Ebola: Facts and Figures

[Aim64C]

Ebola has become an explosive topic, lately.

I have noticed a distinct discrepancy between the scientific literature on Ebola and the current statements swelling up now that Ebola has made it out of Africa. Many "question and answer" segments with politicians appointed to the CDC rather than doctors credentialed in virology and/or epidemiology (the study of how diseases spread).

I was researching Ebola a few years ago, before it was "the cool thing" - after a particularly interesting book:

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I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic. Don't just take my word for it.

1) First - let's start with what "Ebola" is.

Ebola, or more properly, Ebolavirus, is a genus of viruses within the Filoviridae. Originally, Filiovirus was the genus before it was later re-classed to a family with Marburgvirus and Ebolavirus being its members. But this is all taxonomic drivel.

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Ebola is a very simple virus in evolutionary terms. It is a very fast replicator and a very sloppy one, at that.

The method of replication in Ebola has been linked to cytokine disruption (the way the immune system organizes a defense), and some research has shown that the actual process of immune response speeds up Ebola replication.

Note, however, that most of this data comes from non-human laboratory studies. Ebola has been largely confined to Africa and one strain has been shown to come from the Philippines (Ebola Reston). Most of the outbreaks concerning Ebola have 'burned out' within a few months. The virus is exceptionally lethal with case fatality rates reaching into the upper 90%.

2) How you get it.

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"INFECTIOUS DOSE: Viral hemorrhagic fevers have an infectious dose of 1 - 10 organisms by aerosol in non-human primates Footnote 41.

MODE OF TRANSMISSION: In an outbreak, it is hypothesized that the first patient becomes infected as a result of contact with an infected animal Footnote 22. Person-to-person transmission occurs via close personal contact with an infected individual or their body fluids during the late stages of infection or after death Footnote 1 Footnote 2 Footnote 22 Footnote 42. Nosocomial infections can occur through contact with infected body fluids for example due to the reuse of unsterilized syringes, needles, or other medical equipment contaminated with these fluids Footnote 1 Footnote 2. Humans may be infected by handling sick or dead non-human primates and are also at risk when handling the bodies of deceased humans in preparation for funerals Footnote 2 Footnote 10 Footnote 43.

In laboratory settings, non-human primates exposed to aerosolized ebolavirus from pigs have become infected, however, airborne transmission has not been demonstrated between non-human primates Footnote 1 Footnote 10 Footnote 15 Footnote 44 Footnote 45. Viral shedding has been observed in nasopharyngeal secretions and rectal swabs of pigs following experimental inoculation Footnote 29 Footnote 30."

The virus is known to infect all body tissues and is hemorrhagic in nature - that means it ruptures the body's ability to regulate fluids. In patients who do hemorrhage (roughly half, depending upon strain and host regional genotypes), blood seeps into saliva, saliva seeps into blood - it's all the same viral soup along with sweat.

Thus - all excretions by a hemorrhaging individual should be considered contagious.

That includes sneezing (aerosol). These are tiny droplets of moisture that become airborne through various activity.

3) The treatment.

Bluntly - there is none.

There are experimental treatments that have been attempted with patients in the outbreak region, but little statistical significance has been shown (though little can be derived from that environment).

The cases that have been flown back to the U.S. were treated with a very aggressive fluid replacement therapy along with a multitude of synthetic antibody treatments.

It needs to be understood that these are -very- resource intensive treatments. Fluid replacement therapy requires proper balancing of factors such as potassium, calcium, dextrose, magnesium, etc (I should know - I work in Dialysis - our business is fluid replacement in patients who have simply lost basic kidney function). These people were also fed nutrients intravenously.

To expect this kind of treatment to scale meaningfully against the onset of an epidemic is just not realistic. A dozen cases at a time... maybe. The 'experts' on this stuff are in short supply and have largely been restricted to lab animals. The equipment for such procedures is not widely available, nor are the staff with the training to use it (much less while working in accordance with biosafety level 4 containment procedures).

As such, should the cases begin to spread, things begin to take on a much more grim approach:

4) Why Epidemiologists are concerned:

This Ebola outbreak is the first to hit 'modern' society. Realistically - data on Ebola in 'modern' (even second-world) society is null. It simply hasn't happened until now.

Generally, it was assumed that Ebola spread through funerals. Since, at this point, Ebola has turned the body into a literal 'bag of virus' - this is reasonable and should come as no surprise.

Unfortunately, the epidemiology is not stacking up well against that theory at this point in time:

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"Epidemiologists and virus experts believe the original case in that instance to have been a woman who went to a market in Guinea and then returned, unwell, to her home village in neighbouring northern Liberia.

The woman's sister cared for her, and in doing so contracted the Ebola virus herself before her sibling died of the haemorrhagic fever it causes.

Feeling unwell and fearing a similar fate, the sister wanted to see her husband - an internal migrant worker then employed on the other side of Liberia at the Firestone rubber plantation.

She took a communal taxi via Liberia's capital Monrovia, exposing five other people to the virus who later contracted and died of the Ebola. In Monrovia, she switched to a motorcycle, riding pillion with a young man who agreed to take her to the plantation and whom health authorities were subsequently desperate to trace."

This type of spread is inconsistent with the typical manner in which Ebola spreads in tribal Africa.

The reality is that while the "third world" that has previously been hit by Ebola has been less privy on sanitary conditions and running water - the 'modern world' presents a much more dense society with far more hands touching the same places.

Consider a fast food worker who contracts Ebola and serves food for a few days thinking "it's just the flu."

How many hundreds has he potentially infected? Even with a transmission rate of 1% or lower - he's still managed to pass the virus on to a few people - which is all that is necessary to keep the epidemic alive.

This scenario simply doesn't exist in tribal Africa.

Yet it is common in 'the west' - and illustrates just how simple differences in lifestyle can nullify any benefits of hygiene.

To illustrate this, allow me to bring in Mythbusters:

[video=youtube;k1j8bh8_O_Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1j8bh8_O_Q[/video]

This illustrates how "it is hard to get" is a flawed mentality. The question is: "how easy is it to give?"

Let's delve into a few figures.

The population of Liberia is roughly 4 million people. The population of Sierra Leone is roughly 6 million people.

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Per the CDC:

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Estimated potential of 1.2 million cases between Sierra Leone and Liberia by the end of January without greater intervention by the U.S. and other western powers.

Doing the math - that means nearly 10% of the population will have been infected. Within roughly 9 months of the outbreak's start.

Let's assume that better hygiene and treatment limit our number of cases, but our more compact lifestyle with broader individual mobility results in a slightly lower Basic Reproduction Number so that, 9 months later, we are at a 1% infection of regional population.

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Weekly variations in availability mean these numbers are often larger than they would be in reality.

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Benchmarks for surge capability are 500/1,000,000 population.

The reality of this being a virus requiring isolation turns this into a literal nightmare.

