outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

every time this stuff gets in the news i have an anxiety attack just reading about it

do you think we're all going to die of a plague, soon?

I watched Contagion 2x in a row on a recent intercontinental flight and within 24 hours of landing I was sicker than I can ever remember being.

-Peter

that was a scary one because you know that's exactly how it's going to go down, too

my dad is of the opinion that we're all gonna drop dead from mad cow disease eventually from a lifetime of pink slime exposure

Ebola in Uganda, new flu killing East Coast seals...

Who the HECK would choose Contagion for in-flight programming???

-Peter

There is still this other side of me that wishes I'd embarked on one of my many fig tree dream careers of epidemiologist. I really get a kick form this kind of thing. Someday we will all be dead.

So how worried should we be now, anyway.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/25/us-heath-ebola-nigeria-idUSKBN0FU1LE20140725

Fanning flames, paranoia: http://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/article/New-fears-about-Ebola-spread-after-plane-scare-5651721.php

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — No one knows for sure just how many people Patrick Sawyer came into contact with the day he boarded a flight in Liberia, had a stopover in Ghana, changed planes in Togo, and then arrived in Nigeria, where authorities say he died days later from Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known to man.

Now health workers are scrambling to trace those who may have been exposed to Sawyer across West Africa, including flight attendants and fellow passengers.

Health experts say it is unlikely he could have infected others with the virus that can cause victims to bleed from the eyes, mouth and ears. Still, unsettling questions remain: How could a man whose sister recently died from Ebola manage to board a plane leaving the country? And worse: Could Ebola become the latest disease to be spread by international air travel?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-virus-top-sierra-leone-doctor-shek-umar-dies-of-disease-9636406.html

Sierra Leone's top virologist has died in the current outbreak.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/health/patient-at-mount-sinai-has-ebola-like-symptoms-hospital-says.html

This is terrible, reports of hospitals shutting their doors, infected rotting corpses in the streets and ebola nurses downing tools after not getting paid measly $30 a week risk money pledged by the Sierra Leone gvt. Conditions described as "medieval" in parts where the health system has totally collapsed.

i heard a woman talking on the radio about it the other day and she was not holding back about how grim it was -- she was a reporter but i don't remember her name
she used the same analogy, like it was medieval in terms of what people believe about medicine as well as the degree to which people receive/shun medical care when they need it

Little did we know all the right wing survivalists had the right idea for the wrong reason. It's not Obama they should fear, but ebola.

I read an article about the stress of being an ebola nurse. Encased in completely enveloping PPE in a hot climate for 12 + hour shifts. Dealing with infectious, dying patients that constantly fall out of beds, spray blood and diarrhea all over the place. The people that deal with these patients ... I just have no idea where they get their courage from.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-armed-men-attack-liberia-ebola-clinic-freeing-patients/

holy shit

Yeah,

Plague Inc is my favorite game

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/08/19/341412011/shadow-and-d-12-sing-an-infectious-song-about-ebola?

dr. brantly speaking now, was just discharged from emory

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/tests-under-way-for-ebola-following-donegal-death-1.1904073

Shit got real. school with this guys sister

Pharmeceutical industry person tries to defend the industry re charges they have not done enough re ebola because it is in poor countries

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2014/08/18/washington-post-off-base-in-critiquing-pharma-efforts-in-ebola/

the incentives for the pharmaceutical industry are what they are, unfortunately

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/ebolanomics

Irish guy didn't have Ebola. Was a false alarm.

South Africa and Senegal trying to bar some folks from countries at issue from entry

First US case in Dallas. Take that NYC & LA! We're number one!

Yikes!

I wonder how many crisis of this kind will happen before countries take the WHO seriously and decide to invest in a proper international health structure to prevent this kind of outbreak. Freaking hate to see institutions like the FMI giving up to 130 millions $ but then pressure politicians in the region to go for austerity, it's a waste of money for everyone.

ebola USED to be at the top of my list of irrational fears. presbyterian hospital is about 5 miles north of where i'm sitting right now.

welp

#patientzero

The Frontline piece on this a week or so ago was eye-opening. Hospitals that are barely more than cordoned off fields, mass graves, disinfecting the back of trucks (where patients ride, near death) by tossing in buckets of bleach, doctors and other aid workers more or less forced to visit villages free of any special suits for fear of scaring the shit out of everyone, children orphaned and alone overnight. Just heartbreaking. It's both a matter of doctors struggling to keep up with a rapidly and easily spreading illness and a population almost impossible to isolate. Bodies being dumped and left by the side of the road, families taking members out of quarantine, superstitious treatments co-mingling with modern medicine ...

Here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ebola-outbreak/

The saddest bit may be at the end, where grave diggers, one by one, list all their families members who have succumbed.

I'm just a few miles further away, art. Drive by it almost every day as I head up to Richardson.

Your risk of dying from ebola (total confirmed 2014 ebola deaths: a few thousand worldwide) is still lower than your risk of dying due to complications related to seasonal influenza (on average, 5800-7500 a year in the US). Get a flu shot. Don't get too preoccupied by ebola.

wanna c&p that on every damn facebook post I see for the next week

be my guest

i have total confidence in the medical system to properly handle any other arising cases. that said, i am still illogically terrified

Sick Burn I saw on FB:

Don't worry about Ebola spreading in Dallas. The Cowboys have shown us that people in Dallas can't catch anything.

Ebola spreads by physical contact with bodily secretions and fluids. That makes it easier to contain in a place like the USA or Europe, where there are lots of medical facilities and a patient's recent contacts can be quickly discovered and tracked down.

