Anyone following the ebola outbreak?

[NewLiberty]

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-ebola-death-toll-at-more-than-1900-who-chief-2014-9

Ebola death toll at more than 1,900: WHO chief

"As of this week, we are reporting 3,500 cases confirmed in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and more than 1,900 deaths -- and the outbreak is rising," Margaret Chan told reporters in Washington.

The latest toll represents a significant increase from the 1,552 deaths and 3,069 cases reported by the Geneva-based organization just days ago.

Its not slowing, its still accelerating.
This outbreak has now passed the total for all previous known outbreaks.

Map is from April 2014

Current outbreak trends and projection:
Note: first chart is non-logarithmic, these do not include today's data which continues the trend.


And the projection forward:


Raw data and information is available at http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/disease/ebola/en/

[usairx]

The patient looks and sometimes behaves like a zombie.
I guess it's time to prepare for the zombie apocalypse

[bryant.coleman]

The patient looks and sometimes behaves like a zombie.
I guess it's time to prepare for the zombie apocalypse

Seems like he received no food or water for days. Probably received very little medical attention as well. He decided that he had enough of it and tried to escape from the facility on his own. Even before this incident, there were reports that the Ebola treatment centers in Liberia (esp. those in Monrovia) were ill-equipped and under-staffed.

[NewLiberty]

http://www.livescience.com/47685-ebola-outbreak-duration-prediction.html

"Grim Ebola Prediction: Outbreak Is Unstoppable for Now, MD Says"

A doctor who just returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa predicts the current Ebola outbreak will go on for more than a year, and will continue to spread unless a vaccine or other drugs that prevent or treat the disease are developed.

Zero chance of that.  Vaccines take a long time to develop, and then you have to grow, produce, test and distribute them.  Not going to happen within a year even with massive investment.

"I don't believe that our traditional methods of being able to control and stop outbreaks in rural areas … is going to be effective in most of the cities," Lucey said yesterday (Sept. 3) in a discussion held at Georgetown University Law Center that was streamed online. While the World Health Organization has released a plan to stop Ebola transmission within six to nine months, "I think that this outbreak is going to go on even longer than a year," Lucey said.

Yes, longer than a year, and it is likely that it will spread.  There is a lot of misplaced anger.  People think that America is in control of everything and should have "done something".  Others will blame EU or China (they are heavily invested in Africa) or whomever is getting the natural resources.  There will be angry infected people who need serious help but are not going to get it.
The medical resources are already stretched thinly, this is going to break them.  It kills doctors and nurses more than anyone.

Those with the capability to do something and are thinking that this is "someone else's problem" are wrong.  If you are in a city, it will be your problem sooner or later.

This large Ebola outbreak could have been prevented with an effective public health response at the beginning, said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. But the weak health systems of the affected countries left them unprepared to respond to the outbreak, Gostin said.

The international community should have been more generous in supporting poorer countries so they could develop the response capacities needed to contain the outbreak, Gostin and colleagues wrote in a recent briefing for the O'Neill Institute.

To help with the current outbreak, and prevent future ones, Gostin called for the establishment of an international "health systems fund," which would be supported by high-resource countries. The money would be used to strengthen the health systems in those countries, he said.

Oh yeah, give governments your money.  As if they need it and don't have as much as they can print already, as well as the ability to take it from everyone they want to.   If you are going to make a difference, you are going to have to do something yourself.  If you have the will and a way to do that, then "Government" may throw some of that money at you and give you the responsibility to choose who lives and who dies.  This is already deeply into triage due to resource constraints (mainly human resource).  Waiting for "government" to solve it isn't going to help until too late.  Not until their voters care and an election is looming and by then it will be far too late.

[bryant.coleman]

Zero chance of that.  Vaccines take a long time to develop, and then you have to grow, produce, test and distribute them.  Not going to happen within a year even with massive investment.

I heard that a few versions of the vaccines were already being developed prior to this West African outbreak.  But the question is whether the local authorities will use them, without the necessary clinical trials. And we need to remember that West Africa is home to almost 300 million people. Vaccinating all of them against Ebola might be impractical.

[NewLiberty]

Zero chance of that.  Vaccines take a long time to develop, and then you have to grow, produce, test and distribute them.  Not going to happen within a year even with massive investment.