A virus that manages to infect even .01% of the population is 100 patients per million population - per 500 bed-rated surge capacity. Even at .001% infection statistics - the strain on most hospitals to isolate 20 patients per million population would be high - and represent roughly 23 people in Dallas, Texas.

If containment of the virus at treatment hospitals begins to break down - the hospitals become vectors of infection with healthcare workers passing the virus on to patients, patients on to more workers, on to family, family to general public....

Assuming it could reach a case rate of 1% of the population - the case fatality rate for this virus has been roughly 70% - which translates to a regional number of infections of 12,500 people accounting for 8,750 deaths within the same 9-month period, with most of those occurring within the last month of the data set.

It is worth noting that a realistic infection model within the U.S. would be a protracted "clustering" - where incidental infections continue to spread the virus and result in quarantine efforts - before it hits a vulnerable population or exceptionally effective vector that results in a rapid overwhelming of the medical response. Which means achieving 1% infection within 9 months is likely highly unrealistic (probably two to three times that).

The bottom line, however, is that once the virus breaks out of 'quarantined' clusters and begins geometric replication, mortality rates in excess of 3,000 people per month - or 30 per day, can be expected within a region like Dallas, Texas.

At such a point, the virus actually becomes the least of our concerns.

I work in Dialysis. The machines I work with come into direct contact with the blood of people. As do the people I work with.

Do you think I am going to be showing up to work?

Do you think the truck driver who delivers food to the stores is going to show up to work?

How about the trucks delivering gasoline to the local stations?

Are people showing up to work at the power plant?

This is where epidemics become incredibly destructive to First-World nations. We have infrastructure that the third world doesn't have - that it doesn't rely on to support life.

How about public water systems?

How many gangs will form to try to loot for survival? How many people will die trying to plastic-wrap their rooms?

At what point do people begin rioting amidst quarantine zones - as has happened in Africa?

The virus, itself, doesn't have to be all that deadly, or all that infectious, in order to completely swamp our healthcare systems.

When 30 people are dying per day in one city, alone, and you see them violently vomit up blood with full-body bruising.... are you going to go outside with your family? Are you going to go to work and perform the tasks that keep our society running?

It's not the actual epidemic - but what the epidemic does to people - to our society - that scares the living hell out of Epidemiologists.


5) Why the double-speak.

Bluntly - it's a lack of leadership and a lack of respect for the general public.

Politicians do not want panic - so, rather than lead people through tough times, they come up with pleasant-sounding things to say. This is because they are not leaders. They are lawyers and swindlers. They do not believe you or I are capable of handling facts and realities.

This is not helped by the fact that there are politician scientists who distort the reality for cookies from administrations.

Yes, comparatively speaking, Ebola is not a very contagious disease. That said, all of our data about the epidemiology of Ebola stems from the Third World - where patterns of life differ. This means that transmission vectors are completely different from the West. The African regions where Ebola has been spotted in the past have been among largely tribal regions organized by relatively isolated but close-knit family groups. It has largely been absent from the world of mass transit and fast food - which are massive concerns for exposure in the West that are not practical realities in Ebola's natural environment.

That means anyone who tells you the truth is going to say this: "We have no idea what this virus will do in a country like America. We have no idea how fatal it will be in America. We have very little data relevant to the subject."

True leaders would say that and add: "Anyone who has been to Africa or suspects they may have come into contact with Ebola should self-isolate and limit contact with other people. A hotline is being set up to direct response personnel who will escort you to quarantine if necessary and see to your needs for the quarantine period. A special set of flights are being set up to facilitate transport of supplies and aid personnel into the African Hot Zone and all other flights will be banned. Further, all travelers are to be scanned for signs of fever and quarantined displaying signs of illness.

If you suspect you are displaying signs of Ebola, call the hot line and a team will be dispatched to evaluate you. Do not risk exposing others and leave the hospitals clear.

Initial deployments to set up triage centers in Africa are underway as is the training of staff to quarantine and treat the people in Africa. If we cannot prevent the spread of this virus across the nations of Africa, it will soon spread to many of the other nations of the world and become nearly impossible to keep out of our own.

That is why we must be strong. That is why we must not neglect the importance of what we do as individuals. We have worked together to build our great societies, and we must work together to maintain them in the face of a biological entity that knows only consumption. We can not let it use us simply to destroy everything we have created."

Done.

Then you turn over the microphone to the doctors who will handle the nitty-gritty.

It is possible to communicate facts without inducing panic and fear.

Panic and fear arise when people are under pressure and have no idea of how to act.

When you tell people "everything is under control" - and then have stuff like this:

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No one believes you. So, when additional cases crop up - what are they going to do? Act as if it is everyone for one's self. They are going to take the crowded metro rail to the hospital - or maybe worse - just lay in bed and die only to be found days or weeks later after it is too late to try to quarantine anyone they exposed - who are now well into incubation and contagious.

The fact is that this virus is scary shit. Few epidemiologists believed Ebola would ever have the capacity for a global epidemic. It is simply "too hot" - as they say. It kills too many, too quickly, and is limited to being transmitted by various forms of bodily fluids with limited lifetime outside the human body.

Perhaps this strain of Ebola-Zaire is different - perhaps it's acquired a few new tricks since the last time we saw it. Perhaps it is only different in -where- it cropped up.

At the end of the day - you can assume that everything will be okay - business as usual.

Or you can take measures to reduce your likelihood of being a victim, and recognize how to prevent others from becoming a victim should you become infected, yourself.

It is the somewhat interesting 'flaw' in every "zombie plan." Everyone assumes they will not become a zombie - that the hordes will somehow manifest overnight. In this case - everyone assumes they will not become infected with Ebola - that they will always be avoiding infection rather than the ones trying to avoid contaminating others.

That is the unfortunate reality of viruses like Ebola. When we get these types of illnesses - our lives become coin-flips with the 'dead' side weighted in its favor. The man who went to Dallas went to Dallas to try and save his own life - and in doing so may very well have spread this virus into our midst.

And he very well may die. People displaying his symptoms generally don't survive.

We must think of what our actions will do - how they will aid the virus, the enemy, in its objective of consuming our flesh.

Sure - we are human - we want to help each other through hard times. We have to plan for that - people want to survive, and people want to help others survive. But we have to consider how we need to change our behavior to make this work for us as opposed to against us. Having people spill out of cars, vomiting up blood, and stumbling through people to get to the ER is not a good way to go about that.

 

[XxTayxX]

Woah

 

[Arian]

Guess what....

TL;DR

and im pretty sure no one will read this. That said i guess it took you like an hour or even more to make this thread. Well that one hour youll never get back XD

 

[NineSNS]

It is scary. I remember thinking along similar lines when I heard that infected health care workers were flown back to the U.S. for treatment. Not that the virus wouldn't eventually come to the U.S. anyway, but it didn't make sense to risk infecting many people for a disease that was likely to have a bad outcome regardless of the quality of care.

