Ebola
- Thread starter Bon Vivant
- Start date
Experts: Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away
http://www.theonion.com/articles/experts-ebola-vaccine-at-least-50-white-people-awa,36580/
http://www.theonion.com/articles/experts-ebola-vaccine-at-least-50-white-people-awa,36580/
When I was living in Bangkok some girls I met who worked as journalists always had invites to gigs with free booze and food and shit, and one of the events they asked me along to was a nightclub opening, and the headline act was a Slipknott style band (possibly tribute but I wouldn't have known) called Ebola. I thought this was a cool name at the time. It had dangerous African connotations (in that all I knew about Ebola was something about eating infected bushmeat followed by painful death). The band were noisy but shit.
I live in Spain so the Madrid case has me slightly shook, but I'm not currently exchanging bodily fluids so think I will be OK. Party on dudes.
I live in Spain so the Madrid case has me slightly shook, but I'm not currently exchanging bodily fluids so think I will be OK. Party on dudes.
I know it's a pipe dream, but it would be good to hear a more nuanced view from the media about how this disease is actually/often transmitted.
Originally all the American media outlets suggested that it transferred only with direct bodily fluids (e.g. contact to blood, feces,etc.). And they seemed to suggest that it was typically only transferred to direct caregivers (who would likely be dealing with very sick individuals).
But now these same media outlets are putting the fear in people as they discuss concerns with those who may have traveled in the same planes with people who were sick. And just today, dudes on the news were talking about how ebola blood is like 30x more contagious than HIV blood.
anyway, i'm hardly shook - but I don't think it would be all that hard for a legitimate and simple explanation of how this disease is transmitted. Lack of info seems to be getting people a bit nervous.
If peoples apartment complexes have to get fully decontaminated (as was the case with the nurse in Dallas), it seems to suggest that perhaps this disease is easier to transfer than was originally suggested.
---edit---
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html
helpful, but it would be nice to understand how transmissible this is...there's a big difference between transmitting blood by getting poked with a dirty needle and getting some saliva on you by getting sneezed on.
Originally all the American media outlets suggested that it transferred only with direct bodily fluids (e.g. contact to blood, feces,etc.). And they seemed to suggest that it was typically only transferred to direct caregivers (who would likely be dealing with very sick individuals).
But now these same media outlets are putting the fear in people as they discuss concerns with those who may have traveled in the same planes with people who were sick. And just today, dudes on the news were talking about how ebola blood is like 30x more contagious than HIV blood.
anyway, i'm hardly shook - but I don't think it would be all that hard for a legitimate and simple explanation of how this disease is transmitted. Lack of info seems to be getting people a bit nervous.
If peoples apartment complexes have to get fully decontaminated (as was the case with the nurse in Dallas), it seems to suggest that perhaps this disease is easier to transfer than was originally suggested.
---edit---
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html
helpful, but it would be nice to understand how transmissible this is...there's a big difference between transmitting blood by getting poked with a dirty needle and getting some saliva on you by getting sneezed on.
jlee said:
Originally all the American media outlets suggested that it transferred only with direct bodily fluids (e.g. contact to blood, feces,etc.). And they seemed to suggest that it was typically only transferred to direct caregivers (who would likely be dealing with very sick individuals).
This is accurate.
If you are travelling on a plane with someone who is sick and vomiting and diarrheal, you would be at risk (if you come into contact with vomit or diarrhea), but if that person is not symptomatic, the risk is very very low (basically zero). The whole thing is scary, but the media is being unbelievably irresponsible and spreading fear (shocking, I know).
not sure how ebola compares exactly to HIV (although it is easier to spread), but HIV is actually much more difficult to spread than most people think. Making that comparison on national TV is pretty irresponsible, imo, considering how unreasonably scared people are of HIV (and of people with HIV). Making that statement surely does not help anything.
Originally all the American media outlets suggested that it transferred only with direct bodily fluids (e.g. contact to blood, feces,etc.). And they seemed to suggest that it was typically only transferred to direct caregivers (who would likely be dealing with very sick individuals).
This is accurate.
If you are travelling on a plane with someone who is sick and vomiting and diarrheal, you would be at risk (if you come into contact with vomit or diarrhea), but if that person is not symptomatic, the risk is very very low (basically zero). The whole thing is scary, but the media is being unbelievably irresponsible and spreading fear (shocking, I know).
not sure how ebola compares exactly to HIV (although it is easier to spread), but HIV is actually much more difficult to spread than most people think. Making that comparison on national TV is pretty irresponsible, imo, considering how unreasonably scared people are of HIV (and of people with HIV). Making that statement surely does not help anything.
Bon Vivant said:Anyone got it, yet?
