Proposal
Sep15
Onward we go.
I’ll be honest: Right now? Mostly concentrating on going to Myschievia next month. Fogive me if I’m scatterbrained, but god, I miss the burn.
But if we wanna talk about news, how about this clusterfuck? I’ve been following this situation all year. It’s boned to the bone. Nobody is paying attention. Ebola is mutating and becoming more virulent, more deadly. 2200 dead so far – a number that’s never been seen before.
How are YOU preparing for the new Ebolacolypse?
As far as the current African Ebola issue goes, I doubt we’ll see much movement on it from western countries. Really, it boils down to two things:
First, it’s a bunch of people we don’t know, dying of a disease that historically (and currently) hasn’t had the ability to gain a foothold in a first-world nation, and it’s all happening halfway around the world.
Second, is the issue of the cost of doing something. It’s not just money: It’s time, it’s lives, and it’s political capitol (both domestically and internationally).
As a result, I don’t see the west doing anything substantive given the current situation. It’s possible that a higher body count would change public perception enough to elicit more of a response, but I really doubt anything other than the realistic possibility of an outbreak in a truly first-world nation will be enough to change the status quo.
Re_”…a disease that historically (and currently) hasn’t had the ability to gain a foothold in a first-world nation, and it’s all happening halfway around the world.”
As far back as 1947, this classic SciFi work was a rebuttal to this isolationist notion:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides]
…as transportation gets faster-&-easier, while population rises still higher, & biological security becomes more lax, then the potential for a pandemic increases.
My point is that ebola currently requires DIRECT contact with infected body fluids in order to infect another person; It isn’t airborne (yet), and you generally can’t get it by ingesting it.
In other words, it’s the sort of disease that has a very hard time adapting to western notions of sanitation and personal space. Until that changes, ebola will have a hard time gaining a foothold in truly first-world countries.
And if we DO decide to be something about it, it will probably be to “bomb Africa back to the Stone Age,” because that is apparently our default solution to everything.
That’s not a very far trip, for many of the infected places.
Just hanging out in Marietta, where all the US Ebola patients land, thanks. How are you preparing?
Moving to Madagascar. Anyone who’s played Pandemic 2 knows how hard it is to kill off Madagascar.
There or Greenland, for similar logic. If you like the Pandemic games, check out Plague Inc.
I saw this awesome flowchart for whether or not you should be worried about getting Ebola. Basically, no. It’s passed on through direct contact with infected bodily fluids. Unless you typically touch other people’s blood or vomit…
This is true, however health officials fear that if the cases become numerous enough, the virus will mutate and become airborne…fucking yikes… not to mention the ebola samples stolen from an African lab a week or so ago, or the fact that islamoterrorists might infect themselves and sneeze all over as many salad bars as they can find…
Yeah, that last one.
Africa’s population has gone up FOURFOLD since Ebola was first identified. The affected region’s population is larger, with much larger areas of much higher density, and that’s breeding (and evolving) ground for disease. They’ve also got a lot more international airports now than they had back in the ’70s. Ebola may not be able to spread through an educated first-world nation with hygiene provision the way it can through a slum in Liberia, but given a three-week incubation period it could still make a real problem of itself. Imagine one infected person on the Heathrow – King’s Cross train when it’s standing room only …
Now imagine Boko Haram or al-Shabaab or IS / ISIL / ISIS / ISNTITTIMEWESHOTSOMEOFTHEM getting their hands on a few infected people. Biological suicide bombers! Infected material aerosolised all over … er … Leicester Square? Oxford Street? Picadilly Circus? Green Park? Bahnhof Zoo? Times Square? The Champs Elysee? So many targets, so much human traffic, so little sign of infection …
Having read virology at university (I couldn’t write fast enough to pass the exams, but I read it), I guess I do count as an epidemiology geek, and here’s something I’ll say that the article didn’t say or quote: the treatment of patients, suspected patients and so on, the precautions for medical staff, the quarantine zones et cetera all need to be enforced very hard. When a mob from the slums raided an isolation ward and stole a load of infected equipment, the lowest-fatality response would have been to shoot them all dead right there. I know it sounds awfully harsh and it’s an invitation to people to ask why not shoot infected white doctors too, but seriously, someone carrying off an ebola-drenched blanket or sheet into the slums is going to kill himself and several more people with it, and he and they will infect more people before they die and half of those (only half this time, 90% in other outbreaks) will die of it, and then people will wash the bodies and get infected …
Even before you start thinking some nutter may be looking for a biological weapon in amongst the fools looting stuff for themselves, a hail of bullets and a truckload of thermite grenades would have killed fewer people than letting them do that.
