Ebola

[66bigblock]

Well, here is what totally blows my mind about this whole ebola thing.  The feds / state/ HHS, whatever leaves potentially infected people in a run down apartment building in dallas to just come and go as they please.  Then, they change course and say that they are quarantined to the apartment with the remaining contaminated clothes, sheets, towels, etc from the infected man.  Then it is finally decided to have the remaining residents removed from the apartment and the apartment cleaned.  So who is called for cleaning the deadly virus from the apartment?  "The Cleaning Guys"  A company who specializes in cleaning up diesel fuel spills off of the highway.



After the cleanup had been completed and the cleaning guyz were on the way back to their shop, they were stopped on the side of the road for not having the proper license to transport ebola. (Like who knew you could get an ebola license?)  On the side of the highway, the deadly cargo was unloaded from their trailer and reloaded into a Dallas County hazmat response team vehicle.  Where it was taken from there is unknown.




Here is one of the workers of the clean up crew.  Totally unprotected, I at first thought she was one of the apartment occupants.  BUT look closely, and you can see part of the cleanup teams company logo "CG" the Cleaning Guys on the back of her shirt.  She is coming and going from inside the apartment with no suit, no facemask, no protection at all.



SO, I have to ask - Where is the CDC - Centers for Disease Control?  Why in the world would you just call somebody out of the phone book to handle cleaning up ebola?  Where is the Dallas County Hazmat response team?  Health & Human Services?  National Guard?  No one seems to know if the remaining occupants of the apartment were infected or not, but according to these photos it sure looks like they could come and go as they please.  I thought Homeland Security was running the show now - Where are they?  Who is in charge?  This whole thing is just beyond belief to me.

An entire article with more photos is located here from the daily mail - united kingdom

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2780209/Ordeal-Dallas-Ebola-apartment-comes-end-Quarantined-family-moved-secret-location-Hazmat-team-arrived-FIVE-DAYS-victim-diagnozed.html

[grumpy old man]

the governments response to the Ebola crisis.  Call me a conspirisy theorist but i believe Obama wants it here and wants it to kill millions.   Here is how they do it.   

[shooter]

 here are few more reasons why it will spread,

  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-03/why-americas-not-ready-ebola-outbreak-1-photo

[Gary]

Level of patient care may be better here.  lol

[GreyGeek]

Call me a conspirisy theorist but i believe Obama wants it here

OK, you are a conspiracy theorist.  So am I.   Obama is itching to find a reason to declare martial law and invoke E.O. 13603, suspend the Constitution and become El Presidente for Life.   

Say, I have an idea -- let's send 3,000 American soldiers to Liberia.  OK, so they don't have any adequate medical training and will just be used as "policemen", which will make the Liberians mad and they'll start shooting.  Then, when the soldiers get sick,  we shipped them back home to spread the infection.  How does that sound?  .... wait .... Obama's already thought of that.

[shooter]

OK, you are a conspiracy theorist.  So am I.   Obama is itching to find a reason to declare martial law and invoke E.O. 13603, suspend the Constitution and become El Presidente for Life.   

Say, I have an idea -- let's send 3,000 American soldiers to Liberia.  OK, so they don't have any adequate medical training and will just be used as "policemen", which will make the Liberians mad and they'll start shooting.  Then, when the soldiers get sick,  we shipped them back home to spread the infection.  How does that sound?  .... wait .... Obama's already thought of that.

   Barbed wire, I need more barbed wire, and claymores, maybe barrels of foogas,

[GreyGeek]

ABC's traveling doctor, just back from Libera, gave a growth rate for Ebola.  He said it doubles every two to four weeks.  Taking the long view that means that the rate of growth of Ebola is 840% per annum.  If it doubles every month then,  starting with one infection,  in one year the number of infections will be 2^12 more than the number now.  That's only 4,096.  At the end of the second year that one infection will produce over 16 million.  At the end of three years that one infection will produce over 68 million infections.  By the end of the fourth  everyone on the planet could be infected.  Of course, that won't happen because negative feedback effects on the growth rate (as expressed by the logistics curve) will diminish the number of infected ... the pool of uninfected will have shrunk, reducing the rate of growth.

This brings to mind one of the most deadly pandemics in recorded history: the 1918 influenza pandemic (H1N1).  According to Wikipedia:

The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million 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—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.

Infecting 500 million the lethality was between 10 and 20%.   Ebola's lethality is around 50%, but Ebola is not spread by birds or through the air.  Supposedly it is spread only by fluid contact.  Those that survive may be sources of information which could lead to a vaccine.  Or, the virus may mutate to a less lethal variety, like Influenza did.

[DenmanShooter]

First, let's get one thing staight.  It isn't Ebola it is Obola.  He owns this stuff in the U.S.

Next, Obola will mutate either into something truly horrible, (think ZOMBIES, yes, real ZOMBIES) or into something totally benign or somewhere in between the common cold and shingles.

Either way you won't need to worry cuz you'll be dead by then.  Unless you are a Dem politico or donor. 

So cheer up!  You only live once we all gotta die of something.

For me, I smoke.  Nicotine  is used to make the treatment.  I figure I got enough in me to cure a few thousand. 

[shooter]

 damn don't joke about shingles, My mom is getting cancer treatments, and got shingles, that is one nasty bug.   shes got a scar all the way around her back and stomach, that stuff is really nasty,

    as far as obola, I think sparkle fart is letting it in on purpose,he wants to get rid of people, I think he just basicially wants to mess up anything he can with this country.

