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WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

nytimes.com

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Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#31

Post by mentalgear »

thinkcontext wrote: post #7

I read elsewhere that this strain is less deadly than previous strains. I'm no epidemiologist but being less deadly could allow it to spread further, which is obviously concerning. Also, the article says surveillance picked up the spread late. I wonder if the US's pulling back from the WHO and other international functions had anything to do with this, it used to make up a big chunk of its resources and staff.

It figures: Right before the COVID-19 outbreak, Trump dismantled the White House pandemic response team and pushed to downsize the CDC—later pulling out of the WHO entirely. A new Trump term, a new pandemic?

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#32

Post by mentalgear »

thrownthatway wrote: post #9

The headline from the WHO reads: Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern https://www.who.int/news/item/17-07-2019-ebola-outbreak-in-t...

Your linked article is dated at

> 17 July 2019

(people never seem to look for/check dates any more)

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#33

Post by rob_c »

jmyeet wrote: 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…

"no evidence of human to human transmission", was something repeated far too often and far too politically for me to take them serious on the next issue, serious or not.

> "It would spread when the carrier was asymptomatic" , the largely is very important here otherwise containment would have been a lot different.

The main concerns for covid were also limited to a novel strain of a known virus type (again a KNOWN TYPE) being released into a global general populous with no inherent immunity. Aka expect ~5% of cases to probably have complications and some smaller %-age of that to be serious. If we didn't know what covid was we wouldn't be calling it "covid-19" to expressly describe which genus we're talking about. (Followed by general stupidity from people of pretending we don't know how other covid strains progress (regardless of any 'novel' effects)). Sill no sensible scenario put death rates >1% for anyone not in an at risk group. I mean everyone forgets the south-park sars skit that there's a 97% chance of catching that practically without symptoms. Why this became polarised about steam rolling through untested technology onto the populous is identical to the "green coal" and "tech will solve the carbon footprint" thinking...

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#34

Post by rob_c »

ticulatedspline wrote: post #13
jmyeet wrote: 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…

forgot 5. Covid was exactly the right amount of deadly, 0.5-1% which made it easy to "roll the dice" on making containment harder.

[flagged]

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#36

Post by mschuster91 »

mentalgear wrote: post #31
thinkcontext wrote: post #7

I read elsewhere that this strain is less deadly than previous strains. I'm no epidemiologist but being less deadly could allow it to spread further, which is obviously concerning. Also, the article says surveillance picked up the spread late. I wonder if the US's pulling back from the WHO and other international functions had anything to do with this, it used to make up a big chunk of its resources and staff.

It figures: Right before the COVID-19 outbreak, Trump dismantled the White House pandemic response team and pushed to downsize the CDC—later pulling out of the WHO entirely. A new Trump term, a new pandemic?

In this case I'd guess the DOGE cuts to foreign aid are a massive, massive contributor to the problem. A lot of third-world countries heavily relied on USAID et al to keep basic sanitation and healthcare going.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#37

Post by mystraline »

pixl97 wrote: post #21
trvz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People with the flu tend to self-isolate showing symptoms. Do you have any other fantasy tales you’d like to tell?

Yea, I recently caught flu from someone else that "could not miss their work". So these things don't really apply well to the US at all.

Yep. This is called "food service".

Shit pay, no benefits, and managers who threaten to fire you if you dont show up. Sick? Puke in the bathroom.

Whys this the case? Cause we Americans have garbage for labor laws. You can be fired for pretty much any reason. And you are NOT protected if youre sick.

When I had to work food seevice, at starbucks, subway, random pizza chain, etc, I begrudgingly came in sick, infected LOADS of customers. My choice was to work, or get fired (or not fired but 0 hours for next 2 weeks on schedule as punishment).

Who knows how many I got sick and potentially killed due to compromised immune systems. Im sure I did.

This is the real, hidden external cost, of our unmitigated capitalism. People get sick and die for the reason of making the boss more money, and too fucking bad.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#38

Post by wizzwizz4 »

mentalgear wrote: post #32
thrownthatway wrote: post #9

The headline from the WHO reads: Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern https://www.who.int/news/item/17-07-2019-ebola-outbreak-in-t...

Your linked article is dated at > 17 July 2019 (people never seem to look for/check dates any more)

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), their recent article claims the same thing: https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2026-epidemic-of-ebola-d...

> Pursuant to paragraph 2 of Article 12 - Determination of a public health emergency of international concern, including a pandemic emergency of the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR), the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), after having consulted the States Parties where the event is known to be currently occurring, is hereby determining that the Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), but does not meet the criteria of pandemic emergency, as defined in the IHR.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#39

Post by rob_c »

mschuster91 wrote: post #36
mentalgear wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It figures: Right before the COVID-19 outbreak, Trump dismantled the White House pandemic response team and pushed to downsize the CDC—later pulling out of the WHO entirely. A new Trump term, a new pandemic?

In this case I'd guess the DOGE cuts to foreign aid are a massive, massive contributor to the problem. A lot of third-world countries heavily relied on USAID et al to keep basic sanitation and healthcare going.

[flagged]

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#40

Post by mschuster91 »

Insanity wrote: post #4
MontagFTB wrote: post #2

Multiple articles mention a vaccine for the Zaire strain but not this one. Is it possible to use one for the other? Does the existence of one make it easier to develop another?

Technically (nitpicking) it mentions no _approved_ vaccine. There can be vaccines without being approved for use in said countries. But I have no clue how far along vaccines are, and even if they exist how feasible it would be to use in e.g Congo. Similar to how we can treat tuberculosis, yet many people keep dying of it.

> There can be vaccines without being approved for use in said countries.

Unfortunately, the hotbed being Africa makes the situation much worse given historical events - the entire continent has a dark history regarding colonial and modern abuses of power for medical "experiments" [1], and the entire topic resurfaced during the early Covid era [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_experimentation_in_Afr...

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/4/8/medical-colonial...

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