Ebola

DonDiego doubts that the treatment in Atlanta of 2 unfortunates who contracted Ebola will lead to any transmission within the United States.

However, the disease is presently experiencing its most significant reappearance ever.



This curve is troubling to those in Africa, because it exhibits the classic attribute of an epidemic. At least for now incidents of ebola infections are expanding exponentially; the number of infections is apparently doubling about every month.

The difference in sanitary conditions and local customs/traditions between the West African nations experiencing the epidemic and the United States probably preclude any similar rise of the disease in the US. However, some instances of infected Africans who have left their hometowns after having been infected and the availability of modern air travel do indicate some risk of transmission internationally.

The biggest danger to the World's people would be if the increasing number of infections in pigs, monkeys, bats, and humans offer the virus environments in which mutations might alter the virus so as to make it more easily transmitted, . . . f'rinstnace, by airborne transmission. At that point DonDiego would suggest at a minimum that i. the reader purchase a lifetime supply of particulate respirator masks and ii. the reader refrain from burying close relatives without wearing impermeable gloves.

The Diego keeps scaring me with graphs. The sky is falling.

Does Liondownnow have any specific information causing him to conclude that the continent of Africa can get this under control within a year? I suspect that they can, but I'm working on blind ignorance.

If the disease spreads at the same rate as last month for one year, Africa will be losing about 4,000,000 people per month.

I'm not informed enough to have an opinion. I'm just scared by all the graphs The Diego is posting on various threads.

I read that due to the high correlation of the infected dying in hospitals, the infected now fear going to the hospital and instead choose to remain home where disease transmission is poorly understood and local customs and cures abound.

The graph should not scare Liondownnow. And the sky is not falling.

Exponential growth is exactly what one would expect of an infectious organism released into a susceptible population under conditions - climate, sanitation, population density, etc. - hospitable to growth of the organism. When/if these conditions change and/or the population changes its behavior so as to reduce the hospitable conditions, the growth rate should drop.

However, the map below probably should scare somebody! If the outbreak were to expand from its present location - roughly midway between Conakry and Abidjan - eastward into, f'rinstance, the much denser population of Lagos, Nigeria, the exponential growth curve might well accelerate.



Nonetheless, as DonDiego suggested previously, this does not mean the end of the world. The more modernized/sanitary realms around the world are not as vulnerable to the virus. And are unlikely to be overrun until/unless the virus assumes a much higher rate of communicability than that presently attainable through direct fluid-to-fluid contact.

And anyway, the human race was never likely to last forever. As resources are depleted the technological advantages of societies worldwide are likely to subside. Eventually populations will decline, . . . the lucky peoples returning to a productive rural existence, the unlucky to deprivation and death. If the decline is insufficiently rapid to kill off the unlucky folks, warfare among the groups is likely to do so.

DonDiego suggests one abandon one's dreams of a well-educated, well-fed, world-wide community of space-faring explorers. It was never likely anyway. And it is unlikely that ebola will bring down civilization in the immediate future.

Barring a significant war or economic cataclysm impacting Appalachia DonDiego expects to live out his years under a slowly decreasing quality of life as the costs to maintain one's comfort rise.

No need for Liondownnow to get his panties in bunch over a virus in Africa.

It's deliberate. Fear causes people to become more conservative.

Just look at this board. The most fearful ones tend to be the most conservative.

I find that Liberals hold the most fear............of not being taken care of cradle to grave by Conservatives.

LIberals live on fear mongering including the staunchest liberals on this board. I find it ironic when they try to divert like they don't.

Really? We "live on fear mongering" on this board? Well, then it should be really easy for you to come up with some examples of our fear mongering.

How about it?