outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I just think a lot of the "it's the science" dismissals are a little too glib and tend to talk past the concerns people are actually raising. Like over and over again I just see the same thing repeated "You can only get Ebola from contact with bodily fluids of a symptomatic person." Ok, but it's very easy to think of scenarios where a person might become symptomatic before they make it to a hospital, after which some other person might become exposed to their bodily fluids. Not to mention that the disease can survive for a decent amount of time on surfaces after bodily fluids touch them -- I realize this doesn't mean I'm going to get Ebola from the fact that a guy with mild symptoms touched a subway pole or bowling ball with his vaguely sweaty hand, but if a slightly more symptomatic person vomited on a crowded subway, that could most certainly infect others. If the argument is that the harm of a quarantine for medical workers who have been close to the disease outweighs the benefit, that's fair, but don't tell me there's "no reason whatsoever" to do it because of "the science," because I'm not fucking stupid and I can clearly see that there are at least vaguely arguable reasons to do it.

Non-quarantine also requires absolute trust in individuals' self-monitoring and self-reporting willingness and capacity.

if a slightly more symptomatic person vomited on a crowded subway, that could most certainly infect others.

I mean I guess if they rubbed it into their open sores.

Or if it got on someone's hands and they shortly thereafter touched their eyes or mouth

Like people are talking about it as though it's communicable in exactly the same ways as HIV, and no more. That's not the case.

Because if you got SOMEONE ELSE'S VOMIT on your hands obviously the first thing to do is put your hands in your mouth. Oh you meant without knowing it, like you touched their vomit residue on the seat (or floor because you rubbed your hands on the floor?) a few hours later assuming an MTA employee cleaned it up badly without using a disinfectant product, well luckily the virus doesn't survive more than a few hours on hard surfaces so

Sure there are scenarios where it could happen but the probability is SO LOW under normal conditions much less with people on alert and washing their hands more/using sanitizer/whatever.

posted in the world music thread but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruYQY6z3mV8
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/how-to-protect-yourself-from-ebola-in-song/

The song, which was written by Kandia Kora and Sekou Kouyaté, both of whom are among the performers, is based on ideas and lyrics sketched out by Carlos Chirinos, a professor at New York University who specializes in music, radio and social change. It runs about five and a half minutes, and is packed with warnings (not to touch the bodies of the sick or the dead, to avoid shaking hands) and encouragements (trust doctors, wash your hands).

I think we'll get a much better view of just how infectious this strain of ebola is following the 82 exposed to [Mali's patient zero](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/us-health-ebola-who-mali-idUSKBN0IH0SW20141028) during a bus ride on Oct. 20, or during subsequent medical care. Among the fellow riders, it may be the (experimentally) cleanest exposure record to date.

I mean I guess if they rubbed it into their open sores.

I am pretty sure that none of the highly trained medical practitioners who have contracted ebola had been rubbing infected vomit into open sores on their skin. Yet somehow, against all probability, they contracted the disease anyway. This suggests to me that there might be other less avoidable avenues of transmission than vomit rubbed into open sores.

From this very thread: i think it's key that if you're around a patient in the worst stages of the disease—as health-care workers are going to be—they are emitting lots of fluids, and those fluids are likely to contain the ebola virus.

it probably seems like it's more contagious than it actually is since we don't read news stories about the 100s of medical professionals working in west africa who don't get ebola.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Monday, October 27, 2014 8:27 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Africa is full of overcrowded public transport — buses, minivans and some trains. There are no known instances of transmission in those environments. On July 20, a dying Liberian-American flew to Nigeria and was vomiting on the plane. All 200 people aboard were monitored; none fell ill.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/ebola-ask-well-spread-public-transit/

So, what you are trying to say here is that rubbing infected vomit into open sores is the only known method of ebola transmission? Or are you still only saying that the probablility of contracting ebola through proximity to infected vomit is fairly low, because I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that the very best way to prevent the spread of an infectious disease is to reduce the reservoir of infected individuals as much as possible, which means that Africa is where 99.5% of the effort needs to be concentrated.

But, it would be nice if someone would clearly explain how those very few medical practitioners, who knew they are being exposed to live ebola virus and who were using best-practice protective measures, managed to contract it anyway. Because I am fairly sure that these low-probability cases represent an avenue of infection that a) exists and b) is difficult to prevent 100% of the time through the prescribed protective measures.

