5 ms·

The likelihood of any kind of pandemic is extremely low, sure. However, your dismissal of this epidemic and its impact is arrogant and disgusting. It’s still a

by arrrg 12y ago

The likelihood of any kind of pandemic is extremely low, sure. However, your dismissal of this epidemic and its impact is arrogant and disgusting. It’s still a disaster in the affected countries, with many knock-on effects. Also, it would have been better to spend more money earlier to prevent unnecessary deaths. This Ebola epidemic is actually something people hardly care about. Hardly anyone is donating, for example. Help is needed. Actually. For real. And with better support and a better reaction this could have turned out better.

frostmatthew 12y ago
> Hardly anyone is donating, for example. It might be beneficial to provide a link to where people could/should donate.
- smacktoward 12y ago
  Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders is the first organization that jumps to mind -- they've been helping to lead the response in Africa, more or less on a shoestring. Their US donation page is here: https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm Folks in other countries can find their local donation pages here: http://www.msf.org/donate http://www.msf.org/donate EDIT - To give you a sense of how involved MSF has been in the Ebola response: "Since March 2014, 14 MSF staff members have become ill, among whom 8 have sadly passed away." (Source: http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-workers-risk-tragic-reality-ebola-response-west-africa http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-workers-risk-tragic-reality...) There's a comprehensive rundown of their efforts to date to help contain Ebola across West Africa here: http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-crisis-update-sept-25th http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-crisis-update-sept-25th
  - Retric 12y ago
    Thanks for the info, just did a small donation. I suspect it's well beyond their ability to control at this point, but even slightly slowing down that exponential curve can be worth a lot.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
atiffany 12y ago
Where is the most effective place to donate?
lee 12y ago
I don't know if you can call it a disaster. The total number of cases, as reported by the CDC, is less than 7000 so far. I don't mean to be callous, but compare that number to the number of total deaths to Malaria or even the flu, and that number pales in comparison. I am not callous to say that we shouldn't care about the Ebola outbreak, but if you look at the numbers, directing that money to buy more mosquito nets or Malaria vaccines will likely save more lives. Malaria kills close to a million people a year. If you're looking for a cause for donation, the most value per dollar could be directed there.
- arrrg 12y ago
  Donations are always tricky and effectively allocating resources to aid is hard … but can you at least recognise that similarly sized catastrophes get much more attention and money? More than 3,000 people dead, potentially more, and many of the affected places don’t have enough resources to deal with it in a satisfactory manner. That’s the situation here. This could have been controlled better, probably.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Recently an arsonist alledgedly set fire to a dog shelter in the UK. They raised over £1m in a few days. > The blaze, which was tackled by more than 30 firefighters, killed about 60 animals. > Within 24 hours, more than £1m pounds had been raised to help around 150 surviving dogs. This happened while Ebola was happening.
    - corin_ 12y ago
      Dogs are both cuter and easier for us English to relate to than Africans.
    - __david__ 12y ago
      So what? Those are completely different situations. One is a human doing intentional harm to a bunch of innocent creatures. The other is mother nature vs. mankind. One tugs at the heartstrings, fills us with protective emotions for the poor doggies. The other is just another natural disaster. "Thank goodness it didn't happen to me", we think. I don't find this surprising or depressing.
Shivetya 12y ago
as far as donations are going, Time had a good breakout. There are many who have gone there, given money, and risked their lives. hint they aren't the type that frequent tech boards but posters here are quick to dismiss some of them for their religious convictions
SpaceManNabs 12y ago
I am having a hard time understanding why people keep saying that donations are the way to go to solve this issue. From what I have seen, many rural communities are rejecting and acting against foreign assistance. I am not sure of the circumstances in urban settings, but I read that they are just as superstitious. How can we help those that do not want our help, especially when it is deadly to help either because of the disease or fear of attack?
- Gustomaximus 12y ago
  This is a reason to donate. These rural areas clearly lack education, knowledge and need help. Just because they are scared/ignorant today doesn't mean they always have to be. For example if radios were distributed to all these communities education programs could start about ways to avoid disease transmission etc. This is going to be a long term strategy and wont happen in a day.
- arrrg 12y ago
  To be honest, I’m not sure how effective these targeted donations are at all. My point was more that in this case, while scary (and probably unrealistic) scenarios of the West somehow being affected were a popular pastime (and seemingly the main frame to view this disaster), hardly anyone seems to actually care about those who are affected by it. (I personally don’t think, for example, that I know better than a charity how to best allocate resources and I think targeted donations tied to a specific cause are quite irresponsible.) Also, there may have been unique complications that make fighting the spread harder, though we don’t really know how widespread those are and were. They make for good stories, but are they the whole picture? I very much doubt that. Additionally, it seems to me that even if those troubles were widespread it was possible to a) do something against them with more money (mostly in terms of improving communication about the virus) and b) make up for other deficiencies in resources (like a lack of space and beds and personal).
joezydeco 12y ago
NPR's Planet Money had a podcast that tried to understand the difficulties of fundraising for a situation like the Ebola outbreak: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/09/26/351515481/episode-571-why-raising-money-for-ebola-is-hard http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/09/26/351515481/episode-... The tl;dr is that people donate a lot more when they can tangibly understand that a disaster has happened and they make an emotional connection to the disaster (e.g. 9/11, Haitian Earthquake, etc). When donors are asked to contribute money to prevent something, the emotional connection is a lot harder to make and funds are a lot harder to raise.

