Ebola

[90503]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Except that ITS REALLY HARD TO GIVE SOMEONE EBOLA. A bit on the skin likely isn't enough to do it.

Well, in listening to the news, that is exactly how the nurse(s) believe they contracted it...A small patch of exposed skin on their necks....???

[irocnroll]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Want to know how to not get Ebola?

Don't handle the bodily fluids of people with Ebola. This is hard to avoid (but manageable for the most part) if you are a treating an Ebola victim, and almost impossible to encounter unless you are treating an Ebola victim. This is assuming that you abide by traditional western customs, rather than say smearing the blood of deceased loved ones on your face as a way to honour them. Even then ... if they didn't have Ebola, you can go right ahead and do that & you won't catch Ebola. Might catch something else, like HIV, but not Ebola.

The threat Ebola presents is miniscule. There are probably hundreds of diseases in North America that are more likely to result in you dying than Ebola is. Yes, the mortality rate of Ebola is high, but the infection rate is tiny. Other diseases that much easier to catch, but you have a lower chance of dying from, will often have substantially higher death tolls.


All in all, there have been something like 10,000 people who have died from Eboloa since the first recorded outbreak. Malria hits that number pretty much every week. Tuberculosis kills roughly that many people every couple of days.

The real problem is fear. I would not be surprised if in North America & Europe more people get killed due to mass hysteria about an Ebola 'outbreak' than people who catch the disease in their home country. Whether it be getting into traffic accidents on the way to a big box store to stock up on supplies, or people just straight up murdering someone because they're infected (or at least, thought to be infected) and just about everything in between.

On the list of things to be afraid of dying from, unless you live in West Africa Ebola should rank somewhere below falling off a ladder or being stuck by lightning (and maybe slightly above being struck by lightning while on a ladder, by the way ... don't clean your gutters during a storm unless you want to win a Darwin award)

Thank you. 3 people out of 300+ million people in the US is nothing. Even Duncans family didnt contract the disease, nor did the people on his flight over here. This isnt as big a deal as the media is making it out to be. A little comparison of how likely it is to spread compared to others

[Mr Twisty]

[Mishaman68]

Originally Posted by JaniMaks

I have more of a strict stance on this:

1) Suspend travel from the hot zones to the US (until they the travelers are cleared from the originating airports)
2) No more voluntary quarantine (it needs to be strictly enforced and needs to be solitary quarantine)
3) The Dallas hospital should be designated ground zero and should be shut down until its cleared the hospital and all its staff is cleared by the CDC.
4) Any new infected should be transported and treated at and by CDC centers not hospitals
5) Strict screening at local airports here in the US

As i said before i have a very strict stance on this, once its controlled we can all go back to our normal lives.

I agree. 100%.
If you think we aren't extremely concerned in Dallas and believe what we are being told you are wrong.
Patient Zero should have never been in our country, then Jessie Jackson shows up and says the wasn't treated correctly because he was black.
WTF.

[Scalded Dog]

I know that the gov't keeps telling us not to worry, that they've got it under control... and government competency and honesty and ability is top- notch.

Oh, I can't even TYPE that shit with a straight face.

If not for its exponential spread, concerns would be lessened. If not for the fact that two--- as of this moment--- health care workers who were presumably following gov't protocol STILL came down with that lil' bug, and if not for the fact that many in the field are saying that we don't know very much about this virus, then I'd be fine with reading the news reports about it as nothing more than morbid entertainment about somebody ELSE'S troubles.

However, there are questions regarding transmission and spread, there's a remarkably high death rate, and the only thing that seems to stand between us and the epidemic going nationwide is government- based response? Yep... my faith is weak.

[f5journal]

My concern is how the news reported that it is "hard to spread"..the fluids thing.....and then reasonably intelligent hospital workers have it....something wrong there

[wally mayfield]

Why worry?? the president said it won't be coming to America..and he has a nobel peace prize..

[hot_rod]

.....be afraid of anything deadly that has an exponential growth rate....


"deadly and exponential" have both been used to describe the present outbreak of Ebola

[JaniMaks]

Here we go again, a second health worker is now affected, and she traveled from Ohio and back to Dallas just a day before she was diagnosed. Now the CC is trying to track down the passengers on the flight :(

[Jay_LHD3]

Originally Posted by Steve Dallas

To me, it's insane that this nurse was allowed to fly.

More insane is that fact that she went to visit family and now her mom got on a plane and flew to Dallas to be with her now known infected daughter.

I guess stupid breeds stupid.

[Devryn17]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

A healthy dose of fear is washing your hands after being in contact with an Ebola victim. Insane is believing that Ebola poses a significant risk to western populations.

Do you HONESTLY believe that these healthcare workers weren't taking the greatest of all possible precautions? You think they wiped his ass then licked their fingers?

[Steve Dallas]

Originally Posted by Jay_LHD3

More insane is that fact that she went to visit family and now her mom got on a plane and flew to Dallas to be with her now known infected daughter.

I guess stupid breeds stupid.

Infected daughter? Link to story?

[kalimus]

I have a feeling this thread will be revisted a lot over the next couple months.

3 people right now. CDC says that 11 people had definite contact and are being monitored, and another 114 possible contacts on top of that. 3 people can turn into more than 3 people. That, of course, is only in Dallas. That's not to say another traveller somewhere else in the country won't pop up with symptoms either. And of course early symptoms really aren't much different than the flu, or any other type of viral infection, that are easy to write off as something else.

It's unhealthy to go into full panic mode right now, but it's equally stupid to disregard it because "it's really hard to spread". The reality is that this is just starting. It's also notable that this current outbreak has had more cases and more deaths than all over recorded Ebola outbreaks combined.

People are still travelling. That first case was diagnosed on the 30th of September, and if it was transmitted immediately, symptoms can take up to 21 days to show up. That means any number of people could have travelled at the same time, also infected, and not shown symptoms at all yet.

Unlikely to be a mass epidemic in the U.S.... absolutely. But to say unlikely and dismiss it is what is really insanity.

[Jay_LHD3]

Originally Posted by Steve Dallas

Infected daughter? Link to story?

I read this morning that the mother of the nurse, that flew home to see her family in Ohio, got on a plane to fly to Dallas after finding out her daughter, the nurse, was infected.

Looking for source...

Edit: Looks like the article I read was removed.

This article just has a quote:

Her grandmother said family members have left Ohio to go be with her: "I spoke to my son and he said that she works in that hospital and that she was exposed. Amber's mother has flown down to be with her."

http://www.businessinsider.com/2nd-n...#ixzz3GF9mXPq1