I laugh in the face of Ebola....I triple dog dare it to just try to get me.
This is America not some uncivilized third world backwards ass country.
Our lifestyle and government won't allow a pandemic of this shit to break out here.
Only a fool would worry about this wimpy ass disease.
The only ailment I fear is sarcasm
I laugh in the face of Ebola....I triple dog dare it to just try to get me.
This is America not some uncivilized third world backwards ass country.
Our lifestyle and government won't allow a pandemic of this shit to break out here.
Only a fool would worry about this wimpy ass disease.
The only ailment I fear is sarcasm
if anyone wants a crazy read on how the epidemic began, here is one:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/10/ebola-virus-epidemic-containment
I'm not in any way scared of this thing, but I do find it tragic that so many of the people getting the disease are the medical professionals taking care of the patients.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/10/ebola-virus-epidemic-containment
I'm not in any way scared of this thing, but I do find it tragic that so many of the people getting the disease are the medical professionals taking care of the patients.
Rockadelic said:Bon Vivant said:Anyone got it, yet?
I laugh in the face of Ebola....I triple dog dare it to just try to get me.
This is America not some uncivilized third world backwards ass country.
Our lifestyle and government won't allow a pandemic of this shit to break out here.
Only a fool would worry about this wimpy ass disease.
The only ailment I fear is sarcasm
I laugh in the face of Ebola....I triple dog dare it to just try to get me.
This is America not some uncivilized third world backwards ass country.
Our lifestyle and government won't allow a pandemic of this shit to break out here.
Only a fool would worry about this wimpy ass disease.
The only ailment I fear is sarcasm
ppadilha said:if anyone wants a crazy read on how the epidemic began, here is one:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/10/ebola-virus-epidemic-containment
I'm not in any way scared of this thing, but I do find it tragic that so many of the people getting the disease are the medical professionals taking care of the patients.
It's a slightly better read than many other accounts I've so far read on the topic but a few things irk me:
The fruit bat which almost exclusively eats mango (and not palm) has always had a natural habitat spanning the entire country of Guinea from the remote forest region to human settlements of all sizes all the way into the capital of Conakry. We had a huge, old mango tree in our garden in Conakry and those bats visited us to the dozens each night when the fruits became ripe. Deforestation being responsible for the bats coming out of the forests and into human settlements is some totally clueless bullshit
It also irritates the hell out of me how Guineans and African in general are being painted as bat eating savages. These bats are the size of a large bird and probably have more meat on them than a squirrel, probably as much as a small rabbit. They are cute, appetizing looking, furry mammals that exclusively eat fruit and live a perfectly clean life, why should anybody not want to eat them? We consider quail and pheasant a delicacy (and rightfully so!) but guess what -this is all bush meat by definition. Same as venison, wild boar etc. but we feel alienated by the image of an African eating a bat.
What to me would seem a more likely scenario for the first bat-human ebola infection would be the bats feeding on the mangos and many ripe mangos falling to the ground, which always happens, the riper they are, the more losely attached to the stem and the easier they fall when the bat starts taking bites out of it. Ebola is transmittable via saliva and a toddler would be much more likely to find a mango and eat it than to ever touch a bat or being fed its meat.
But it's important to set ourselves apart from ebola infected Africans so we prefer the image of a bat eating savage to the image of a toddler sitting under a mango tree and eating its juicy fruit.
Many of the articles I read I find disturbing, most times for different reasons. Most irritating I find the popular trend amongst certain educated Africans using social networks for a platform who view this pandemic as a hoax and spread propaganda that accuses the WHO, the Red Cross and the US army for co-conspiring and poison Africans with a so called vacine that in reality contains the virus. These people claim that a (non-existent) diamond miner strike in Sierra Leone and the discovery of new oil fields in Nigeria are the reasons for the US bringing in soldiers to fight Ebola who in reality want to steal the Nigerian oil and fight down the striking diamond miners of Sierra Leone. The WHO and the Red Cross are being blaimed to poison African in order to de-populate the continent so it can more easily be exploited for its resources. A few weeks back 8 relief workers trying to spread awareness about ebola were found hacked to death and dumped in a sewage pit.
A lot of batshit crazy talk from many different sides.
Best thing I found was a very hard to read account by a german nurse who had already worked at ebola outbreaks in the Congo back in the late 90s. She was mortified by the lack of adequate international help and drew an extremely bleak picture as far as to where this might be going.
I don't think we are at a great risk for a wider spread anywhere outside of West Africa just yet but we should not feel safe. Experts say that the ebola virus is very likely to mutate while establishing itself inside its new, human host. This means that it could split into multiple varieties that keep mutating, such like the flu and also just like the flu, at some point become airborne.