by arrrg 12y ago

frostmatthew 12y ago

> Hardly anyone is donating, for example. It might be beneficial to provide a link to where people could/should donate.

smacktoward 12y ago
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders is the first organization that jumps to mind -- they've been helping to lead the response in Africa, more or less on a shoestring. Their US donation page is here: https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm Folks in other countries can find their local donation pages here: http://www.msf.org/donate http://www.msf.org/donate EDIT - To give you a sense of how involved MSF has been in the Ebola response: "Since March 2014, 14 MSF staff members have become ill, among whom 8 have sadly passed away." (Source: http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-workers-risk-tragic-reality-ebola-response-west-africa http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-workers-risk-tragic-reality...) There's a comprehensive rundown of their efforts to date to help contain Ebola across West Africa here: http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-crisis-update-sept-25th http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-crisis-update-sept-25th
- Retric 12y ago
  Thanks for the info, just did a small donation. I suspect it's well beyond their ability to control at this point, but even slightly slowing down that exponential curve can be worth a lot.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

atiffany 12y ago

Where is the most effective place to donate?

lee 12y ago

I don't know if you can call it a disaster. The total number of cases, as reported by the CDC, is less than 7000 so far. I don't mean to be callous, but compare that number to the number of total deaths to Malaria or even the flu, and that number pales in comparison. I am not callous to say that we shouldn't care about the Ebola outbreak, but if you look at the numbers, directing that money to buy more mosquito nets or Malaria vaccines will likely save more lives. Malaria kills close to a million people a year. If you're looking for a cause for donation, the most value per dollar could be directed there.

arrrg 12y ago
Donations are always tricky and effectively allocating resources to aid is hard … but can you at least recognise that similarly sized catastrophes get much more attention and money? More than 3,000 people dead, potentially more, and many of the affected places don’t have enough resources to deal with it in a satisfactory manner. That’s the situation here. This could have been controlled better, probably.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Recently an arsonist alledgedly set fire to a dog shelter in the UK. They raised over £1m in a few days. > The blaze, which was tackled by more than 30 firefighters, killed about 60 animals. > Within 24 hours, more than £1m pounds had been raised to help around 150 surviving dogs. This happened while Ebola was happening.
  - corin_ 12y ago
    Dogs are both cuter and easier for us English to relate to than Africans.
  - __david__ 12y ago
    So what? Those are completely different situations. One is a human doing intentional harm to a bunch of innocent creatures. The other is mother nature vs. mankind. One tugs at the heartstrings, fills us with protective emotions for the poor doggies. The other is just another natural disaster. "Thank goodness it didn't happen to me", we think. I don't find this surprising or depressing.

Shivetya 12y ago

as far as donations are going, Time had a good breakout. There are many who have gone there, given money, and risked their lives. hint they aren't the type that frequent tech boards but posters here are quick to dismiss some of them for their religious convictions

SpaceManNabs 12y ago

I am having a hard time understanding why people keep saying that donations are the way to go to solve this issue. From what I have seen, many rural communities are rejecting and acting against foreign assistance. I am not sure of the circumstances in urban settings, but I read that they are just as superstitious. How can we help those that do not want our help, especially when it is deadly to help either because of the disease or fear of attack?

Gustomaximus 12y ago
This is a reason to donate. These rural areas clearly lack education, knowledge and need help. Just because they are scared/ignorant today doesn't mean they always have to be. For example if radios were distributed to all these communities education programs could start about ways to avoid disease transmission etc. This is going to be a long term strategy and wont happen in a day.
arrrg 12y ago
To be honest, I’m not sure how effective these targeted donations are at all. My point was more that in this case, while scary (and probably unrealistic) scenarios of the West somehow being affected were a popular pastime (and seemingly the main frame to view this disaster), hardly anyone seems to actually care about those who are affected by it. (I personally don’t think, for example, that I know better than a charity how to best allocate resources and I think targeted donations tied to a specific cause are quite irresponsible.) Also, there may have been unique complications that make fighting the spread harder, though we don’t really know how widespread those are and were. They make for good stories, but are they the whole picture? I very much doubt that. Additionally, it seems to me that even if those troubles were widespread it was possible to a) do something against them with more money (mostly in terms of improving communication about the virus) and b) make up for other deficiencies in resources (like a lack of space and beds and personal).

joezydeco 12y ago

NPR's Planet Money had a podcast that tried to understand the difficulties of fundraising for a situation like the Ebola outbreak: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/09/26/351515481/episode-571-why-raising-money-for-ebola-is-hard http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/09/26/351515481/episode-... The tl;dr is that people donate a lot more when they can tangibly understand that a disaster has happened and they make an emotional connection to the disaster (e.g. 9/11, Haitian Earthquake, etc). When donors are asked to contribute money to prevent something, the emotional connection is a lot harder to make and funds are a lot harder to raise.