3 ms·
It's actually not that contagious. There is a unit of measurement for this called the Ro number (high #=more contagious). Ebola is about 1.8 currently, pandem
by giarc 12y ago
It's actually not that contagious. There is a unit of measurement for this called the Ro number (high #=more contagious). Ebola is about 1.8 currently, pandemic flu was 1.9, measles is 15-20.
- hga 12y agoI gather that a number of 3 is much more likely than 1.8. Still low compare to what's medically "airborne", especially if you factor in that pandemic flu is probably undercounted.
- philwelch 12y agoOnly 0.1 less than pandemic flu seems enough to be worried about given Ebola's mortality rate, if pandemic flu is any precedent.
- giarc 12y agoYes but you have to remember that those numbers are for Africa where infection control is light years behind developed nations.
- fourstar 12y agoWhat? You do realize that a RO can actually grow in size which is exactly what this is doing right? When the outbreak began in Guinea it was RO = 1.5 Early July, the RO in Sierra Leone was 2.5. Today in Liberia, the virus has been spreading so fast that the RO hasn't been computed (and we won't officially know since Liberia has been acting shady and is not reporting all of their statistics). I think you probably saw some infographic floating around and are citing that, but that RO is a variable number.
- giarc 12y agoI assumed the inclusion of the word "currently" would have implied that the number is dynamic, my apologies if that wasn't a safe assumption. I haven't seen any data putting the Ro in any country over 3.0. Obviously waiting to see new data that includes September. Data until Aug 26, 2014. http://www.eurosurveillance.org/images/dynamic/EE/V19N36/art20894.pdf http://www.eurosurveillance.org/images/dynamic/EE/V19N36/art... Data until mid Aug, 2014. http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3505 http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3505