Ebola: I Guess We Are All Going To Die

[Famine]

Yes but unlike HIV lots of people die pretty quickly and that makes it much more dangerous, Ebola is actually quite bad at what it's trying to do (exist) by killing it hosts.

Which makes it less dangerous - without a live host, the only chance of infection is by poor handling of the corpses.

In case you think this is familiar, you'd be right - and the only shocking thing here is that the peak of 21st Century West African medicine is foxed by the same thing as the peak of 14th Century Western European medicine.

Bring out yer dead *bonk*

HIV on the other hand is far more devious in its master plan to cause misery but that works to our advantage. Although much more widespread than Ebola, it takes years to kill and so there is time to contain and treat. We have also had the benefit of many more years of research into it over Ebola.

HIV is a beast, make no mistake. It's also not technically cureable, though we've got some excellent management strategies now that can function as a cure, while still leaving the patient infectious.

And they're infectious with no external signs too - whereas EBOV infectees are only contagious when symptomatic. HIV also has a higher death rate than EBOV.

Additionally you can't get HIV from touching someone's swetty hand for example, the amount of fluid's needed to be infected are much higher.

The amount of fluid you need to contact for HIV infection is the amount one virus can occupy. It's not that much. It doesn't persist in sebaceous excretions though, while EBOV can.


However, you miss the point of it being brought up. HIV is, like EBOV, a contact transmissible disease. It cannot, like EBOV, be transmitted aerially. We were warned about HIV, with TV adverts, as this new plague that was going to infect all of mankind needed drastic measures to prevent infection (like condoms and not sharing needles) and the same sort of doom-mongering is occurring with EBOV. You don't get EBOV unless you come into contact with a symptomatic EBOV patient's bodily fluids. It's not going to arrive on British/American/European shores and infect willy-nilly, unabated, just as HIV didn't.

EBOV is a biosafety class 4 pathogen because it has a high mortality rate, despite not meeting the transmission criteria for class 4 - it's considered a low risk because it's a contact-contracted virus, and you need to come into contact with symptomatic individuals. Or eat undercooked fruitbat.

 

[Dennisch]

Or eat undercooked fruitbat.

Sounds tasty.

 

[RACECAR]

As someone with no kind of palette for bat of any kind, guess that takes care of one issue.

 

[Touring Mars]

Fortunately the most common type of bat in England is the cricket bat.

 

[Imari]

Fortunately the most common type of bat in England is the cricket bat.

Is that like a grasshopper with big floppy wings?

 

[dxm8975]

Fortunately the most common type of bat in England is the cricket bat.

Fortunately yup in terms of being safe from getting infected with EBOV by eating an undercooked "fruitbat" directly, only thing is that you can't grub the cricket bat anyway though.

 

[Tired Tyres]

True story. My work mates wife has a friend who in turn has a friend who has just got back from South Africa where she was undergoing medical training with the intention of going to treat Ebola victims.

She returns to England after training, reunites with her man, goes to see her friend, they kiss each other on each cheek and then she picks up her friends baby and give it a hug.

Whilst in training in Africa she got within 60 miles of an Ebola outbreak. No problem there then, it's not air born, but that is how it will spread. Familial bonds.

 

[Wiegert]

News of a British man dying of a suspected case in Macedonia. With some reports suggesting that a second Briton there is also showing symptoms. Curious.

 

[magburner]

Nope.

Well, sort of. The 5 week 1-to-everyone scenario is a best-case scenario using a single infectee at Day Zero and your claim that EBOV is spreading at an exponential rate with no more than the minimum definition of exponential you gave. You can work it out for yourself if you want:

Day 0 - 1 new infection, 1 total infection
Day 1 - 1 new infection, 2 total infections
Day 2 - 2 new infections, 4 total infections
Day 3 - 4 new infections, 8 total infections
Day 4 - 8 new infections, 16 total infections
Day 5 - 16 new infections, 32 total infections
Day 6 - 32 new infections, 64 total infections
Day 7 - 64 new infections, 128 total infections

Not bad for a week.

Just totals from now, because it gets big quick:
Day 8 - 256; Day 9 - 512; Day 10 - 1024; Day 11 - 2048; Day 12 - 4096; Day 13 - 8192; Day 14 - 16,384

Well, still, that's only a small town's worth after two weeks.

Day 15 - 32,768; Day 16 - 65,536; Day 17 - 131,072; Day 18 - 262,144; Day 19 - 524,288; Day 20 - 1,048,576; Day 21 - 2,097,152

Uhh... that's everyone in England's five largest cities combined in three weeks.