Watch the human waves fleeing it if it does go to 200,000 cases. Watch where they go. Libya? Sudan? South Sudan? Somalia? Kenya? Egypt? The Sinai? Beyond the Sinai? What’s beyond the Sinai and how would people there react to a million refugees showing up and some of them admitting that a few people in one of the other groups had fallen ill and died a week ago?
My greatest fear regarding this outbreak is that it will eventually hit India. Even if it never hits our shores, an outbreak with >50% mortality rate in India would completely fuck up the world markets.
Is “markets” really where the chief concern is?
We are first worlders, the drop in our living standard would hurt us a lot more than deaths of thousands of human beings far away
Deaths of 700,000,000 people in a functioning democracy that’s currently the only thing stopping China getting 25% larger in a south-westerly direction? Yeah, that’d be an issue.
As for whether India’s third- or first-world, it’s a race thing. They call it “caste” not “race” but read all the stories about “girl stoned to death for wanting to marry boy from a higher caste” and do the mental substitution of “black,” “white” and 1930s Alabama … and India’s the most racist country on Earth! So how would that affect an Ebola outbreak there? Well, it means people in Indian slums (image search “Indian slums” and you’ll get the idea fast) are awfully vulnerable to a plague and people in power in India will call it “their problem” like AIDS was “a homosexual disease” in some people’s minds for quite a while. I’d expect the resultant inter-racia*ahem* inter-caste violence to make Ferguson, Missouri, look like a minor tiff by comparison.
They don’t stay far away. There’s a video game that lets you experiment with an increasingly dangerous disease, and unless you’re in madagascar, you can be screwed pretty easily, no matter where you are.
I don’t have a horse in this race, because I’m just following the news and trying to avoid speculating. HOWEVER, I highly recommend this DWB AMA that was on Reddit. I don’t even LIKE Reddit, normally, but I’ll give this some credit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g79ip/i_work_for_doctors_without_borders_ask_me/
On of the problems with possible outbreak in USA and Europe is that the response would have to be political correct. Quaranteening immigrants and the regions where the outbrakes are taking place would be done with minimal force instead of soldiers with orders to shoot to kill. If ebola really triggered the refugee wave, the land route would have probably stopped at the security fence on Sinai, Israelis can be damn ruthless when situation gets hot. The sea route to EU would thus be the main option, along with with the mass of frenzied refugees forcing their way into Ceuta and Melila. The North African countries would be desperate to pass on these refugees, so the presurre would not be only on the Lampedusa but also on the Gibraltar area, making it much harder to contain.
As pointed out in Michael Crichton’s book, “Prey”, every individual, whether human or bacteria, or anything else, is a mutation. Only humans place arbitrary benchmarks on this process & say that such-&-such level of change from the parent’s DNA is an actual mutation. Nature doesn’t cause changes, & then stop changing at a certain level. Nor does Nature stop changing just because we are satisfied with our results.
Change is constant.
Change *never* happens for our convenience, nor does it stop (or even slow down) just because we need it to.
If a mutation will improve the survival-rate, then you’ll know it by the increased population of that species. Otherwise you”ll see numbers drop, to make room for a more successful replacement. There is no other benchmark that matters.
