5 ms·

Quarantine is one of the BEST ways to stop a disease's spread. These countries don't have the medical infrastructure to risk NOT implementing quarantine.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- autism_hurts 12y ago
  I guess it's about perception within quarantine -- do you feel like medical, food, etc is getting though? Risk for violence is low.
harshreality 12y ago
It's not just the medical infrastructure. Most of the locals don't have even the most basic understanding of disease. They don't understand not touching ebola victims. They don't understand not removing infectious ebola victims from treatment/containment and taking them to local healers. Even the foreign aid medical infrastructure is inadequate, not enough resources and too overworked to maintain proper isolation protocol, hence all the foreign aid workers getting infected.
- crassus2 12y ago
  This sounds like something that could be taught in a 30 minute lesson. What's the problem?
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    Trust. Think about how many folk in Europe or the US are against vaccination, or think that big pharma is trying to wipe out everyone. Now consider how many people are of those opinions in areas that have historically been governed by unbelievably brutal European empires that treated people living there like livestock.
  - CDRdude 12y ago
    Some people there don't even believe that Ebola is real.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - discodave 12y ago
    Remember that some of these people never went to school, do not trust westerners, believe in witchdoctors etc.
  - soperj 12y ago
    Sounds like a great idea until you realize that they think you're bringing the disease, not helping.
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    It is something someone could teach YOU in a 30 minute lesson. That's because you're taking for granted a lot of "obvious" things which aren't actually that obvious.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  It is actually scary how unenformed they are, but on a certain level it makes sense. You have some people who get sick, but people get sick from time to time and they don't feel much worse than they normally do. Then space aliens come and take them away and they never get any healthier. I strongly suspect that a lot more people survive ebola than we hear about because they stay hidden at home with only the hardedst hit cases risk going to the hospital.
  - Crito 12y ago
    My understanding is that the disease was already wiping out entire families before authorities recognized what was going on and sent in the space aliens. Patient Zero for this outbreak is thought to have died in December of 2013. Local authorities didn't recognize an outbreak of something until mid-March, and it was't until late March that WHO started sending people in. By that time there were already 70 dead. So it is more like "Year after year, you have some people get sick, some die, some live. One day somebody gets sick and dies fast and painfully. A few weeks later the rest of their tribe/family is dead or dying. A few weeks after that, the space aliens start coming in, but people continue to die."
tomjen3 12y ago
No, it is a horrible way. You are signing the death warrent for anyone being forced to stay inside the area, sacrificing human lives like so many tribes of old. The best way, the only acceptable way, is to have medicine for the decease. We have some that we just aren't putting into trials because we aren't sure that it won't kill them - when they are going to die anyway in an absolutely horrible way.
- kec 12y ago
  Quarantines are not orthogonal to using or developing medicine. Quarantine is also the only reliable way to prevent the spreading of a disease, and really the only way we have to deal with a disease like ebola which has no known cure. It sucks for the healthy ones in the quarantined zone, but allowing anyone to leave the zone while in the middle of an outbreak risks far more lives.
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    "It sucks for the healthy ones in the quarantined zone," Note - we aren't talking about smallpox/typhus/flu - ebola is pretty hard to get. As long as you don't touch the body or its fluids, you aren't going to get ebola.
- harshreality 12y ago
  It is not safe to go into an area in Africa with an ebola outbreak and try to treat it. Medical workers are not properly adhering to safety protocols. The numbers of medical personnel infected during this outbreak demonstrate that. You can't ask medical personnel to take major risks with their lives to help a few people with ebola. If they and their organizations want to continue to render aid, that's their choice, but if there aren't enough foreign aid resources to set up proper treatment centers with proper quarantine, and when the locals for whatever reason are violating quarantines and putting everyone, other locals and medical staff at risk, then it's simply not safe enough. The only remaining option is to quarantine the afflicted areas. It's also only a death warrant if the people in the quarantine zones don't observe proper safety. If my city (in the U.S.) had an outbreak of ebola, I'd stay home, and barring someone purposely trying to infect me, I'd be safe. Ebola is not an evil spirit that infects everyone in the quarantine area who doesn't flee. Even if it were a more easily transmissible strain of ebola, if you're not in a housing unit sharing air with people who are infected, you're pretty safe.
enraged_camel 12y ago
They also don't have the resources to implement effective quarantines.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

autism_hurts 12y ago
I guess it's about perception within quarantine -- do you feel like medical, food, etc is getting though? Risk for violence is low.

