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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

#91

Post by leptons »

jimberlage wrote: post #86
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about that with the hantavirus, whereby if it's got a higher fatality rate then it's less likely to be easily transmitted. Is that like a general rule, or pure bunk? (I'd probably assume the answer 'depends').

Plague, Inc (an iOS game where you control the parameters of a pandemic and try to get a 100% infection rate) will give you a really good feel for the math behind this. The most successful strategy is to make a virus that spreads fast, with few visible symptoms until the late stages of the disease. A deadly virus, early will just cause borders to be locked and the international research community to swarm on a cure.

If AIDS were airborne, I think we'de have a fraction of the billions currently living today. It takes a while for symptoms to show up, there is still no real cure, and drugs to keep it supressed took many years to develop.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#92

Post by beej71 »

mystraline wrote: post #83
lejalv wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Let me make this clear: To hell with your historical collective guilt machine. I honestly dont care what people did before I was born. I had absolutely no decision in anything of theirs. Had no choice in any of that. Nor did I enslave or torture or murder people. My parents didnt either. Their parents didnt either. And somehow, Im responsible for shit that happened hundreds of years ago? Whatever. I dont mind helping…

Not feeling guilty and not caring are two radically different things in this context.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#93

Post by majormajor »

avazhi wrote: post #66

[flagged]

> calling it a global health emergency is laughable

Your complaint is with the NYT's re-phrasing, not the WHO.

WHO declaration is: "determined a public health emergency of international concern" https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2026-epidemic-of-ebola-d...

Obviously it's a local public health emergency, and some international concern seems warranted anytime an ebola strain pops up...

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#94

Post by nailuj »

ViktorRay wrote: post #76

Many of the people worrying about this should stop worrying. The average commentator on this website, if he or she dies this year, will be more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident or due to the complications of cardiovascular disease, or due to cancer. If you’re going to spend time worrying, worry about all those things instead. When it comes to infectious diseases, the flu is more likely to kill the people her…

This misses the point. The individual health risk might be low, the societal response to the risk might severely impact your life regardless of your personal risk exposure.

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#95

Post by roryirvine »

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.

Was it actually flu, or just a bad cold?

I've had flu twice, and both times I simply wouldn't have been able to leave the house no matter how much I wanted to - even just turning over in bed was a major effort!

Would people not have spotted their shivering and sweating and sent them straight home again?

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#96

Post by bekon »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #89
bekon wrote: post #87

[flagged]

Welcome to HackerNews, new hacker! Rather than posting things like this, please take a moment to review the posting guidelines [0] , so that you can be a positive member of the community. 0 – https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[dead]

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#97

Post by prism56 »

ViktorRay wrote: post #76

Many of the people worrying about this should stop worrying. The average commentator on this website, if he or she dies this year, will be more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident or due to the complications of cardiovascular disease, or due to cancer. If you’re going to spend time worrying, worry about all those things instead. When it comes to infectious diseases, the flu is more likely to kill the people her…

But I do worry a bit about dying in a car accident, it's why I wear my seatbelt, drive safe, try to drive defensively.

Adding both those risks together still is a higher risk than before...

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#98

Post by dkga »

lanyard-textile wrote: post #6

Notably (from NPR): >However WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed in a statement it "does not meet the criteria of pandemic emergency" and advised countries against closing their borders.

I suspect this is to mitigate perverse incentives for countries to avoid reporting outbreaks and collaborating with the WHO for fear of tanking their economy

Re: WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

#100

Post by toast0 »

rob_c wrote: post #39
mschuster91 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

USAID provided funding for a lot of stuff, but specifically with regards to infectious disease control, providing funding for infectious disease control in countries that don't have the resources or priorities to do it on their own addresses the risk that such diseases are not controlled and spread to the US and also the risk that such diseases spread and result in (negative) economic impact for the US.

The disease control interventions really are a mix of teaching and doing. In acute situations, experts are brought in to do (some of) the things. But mostly it's training and outreach and supplying equipment to do routine disease control and surveillance of issues that need help.

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