Day 22 - 4,194,304; Day 23 - 8,388,608; Day 24 - 16,777,216; Day 25 - 33,554,432; Day 26 - 67,108,864; Day 27 - 134,217,728; Day 28 - 268,435,456

Most of the population of the USA in four weeks...

Day 29 - 536,870,912; Day 30 - 1,073,741,824; Day 31 - 2,147,483,648; Day 32 - 4,294,967,296; Day 33 - Everyone, Game Over, Insert Coin(s) to continue.

Hahaha, yes! I think that it is time to 'fess up', and jog this one on down the road. I made mistakes, and you capitalised upon them.

My original post was very poorly written, and it gave the incorrect assumption, that Ebola cases were growing exponentially on a day-to-day basis, which is not the case. The simple explanation I put forward was meant as an example, and not fact. I see the mistakes which I have made, you were correct, and I was not. A lesson has been learned, and my effort are redoubled. Humble pie does not taste so bad.

Right, the Ebola virus has been doubling, but on a month-by-month basis, as seen in the graphic presented on this Daily Telegraph page.

Using the scale that you have presented, the Ebola virus would appear to be roughly on the thirteenth day of the thirty-three days that you have accounted for. From what I have read online and observed on the television, it is projected that the number of cases for November, will fall somewhere between the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the scale.

I scouted around online to find some information on the doubling of Ebola cases, and I found a webpage by Geert Barentsen. On that webpage, it has been hypothesised that the doubling rate of Ebola cases has increased from around twenty-nine days, to twenty-four days. There are caveats detailed on that webpage, but the trend looks worrying.

I have two questions.

In the last video that I posted, regarding the US Army's efforts to help treat Ebola cases, I was drawn to a comment towards the end of the video. The spokesman claimed that they aimed to treat seventy-percent of ebola cases. If this is the case, then why are they only building seventeen-hundred beds? I would imagine that their efforts, would only delay the inevitable.

Finally, If the doubling time for Ebola cases reduces to one day, is it 'Game Over, Insert Coin(s) to continue', as you suggest? 👍

​

 

[Dotini]

A recent article on the ominous "numbers game" of Ebola.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ad9e76-4fb2-11e4-8c24-487e92bc997b_story.html

 

[Robin]

Some jerk on a Philadelphia to Dominican Republic flight as a joke sneezed and shouted I have Ebola!

Everyone naturally freaked out and when it landed a hazmat team removed him from the plane and everyone else was forced to be quarantined on board for two hours while they tested to man until he was given the all clear.

Gosh some people... unfunniest joke ever.

 

[RACECAR]

Who the hell finds this funny?

Guy should be arrested for inciting panic, damn idiot.

 

[Dotini]

CNN (Wolf Blitzer) is reporting, based on their own sources and experts being interviewed on air, that the actual number of Ebola cases is in reality 5 to 6 times the number currently being reported.

For perspective, they compare it to the AIDs epidemic of the 'eighties, saying that only the extremely rapid implementation of a first-rate public health care system in every country in the world can avert a repetition.

With respect to AIDS/HIV:
Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected. In 2010, an estimated 68% (22.9 million) of all HIV cases and 66% of all deaths (1.2 million) occurred in this region.[4] This means that about 5% of the adult population in this area is infected.[5]

For additional perspective, consider the (airborne) 1918 Spanish flu pandemic:
The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.[1] It infected 500 million[2] people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—three to five percent of the world's population[3]—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[2][4][5][6]

 

[mister dog]

Quite a week here in Spain, i followed it a bit on the news and it just looks like a big fail by the health dep. When treating the repatriated priests they gave normal nurses a 15 minute flash introduction to their suits (which should have been cat 4 instead of 2), and said "let's commence to treat the patient". One nurse catched it because she wiped of her forehead with her protective clothes. Immediately afterwards she went on a holiday...

They should have been way more prudent. Reports today say they are contacting people who dropped off their CV's recently at that hospital (who are fresh out of med school), and try to hire them for treating the Ebola ward...

I hope they get their act together, the spread is contained and this served as a wake up call for Spain.

 

[Harsk100]

Ebola is in Spain too... I saw the news which a dog was killed because he had ebola. The owners of the dog (Javier and Teresa) are in hospital. I'm afraid that Portugal has ebola because if it does, I will die... And I don't want to die.

 

[Famine]

Ebola is in Spain too... I saw the news which a dog was killed because he had ebola. The owners of the dog (Javier and Teresa) are in hospital. I'm afraid that Portugal has ebola because if it does, I will die... And I don't want to die.

Either pay closer attention to the news, or stop paying attention to over-dramatised news outlets.

Teresa is the nurse who contracted EBOV from the care of the Spanish national who caught EBOV in West Africa. Javier is her husband.