 

[Aim64C]

It is scary. I remember thinking along similar lines when I heard that infected health care workers were flown back to the U.S. for treatment. Not that the virus wouldn't eventually come to the U.S. anyway, but it didn't make sense to risk infecting many people for a disease that was likely to have a bad outcome regardless of the quality of care.

What worries me is the arrogance displayed.

For a bunch of people who are always worried about "stigma" and "perception" - they really know how to lay on the insults to other nations by insisting that our 'clean' world is impermeable to a virus ravaging another world. Because, you know, this is God's way of punishing them for being dirty.

If that were the case - Hepatitis -

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- wouldn't have much of a chance in our society.

But it has been largely controlled in our society due to the prevalence of vaccines - not necessarily "better public health." While we certainly have an overall cleaner society - the fact that Hepatitis A is only infective by ingesting trace amounts of feces (or direct blood contact) and that our nation does experience outbreaks of it where vaccinations are less common implies we are not nearly as 'enlightened' and 'superior' as our politicians would have us believe.

" There were 30,000 cases of hepatitis A reported to the CDC in the US in 1997 but the number has since dropped to less than 2,000 cases reported per year.[38]

The most widespread hepatitis A outbreak in the 2003 United States hepatitis outbreak afflicted at least 640 people (killing four) in north-eastern Ohio and south-western Pennsylvania in late 2003. The outbreak was blamed on tainted green onions at a restaurant in Monaca, Pennsylvania.[39][40] In 1988, more than 300,000 people in Shanghai, China were infected with HAV after eating clams (Anadara subcrenata) from a contaminated river.[13] In June 2013, frozen berries sold by US retailer Costco and purchased by around 240,000 people were the subject of a recall, after at least 158 people were infected with HAV, 69 of whom were hospitalized.[41][42] "

While Hep A certainly has some boons allowing it to survive for much longer outside the human body and to utilize vectors that Ebola currently cannot... it illustrates that our 'bubble' is fragile.

It also illustrates that we should not adopt the policy of assuming we are immune to something by virtue of lifestyle.

As I said - Africa doesn't have nearly as many fast food workers. They don't have nearly as large of a healthcare infrastructure, either - but that is a double-edged sword. Our nurses in Dialysis aren't trained in Biosafety Lab procedures - nor are our patient handlers (care technicians). That isn't a put-down - but these are people who come into contact with blood on a regular basis.

While we are not as crowded or mass-transit oriented as many of the Asian nations - we do have those elements along with a love for food service (while much of the rest of the world cooks food at home - even if it was contaminated by the butcher it was likely cooked out). The people handling our food do so moments before we begin consuming it - meaning a virus with just a few minutes of life outside of the human body has a much better chance of being delivered that route.

Currently - it's also harvest and flu season. People with irritated sinuses are running around everywhere and getting the flu (along with other nasal infections). These are similar to the early symptoms of Ebola (and just about anything else infectious, to be quite honest). Headache, fever, runny nose/puffy eyes - hell, I don't even have to be infected to feel like that some days.

Our 'clean' society has allowed us to develop an inherent trust with each other and our above standard nutrition and medical care allow us to shrug off a wide variety of other diseases. We, as people, tend to trust that the people around us are not really a big problem.

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The text below that reads:

"A worker power washes the sidewalk in front of the apartment unit at The Ivy Apartments where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas October 2, 2014. Up to 100 people may have had direct or indirect contact with the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, and four people have been quarantined in a Dallas apartment, health officials said on Thursday. (REUTERS/Mike Stone)"

These people are not bad people - and they aren't stupid - but they are ignorant.

The vomit from that man? Concentrated virus.

Now - it's been outside and exposed to sunlight - so the UV has likely toasted the virus. But still - Biosafety procedures would be to soak the area in a 1:100 solution of standard 5% household bleach and let it set for a contact time of at least one minute.

Then you would sponge it up and boil the water - incinerate the sponge.

Sure - it's "probably" okay.

But what if the sunlight hadn't killed the virus? Now he's blasting virus mist all over the place.

I look at that scene and I wouldn't want people I care about anywhere near it.

Is it "probably" okay? I think so. Sunlight is a very powerful ally in the war against microbes - the ancients understood the relationship if not the mechanics.

But, there again, would you want your kid standing there while he's power-washing the ebola-vomit off the sidewalk?

Would you want your lover to be in the area?

And then just wash it down the storm drain. Let's hope it didn't gain the ability to reside within clams. While that is exceptionally unlikely - it has been on the back of very hard lessons that Biosafety procedures have been developed.

To ignore them is to invite trouble unnecessarily. This virus outbreak started out with one person. That's all it takes, here, too. That is why the assumption of immunity should not be made. That is why the researchers who work on this virus who -might- have been exposed are immediately placed in BSL4 quarantine and serviced by staff in positive pressure suits.

If the experts insist on working on the virus in that kind of gear... I'm not comfortable telling Joe-schmoe that it's all good to power wash the ebola vomit off the sidewalk like the evidence of a bar fight.

I can understand that BSL4 is not always practical to enforce - but a power-washwer is an absolute no-no. Someone from the CDC should have been there to say: "Uh, hey - thanks for the initiative, but we'll take care of this because it could cause some -really- bad things... oh - and... for future reference - a power washer is about the worst way to clean this up... it creates a lot of mist that the virus can ride through the air on. Bleach and a sponge is a much better idea."

You know - just in case Mr. FixIt gets to helping out in the future before the CDC gets there.

 

[Wabbit]

People here neither have knowledge or awareness nor the resources to contain patients and it is a densely packed country.Indian health ministry has said they are tracking 1,011 persons for ebola who came from infected areas.
They should have been freaking out. I hope some poor countries set example of effective way of controlling it,kill it with fire,no way to isolate patient,dispose of him right there.

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[YowYan]

If this becomes a catastrophy, it's the perfect time to use the FEMA camps as our owners planned it all out. Just another virus set loose on africans. To diminish the numbers of those inferior africans and scare your own people into obedience so implementing martial law won't be questioned.

Meh-eh-eh-eh says the sheep.

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[Kishi Uzumaki]

It's infected mostly through body fluids and blood but it's said that the virus, it's evolving faster and i think, it will be more dangerous if it begin to spread through air, for now it can be contained somewhat if it become air born it will spread faster and could be a world wide disaster but let's hope it won't go in that way .

 

[Aim64C]

If this becomes a catastrophy, it's the perfect time to use the FEMA camps as our owners planned it all out. Just another virus set loose on africans. To diminish the numbers of those inferior africans and scare your own people into obedience so implementing martial law won't be questioned.

Meh-eh-eh-eh says the sheep.

I wish I had that much faith in government. You have a lot of faith in their ability to plan long-term and to competently enact any plan they have set in motion.