You can't just hand wave away these cases and insist that 'you can't get ebola unless you're extraordinarily careless or stupid.' These cases prove that contention is false.

the point is those doctors/nurses were directly treating people who were in final stages of the disease producing huge amounts of fluids, exponentially greater risk for infecting others and those are not the kind of people who can sneak out to Williamsburg on the subway to go bowling they will be p much incapacitated already

IDK, I like to get a little incapacitated when I go to Brooklyn Bowl too

the point is those doctors/nurses were directly treating people who were in final stages of the disease producing huge amounts of fluids, exponentially greater risk for infecting others and those are not the kind of people who can sneak out to Williamsburg on the subway to go bowling they will be p much incapacitated already

― anonanon, Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nyer piece - last week? week before? - was strong on detailing the conditions in overwhelmed clinics; otm

OMG! Breaking news!

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/maine-pizzeria-awaits-nod-police-deliver-pizza-ebola/story?id=26574508

Stay tuned for our panel discussion with 3 noted pizza experts an a 6-page thinkpiece in our weekend edition.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/11/02/potential-ebola-patient-being-tested-at-duke-results-monday-morning/2/

The Associated Press and other press outlets have agreed not to report on suspected cases of Ebola in the United States until a positive viral RNA test is completed.

Even though widespread panic gets them all those nice clicks they like so much?

want to share a couple of articles i've read over the past couple of days that i think were very strong

there's this from the NYT, which only mentions ebola as a means of illustrating the larger point of the way the public misperceives health threats and the deleterious effects on policy this can have, but is a very good read. the author cites and links to some of the work of lisa rosenbaum, who writes the clearest, most insightful stuff on the human side of medicine this side of atul gawande

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/emotion-is-not-the-best-medicine-ebola-case-further-shows/?ref=health

then there's this (free) essay in the new england journal of medicine, written by a couple of HIV/AIDS activists, describing their reaction to the ebola hysteria. i wasn't around for most of the worst of the AIDS scare firsthand, but the ugliness of that time is one of the first things i think about when i see some of the more troubling responses to ebola's arrival in america

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1413425?query=TOC#t=article

hey so what happened? haven't heard a peep about EBOLA since, oh, last Tuesday.

everybody got sick and died

it's just ~so weird~

you can still panic if you want to

Crap, now my Ebola commemorative plates are as worthless as my Franklin Mint Benghazi Coins and my Ground Zero Mosque pewter figurine chess set.

sounds like things aren't going well in Mali right now, but I guess it doesn't matter since no one in the US is sick

Death toll has passed the 5000 mark.

yeah pardon my glibness upthread. the media's boredom w/ ebola in the last 7 days is offensive on multiple levels.

white people etc

alas no surprise. Dr Spenser's press conference in NY seemed to come off well tho (except for de Blasio comparing the health workers to the US military cuz you know "HELPING" PEOPLE).

They're just deliberately avoiding unnecessary panic by not turning every suspected case into a headline. Which is a good thing + food for the conspiracy crowd simultaneously, I suppose.

World Health Organization trials show new Ebola vaccine to be highly effective

it's over!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35308743

maybe not...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/15/ebola-case-reported-in-sierra-leone-one-day-after-who-declared-the-outbreak-over/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_ebola-920am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

they were pretty straightforward about the fact that they expected some recidivism

great roundup from huffington post here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ebola-panic-us_us_56fabbd7e4b014d3fe243d86?n4h5rzyr8vs6mvx6r

Anthrax making another comeback:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-11/scientists-warn-anthrax-just-one-threat-as-russian-permafrost-m/7720362

Ice-age diseases potentially to follow.

this seems scary: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/19/asia/china-coronavirus-spike-intl-hnk/index.html

We all gonna die and no one gives a fuck?

the population of the wuhan metropolitan area is like 20million and we're talking about only a few hundred cases currently, seemingly all or mainly from tainted meat consumption. i'm not worried

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne-UnC2QpsU

I'm not worried, but that's still the *reported* number of cases. The question is how fast it can spread. Certainly the Chinese government is taking it seriously enough to more or less lock down Wuhan, which is nothing to sniff at for a population of 11 million. 26 dead so far, a couple of cases in the US, a couple in Europe. Those numbers are tiny, but if I've learned anything from movies and books it's that we're all going to die and/or turn into zombies.

26 million people are on quarantine. This is serious. Cases are spreading woeldwide and i wouldn't believe the chinese numbers

We all gonna die and no one gives a fuck?

― nostormo, Friday, January 24, 2020 1:32 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

go to hell imo

Not worried too, but this looks like SARS part 2, numners will rise probably

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlxmKsTvcLg

the people will survive imo

We all gonna die and no one gives a fuck?

Everything is grist if all you want to do is amuse yourself, but if you're going to make fun of it, at least say something witty.

I got a couple of disposable face masks yesterday.

My shoulder hurts, is it coronavirus

is it your dominant arm?

Xi Jinping just called it a 'grave situation' and 30 Chinese provinces are now on high alert.

48 million people on lockdown, 42 deaths, that discrepancy shows that the Chinese government must know even more than it is saying out loud.