I heard that a few versions of the vaccines were already being developed prior to this West African outbreak.  But the question is whether the local authorities will use them, without the necessary clinical trials. And we need to remember that West Africa is home to almost 300 million people. Vaccinating all of them against Ebola might be impractical.

Yes.  They are developing vaccines.  They have no idea if any of the ones that they are developing work yet.  When they figure that out, they are still going to have to start mass production.  Even if they already have one that works, knowing which one it is will take some trial and error.  It would be tragic if they started mass production on the wrong ones.  Vaccines can also decrease survival rate as they challenge the immune system and aren't effective immediately. 

Once produced, and tested.  The first effort is going to be to vaccinate the medical staff everywhere.  The population will come afterward.  Then they will have to ring-fence the affected areas in the hope of containing the outbreaks.  This is not likely to succeed everywhere.  We are in for a long haul.

[beetcoin]

damn, the wealther nations should provide more financial assistance in containing this shit. those people are not being fed, what do you expect them to do? starve to death in bed? and if this shit spreads, it will reach the developed nations.

by the way, if they do develop vaccines, what happens when the virus mutates? it'll probably become immune.

[bellicose]

What you guys thinking about that locals shouting that this is CIA's special operation?



Sadly, one of locals found container with an infected snake, was infected, ...

[Bonam]

And the projection forward:


Raw data and information is available at http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/disease/ebola/en/

If the forward projection is correct and it takes ~1 year to get the outbreak under control, then we can expect on the order of 100k - 1 million casualties. It is clear that even at the current relatively low levels of cases, containment has been entirely ineffective, as the outbreak is following a classical exponential growth trend. If the outbreak starts to go into the tens - hundreds of thousands, containment will be all but impossible without major military intervention by Western nations.

[koshgel]

And the projection forward:


Raw data and information is available at http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/disease/ebola/en/

If the forward projection is correct and it takes ~1 year to get the outbreak under control, then we can expect on the order of 100k - 1 million casualties. It is clear that even at the current relatively low levels of cases, containment has been entirely ineffective, as the outbreak is following a classical exponential growth trend. If the outbreak starts to go into the tens - hundreds of thousands, containment will be all but impossible without major military intervention by Western nations.

Don't think it will be that high. So far about 2k have died. They are predicting 30k by the end of it.

[counter]

Can it get any worse than this?

Ebola-infected patient in Liberia escapes quarantine, enters crowded market

http://rt.com/news/184660-ebola-patient-escapes-liberia

Hundreds of people might have got infected. But don't just blame the patient only. The authorities are also responsible for this. The president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has proved to be an extremely incompetent individual. She was the one who gave the order to establish treatment centers in crowded slums (such as West Point) and other urban areas.

Oh so much worse I don't even want to imagine it.  I'm honestly just waiting for the outbreak to hit the United States..  This situation has been so poorly handled it's scary.  I can't for the life of me understand why Liberia's President didn't shut the border down before the virus had a chance to spread there.  When you have terrorism running wild and psycho's talking about depopulation your imagination just starts to run wild, or maybe it is just me.  So yea I for one think it can get worse.

[Bonam]

Oh so much worse I don't even want to imagine it.  I'm honestly just waiting for the outbreak to hit the United States..  This situation has been so poorly handled it's scary.  I can't for the life of me understand why Liberia's President didn't shut the border down before the virus had a chance to spread there. 

Because African governments are really incompetent. Even more so than Western governments.

[NewLiberty]

damn, the wealther nations should provide more financial assistance in containing this shit. those people are not being fed, what do you expect them to do? starve to death in bed? and if this shit spreads, it will reach the developed nations.

by the way, if they do develop vaccines, what happens when the virus mutates? it'll probably become immune.

Yeah, no, that's not enough.
Money isn't going to solve it.  It will take people, training, infrastructure and bilateral trust if personnel are to be shipped in.  None of those are easily available.
There isn't an airdropped solution that can be bought with a big enough check.
Its not like the CDC is resource constrained, if it were a "national emergency" they can call on whatever they need.
In such case the surgeon general, gets to be a real general:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/legal/42USC264.pdf

[NewLiberty]

Don't think it will be that high. So far about 2k have died. They are predicting 30k by the end of it.

