The Apocalypse will begin at 8pm

[BikerDude]

Is it just me or is the world ripe with Apocalyptic imagery lately?

From the ebola outbreak.

[jgiffin]

Can we push it back to, like, 8:45ish? I have a mani-pedi penciled in for 8:00.

[BikerDude]

Can we push it back to, like, 8:45ish? I have a mani-pedi penciled in for 8:00.

Call the fucks at the league office.

[Nervine]

Now that the world has been put on notice about Ebola, it?s time to try facts instead of scare tactics.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the primary reporting agency on case numbers and deaths. Taking their stats with a few grains of salt, but recognizing that mainstream accounts come from WHO, here is their July 25 update, ?Ebola Virus Disease, West Africa?:

1201 total cases. 672 deaths. These numbers cover Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia?the Ebola focus areas.

Looking a little deeper, we see that WHO divides each number into categories: ?confirmed,? ?probable,? and ?suspected.?

Diagnostic methods for IDing Ebola in those 3 countries are uncertain. Therefore, we should only consider the category labeled ?confirmed,? and even then we should have doubts.
So let?s look at the total for confirmed Ebola case numbers in those countries.

It?s 814.
Confirmed number of deaths? 456.

Now consider another WHO report. This one is titled: ?Influenza (Seasonal) World Health Organization,? dated April 2009.
It?s the WHO fact sheet on regular seasonal flu, the kind that is said to infect people globally, year after year, like clockwork.

Ready?

Annual number of severe cases: 3-5 million.
Annual number of deaths: between 250,000 and 500,000.

Remember, that?s every year?not a one-time shot.
When it comes to seasonal regular flu, the World Health Organization issues no scare reports, no dire warnings, and the press mentions nothing. Zero.
However, with 814 confirmed cases and 456 deaths from Ebola, the whole world is put on notice.

[Ynot Dude]

According to the WHO, there are at least 1.272 million and possibly as high as 2.9 million deaths from malaria per year. Yet nobody freaks out on that. Ebola, if I'm not mistaken, is a fluid transfer disease?
Always abiding,

[The_Sleevez]

What got me was the story about the doctor who quarantined himself. Two of his colleagues got Ebola yet he traveled home through how many countries on how many flights and how many airports coming in contact with how many people. Then gets home and says hey just to be safe I'm gonna just stay in my house for a bit don't want anyone getting sick. I mean this guy knowingly was in contact with the virus ( he absolutly deserves hero status for volunteering for that) and he just hops on a plane and flys home. They quarantine pets and animals traveling just to be safe but nobody says anything about people traveling from outbreak areas. I know it's a slippery slope to be quarantining people safety verses rights and what not but someone should have said maybe you should just hangout here for a bit before going home and risk spreading this outbreak everywhere.

[Rev Doctor Abidingly]

What got me was the story about the doctor who quarantined himself. Two of his colleagues got Ebola yet he traveled home through how many countries on how many flights and how many airports coming in contact with how many people. Then gets home and says hey just to be safe I'm gonna just stay in my house for a bit don't want anyone getting sick. I mean this guy knowingly was in contact with the virus ( he absolutly deserves hero status for volunteering for that) and he just hops on a plane and flys home.

My wife and I were discussing this very same topic last night! Makes NO sense and seems like an ignorant thing to do.  I'm totally right there with you on this!  This is NOT a quarantine action!

[jdurand]

There are some worrying things about Ebola such as the virus can survive a long time outside the body, possibly even being dried.  That would mean it any surface touched by an infected person* might be infectious a long time later.

From what I hear the original village method of treatment was pretty effective.  The person (and probably their family) was confined to their hut and food/water was left at the door for them.  When the last one died, they burned the hut down.

* Once you are infected, you are NOT contagious for 2-20 days.

[Ynot Dude]

I agree, the viability of the virus is what concerns me the most. A sweaty palm on a contaminated surface then an eye rub, potentially infectious.
Always abiding,

[Rev Doctor Abidingly]

* Once you are infected, you are NOT contagious for 2-20 days.

I did not know that...  I guess I was the ignorant one!  Ha!  Anyone know how long it took this traveler to get home?

[Ynot Dude]

This may lessen the worry.
http://news.msn.com/us/us-doctor-with-ebola-arrives-in-atlanta
Always abiding,

[The_Sleevez]

This may lessen the worry.
http://news.msn.com/us/us-doctor-with-ebola-arrives-in-atlanta
Always abiding,

From what I understand there are two doctors who contracted Ebola those are the two in the link you posted. But there is another one who just went home then quartined himself just in case. It's not clear from the story but it sounds like no precautions were taken to make sure he wasn't sick. Seemed odd you would think there should be a procedure in place to make sure if there was a risk he was quarintined before he had contact with airports planes and such. True he's probably fine but you would think there would be a few precautions taken especially in light of how many the took with the two that were infected. http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/02/health/ebola-doctor-quarantine/

[Stumblin Stumbleweed]

I often wonder whether scare stories such as the current Ebola haemorrhagic fever outbreak aren't just media confections designed to distract us from the numerous wars from which our politicians and their arms dealing cronies are enjoying the profits.
Still wouldn't like to catch Ebola though. Anyone else here remember Terry Nation's Survivors? Scared the living bejeebus out of young Stumblin' that did. I think about it every time I read about contemporary virus scares.

[Ynot Dude]

You are so right, who's worried about the US and Russia going to war now, we have Ebola in the country. Smoke and mirrors, dudes, smoke and mirrors.

Always abiding,

[BikerDude]

I'm not worried about this. But it's little fires popping up here and there.
With increasing frequency. It's a matter of time till some strain comes along with the right characteristics.
The world now is like a virus's playground. People move about so much that strains continually get new groups of hosts all with different sets of immunities. It's the perfect environment for breading the "perfect" (from the virus's standpoint) bug.
The most likely candidate is the flu. It has all the right characteristics for a pandemic.
And it looks like we might not even need to count on mother nature.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/11/crazy-dangerous-creation-deadly-airborne-flu-virus