[Lmbass14]

damn don't joke about shingles, My mom is getting cancer treatments, and got shingles, that is one nasty bug.   shes got a scar all the way around her back and stomach, that stuff is really nasty,

    as far as obola, I think sparkle fart is letting it in on purpose,he wants to get rid of people, I think he just basicially wants to mess up anything he can with this country.

And of course, he'll blame Bush.

[DenmanShooter]

damn don't joke about shingles, My mom is getting cancer treatments, and got shingles, that is one nasty bug.   shes got a scar all the way around her back and stomach, that stuff is really nasty,

    as far as obola, I think sparkle fart is letting it in on purpose,he wants to get rid of people, I think he just basicially wants to mess up anything he can with this country.

I am not joking. 

[GreyGeek]

I think sparkle fart is letting it in on purpose ...

Sending 3,000 soldiers to "fight" Ebola?   After they get infected they'll be shipped back here for treatment we'll find out that it can spread by airborne transmission.

[Kodiak]

The theoretical rates people like to put out, strike me as similar to when i was in school and would play with my calculator by entering 2*2*2=======....  Theoretically, as long as Ebola has been around, the earth should be humanless

[GreyGeek]

The theoretical rates people like to put out, strike me as similar to when i was in school and would play with my calculator by entering 2*2*2=======....  Theoretically, as long as Ebola has been around, the earth should be humanless

Actually, Ebola first appeared in 1976:

The Ebola virus causes an acute, serious illness which is often fatal if untreated. Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in 2 simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name.

The current outbreak in west Africa, (first cases notified in March 2014), is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976. There have been more cases and deaths in this outbreak than all others combined.

It's exponential growth is a power of "e" (2.718...) not 2.   Nf = Ni * e^(kT), where T is the time and "k" equals natural log of (e) divided by the time it takes the quantity to double or reduce by half.  All naturally occurring growths and declines are functions of e.   e^x rises more rapidly than 2^x.

Ebola has had rates of lethality varying between 10% and 90%, which shows that its various forms may have mutated or that the peoples it initially infected may have had some immunities due to infections of similar viruses which are no longer around.   However, with an annual percentage growth rate of 840% (double every month) and a 50% lethality, humanity could be wiped out within 3 1/2 years, assuming that logistic feedback didn't slow the rate, which  it will.

The places that are of greatest risk are those where population densities are high, medical facilities are marginal and educational levels are low.  Countries like China and India.  Metropolitans with populations over 10 million, like NYC, LA, Huston, Beijing, Bombay, Mexico City, Miami, etc...     With an incubation period of almost 3 weeks before symptoms appear, a lot of infected people could be walking,  driving and flying around, spreading Ebola unknowningly.   Consider that 1/3rd of all Americans have STDs and continue to have frequently sex with multiple partners.  Add to that  an unknown Ebola transmission and you have the recipe for disaster.

[ILoveCats]

FYI the PBS "Nova" documentary on Ebola that aired last night was very well done. If you get a chance to watch a re-broadcast or watch it online, it's highly recommended. If you've never been to West Africa before it will give you a good idea of what the "health care" conditions are like there, and why this virus - or any virus - is especially difficult to deal with in that part of the world. 

On the more poorly done end of the spectrum... Last night on NPR's "all things considered" the interviewer was exhibiting her ignorance as she interviewed our Ambassaodor to Liberia and asked why some of the hospitals and clinics that were being built are behind schedule.  Here's a hint: imagine the most awful clay path you've ever traversed. Then imagine it's the only highway running the length of Nebraska. Then imagine that it's rained 60 inches in the last two months. Then imagine the truck you have to transport supplies with was built in France about fourty years ago.

Containment (not admitting citizens of those countries, or people who have traveled to/through those countries) would seem to have been the best policy.

[FarmerRick]

[GreyGeek]

An interesting article about the poor quality of protective gear that many medical personnel are using:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ebola-spread-shows-flaws-in-protective-gear-and-procedures/

The timeline of Thomas Duncan, the first person in the US to die from Ebloa, is revealing:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/timeline-how-ebola-made-its-way-u-s-n216831

Sept. 20: Duncan takes United Flight 822 from Dulles to Dallas. Health officials later say Duncan was not showing symptoms while he was traveling. Ebola is spread only through direct contact with the body fluids of an infected patient who is symptomatic.

Sept. 24: Duncan begins to show symptoms.

Sept. 26: Duncan goes to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. He is examined and sent home with antibiotics. He tells hospital staff that he recently traveled from Liberia, but that information is not passed along.

Sept. 28: Dallas fire and rescue is called to the apartment complex in Dallas where Duncan is staying. He is taken to the same hospital and admitted.

Sept. 29: A relative, Josephus Weeks, calls the 800 number of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is told to call the state health department, according to Weeks' account. He is called back several times, he says. He later accuses health officials of not moving fast enough. A state health official later tells NBC News that a call took place and that Weeks and other relatives told health authorities that Duncan had no contact with anyone who had Ebola.

Sept. 30: Medical tests confirm that Duncan has Ebola. The CDC and state health officials call a news conference and alert the public.

Six days elapse between Ducan showing symptoms and his being hospitalized and isolated.  During that period of time how many people did he contact, OR, how many people contacted surfaces he touched?   The person in the Omaha hospital with Ebola said he made the mistake of touching the bed of an Ebola patient.