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No it's not a big deal. Ebola is deadly if you catch it but it is not very contagious at all. You need to be in contact with someone's fluids basically. It can'
by cm2187 5mo ago
No it's not a big deal. Ebola is deadly if you catch it but it is not very contagious at all. You need to be in contact with someone's fluids basically. It can't go very far.
- Retric 5mo agoIf it was that simple Ebola wouldn’t ever spread and nobody would bother trying to contain it. Instead it’s relatively easy to contain but still requires active effort.
- PunchyHamster 5mo agoIt's that simple... in first world countries. Lacks in infrastructure and educatin make it harder
- Retric 5mo agoCOVID spread didn’t break down into first world vs third world countries because first world countries infrastructure isn’t built with pandemics in mind. Instead a great deal of modern infrastructure like subway systems makes things more difficult not less.
- beng-nl 5mo agoI’m not an epidemiologist, but Ebola isn’t airborne like COVID is, so that isn’t a comparison that can be made. infrastructure density matters, but it doesn’t affect both the same way.
- Retric 5mo agoThis gets into the question of definitions vs edge cases. Ebola like many viruses can be contagious without direct touching. It’s not well adapted to airborne transmission, but it’s very good at causing people to spread bodily fluids all over the place. So a very sick individual passing through a subway seeking medical treatment could infect a large number of people.
- EGreg 5mo agoEbola can mutate and this would no longer be true
- lucb1e 5mo agoPigs can grow wings too. Is there a particular small set of mutations that you're referring to that we're actually worried about, or just wildly speculating of what could happen in a one-in-a-quadrillion event?
- idle_zealot 5mo agoIf pigs reproduced and mutated as rapidly as viruses then yeah, we would probably need to plan around the eventuality that they would develop wings and escape their pens.
- lucb1e 5mo agoNot answering the question. Is there some small gene change that we're specifically worried about here or was GP wildly speculating? > reproduced and mutated as rapidly as viruses HIV spreads in similar ways afaik (some fluids, I don't know the details of Ebola but it's not respiratory), yet that hasn't gone airborne in decades. I'm well aware that pigs don't get a million offspring each, but it doesn't seem like a common event for viruses to completely change their mechanism overnight either. Hence the quadrillion odds I mentioned, I was indeed referencing that they mutate so much, and yet...
- jjk166 5mo ago> Is there some small gene change that we're specifically worried about here Yes. A single gene change allows for airborne Ebola transmission. This gene change has occurred in the Reston strain, which luckily does not cause symptoms in humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus
- leereeves 5mo ago
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> Ebola is deadly if you catch it but it is not very contagious at all This isn't straight Ebolavirus (Zaire), but this thing [1]. We don't have enough data yet to confirm it spreads like Ebola among humans. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundibugyo_ebolavirus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundibugyo_ebolavirus
- cm2187 5mo agoFine, but "we don't know" != "it's a big deal". All I see here is wild speculation.
- pnt12 5mo agoBut also "we don't know"! = "it's NOT a big deal". I'm OK with some caution.
- umpalumpaaa 5mo agoYeah I agree with you here… Haven’t we been burnt by being not cautious enough when COVID hit? Initially most scientists said “we don’t know if it’s airborne” or they said “there are no signs that it’s airborne” and the media turned it into “nothing flying fear” - and a few weeks later it was suddenly airborne. “We don’t know” is a normal state in science and policies and personal behavior can take unknowns into consideration.