Killing the dog is a knee-jerk reaction - probably the Spanish government's embarrassed overreaction to the fact that their containment facilities for someone who actually had ebola consisted of some screens and some red and white tape, which lead to Teresa's exposure. She was exposed to EBOV and she's exposed her dog to it as a result. That doesn't mean the dog contracted EBOV - in fact I'm not entirely sure that dogs can contract EBOV, at least from humans. I'm not aware of there being a single canine case of ebola... ever.

 

[RACECAR]

Is it possible that, like the cold, Dogs can carry it without baring any of the symptoms seen with infected humans?

 

[Famine]

Is it possible that, like the cold, Dogs can carry it without baring any of the symtoms seen with infected humans?

I've no idea.

EBOV has natural mammalian reservoirs - fruit bats particularly - in which the virus resides asymptomatically, and it can pass through pig species in a similar fashion, but that doesn't mean it can even pass to dogs, much less infect them or make them carriers. Not all mammals were created (or evolved) equally.

No idea.

 

[magburner]

I see that energy prices have been frozen in the UK this winter.

I have been paying electricity and gas bills for as long as I can remember, and around this time of year, it has been an unwelcome tradition for the big six energy firms to up their tariffs, so as to milk the colder weather. In the UK, energy prices are such an emotive issue, and I was fully expecting a ten-percent increase across the board, but not this year.

Centrica's profits were down twenty-six percent last year because of the warmer weather, so they must have been chomping at the bit, with the prospect of Christmas coming, but it was announced in the papers today, that all energy prices are frozen. This is very peculiar.

I suspect that the pieces are slowly being moved into place, and this could be the prelude to martial law in the UK, if Ebola should ever take hold.

 

[Crispy]

It doesn't really make sense to put down the animal. Things like quarantines exist for a reason. Not to mention you can observe it in quarantine to see if there is any natural resistance and learn more about this virus.

I'm very curious now how this latest person contracted Ebola. There are things that the media and the government aren't saying. If this is so difficult to catch, then why did people like Kent Brantley and this latest healthcare worker catch the virus, even while under protective gear? We have much to learn from this outbreak.

 

[Famine]

If this is so difficult to catch, then why did people like Kent Brantley and this latest healthcare worker catch the virus, even while under protective gear?

One of four ways:
* They weren't wearing it
* They were wearing it, but not correctly
* It was insufficient for a class 4 pathogen
* Decontamination processes were insufficient

Here's a picture from the Telegraph of a worker at an ebola care unit at a hospital in Cote d'Ivoire:

​

This is not appropriate safety gear for dealing with a class 4 pathogen. That's why it's being caught by health workers.

 

[kikie]

So, a group 4 virus can still penetrate safety gear if it is not protective enough? Why don't they know that? They should.

 

[Robin]

This is not appropriate safety gear for dealing with a class 4 pathogen. That's why it's being caught by health workers.

And we just sent hundreds of those very suits to Africa with our aid workers and army. I guess we should be using things like these...

 

[m8h3r]

I think they just don't have the gear.

You can't just wash the protective clothing after you use it. It has to be burnt. 7,000 sick people is a lot of clothes to be burnt.

I guess it's a matter of "It's better than nothing".

 

[Famine]

So, a group 4 virus can still penetrate safety gear if it is not protective enough? Why don't they know that? They should.

Uhh, no. It's not a case of penetrating it as the gear being insufficient. That picture has the guy wearing a dust mask and a pair of high school science class safety goggles...

And we just sent hundreds of those very suits to Africa with our aid workers and army. I guess we should be using things like these...

That'd do it. If decontamination protocols are followed properly. If they just strip off in a tent, they're coming into contact with a contaminated surface - the outside of the suit...

 

[terminator363]

Uhh, no. It's not a case of penetrating it as the gear being insufficient. That picture has the guy wearing a dust mask and a pair of high school science class safety goggles...
That'd do it. If decontamination protocols are followed properly. If they just strip off in a tent, they're coming into contact with a contaminated surface - the outside of the suit...

Positive pressure suits like the ones in Outbreak:

 

[Famine]

So long as the people wearing them are trained to wear them...

Whoops.

 

[McLaren]

Ebola ready to penetrate that guy.

 

[terminator363]

So long as the people wearing them are trained to wear them...

​

Whoops.

But even if there is a cut wouldn't the air being pumped through the hose prevent anything from coming in? Or is the pressure not that strong (aka the suit would just deflate and collapse)?

 

[Famine]

But even if there is a cut wouldn't the air being pumped through the hose prevent anything from coming in? Or is the pressure not that strong (aka the suit would just deflate and collapse)?

It's all about the contaminated surfaces.

Of course, that's when people even get hazmat suits when dealing with - for example - the vomit from a confirmed EBOV case...