Coming from a military person - there is no way in hell this is a practical goal. People in disaster scenarios do -not- suddenly roll over and play dead for people in uniform. This is especially so now that "everything is under control" - and for the scenario you describe to come to fruition - it must certainly not be 'under control' from the public perspective.

Go into the heartland of America and tell them: "Because of this virus that is infecting everyone within close proximity to each other, we are ordering you into close proximity."

Then watch the most armed population on the planet throw the military through a meat grinder.

I'm not saying they won't try. I'm not saying there won't be people who go for it.

But, realistically, if things get to that point - you're going to be lucky to see much resolve from the military.

Part of why I let my contract expire was the tanking morale and the systematic destruction of leadership. People were more concerned over whether or not someone's feelings were hurt than whether or not we could fulfill the mission. Do-nothings would get promoted while people who were good and sensible leaders were passed over, or even punished for choosing to lead in a way the mini-tyrants above them disagreed with.

Jin can attest to this - if he's still around (haven't seen him for a while).

All of the generals and admirals worth a damned have been fired by our petty dictator in the whitehouse. That is why we get a female admiral appointed who wants to go on a witch-hunt for sexual harassment (which, I agree, is wrong and has no place in the military - but they act like the military is a sort of pitri dish for social experiments). No one up there knows how to lead - they got where they are by knowing how to make efficient use of time under the desk of their superiors.

When the families of our military are at risk of being infected by this stuff - are the soldiers going to order them into the FEMA camps? Of course not - they are going to desert and take their family some place they feel is safe and shoot anyone who tries to get in the way of that.

You'll have some who will try to 'stick with the plan' - but you're basically talking about college graduates with no real world experience or families .... also known as junior officers. They have been pre-brainwashed by universities to then get fully brainwashed by the chain of command while learning how to use their knees.

But the idea that the government is any more prepared for this than the civilian public?

That is only for those with faith in the government. Something that did not survive bootcamp, for me.

 

[Aim64C]

It's infected mostly through body fluids and blood but it's said that the virus, it's evolving faster and i think, it will be more dangerous if it begin to spread through air, for now it can be contained somewhat if it become air born it will spread faster and could be a world wide disaster but let's hope it won't go in that way .

The problem is that it doesn't really need to mutate.

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"MONROVIA, Liberia — Thomas Eric Duncan rushed to help his 19-year-old neighbor when she began convulsing days after complaining of stomach pain.

Everyone assumed her illness was related to her being seven months pregnant.

When no ambulance came, Duncan, Marthalene Williams' parents and several others lifted her into a taxi, and Duncan rode in the front seat as the cab took Williams to the hospital. She later died.

Within weeks, everyone who helped Williams that day was either sick or dead, too — victims of Ebola, the virus that is ravaging Liberia's capital and other parts of West Africa, with more than 3,300 deaths reported.

The disease is spread through direct contact with saliva, sweat, blood and other bodily fluids, and all those who fell ill after helping Williams had touched her. She turned out to have Ebola."

The report is actually somewhat promising. The fact that people over there are starting to take note of how disease seems to pass from one person to the next has them altering their behavior - which means we could see it burn itself out.

Maybe.

The thing is, like I said, that people look at this the wrong way.

It is not: "How easy is it to -get- Ebola?"

It's very easy to get ebola. If it was hard to get, it wouldn't exist. It's like asking "How hard is it to get the flu?" As if some effort is required on your part or it is some kind of a challenge.

The question is: "How easy is it to -give- Ebola?"

And that answer is that it is, also, very easy. The main challenge, there, is that you often die within a week of symptoms setting in and that it quickly renders you nearly immobile.

It is not a given - like with smallpox - but it is very easy, when you have become virus soup, to leave behind bits of virus to be picked up by other people who are just unlucky enough to be around you.

Further... I had a runny nose and headache last night while running a bit of a fever.

I had a decision to make. Report myself for quarantine because I may have Ebola and be contagious (and to do that, I should actually call the hospital and tell them that I suspect I am infected with a BSL4 organism - not crawl into the emergency room filled with sick and wounded people).... or just wait it out, because it's probably the combination of fall and flu season.

Why did I decide to not assume I had Ebola? Because I have been nowhere near Africa.

That changes, considerably, if Ebola begins to spread, here.

I go to work with a runny nose and a bit of a headache because - hey - it's probably nothing. I can't quarantine myself every time I -might- have some super-scary apocalyptic virus of doom. I grab food at a crowded fast food restaurant because I do a lot of travel across the state for my job. I stop at a convenience store. I sneeze while in the middle of a store. These locations are dozens of miles apart in a few different towns.

Now is it easy to contain?

Of course not. They just have the flu, too.... until... oh crap - a man in one of the nearby towns was found, as a dissolved mess of Ebola in his apartment. But that was 20 miles away. Surely they've just got the flu.

While it has a narrow gap of communicability - our society has people traveling much farther amidst people with a general assumption of illness being an inconvenience more so than a death sentence. A little bit of spit never hurt anyone, right?

Sure - it may be 'improper' within our hygienic society, but it is also our hygiene that allows us to shrug off daring acts of tempting disease. And, hey - hospitals can cure just about anything.

That is in our cultural habits and mannerisms. It's not going to change overnight. It's not going to change just because the guy in the next town melted from a virus infection.

It only changes after people around you start melting. The guy on the bus collapses and begins gushing blood - then you will find yourself thinking through every possible way in which he could have given you the virus.

As such - I'm not so sure that the virus is so easily contained.

 

[YowYan]

I wish I had that much faith in government. You have a lot of faith in their ability to plan long-term and to competently enact any plan they have set in motion.

Coming from a military person - there is no way in hell this is a practical goal. People in disaster scenarios do -not- suddenly roll over and play dead for people in uniform. This is especially so now that "everything is under control" - and for the scenario you describe to come to fruition - it must certainly not be 'under control' from the public perspective.

Go into the heartland of America and tell them: "Because of this virus that is infecting everyone within close proximity to each other, we are ordering you into close proximity."

Then watch the most armed population on the planet throw the military through a meat grinder.

I'm not saying they won't try. I'm not saying there won't be people who go for it.

But, realistically, if things get to that point - you're going to be lucky to see much resolve from the military.

Part of why I let my contract expire was the tanking morale and the systematic destruction of leadership. People were more concerned over whether or not someone's feelings were hurt than whether or not we could fulfill the mission. Do-nothings would get promoted while people who were good and sensible leaders were passed over, or even punished for choosing to lead in a way the mini-tyrants above them disagreed with.

Jin can attest to this - if he's still around (haven't seen him for a while).

All of the generals and admirals worth a damned have been fired by our petty dictator in the whitehouse. That is why we get a female admiral appointed who wants to go on a witch-hunt for sexual harassment (which, I agree, is wrong and has no place in the military - but they act like the military is a sort of pitri dish for social experiments). No one up there knows how to lead - they got where they are by knowing how to make efficient use of time under the desk of their superiors.

