7 ms·
From the article "Health workers protected themselves with gloves, coveralls, masks, bleach spray and the burning of used gear." From the WHO website: "Health-
by VLM 12y ago
From the article "Health workers protected themselves with gloves, coveralls, masks, bleach spray and the burning of used gear."
From the WHO website: "Health-care staff fear for their lives. To date, more than 170 health-care workers have been infected"
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/overview-august-2014/en/ http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/overview-august-2014/en...
From the wikipedia article:
"The virus may be acquired upon contact with blood or bodily fluids of an infected animal (commonly monkeys or fruit bats).[1] Spread through the air has not been documented in the natural environment."
Something about this story isn't adding up if you combine multiple legitimate sources. So you can only catch it via bodily fluid (like AIDS). But if you wear the health care worker space suit and bleach and burn everything, then you're probably gonna die.
My theory is its converting into an air-transmission disease. In that case, a military quarantine sounds quite wise. (edited to add, my point being that if its known not to be caused by a civil engineering fixable problem like mosquitos or infected sewage or whatever, then human guards closing the borders to humans is the wisest possible solution, and if we're not being given the whole story which is probably true, this would indicate that what is known, to folks other than us, is that it is definitely not civil-engineering-fixable like if it was spread by contaminated water or vampire bats or wtf. Which is a mildly interesting analysis.)
In submitting too fast punishment mode:
cwal37 is quite possibly correct. I am attempting to find death stats from the numerous historical outbreaks. Presumably "20% of the dead being medical workers" should apply in past outbreaks.
cwal37 - Update: from CDC MMWR wrt the Uganda '00 outbreak, with lower tech and less experience the Gulu district of Uganda had 393 total cases of which 22 were health care workers. So the infection percentage of healthcare workers under slightly worse conditions was documented at about 5.6%. The stat for this time around is 170 medical workers some time ago vs a CDC reported 1848 confirmed cases or about 9%.
There are several ways to interpret these stats. One is that the rate is increasing despite experience and technology getting better. Maybe. Another is the reported number of infected might be half or less of total infected. Maybe. If you assume "about 1 in 20 infected will be health care workers" from historical experience, then 170 infected workers would imply the total number actually infected as of some time ago is closer to 3500 or so rather than the official count of 1800 or so.
So that's the numbers. I continue to research to figure out which of many possible interpretations is most likely.
"That is straight up fear-mongering." LOL if I wanted to do that, I could do a better job. "Its all obama's fault" "Buy overpriced ammo from me" "I'm getting a commission on these MREs" etc.
disputin - I see I have been scooped by zerohedge. Embarrassing because I often scan zerohedge headlines. On the other hand a bunch of stock traders are not going to have much of anything intelligent to say about non-economic issues, beyond being pretty good at making "isn't that odd" connections, like this post.
- idunning 12y agoOr, with a view to Occams Razor, alternatives: - a large percentage of those health-care workers were infected before full protection was widespread - they have many chances for infection and mistakes happen - healthcare workers in regions where Ebola was not known to have reached yet did not take necessary precautions.
- VLM 12y agoPossibly true. Then again Africa is "AIDS central" for the planet and they have too much previous experience with Ebola, so of all the places on the planet, they're probably the most careful generally. Yes I'm sure there are specialized CDC facilities for special work where more extreme care is taken, I'm just guessing in general they're probably more paranoid about blood transmitted diseases than say your average rural Wisconsin fireman would be. (or edited to rephrase, if 170 docs die there, the percentage will likely be worse everywhere else) Edited to add: Lots of paternalism in the responses. I live in an area that's never had an earthquake or hurricane yet I have a pretty good idea whats up. That's not because I'm white and Africans not being white therefore cannot read or draw analogies. Not cool guys, not cool at all. Docs in Africa are not necessarily stupid just because they're in Africa as some guy claims it on HN so all they have is Gilligans Island class knowledge and gear. I'm inclined to believe its the opposite, they know what they're doing, yet unfortunately of a population of the most qualified generalist personnel 170 got none the less got infected. That something sad and bad happened to them despite their abilities, doesn't mean those foreigners must therefore just be dumb and we'll be OK because we're a different race. Poverty does not necessarily equal stupidity. Reading and knowledge is getting cheaper every day. I don't buy an explanation based on middle ages era cultural outlook. That explanation (of ignorance, and poverty) would have actually worked in 1500. They just aren't that dumb, over there. That's what makes the statistics so bad.
- hga 12y agoThis part of Africa has not been hit by Ebola before, so their medical etc. systems are not experienced with it. AIDS is pretty irrelevant since its transmission is much more constrained. As for your last point, try https://www.google.com/search?q=africa+reuse+disposable+needle https://www.google.com/search?q=africa+reuse+disposable+need...