harshreality 12y ago

It's not just the medical infrastructure. Most of the locals don't have even the most basic understanding of disease. They don't understand not touching ebola victims. They don't understand not removing infectious ebola victims from treatment/containment and taking them to local healers. Even the foreign aid medical infrastructure is inadequate, not enough resources and too overworked to maintain proper isolation protocol, hence all the foreign aid workers getting infected.

crassus2 12y ago
This sounds like something that could be taught in a 30 minute lesson. What's the problem?
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  Trust. Think about how many folk in Europe or the US are against vaccination, or think that big pharma is trying to wipe out everyone. Now consider how many people are of those opinions in areas that have historically been governed by unbelievably brutal European empires that treated people living there like livestock.
- CDRdude 12y ago
  Some people there don't even believe that Ebola is real.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- discodave 12y ago
  Remember that some of these people never went to school, do not trust westerners, believe in witchdoctors etc.
- soperj 12y ago
  Sounds like a great idea until you realize that they think you're bringing the disease, not helping.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  It is something someone could teach YOU in a 30 minute lesson. That's because you're taking for granted a lot of "obvious" things which aren't actually that obvious.
tomjen3 12y ago
It is actually scary how unenformed they are, but on a certain level it makes sense. You have some people who get sick, but people get sick from time to time and they don't feel much worse than they normally do. Then space aliens come and take them away and they never get any healthier. I strongly suspect that a lot more people survive ebola than we hear about because they stay hidden at home with only the hardedst hit cases risk going to the hospital.
- Crito 12y ago
  My understanding is that the disease was already wiping out entire families before authorities recognized what was going on and sent in the space aliens. Patient Zero for this outbreak is thought to have died in December of 2013. Local authorities didn't recognize an outbreak of something until mid-March, and it was't until late March that WHO started sending people in. By that time there were already 70 dead. So it is more like "Year after year, you have some people get sick, some die, some live. One day somebody gets sick and dies fast and painfully. A few weeks later the rest of their tribe/family is dead or dying. A few weeks after that, the space aliens start coming in, but people continue to die."

tomjen3 12y ago

No, it is a horrible way. You are signing the death warrent for anyone being forced to stay inside the area, sacrificing human lives like so many tribes of old. The best way, the only acceptable way, is to have medicine for the decease. We have some that we just aren't putting into trials because we aren't sure that it won't kill them - when they are going to die anyway in an absolutely horrible way.

kec 12y ago
Quarantines are not orthogonal to using or developing medicine. Quarantine is also the only reliable way to prevent the spreading of a disease, and really the only way we have to deal with a disease like ebola which has no known cure. It sucks for the healthy ones in the quarantined zone, but allowing anyone to leave the zone while in the middle of an outbreak risks far more lives.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  "It sucks for the healthy ones in the quarantined zone," Note - we aren't talking about smallpox/typhus/flu - ebola is pretty hard to get. As long as you don't touch the body or its fluids, you aren't going to get ebola.
harshreality 12y ago
It is not safe to go into an area in Africa with an ebola outbreak and try to treat it. Medical workers are not properly adhering to safety protocols. The numbers of medical personnel infected during this outbreak demonstrate that. You can't ask medical personnel to take major risks with their lives to help a few people with ebola. If they and their organizations want to continue to render aid, that's their choice, but if there aren't enough foreign aid resources to set up proper treatment centers with proper quarantine, and when the locals for whatever reason are violating quarantines and putting everyone, other locals and medical staff at risk, then it's simply not safe enough. The only remaining option is to quarantine the afflicted areas. It's also only a death warrant if the people in the quarantine zones don't observe proper safety. If my city (in the U.S.) had an outbreak of ebola, I'd stay home, and barring someone purposely trying to infect me, I'd be safe. Ebola is not an evil spirit that infects everyone in the quarantine area who doesn't flee. Even if it were a more easily transmissible strain of ebola, if you're not in a housing unit sharing air with people who are infected, you're pretty safe.

enraged_camel 12y ago

They also don't have the resources to implement effective quarantines.