When the families of our military are at risk of being infected by this stuff - are the soldiers going to order them into the FEMA camps? Of course not - they are going to desert and take their family some place they feel is safe and shoot anyone who tries to get in the way of that.

You'll have some who will try to 'stick with the plan' - but you're basically talking about college graduates with no real world experience or families .... also known as junior officers. They have been pre-brainwashed by universities to then get fully brainwashed by the chain of command while learning how to use their knees.

But the idea that the government is any more prepared for this than the civilian public?

That is only for those with faith in the government. Something that did not survive bootcamp, for me.

I think you're either underestimating them or avoiding having to recognize their agenda even exists as it would be like accepting conspiracy "theories". Hitler manipulated and indoctrinated a whole nation into obedience. Usa is in the process of domestic "cleansing" meanwhile terrorizing nations across the globe. Fema camps, millions of coffins and the militarization of the police are all confirmed. In some states, collecting rainwater, frontyard foodgardens and detaching your house from the central energy/water companies is illegal. Your country is fascist and mine is following along, slowly eroding our rights as to not make it noteworthy. Ebola is just another tactic.

In many other threads its interesting to read long, informative posts but sometimes its better to simplify your words and get straight to the point as to not miss the bigger picture.

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Scuse me if our posts overlap, i'm at work and rushed your post before replying.

 

[Braveknight]

such a good thread, +rep looking for more of this kind of awareness related threads

 

[Parrish]

Nice thread, thanks for posting.

Has caused almost the same amount of panic as the H1N1 from a few years back.

 

[Aim64C]

I think you're either underestimating them or avoiding having to recognize their agenda even exists as it would be like accepting conspiracy "theories". Hitler manipulated and indoctrinated a whole nation into obedience. Usa is in the process of domestic "cleansing" meanwhile terrorizing nations across the globe. Fema camps, millions of coffins and the militarization of the police are all confirmed. In some states, collecting rainwater, frontyard foodgardens and detaching your house from the central energy/water companies is illegal. Your country is fascist and mine is following along, slowly eroding our rights as to not make it noteworthy. Ebola is just another tactic.

In many other threads its interesting to read long, informative posts but sometimes its better to simplify your words and get straight to the point as to not miss the bigger picture.

Scuse me if our posts overlap, i'm at work and rushed your post before replying.

I agree, 100%, that there is a 'socialist agenda' in this country.

I am also fairly convinced that Obama (or whomever he is listening to) is deliberately attempting to instigate a civil war. His sudden withdraw from Iraq allowed ISIS to metastasize and immediately opened up the door for dividing people along religious lines. He essentially activated the Muslim sleeper cells within the United States.

By failing to secure the southern border and essentially granting amnesty to illegal migrants, he has begun to divide the nation both regionally and racially. It is no coincidence that Enterovirus D68 - a virus native to Venezuela - has begun popping up all over the U.S. after the U.S. began piping those immigrants all over the nation (and pay people to house them - which sounds like government-authorized mail-order-bride service, to me.... which is precisely what the DHS has gotten in trouble over at some of those camps). It's also no coincidence that tuberculosis outbreaks have begun in parts of Texas and California.

Then, while the progressives have always utilized race as a dividing point, the Obama administration has gone well out of its way to instigate racial division by leveraging the perception of his race to drum up 'anti white' support among blacks. His administration has also adopted this with Holder's handling of Ferguson (as well as Obama's comments).

The general trend of socialism has been more of a philosophy that has spread through the universities. It's convincing people that they can be philosopher-kings and use their 'better enlightenment' to make decisions for other people because they are 'too dumb' to realize their own errors.

It also doesn't help that the nation adopted a policy of paying people to exist with the argument of a 'safety net' (because no one wants to starve in the event they lose their job - but such programs are set up to abuse and convince people that, without them, they would die). It makes the concept of big government, small freedom much easier to sneak in inch-by-inch.

The universities also make it very easy to argue against employers. They convince kids that they are going to make enough money to pay off their loans by completing a degree program in whatever - then say that the employers and corporations are evil for not having enough jobs to pay these kids 'what they deserve.' Obviously - the government needs to come in and do something.

Which has distorted the historical perception of government. In my own history classes through high school - even when we had conservative-leaning teachers - the literature in the history book was nothing short of worshiping the government. The "New Deal" saved America; the labor laws are the only reason kids are not slaving away in factories, today; the government acted to teach people that racism was wrong; etc.

Of course - time and time again, if you go back and look at what historians dig up on those issues - you see that the government was often on the tailing end of things. The 'New Deal' prolonged the depression, the growth of family structures was already taking kids out of factories (along with general hiring trends), most of the population supported equal voting rights and other such ends to discriminatory behavior - to a greater amount than their 'representatives' did.

That trend has been subtle - but has progressively made it difficult for small-government advocates to make the argument as they must spend most of their time de-programming the publicly educated - who may be very bright people, but taught a bunch of lies that many of them have had no reason to question. Even those who would support smaller government have been led to believe that history illustrates that large government intervention into our daily lives is necessary.

The government is incapable of being part of a grand conspiracy. The government is simply a pawn in an ideological conspiracy. People believing in such ideologies work their way into government and then begin acting in accordance with their ideology.

For people like Obama - a 'community organizer' ("rabble-rouser") - that means his job is to agitate.

That is why he is always late for every speech. Hitler did this. It makes the crowd more angry and it sends the message that his time is more important than theirs. It makes them more vulnerable to the lie he is about to tell to explain why they are angry.

This is also why he walks away from the mic and turns his back on the people afterward. Their questions and anger are not to be directed at him. His time is more important. Their questions and anger should be directed at the target he just identified.

This is why his policies have been to instigate nearly every divide possible. There is a "war on women" a "war on blacks" - everywhere people are victims that need him and his party to save them.

At this point - it is getting hard to tell if the tragedies that have surrounded him are intentional to create division, or just a product of the incompetence that comes with staffing ideological ****-lickers into positions of power. Either way - he attempts to exploit them.

If there was a conspiracy that truly wanted to depopulate the blacks - we would see Small Pox make a return. The Russians have stores of it (or did) that no one seems to know where they went. Our own store of it is held at USAMRIID under tight security and was, at least as recently as 2006, being used to develop better vaccines than the cowpox vaccine (which has a fatality rate of about 1:1000 - which is too high to use under anything short of an emergency... yet no one keeps stores of it large enough to be useful in the event it were to return... with an R0 of 12 - it would infect the whole of the planet within a couple months). Smallpox was the 'human virus.' It could survive in no organism but humans (although infections in a chimp were shown after saturating the chimp with small pox virus) and was exceptionally effective at passing among our species.