This is pretty essential stuff:
http://ideas.ted.com/2014/10/15/ebola-a-new-way-to-learn-whats-going-on-from-experts-journalists-and-locals/
http://www.eboladeeply.org/
One other thing: I would be extremely surprised if there would not be any efforts by terrorist cells to weaponize ebola in the form of crude, human "dirty bombs". Imagine a martyr just walk into one of those many understaffed or deserted ebola camps in Liberia, chew on a piece of blood soaked bedding, take a bus ride across a few borders, board a plane and within a few days enter a densly crowded place in a metropolitan city near you and using an explosive backpack evaporating himself into a fine mist of blood.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/10/ebola-virus-epidemic-containment
I'm not in any way scared of this thing, but I do find it tragic that so many of the people getting the disease are the medical professionals taking care of the patients.
It's a slightly better read than many other accounts I've so far read on the topic but a few things irk me:
The fruit bat which almost exclusively eats mango (and not palm) has always had a natural habitat spanning the entire country of Guinea from the remote forest region to human settlements of all sizes all the way into the capital of Conakry. We had a huge, old mango tree in our garden in Conakry and those bats visited us to the dozens each night when the fruits became ripe. Deforestation being responsible for the bats coming out of the forests and into human settlements is some totally clueless bullshit
It also irritates the hell out of me how Guineans and African in general are being painted as bat eating savages. These bats are the size of a large bird and probably have more meat on them than a squirrel, probably as much as a small rabbit. They are cute, appetizing looking, furry mammals that exclusively eat fruit and live a perfectly clean life, why should anybody not want to eat them? We consider quail and pheasant a delicacy (and rightfully so!) but guess what -this is all bush meat by definition. Same as venison, wild boar etc. but we feel alienated by the image of an African eating a bat.
What to me would seem a more likely scenario for the first bat-human ebola infection would be the bats feeding on the mangos and many ripe mangos falling to the ground, which always happens, the riper they are, the more losely attached to the stem and the easier they fall when the bat starts taking bites out of it. Ebola is transmittable via saliva and a toddler would be much more likely to find a mango and eat it than to ever touch a bat or being fed its meat.
But it's important to set ourselves apart from ebola infected Africans so we prefer the image of a bat eating savage to the image of a toddler sitting under a mango tree and eating its juicy fruit.
Many of the articles I read I find disturbing, most times for different reasons. Most irritating I find the popular trend amongst certain educated Africans using social networks for a platform who view this pandemic as a hoax and spread propaganda that accuses the WHO, the Red Cross and the US army for co-conspiring and poison Africans with a so called vacine that in reality contains the virus. These people claim that a (non-existent) diamond miner strike in Sierra Leone and the discovery of new oil fields in Nigeria are the reasons for the US bringing in soldiers to fight Ebola who in reality want to steal the Nigerian oil and fight down the striking diamond miners of Sierra Leone. The WHO and the Red Cross are being blaimed to poison African in order to de-populate the continent so it can more easily be exploited for its resources. A few weeks back 8 relief workers trying to spread awareness about ebola were found hacked to death and dumped in a sewage pit.
A lot of batshit crazy talk from many different sides.
Best thing I found was a very hard to read account by a german nurse who had already worked at ebola outbreaks in the Congo back in the late 90s. She was mortified by the lack of adequate international help and drew an extremely bleak picture as far as to where this might be going.
I don't think we are at a great risk for a wider spread anywhere outside of West Africa just yet but we should not feel safe. Experts say that the ebola virus is very likely to mutate while establishing itself inside its new, human host. This means that it could split into multiple varieties that keep mutating, such like the flu and also just like the flu, at some point become airborne.
This is pretty essential stuff:
http://ideas.ted.com/2014/10/15/ebola-a-new-way-to-learn-whats-going-on-from-experts-journalists-and-locals/
http://www.eboladeeply.org/
One other thing: I would be extremely surprised if there would not be any efforts by terrorist cells to weaponize ebola in the form of crude, human "dirty bombs". Imagine a martyr just walk into one of those many understaffed or deserted ebola camps in Liberia, chew on a piece of blood soaked bedding, take a bus ride across a few borders, board a plane and within a few days enter a densly crowded place in a metropolitan city near you and using an explosive backpack evaporating himself into a fine mist of blood.
I would argue the most interesting element in this Ebola in the USA thing are the large number of folks who are convinced it has mutated or will mutate and become airborne don't "believe in" evolution.
I had one person tell me "evolution and mutation" are not the same thing.
I hope Ebola takes these people out.
I had one person tell me "evolution and mutation" are not the same thing.
I hope Ebola takes these people out.