@jamezb:
Such short-sighted “islamoterrorists” ignore the basic truth, that Biology will never bypass your family, & target only your enemy.
A free-roaming plague will attack any source of host material, no matter what the host’s religious beliefs may be.
Don’t look to Michael Crichton for anything resembling actual science.
It isnt some new more infectious strain. It is happening in a 3rd world country that lacks the infrastructure to prevent the spread. Also a culture that does not help prevent the spread. The relatives had to first stop kissing the dead infected bodies.
Its bad but not pandemic bad…. yet
It’s not a pandemic, but it certainly isn’t just as bad as it is because some ignorant 3rd world people are too stupid to survive ebola. There are quite a few trained medical professionals getting infected. We’ve got a more virulent strain less tolerant of the usual mistakes entering larger populations and infecting more people than ever before. Which means more opportunity for mutation. Add to that the fact it isn’t in the back woods of Africa anymore and is hitting interconnected cities, and that’s very concerning.
I work at a university, and let me tell you the notification that summed up basically said “There’s no way ebola could possibly ever, ever show up in America, but if any of your students or coworkers has visited any of the below list of nations or regions in the last three months, you must report them to the following number immediately.”
It isn’t time to flip out yet, but it definitely is time to act with sufficient concern.
REPORT THE SICK
“Report the sick!”
“Report the sick?!?”
“Don’t worry, Ellis. They mean the flu, not in the head.”
The relatives also are under the impression that if they hide the infected parties, rather than get help, the patients might not die (fear od doctors; hospitals – prefer “voodoo medicine)…then the entire family gets infected. One country – cant recall which – was planning on house to house searches to find victims. Poor uneducated folks! God help ’em.
I haven’t been to the burn in over 13 years, and don’t miss it. Have you tried Flipside? Juplaya?
Flipside is a little too big for our tastes, and also falls way too close to A-Kon every year. We mostly do Mys and Freezer Burn.
Oh Noes! It’s teh ebil Ebolas! Boogity boogity.
Pretty soon the worldwide mortality rate will be 1/10th of 1% of that of pneumonia. And then we’ll all really be scared!
1/10 of 1%? You mean raw numbers.
Lets put it this way. The Case fatality rate (CFR) is the number of recorded deaths for the number of recorded infections.
Influenza is typically 0.1% to 2.5%
Pneumonia is 5%-7%
Past ebola outbreaks have a CFR of about 80%.
The current outbreak has a PFC (proportion of fatal cases) of 53%. There won’t be a CFR until it is over because CFRs come once all is said and done.
Keep in mind the basic reproduction ratio of influenza is between 2-3. The current outbreak of ebola is somewhere between 1 and 2 right now. Imagine exposure to a large population providing a vector that first world countries are as susceptible to via mutation or other means. Or imagine it mutates so that it can be spread by airborne droplets, and then think of pertussis (aka whooping cough). It has a reproductive ratio of 12-17.
Other strains of ebola have had aerosolized secretions as a transmission vector amongst monkeys. Imagine if that happened with humans. During flu season. With a mortality rate between 53-80%.
That terrifying scenario requires only two things:
1) a strain mutating that has added a whopping one primate to the list of primates it can infect via aerosolized transmission.
2) that strain to get on a plane.
3) this happens during flu or allergy season or it develops a coughing symptom as well.
As far as two goes, this outbreak already is in place to be taking a non stop flight to paris, and it has a more bodies to work on 1 and/or 3 than any previous outbreak. It’s genuinely a scary situation.
Nope; sorry: you’ve given us nothing but scaremongering sensationalism.
In REAL numbers, influenza and pneumonia kill tens of thousands every year. In real numbers, Ebola is a non-issue, and because it’s such a rare, young, and primitive virus, isn’t about to kill us all with its magic mutational prowess.
If you’re an African living in Africa, be afraid of malaria, not Ebola, which has killed SLIGHTLY more people than hippos this year.