Actually - the BRN (or R0) would be much higher in practice. The R0 of 12 was based on historical charting of the virus's spread when the virus was endemic (therefor a substantial portion of the population already had smallpox). The virus is the size of a smoke particle and travels almost identically. A rash on the back of your throat forms before the skin lesions and allows the virus to spew freely into the air. Simply being in proximity to others will more than likely spread the virus to them. In western society (or, God Forbid - Asia) - that means hundreds - even thousands - are potentially infected by the time your Patient 0 is known (depending upon who your Patient 0 is).

Some of the worst strains of smallpox have a case fatality rate of 30% - with some triggering hemorrhagic infections (exactly what causes this is unknown). Obviously - in a crisis situation - it could be worse. The poor areas would be the hardest hit and the least able to find medical attention.

The only ones vaccinated against smallpox, currently, are -some- military personnel, some government officials, and humanitarian aid workers. Even then - much of the military that is vaccinated against it is done so as part of CBR-D. Like I said - we know the Russians were producing it by the ton as recently as the 80s and have no idea where it went. Someone has it - and it can survive for years, even decades. People who happen across old pox scabs in the attic have gotten it (the chest your grandmother told you never to open - that whole movie plot).

So if you want a virus that is going to cull the masses and preserve the elite - it'd be Smallpox.

Of course - it will also probably collapse society in the same stroke.

Basically - I don't see any reason to see Ebola as a "special creation." The world is destructive enough. Nature is destructive and terrifying enough. They need only wait for catastrophe to strike in order to try to take advantage of it.

Although, in this case, the Obama administration has grievously over-estimated its ability to appear competent. People are beginning to unite against what is perceived to be an incompetent government that is incapable of fulfilling its promises.

While that is not a complete rejection of the idea of "big government" - it is beginning to sow the seeds of a change that the progressive agenda has not counted on. It gets groups of people talking who, just years ago, were hardly speaking to each other outside of throwing insults.

People are beginning to see that: "Hey... those guys who are concerned about the people walking freely across the border.... maybe they were concerned about one of them having something like Ebola and bringing it here?"

He's over-played his hand.

That doesn't mean the threat is over - far from it. The Muslim community will become increasingly hostile and violent. As will the groups that try to instigate events like Ferguson (again - they are over-playing their hand - much of the community is beginning to believe that their youth have a problem, rather than the rest of the world).

But I do think the tides are starting to change, for the moment.

It's a long way away from getting people to understand that social security is not necessary - nor is government sponsored welfare... but people are starting to realize that the very things the 'crazy conservatives' have warned about are more than just 'fear.'

Organ-melting viruses are very difficult to hold a debate with. You can sit there and tell them: "We have top-notch medical care. You aren't supposed to be here." All you want - if the virus manages to get a hold in our population, you're trying to argue with the laws of nature. The virus says: "Food!" And that's pretty much all it understands.

Deep down, people understand this. That is why there are a lot of them, now, who are going: "Uh... so why are we letting people from Ebolaville just hop a plane and fly here? Shouldn't we... you know... stop this? Seems like a bad idea to let this keep happening."

The thing is that a prolonged Ebola outbreak in the U.S. will be blamed on the Obama administration. There is absolutely no amount of spin that could convince more than fringe elements of the population. Weeks ago, "it will not come here" - now, "It will not be able to take hold, here."

Either way - I've got plans to deal with any of the potential outcomes. Doesn't guarantee I'll survive - but it does give me a leg-up.

 

[YowYan]

Plans? I heard you are a prepper. Care to share some of your work? I was always into that

 

[Aim64C]

Plans? I heard you are a prepper. Care to share some of your work? I was always into that

My plans are somewhat limited, at the moment, unfortunately.

I can really only plan on being mobile or poised to mobilize, currently. The region I'm in is temperate and has a strong agricultural base - so there's not a huge amount of need to travel far. It's also a college town - so that means, during a crisis, it's quite possible that the population that is a major draw on resources will depart - meaning fewer people taking things off of shelves.

By that same token, past experience with winter weather has shown that de-icer is gone within the first five minutes of the weather report predicting stupid amounts of ice/snow. So if they decide to hunker down rather than move - things will get scarce quick. Especially with college kids still under the impression that some law will save them (although these are largely midwestern kids - so they tend to have a little bit more sense... but their tendency to walk into moving traffic suggests they have been educated to a degree that one should be concerned).

My apartment isn't in too bad of a spot - but the lake water nearby would need to be filtered (a lot of it runs off from the parking lots). Fortunately - my job in Dialysis has given me experience with water treatment systems to include DI and RO. So after the brunt of the calamity dies down and people are looking to get things back in order - I will have some value, along with my knowledge of electrical systems (I could build an entire solar/hydro/wind hybrid power system from discrete components).

I've actually got a store of magnet wire and some permanent magnets with the idea of being able to re-wind blown transformers, alternators, or even cobble together a self-inducing generator (some of the best performing generators in terms of power/weight/size - well, except for the very small applications where rare earth magnets allow for more power in smaller form factors).

My plan is to buy a house outside of city limits (bunch of ****ing communists bleeding me dry in town... get this - because of the mild summer and people used too LITTLE power - the city council voted to raise the rates... and don't get me started on their abuse of federal grants for bike paths... when my car and the bike path -must- occupy the same space in a given stretch of road, it is not a bike path no matter what the paint says). At which point I'll start the more 'classic prepper' oriented planning. Back-up generator, CNC machine, possibly some rapid prototype equipment, stores of food, seed, and water (along with an RO system - I actually plan to try and get my house shifted over to run on all RO - I don't need to worry about biogrowth nearly as much as our clinic does, so a pressure tank-based solution is workable.... in the clinics we must use a recirculating loop on the storage tanks or a direct from the RO feed system - and direct-feed requires a fairly large RO with steady draw on its permeate).

On the more immediate side - I've got a couple packs with an estimated 3 weeks of supply of freeze-dried and preserved food, each, along with a couple buckets of random stuff that will be better than dying. I've got some of my old issue gear stored along with them - though I need to get properly camouflaged packs to put all of my stores in (I'm weird when it comes to spending money - I'll spend thousands of dollars on something without a second thought but refuse to pay a hundred for a solid quality backpack or outdoor clothing).

The idea is that I remain set up to have a 'crisis buddy' in such an event.

Along with this, I have an undisclosed amount of silver bar stock and U.S. standard coinage I try to keep on hand (the idea being that people will shift to using coins and precious metals in the event of an economic collapse - coins because they are familiar and difficult to reproduce, precious metals because they are precious).

I've also got containers of RO water stored up with a couple that I keep in my car at all times.

It was funny, though - I was in a nearby army surplus store the other day, and a guy came in looking for a Biosafety suit. The clerk said he'd been asked that, before, but that demand for them was so high that even hospitals were having difficulty getting them.

