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Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly"

arstechnica.com

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

#81

Post by ShinyLeftPad »

mentalgear wrote: post #31
christkv wrote: 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.

I wonder if you have sources on this? I heard that this is a new variant that has a much longer incubation time. A longer time until symptoms appear means it will spread much quicker and wider (that was also the issue with Covid that had a incubation time of 5 - 8 days).

This variant may have longer incubation time but you are almost not infectious without symptoms. The more symptomatic you become, the more you spread. This is in contrast to COVID or some flus where you are most infectious in the incubation period.

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

#82

Post by slg »

throwaway3060 wrote: post #79
slg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do good things because they are good, not to be thanked. It's so bizarre to frame saving lives as something that requires reciprocation. I want my country to pay for these programs because they save lives and my country is rich enough to afford it. The way people talk about this stuff so amorally is incredibly off-putting.

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?

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

#83

Post by JumpCrisscross »

somenameforme wrote: post #66
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

This unfortunately won’t be news again until, and I think this is now an until versus if, we find evidence the disease is spreading uncontrollably outside the DRC.

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…

> Ebola isn't like most people think

Bunga bunga or whatever isn’t classic ebola. And it’s being given an expanding substrate on which to evolve.

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

#84

Post by CamperBob2 »

pjot wrote: post #41
hedora wrote: 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…

> The Chinese are a decade ahead of the west when it comes to building cars. Is this true? From years of watching Top Gear any Chinese car that was tested was laughably bad.

Maybe I'm dating myself, but I remember when the same was said of Japanese cars.

First we laughed at them, then we fought them, then they won, then we solved the problem with protectionist tariffs.

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

#85

Post by jopsen »

dyauspitr wrote: post #71
somenameforme wrote: post #66

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.

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.

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

#86

Post by idiotsecant »

axus wrote: post #26
ineedasername wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scan of headlines doesn't show any "scream of apocalypse", not across multiple news aggregators, incognito mode, etc. Out of dozens I noticed maybe one or two that might have seemed a bit much. Other than that, I think it bears considering that any specific level of fear may be a factor in the safeguard that have been put in place to mitigate outbreaks. Without some level of fear, not much would be done. I don't kn…

I don't usually do this but... You were right 6 years ago about a strong response needed for COVID: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22315024

Did you just dig through the entire post history of this user trying to find a COVID gotcha

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

#87

Post by throwaway5752 »

WarmWash wrote: post #76
throwaway5752 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're finding somethere where nothing exists on the basis of semantics. Donald Trump is not a populist and he stated economic policy is simply "stated". Society just has become so trusting that someone can go about bald-faced lying about their beliefs and actions, while doing the opposite, without consequence. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are on polar opposite ends of ideologies. Bernie Sanders has a lifetime rec…

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 wants to remove wealth's influence from the democratic process. He has a lifetime of track record and governance as proof.

Trump is the archetype of the "thin center" populist. He has no real driving philosophy of governance, and demagogues under the banner of populism. He panders to the religious right even though he can't name a book of the Bible. He panders to the nationalists and bigots. He panders to patriots. And he sets up his opposition, regardless of truth, as the opposite of those things.

Trump is a populist in the way the Goebbels set Hitler up as a populist (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/making-a-l..., https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/1934-nazi-pa..., and https://museums.nuernberg.de/documentation-center/topics/nat...). That is to say, he is not one at all, he just lies about it to exploit division.

edit: we're just talking past each other. Bernie Sanders is a left wing populist. Ron Paul is a right wing populist. Massie is a right wing populist. My point is that Trump is simply a fake populist. He says populist things and doesn't believe or act on them for the most part. He's simply a kleptocrat with autocratic tendencies.

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

#88

Post by doubled112 »

r721 wrote: post #47
christkv wrote: 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.

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.

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

#89

Post by unsupp0rted »

somenameforme wrote: post #66
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

This unfortunately won’t be news again until, and I think this is now an until versus if, we find evidence the disease is spreading uncontrollably outside the DRC.

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…

But surely once somebody explains that kissing (yes, literally) the deceased corpse of an ebola patient is a bad idea they'll stop doing that

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

#90

Post by WarmWash »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #87
WarmWash wrote: post #76

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…

No, there isn't really much debate, but definitely a lot of debate between left wing and right wing populism, which seems to be what you are stuck on.

It seems like I'm trying to tell you he is a populist, and you are trying to tell me his a bad person/bad leader. Which is true, but orthogonal to populism.

But if it helps, in my original comment I laid out many of Trump's populist policies. Ironically many of these are shared with Bernie, or if they had originated with Bernie, would have been celebrated.

Remember many Bernie bros went to trump in 2016, because Hilary's list of policies looks nothing like the one I laid out above.

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