Ebola virus outbreak

Peist2007 · 09-10-2014 08:15PM

jsd1004 wrote: »

I love a bit of racism. We should should just isolate all sub Saharan Africas because they spread HIV as well. They don't use condoms like...as if we do..

What the hell has it to do with racism?????

SterlingArcher · 09-10-2014 08:15PM

mikom wrote: »

Gonna get to the hotel and order the biggest ebola soup you ever saw.

Faith dictates you get it. Don't worry people will laugh about it in years to come.

09-10-2014 08:15PM

links regarding Deputy testing negative. It does appear to be true

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/10/09/6188006/deputy-showing-no-signs-of-ebola.html?rh=1

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/09/ebola-test-results-negative-dallas-county-deputy/16984093/

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/10/09/ebola-test-negative-for-dallas-county-deputy/

FlashR2D2 · 09-10-2014 08:17PM

LexieOnRale wrote: »

Bit uncalled for, no?

What? Bolting your door or leaving it open?

miss no stars · 09-10-2014 08:18PM

Peist2007 wrote: »

What the hell has it to do with racism?????

It's racism against western, most likely white people for daring to suggest that countries that happen to be black should be basically quarantined due to a massive outbreak of a highly infectious, highly deadly disease. The racism is that the poster in question thinks a white person is incapable of separating the medical facts of the case from the skin colour of most victims.

In other words, they're seeking to find offence where there is none :rolleyes:

Richard D James · 09-10-2014 08:21PM

There was a guy on Sky news earlier from a Pharma company that are furiously working on a vaccine for this Ebola
The interviewer pointed out that Ebola has been in Africa since the 1970's
If black people are dying thats one thing, but once white people start dying its a different story

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 08:24PM

I was opposed to bringing infected white people back to Europe to be treated, so its not a racism issue. If it spreads to the rest of Africa, then that's an even bigger problem than one or two coming direct to Europe. The real nightmare scenario would be if it spreads among migrants waiting to cross over from north africa.

We can isolate this while its relatively small. Or we can isolate it when its probably too late.

hmmm · 09-10-2014 08:26PM

Richard D James wrote: »

If black people are dying thats one thing, but once white people start dying its a different story

The Onion had this covered
http://www.theonion.com/articles/experts-ebola-vaccine-at-least-50-white-people-awa,36580/

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 08:26PM

Richard D James wrote: »

There was a guy on Sky news earlier from a Pharma company that are furiously working on a vaccine for this Ebola
The interviewer pointed out that Ebola has been in Africa since the 1970's
If black people are dying thats one thing, but once white people start dying its a different story

Totally agree but it has been largely an African issue, mostly related to the consumption of bush meat. There should be more than enough wealth and resources in Africa to come up with a vaccine, if governments weren't more interested in going to wars against each other or stealing their nations wealth.
The west can't be blamed for Ebola or its spread.

miss no stars · 09-10-2014 08:27PM

Richard D James wrote: »

There was a guy on Sky news earlier from a Pharma company that are furiously working on a vaccine for this Ebola
The interviewer pointed out that Ebola has been in Africa since the 1970's
If black people are dying thats one thing, but once white people start dying its a different story

There have never been these numbers dying from Ebola before, ever.

javagal · 09-10-2014 08:27PM

Oz nurse cleared too.
http://www.mamamia.com.au/news/cairns-nurse-ebola-results/

Call Me Jimmy · 09-10-2014 08:33PM

hmmm wrote: »

The Onion had this covered
http://www.theonion.com/articles/experts-ebola-vaccine-at-least-50-white-people-awa,36580/

I don't think there's racism involved, any lack of caring is a lack of caring for poor people. The gatekeepers and propagators of news media will obviously care about their own interests and they are, I would wager, not predominantly poor, or indeed of african descent.

FlashR2D2 · 09-10-2014 08:33PM

miss no stars wrote: »

There have never been these numbers dying from Ebola before, ever.

The human population has never been this big before.

LuckyLloyd · 09-10-2014 08:36PM

My name is URL wrote: »

Would the people delivering aid be allowed to fly home? They'd be the ones in closest contact with the sick... while those that haven't been near anyone that was ill would be stuck there to get sick and pass it on to military etc?

Makes no sense really... And that's even before you go into things like border security and the like.

Tell entire populations that they can't leave their home and more people than ever will try to leave. There'd probably be more people travelling from WA than there ever was.

Set up containment facilities in bordering nations. Returning personnel get quarantined there for 21 days first.

As for the second part, you don't make it a choice. You can shut a nation's borders by force if necessary.