I've been looking at some of the offerings for BDU-type clothing, and I've been impressed by MuliCam - so I've been heavily considering equipping myself along those lines. Though a proper rifle is of a higher priority, to be honest (honestly one of the things you'd expect me to have and I am ashamed of not having... I am just really picky about both my weapon and my dealer). I really like its Near-IR reduction - which I am convinced is voodoo magic.

I only wish their cold weather wear was progressing the way it is in the hiking enthusiast market. North Face and others have been putting out some 'wonder materials' that compound water shedding with thermal insulation with light/flexible. Of course... these are made for hiking - so the exposure to fire, soot, etc might make them ill-advised (cotton burns off - polyester melts on like napalm).

I am relatively local to a few of my old CORIVRON affiliates and we've loosely discussed working together in a crisis. Many of my long-time friends from high-school have also talked about it to a limited degree... although I'm nervous about including them simply because we are not used to -relying- on each other and rolling with authoritative decision making. While a few of them have commented that they'd trust me over a lot of other people because I'm the type to see these things coming six turns away - they have not had the 'do it now or horrible things will happen to us' drilled into them like many of us in the military have.

And it's not just 'do what you're told' (by whomever is trusted to make the decisions at the moment) - it's 'trust that what you're about to do, even if it is not what you think is optimal, is going to work and execute it with the same passion and intensity as if it were your own idea.' While it's not good to have a system of complete authoritarianism/autocracy - when things are going pear shaped you can't sit around and argue for twenty minutes only to have someone grumble off and half-heartedly perform whatever it was they were supposed to do with the attitude of "See, I told you it wouldn't work" - when "wouldn't work" entails casualties to your own team.

May not always be the optimal decisions that the group ends up making - but any decision the team can walk away from is a survivable one.

Which is kind of odd - given my typical 'anti-government, anti-control' nature - but there is a time when you have to set individual liberty aside long enough to keep everyone from dying. The problem comes when people fail to transition properly between these states of mind.


As for the context of some kind of bio outbreak:


This one largely depends upon what kind of outbreak we are talking about.

Something like Ebola is logically possible to take measures to substantially reduce your chance of exposure. Something like smallpox is pretty much unavoidable.

The best overall defense is to make sure you have your survival basics reasoned through a couple different scenarios. Food, water, shelter. Starved, dehydrated, and exposed - you'll die of just about anything. Hygiene should also be considered - particularly the hazard of Staph infections. Staph does all kinds of crazy things if it gets anywhere but on the skin (where it normally resides) - and it is highly suspected that staph infections were commonly what caused death following simple cuts and abrasions in the "old world."

Thus, washing of wounds should be considered pretty critical. I'd squeeze leaves or root pulp to get water to wash a wound with if I had to (although simply boiling it should do - even if it has some particulate contaminates).

The best defense against any kind of bio outbreak is nutrition and exercise. Both of which are hard to keep up under a survival situation (well, perhaps not the exercise - although that increases your calorie demands which can strain reserve food supplies). Other good investments would be vaccines (if you could work in a smallpox vaccine somehow, I'd recommend it - while it is "only good for ten years" - studies have shown that people who have previously had the vaccine have improved survival modalities later on - so even if it doesn't prevent you from getting it after ten years - it would seem to help you survive it). I would also recommend the Measles vaccine if you haven't had it.

I know the typical 'anti-government' view on vaccines is a cynical one - but Smallpox and Measles have a deep history to them.

If it is something that is similar to the flu in terms of being contagious - then I wouldn't look at your survival planning as being "how to not get it" and look, instead, at how best to place yourself to survive the infection. This is one of the hardest 'steps' for the mentality to take as it admits vulnerability and the potential need for outside assistance from others.

The fact is that most infections have the best survival rates when you can be kept fed, hydrated, allowed plenty of sleep, and not have to exert yourself (though some illnesses are better treated in conjunction with mild exercise to improve circulation - this is not all of them). That means your odds of surviving it alone in a tent/bunker in the woods are low.

Although it would also be flawed to assume you will have the advanced hospital care that is currently available, and it might not be the best idea to seek attention at over-crowded hospitals where people are swamping the system and carrying all manner of other infectious organisms along with them.

This is where having a small group or community is not a bad idea.

Although - again - this depends upon the severity of the disease and its communicability. If it's something like Ebola - I'd have the "community policy" of quarantine. I don't care how great of a person I was or how nice it would be to have me survive - leave me for dead and burn me. The sentiment is not worth the risk.

For something like the flu - I would still try to compartmentalize infection - say a group of ten people - one person is the designated care-taker and attempts to use what would be considered BSL2 standards. Face mask/respirator (can be improvised), gloves (if possible) - and ample hand-washing. This person (which may change throughout the crisis) will be the one who handles taking care of those who are infected and is to have as little direct contact with non-infected in the group as possible.

Three people would be your 'public interface' - These are the people who will handle trade between others during the outbreak. The anticipation is that they will eventually be infected - but, again, the are to limit direct contact with the other members. In the event the care-taker falls ill, one of these people defaults to taking care of the others.

This leaves three for watch-standing (recommend 3 12-hour shifts with 4-hour overlap on take-up and stand-down) and 3 for operations (construction, cooking, cleaning, etc). The members of this group are interchangeable unless the guard section is exposed during guard operations - then that particular guard(s) must limit contact with the others and should be considered on permanent guard duty until cleared or contracted.

In a triage situation, the known non-infected isolate and work off of provisional stores to maintain the group's wellness as best as possible with unknowns serving as care-takers (the guard essentially becomes the care taking segment). Never should the known non-infected commit more than one to care-taking.

Those who are infected and survive will be immediately rotated onto the public interface section.

Here, it is not so much that you are trying to "quarantine" - but to simply try to control in what order people get the disease to keep the group from coming down with it all at once. This gives your group the benefits of care-taking while reducing some of the risks associated with it by giving those who survive it (much improved because they are being taken care of) the responsibility of caring for those who get it, next.

Sunlight is your friend when it comes to biohazards. Not only does exposure to sun convert cholesterol to ViatminD - VitaminD is also shown to be very helpful for immune response.

In another context, the UV and higher temperatures from sunlight are very destructive to many pathogens. Bed linens should always (in a survival situation) be rinsed and allowed to sun until tried and then allowed exposure for another two hours. If sanitation of serving containers/utensils cannot be guaranteed - allowing them to set in the sun is a good choice - note, however, that standard glass blocks UV light - so tall glasses may be difficult to sanitize in this situation (although we are mostly concerned about the rim where the most direct contact is).

There was some blip I saw on facebook, one day, about how a student at some university used some plastic bags and water to focus sunlight for sterilizing purposes. This would work, as water is not an effective obstacle for UV. You would just have to play around with it to get the focal point right.

