conditions, spread and death toll is effectively the same (or lesser) than that of the cold or flu. Which no matter how you spin it, the Global restrictions were too harsh.

The majority of people believe something fake about Covid [1]. While the number of people who think it was a hoax or otherwsise completely fake is pretty low, I've seen figures that it was as high as 13% in the early pandemic, which is millions of people.

We still have people who believe in ivermectin, don't believe in vaccines and somehow still think the vaccine is more dangerous despite there being at least 7 million Covid deaths recorded and, well, 7 million fewer vaccine deaths.

The health and hospital system was in total collapse. The lockdowns helped slow the spread. Were it not for that, many more would've died. Even so, we had not enough ventilators such that doctors and nurses essentially had to choose who lived and who died. The collective trauma on healthcare workers is something we'll be dealing with for years.

What really scares me is how otherwise educated people can fall for the misinformation and absolutely nothing will convince them otherwise. It's basically a mind virus with no cure.

[1]: https://www.kff.org/health-information-trust/covid-19-misinf...

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#208
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't think COVID-19 was/is "fake" per se. Most people just think the situation was overblown. It is a sickness most analogous to the common cold or flu. Both of which suck, both of which you SHOULD self-isolate for, although the conditions, spread and death toll is effectively the same (or lesser) than that of the cold or flu. Which no matter how you spin it, the Global restrictions were too harsh.

The majority of people believe something fake about Covid [1]. While the number of people who think it was a hoax or otherwsise completely fake is pretty low, I've seen figures that it was as high as 13% in the early pandemic, which is millions of people. We still have people who believe in ivermectin, don't believe in vaccines and somehow still think the vaccine is more dangerous despite there being at least 7 milli…

Whenever someone complains about the overreacting to COVID, I recall the morgues that ran out of room so they had refrigerated shipping containers to hold bodies.

If a virus gets bad enough that the hospitals can't handle the intake and the morgues can't handle the dead, it's serious. I don't see how this is controversial.

I know it was a bad deal for kids and I'm not sure the response was perfect.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#209
post #187
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only actually serious one on that list Based on what? The final body count? This isn't a weather forecast, people and ressources flew towards making sure these emergencies didn't spiral into global pandemics. You are falling face first into the preparedness paradox.

The flu kills 300-500k every year, and did not make the list, while absolute bullshit like Zika and Monkey pox did.

Flu kills mostly babies and elders, ebola kills at any age. Hence the logistical and cultural and societal impact are nothing alike.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid turned into a pandemic because it wasn't taken seriously at the start. (Looking at you, China.) Public-health experts never seemed concerned about hantavirus. They are with this. It's appropriate to take their declarations seriously. > Ebola generally requires contact to spread "Human infection occurs through close contact with the blood or secretions of infected wildlife, such as bats or non-human primates, an…

China actually took COVID extremely seriously from the start. They were snatching people from the streets and killing them. The China crematoriums were running non-stop. It was the US Administration and the Republicans that were the dipshits and turned a health situation into politics.

That was months after the virus was already spreading. China oscillated from pretending it didn't exist in the critical outbreak period (2019), to some of the most extreme lockdowns (early 2020).
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