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Epidemiologists have long argued that we over index on diseases like Ebola, who are too lethal to pose a pandemic risk. There have been 1,590 confirmed Ebola fa
by ashtonkem 6y ago
Epidemiologists have long argued that we over index on diseases like Ebola, who are too lethal to pose a pandemic risk. There have been 1,590 confirmed Ebola fatalities since 1976. Scary if you live where the outbreaks happen, but surprisingly small for how much we freak out about it.
Should we spend some resources on Ebola? Of course. But those resources should be spent in line with the risks as we best understand them. By 2004 we already had evidence that coronaviruses were much more dangerous than Ebola, with the 2003/2004 SARS outbreak killing half as many people (774) as Ebola has in nearly 50 years. Ignoring COVID-19, SARS and MERS (both coronaviruses) have killed 1,640 people, exceeding Ebola’s grim toll.
- telchar 6y agoYou seem to be very low on your Ebola numbers[0]. Is that based on a super-strict definition of "confirmed"? [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28755033 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28755033
- ashtonkem 6y agoPulled from Wikipedia, which might've been a mistake.
- awb 6y ago> surprisingly small for how much we freak out about it. It might be small _because_ we freak out about it. Kind of like New Zealand's COVID-19 numbers (or other countries with aggressive prevention / mitigation methods). In comparing diseases we probably want to compare their transmission and mortality rates and long-term effects. If we compare their infection or death count then we're comparing the disease + the response together which muddies the waters a bit.