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 08:37PM

In terms of isolating west africa, the nearest analagy would be a gangrenous limb.

You can cut off the gangrenous limb and save the patient, or you can keep the gangrenous limb and watch the patient slowly succumb, all limbs intact.

Tough choices will have to be made at some stage.

Gael23 · 09-10-2014 08:42PM

The Spanish nurses dog was killed and incinerated this morning

FlashR2D2 · 09-10-2014 08:42PM

realweirdo wrote: »

In terms of isolating west africa, the nearest analagy would be a gangrenous limb.

You can cut off the gangrenous limb and save the patient, or you can keep the gangrenous limb and watch the patient slowly succumb, all limbs intact.

Tough choices will have to be made at some stage.

That's cold man, real cold! These are people you're talking about not gangrenous limbs. You'll be alright so long as you got your bio chem suitt a few months back when the first cases came out, if you didn't then tough titty .....thems the breaks!

My name is URL · 09-10-2014 08:43PM

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Set up containment facilities in bordering nations. Returning personnel get quarantined there for 21 days first.

As for the second part, you don't make it a choice. You can shut a nation's borders by force if necessary.

You can't stop people from crossing them though. Where do you think immigrants from war-torn countries come from? Their borders don't tend to be open to passerby's.

Taking control of one single border means effectively overthrowing two countries governments, telling them what they are or are not in charge of. It's not going to happen.

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 08:45PM

FlashR2D2 wrote: »

That's cold man, real cold! These are people you're talking about not gangrenous limbs. You'll be alright so long as you got your bio chem suitt a few months back when the first cases came out, if you didn't then tough titty .....thems the breaks!

It's cold, but logical. Here's my suggestion, all the bleeding heart liberals in the west suit up, travel out to west africa and volunteer to fight this epidemic. Then you will see what principles they actually have. It's one thing when someone else has to confront it, its another when they have to confront it.

deseil · 09-10-2014 08:46PM

realweirdo wrote: »

In terms of isolating west africa, the nearest analagy would be a gangrenous limb.

You can cut off the gangrenous limb and save the patient, or you can keep the gangrenous limb and watch the patient slowly succumb, all limbs intact.

Tough choices will have to be made at some stage.

Your a gangerous limb! Maybe we should
Cut you off

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 08:47PM

deseil wrote: »

Your a gangerous limb! Maybe we should
Cut you off

It was an analagy that you took as literal unfortunately. Let's just invite all the ebola victims here, let's do that will we? I'm so glad you aren't in charge of defeating this.

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 08:49PM

The whole point of isolating west africa has little to do not with restricting people but restricting the spread of a highly contagious disease. Clearly this is a concept far above the heads of some people.

Instead they have the racist card at the ready to play at every opportunity. They are more interested in childishly accusing others of racism than fighting ebola. Immature and sad really.

My name is URL · 09-10-2014 08:55PM

realweirdo wrote: »

The whole point of isolating west africa has little to do not with restricting people but restricting the spread of a highly contagious disease. Clearly this is a concept far above the heads of some people.

Instead they have the racist card at the ready to play at every opportunity. They are more interested in childishly accusing others of racism than fighting ebola. Immature and sad really.

More like nobody has put forward their opinions or a proposal on how it would be effectively achieved.

Who is responsible for it.. how will it be enforced over tens of thousands of square miles of 'border' areas, and how do you deal with the inevitable panic and rushes to the border once people are told they have to just stay where they are and face death?

Would you try to leave a place where you were told that people could not leave because they are doomed? I fcuking would.

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 09:02PM

My name is URL wrote: »

More like nobody has put forward their opinions or a proposal on how it would be effectively achieved.

Who is responsible for it.. how will it be enforced over tens of thousands of square miles of 'border' areas, and how do you deal with the inevitable panic and rushes to the border once people are told they have to just stay where they are and face death?

Would you try to leave a place where you were told that people could not leave because they are doomed? I fcuking would.

You can never fully seal borders. You can reduce the risk however. I'd imagine there are already some limits, in fact there are restrictions such as tests at airports in Liberia and Sierra Leone which I'm sure the bleeding heart liberals in the west will be outraged by if they hear of them. There's a time for open borders and in the middle of an ebola epidemic that's not the time. Sealing off might be extreme, but restrictions are definitely needed. And it all depends how effective the tests are. So far the main test seems to be if someone is displaying symptoms such as high temperature or fever. But these symptoms only display in the final days of the disease. The spanish nurse went away and was fine for a couple of days and then started feeling ill.

realweirdo · 09-10-2014 09:05PM

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

What is isolation actually going to solve though? As others have pointed out, people will still find a way to cross the border. Some might become ever more determined to do so if people are trying to close them in.