I didn't actually read the article because half of those things are "a nine year old built a device to save the planet - we just need to build 5,000 of them and they dwarf the Sydney Opera House." But the principle is sound as far as I understand. Supposedly the same can be used to sterilize water - but a lot of the microbes that live inside of water are pretty hardy to UV - although focusing light on a small amount of water to autoclave in the presence of UV might not be a bad idea.

If you have access to it - autoclaving with citric acid has been shown to be -very- effective at killing most microbes. It's arguably better than ozone disinfection and is certainly safer than bleach (though bleach can be done at room temperature).

Further - a 1:100 solution of standard 5.x% household bleach in a roughly 1 gallon amount, combined with 1ml of acetic acid (standard household vinegar) has been shown to be effective at eliminating bacterial spores as well as everything else.

Combining peroxide with acetic acid creates peracetic acid. Hydrogen peroxide, when used in the presence of any acid, becomes exceptionally effective at killing things because it increases the oxidation of the peroxide and allows it to oxidize things it normally wouldn't (such as cell walls).

In terms of incidental exposure - none of those are regarded as dangerous. While we're paranoid about exposure to disinfectant in dialysis - it's mostly because we are taking blood out of someone's body, running it alongside water (generated by systems we disinfect) and then putting it back in them. Running someone for 20 minutes on a 1:1000 concentration of bleach or peracetic acid is much more dangerous than if you were to have a bit of residue on your glass.

Basically, dealing with microscopic horrors is about the same as dealing with space aliens and hollywood monsters. If the extremes of the PH range don't kill it, fire or sunlight in the shape of a holy cross generally works.

 

[Wabbit]

Ebola is in Spain

"The nurse had twice gone into the room where Mr Garcia Viejo had been treated - to be directly involved in his care and to disinfect the room after his death. Both times she was wearing protective clothing.

Madrid health care director Antonia Alemany told reporters that according to the information available: "The nurse went into the room wearing the individual protection gear and there's no knowledge of an accidental exposure to risk."

Shortly afterwards the nurse went on holiday, a hospital spokesman said, but fell ill on 30 September and was admitted to Alcorcon hospital in south-west Madrid on Sunday after being tested positive for Ebola. "

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She had a protective clothing.They dont know how she got it
They are using the same protocols,repeating the mistakes,something she might have done.

 

[Aim64C]

Ebola is in Spain

"The nurse had twice gone into the room where Mr Garcia Viejo had been treated - to be directly involved in his care and to disinfect the room after his death. Both times she was wearing protective clothing.

Madrid health care director Antonia Alemany told reporters that according to the information available: "The nurse went into the room wearing the individual protection gear and there's no knowledge of an accidental exposure to risk."

Shortly afterwards the nurse went on holiday, a hospital spokesman said, but fell ill on 30 September and was admitted to Alcorcon hospital in south-west Madrid on Sunday after being tested positive for Ebola. "

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She had a protective clothing.They dont know how she got it
They are using the same protocols,repeating the mistakes,something she might have done.

This is exactly the type of thing that concerns me.

What the public is being told is: "Don't eat dead people or their excrement, and you're good."

The reality is that it's far more contagious than that. It -has- to be in order to survive in the wild. It is certainly not as contagious as something like the flu - but the fact is that -no one- at USAMRIID - the people who work with Ebola regularly - has ever been infected with Ebola from working with Ebola.

Now - it's quite possible that we are looking at errors in procedures - but this is what has been coming out of the treatment centers in Africa for some time. "We don't know how they are getting it... it had to be some kind of procedure error."

I am curious what kind of protective clothing she was wearing. Even for decon - procedure should be BSL4. That is a pressurized suit with a full decon shower before taking the suit off.

That means they were not using BSL4 procedures (which means it's far more contagious than we are being led to believe), there was a compromise of the BSL4 equipment (suit puncture, skin puncture, the decon shower wasn't primed with disinfectant, etc), or that this particular strain has a resistance to the cocktail of disinfectants usually used in a decon shower (exceptionally unlikely).

This is particularly concerning because they say there was no evidence of compromise of the equipment. A cut on her hand, arms, etc would be noticeable (and I should hope they were looking for such things - else I've lost confidence in Spain's medical staff) and be a likely point of entry.

For example:

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Six potential biological exposures within the highest level of biosafety labs at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in 2012 included the Ebola, Marburg, Andes and Sin Nombre viruses, spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden said in an email Thursday.

The incidents included two potential exposures to Ebola, three separate incidents with Marburg and another incident with Andes and Sin Nombre in one room within a suite. Another potential exposure to Marburg occurred in a second room within the same suite as the Andes and Sin Nombre incident, Vander Linden said.
.
.
.
None of the employees became ill from any of the potential exposures. All were placed under surveillance by USAMRIID personnel after each incident.

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In official parlance, the room is called the BSL-4 Patient Isolation Suite. Unofficially, it's called "the slammer."

Located at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Frederick's sprawling Fort Detrick, "the slammer" is made up of two, 180-square-foot patient care rooms and a 300-square-foot treatment room. It was here that a USAMRIID scientist who recently was feared to be exposed to a weakened form of the Ebola virus was housed for 21 days between Feb. 12 and March 3.

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While conditions at this hospital are not going to be as 'engineered' as a building -designed- for BSL4 work, it should give you an idea of what standard is expected, here.

The decon shower might be a 'field' variety - but it should still serve the same function, even if it looks more like a clear-plastic tent.

It should also give you an idea of how different this strain of Ebola is - and perhaps why it is actually taking hold in the human population this time around.

Existing samples of Ebola that have been worked with by USAMRIID have not illustrated a very strong ability to spread through laboratory incidents. No one who has ever had an incidental exposure to Ebola or Marburg has ever contracted the disease.

Perhaps this strain has resolved a problem the others have not that makes just that much more able to jump from human to human?

Perhaps the Spanish need to up their game on their isolation wards?

It's hard to know without investigating the spaces they are using and auditing their procedures. Perhaps they are using BSL2 procedures because they believe the U.S. Surgeon General (who is a political hack).

There is something different about this Ebola outbreak both in where it originated and how it is spreading. It seems to be more contagious than other strains have been, and even if it is "only just so" - it is allowing it to survive where other outbreaks have fizzled out.

Or perhaps the other outbreaks have just never had the ability to travel like West Africa does (which is more modern than central Africa and more densely populated). This Ebola outbreak is playing out differently than others have.

We need to slam the region shut. No one out without 21 day quarantine, and start sectioning off the population as best as possible while clamping down hard on individual cases within 'clean' zones. You can't hope to save everyone - you have to try to get the healthy people away from the sick people and then do the best you can to handle the cases that come to the healthy people. You can try to care for the sick so long as you have the capacity - but the first priority is to separate the virus from its food.

So long as we keep playing political games with this, we lose ground.

 

[Cruciatus]

. . . I'll come back and read this later. Lol

But yeah, agreed. The Hot Zone is an amazing book.