A vector?
1. a carrier, especially the animal (usually an arthropod) that transfers an infective agent from one host to another.
1. An organism, such as a mosquito or tick, that carries disease-causing microorganisms from one host to another.
2 a carrier, especially one that transmits disease. A biologic vector is usually an arthropod in which the infecting organism completes part of its life cycle. A mechanical vector transmits the infecting organism from one host to another but is not essential to the life cycle of the parasite. Kinds of vectors include dogs, which carry rabies; mosquitoes, which transmit malaria; and ticks, which carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
1. a carrier, especially the animal (usually an arthropod) that transfers an infective agent from one host to another. Examples are the mosquito that carries the malaria parasite Plasmodium between humans, and the tsetse fly that carries trypanosomes from other animals to humans. Dogs, bats, and other animals are vectors that transmit the rabies virus to humans.
Your scenario doesn’t involve it going tick-borne or mosquito-borne, so the word “vector” shouldn’t appear in it.
If you want vector-borne diseases for comparison of numbers …
According to the WHO (no, not The Who, the WHO): There were an estimated 627 000 malaria deaths worldwide in 2012 (uncertainty interval, 473 000–789 000).
… and for sleeping sickness, which is a long way from worldwide, in 1998, almost 40 000 cases were reported, but estimates were that 300 000 cases were undiagnosed and therefore untreated, but in 2009, the number of cases reported dropped below 10 000 (9878) for first time in 50 years and in 2012 there were 7216 cases recorded.
Ahhhh… I didn’t have to worry about Mick or Alex today.. in fact they were having fun, and Mick’s shooting looks pretty impressive! Thanks man, needed a day without stressing for the kids. 🙂
Why do I suddenly feel the need to buy a milsurp bolt action and a spam can of ammo to supplement my .22? or a shotgun.
On another note, does anyone know if 6.5×55 is sold in spam cans?
Because it is fun?
alas, no, the 6.5×55 doesn’t seem to come in cans.
its a bit unnerving seeing them holding a conversation in a range… with guns going off…..with hearing protection on….. thats usually a tad difficult IRL.
Electronic cans and judging by the holes he’s using a .22LR, which isn’t all that loud. At least one of the cases looks like a 9mm, but it’s kind of hard to draw a spent .22LR case in the air without making it too large or making it easily mistaken for a beetle or drawing pin on the wall.
Actually, looking at that shooting, no way is he firing rapidly enough to have three cases in the air above his pistol at the same time and making those holes in that card, so either the card’s on the noticeboard for her to admire while he gets some 9mm practice in or those really are old supermarket price labels on the wall in the background.
So Alex prefers the in-ear plugs, not he Mickey Mouse headphones. I’ll bet they’re custom molded, and are electronic, which is why carrying on the conversation with Mick is so easy for her.
Nice touch. 🙂
Some people raided a hospital in Africa to free the patients. They were convinced that Ebola is fake, and the doctors are stealing the blood of the patients. Doubt that will happen in say, Philadelphia.
Hrm, I’m doing the math and LaFayette GA isn’t *that* far for you; under 12 hours on I20. Totally doable! Then you can come to Alchemy, the GA regional burn, and do back to back burn weekends since it’s also in October 😀
Worth remembering Reston virus, a mutation of Ebola, which is airborne but fortunately non-pathogenic in humans. Its discovery was discovered in the book _Crisis in the Hot Zone_.
First, a basic rule of epidemiology: the faster it kills, the less it spreads. Ebola’s lethality inhibits its spread.
Second, haemorrhagic viruses do not survive in temperate climes, as has been pointed out.
Third, effective action is going to come from volunteers motivated by love, which is to say, medical missionairies, Doctors Without Borders, and the like. Effective action will not come from any government. There are very few things governments attempt which they fail to royally screw up. And most of those few things are objectively bad.
do we really have more cases of ebola or just more media coverage?