The only way to fight ebola is isolation. Its the main pillar of any strategy. Without isolation, you can forget about defeating it. This has been proved time and time again.

In any case my suggestion about isolating entire countries was a worst case scenario, eg if significant numbers of ebola infections turned up elsewhere in the world as a result of travel from west africa. We aren't at that stage yet. In an extreme case, it would need to be looked at, a last resort as it were.

ElizaT33 · 09-10-2014 09:11PM

Spring Onion wrote: »

I can't wait to see the amount of people bleeding from the eyes at Halloween.

That's just warped .......:mad:

ProfessorPlum · 09-10-2014 09:11PM

miss no stars wrote: »

The inability to read statistical information in general is shocking.

"Ebola has an R number of only 2, compared with HIV which has an R number of 4"

Sure, but half the people with Ebola die from it fairly quickly after contracting it. People with HIV tend to live years (and presently decades) after contracting it.

I think that it's safe to say that makes Ebola HIGHLY contagious.

realweirdo wrote: »

Agreed Miss...the longer people live the more people they can potentially infect. Someone might survive it but pass it on to others who might die.

As for the R number, I think it refers to over the lifetime of a person. So an infected HIV person could infect 4 over a number of decades. An ebola person could infect 2 over a number of days.

In other words, the R number doesn't tell much. People cite it as a reason not to panic, but its meaningless in the case of ebola. The daily number of new cases and how fast it is spreading is more intuitive. And eventually a decision will have to be made to isolate West Africa from the rest of the world, whether people like it or not.

Epidemiologists like to talk about R numbers. Generally they are people who are pretty good at statistics. Of course it's not meaningless. Put it this way: Measles has an R number somewhere approaching 18. It also would have about the same timeline of being infectious as Ebola. Also, as a downside for bystanders, people with measles tend to be in contact with more people while they're ill (owning to the fact that they're not lying down dying in their bed). Measles is highly contagious. 18 is 9 times 2. Ebola is contagious, but not highly contagious in the grand scheme of things.

As for isolating West Africa from the rest of the world - do any of you realise how big a land mass you're talking about. I'm guessing you don't. (The maps we use massively underrepresent the size of Africa)
As URL says, how are we going to do it? How about Guinea - there's only a (relatively) tiny portion of the country affected - do 'we' lock the whole place down? How about Nigeria and Senegal. Spain and the USA for that matter. I think we need to be a little more nuanced here with our approach.
Oh, and those epidemiologists I was talking about earlier - the majority feel closing borders would be the wrong thing to do.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Set up containment facilities in bordering nations. Returning personnel get quarantined there for 21 days first.

I'm sure the bordering Nations will be delighted with that plan.

realweirdo wrote: »

In terms of isolating west africa, the nearest analagy would be a gangrenous limb.

You can cut off the gangrenous limb and save the patient, or you can keep the gangrenous limb and watch the patient slowly succumb, all limbs intact.

Tough choices will have to be made at some stage.

Your analogy translates more like - if you have a gangrenous little toe, you should cut off both the lower limbs to save the patient.

dalyboy · 09-10-2014 09:12PM

According to the W.H.O its not an airbourne virus and is only spread "through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids". In other its all but impossible to contract this virus in normal every day activities. I for one will sleep well while I laugh at the idiots on tv wearing their masks and protective suits. The only way this virus will make it to Ireland is if it is purposely planted here.

ProfessorPlum · 09-10-2014 09:15PM

realweirdo wrote: »

You can never fully seal borders. You can reduce the risk however. I'd imagine there are already some limits, in fact there are restrictions such as tests at airports in Liberia and Sierra Leone which I'm sure the bleeding heart liberals in the west will be outraged by if they hear of them. There's a time for open borders and in the middle of an ebola epidemic that's not the time. Sealing off might be extreme, but restrictions are definitely needed. And it all depends how effective the tests are. So far the main test seems to be if someone is displaying symptoms such as high temperature or fever. But these symptoms only display in the final days of the disease. The spanish nurse went away and was fine for a couple of days and then started feeling ill.

It is ridiculously easy to get past fever screening. A couple of paracetamol will do it. And so far (as of earlier today at least) of all those stopped at borders in affected countries with a fever, none had Ebola. So I'm not sure how well the strategy is working.

ElizaT33 · 09-10-2014 09:19PM

Im terrified about this - have just text my son who's due to travel home from holiday in Spain tomorrow. Told him to stay away from anyone who seems sick and to avoid airplane toilets if possible - these are scary times !

Ebola virus outbreak

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