Unless of course it hits a major metropolis.
Imagine Bangladesh?
Or any city with high mobility, even a place where most folks have cars and such.
Monrovia, Capital of Liberia, has non-stop flights to Brussels, and Casablanca. 
Infrared scanners can check for temperature in travelers, but it can be carried without symptoms for weeks.

[counter]

Oh so much worse I don't even want to imagine it.  I'm honestly just waiting for the outbreak to hit the United States..  This situation has been so poorly handled it's scary.  I can't for the life of me understand why Liberia's President didn't shut the border down before the virus had a chance to spread there.

Because African governments are really incompetent. Even more so than Western governments.

Sorry I find it extremely hard to believe anyone can be that incompetent this day and age.    Something like this is what the government is in place for and I can assure you they have more then enough competence to not let anybody enter their country that may have contracted and deadly virus like Ebola.  If only to try to contain the spread of an outbreak.  This couldn't be any poorly handled then it is right now so incompetence is just not a going to cut it for me and that just feels like a cliché cookie cutter excuse.

[Bonam]

Sorry I find it extremely hard to believe anyone can be that incompetent this day and age.    Something like this is what the government is in place for and I can assure you they have more then enough competence to not let anybody enter their country that may have contracted and deadly virus like Ebola.  If only to try to contain the spread of an outbreak.  This couldn't be any poorly handled then it is right now so incompetence is just not a going to cut it for me and that just feels like a cliché cookie cutter excuse.

What other reason do you propose?

Personally, I follow the simple rule: "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by simple stupidity".

[RedDiamond]

It looks like there is lot of incompetence and stupidity out there. For example even doctors and healthcare workers skip protective gear because there are too hot: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/09/03/latest-us-doc-get-ebola-skipped-protective-gear-100-degree-heat-says-colleague/  

[NewLiberty]

The president's main job is to take the blame for stuff.
There may be a few things missed but there really wasn't a whole lot that could be done with the tools at hand.
1) no easy way to detect infection
2) no easy way to close the borders from all civilian traffic

Shutting down air traffic is not so hard, but other than that, its open season on mobility.  
There are now military deployments around some infected areas with instructions to shoot and kill people that try to leave.  This isn't really a better situation.  People get desperate, military get infected, it continues.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/04/calls-intensify-for-international-military-response-to-ebola/
And it reduces the trust which is a necessary element.

It sounds more like you are looking for what amounts to a totalitarian and militaristic regime which is what it would take to be "competent".  This likely wouldn't have been a lot more effective anyway, it just changes the problems a bit.  The tools and infrastructure just aren't there and aren't going to simply appear when needed.

Of course the CIA will be blamed.  So long as folks see the governments as almighty and cede all responsibility for everything to them, that will continue.  The also blame god.

You can call it stupidity, or incompetence, but it really sounds more like blaming the victims.  Imagine that they are doing the best that they can with the information, knowledge and tools that they have and have the best of good will.  The outcome is pretty much the same.

[Bonam]

It looks like there is lot of incompetence and stupidity out there. For example even doctors and healthcare workers skip protective gear because there are too hot: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/09/03/latest-us-doc-get-ebola-skipped-protective-gear-100-degree-heat-says-colleague/  

Yeah that's pretty bad. I'd rather sweat for a while than get Ebola.

[koshgel]

Can it get any worse than this?

Ebola-infected patient in Liberia escapes quarantine, enters crowded market

http://rt.com/news/184660-ebola-patient-escapes-liberia

Hundreds of people might have got infected. But don't just blame the patient only. The authorities are also responsible for this. The president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has proved to be an extremely incompetent individual. She was the one who gave the order to establish treatment centers in crowded slums (such as West Point) and other urban areas.

Oh so much worse I don't even want to imagine it.  I'm honestly just waiting for the outbreak to hit the United States..  This situation has been so poorly handled it's scary.  I can't for the life of me understand why Liberia's President didn't shut the border down before the virus had a chance to spread there.  When you have terrorism running wild and psycho's talking about depopulation your imagination just starts to run wild, or maybe it is just me.  So yea I for one think it can get worse.

When I mentioned Ebola coming to the US a few weeks ago, everyone said I watched too many movies. It is a real possibility and containment isn't as easy as everyone says.