Even so, if ebola strongly establishes itself in Africa, with a reservoir of infected people who keep the virus continuously viable and circulating, then not only will massive numbers of africans die, but ebola will keep leaping to other parts of the world, including the USA and Europe. It can be compared to sparks thrown out from a wildfire, which land on tinder and start other fires away from the main fire. You can put out many of these small satellite fires, but it is hard to extinguish all of them, and the more new places that start burning the harder the firestorm is to keep contained.

That's a good analogy. I really wish international focus between the Ebola outbreak and ISIL was better divided.

run for the hills imo

*not the hills of West Africa, tho*

http://i.imgur.com/LHm72Rq.png

ugh goddamned parody accounts :(

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html

this is a very difficult article to read

apparently the problem is not money but organization and time

Oh jeez:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/texas-ebola_n_5919522.html

at what point is it ok for me to start panicking?

supposed to go to the state fair this weekend and have resolved not to touch any surfaces and to bathe myself in hand sanitizer after it is all over.

the panic is hilarious. Especially from folks who drive on the streets of Dallas. You should be much more afraid of north Texas drivers than ebola.

until there is an effective vaccine I consider ebola as a threat, but in the USA it is a long term threat, which gives the researchers plenty of time to develop that vaccine.

truly despicable imo for rand paul, a physician, to be saying things like this to score political points

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sen-rand-paul-sounds-ebola-alarm/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html

this is a very difficult article to read

apparently the problem is not money but organization and time

― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, October 1, 2014 7:27 PM (Yesterday

disorganization and lack of preparedness (not to mention distrust of medical authorities, belief in traditional healing, etc) are consequences of poverty, though. this was from a few weeks ago but i think it's a good primer

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1409494

First, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia are resource-poor countries already coping with major health challenges, such as malaria and other endemic diseases, some of which may be confused with EVD. Next, their borders are porous, and movement between countries is constant. Health care infrastructure is inadequate, and health workers and essential supplies including personal protective equipment are scarce. Traditional practices, such as bathing of corpses before burial, have facilitated transmission. The epidemic has spread to cities, which complicates tracing of contacts. Finally, decades of conflict have left the populations distrustful of governing officials and authority figures such as health professionals. Add to these problems a rapidly spreading virus with a high mortality rate, and the scope of the challenge becomes clear

rand paul, a physician

He's an ophthalmologist without board certification so this is something of a stretch, but yeah obv his statements are fear mongering nonsense.

does anyone know what's the hard libertarian faithful take on institutions like the cdc?

viruses are information that wants to be free?

It seems to be under control in Nigeria! Good news!

Slate: Spread of Ebola Appears to Have Been Stopped in Nigeria

Meanwhile, local health workers paid 18,500 face-to-face visits to repeatedly take the temperatures of nearly 900 people who had contact with them. The last confirmed case was detected on Aug. 31, and virtually all contacts have passed the 21-day incubation period without falling ill.

wow, don't think i knew about paul's board certification controversy before this, that's pretty messed up. at any rate tho he's still a physician and should know better

context:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/02/352983774/no-seriously-how-contagious-is-ebola?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=202402

how about this madness

http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/09/04/illegal-immigrant-related-pandemic-diseases-are-appearing-in-the-us/

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/09/the_invasion_of_enterovirus_evd68.html

meanwhile in dallas officials seem to be handling things well

from cnn.com

Cleanup delayed
As concerns grow over how many people he may have exposed to the deadly virus, a plan to sanitize the apartment was delayed late Thursday.
Brad Smith of the Cleaning Guys, the company hired to sanitize the apartment, said they do not have the proper permits to transport hazardous waste on Texas highways.
Smith said authorities sent them away late Thursday before they entered the apartment and told them to come back with proper permits. It's unclear how long that will take.
"The permit is being processed through DOT (Department of Transportation) because it is a special permit," Smith said.
"This is a unique situation. Once awarded our hazmat teams will be allowed back inside to do their jobs."

CNN: Dr. Irwin Redlener, a professor at Columbia University's school of public health, called the handling of the quarantine "hair raising."

<3 cnn.com

EBOLA IN DC & MARYLAND

UNNECESSARY IRONIC ALL-CAPS HAVE INFECTED ILX

Let me know when DC ebola fatalities exceeds http://mpdc.dc.gov/page/traffic-fatalities

RIP Thomas Eric Duncan

My office sent out an Ebola advisory note to everyone today advising that we don't travel to countries with outbreaks. Thanks for the tip guys! I guess I should reconsider that vacation to Liberia.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O4ADBA8

mmhmm

I mean, ebola is transmitted through fluid contact, so it might, or it might just make you a prepper

How long can ebola just hang out on surfaces and remain contagious?

Also, have any of the usual right wing subjects started calling him Barack Ebola?

http://www.dailydot.com/lol/obola-explained

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/By-n99jIMAESe_o.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/us/texas-health-worker-tests-positive-for-ebola.html

yup

Are ebola patients always protected by dancing police officers?

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/10/13/us/13ebola1-web/13ebola1-web-articleLarge.jpg

that's like a mile from where i used to live. ebola pls

Plane grounded at lax for over two hours now bc a passenger is displaying flu-like symptoms and has had contact w someone from Africa. A twitter user @gingerhazing is one of those stuck on the plane and is livetweeting it

twitter user and up and comic comics artist! Not to diminish her ebola paranoia liveblogging contributions

Yes after posting that I swiped left on her profile and found that out. lol at how out of touch with my own field I am.

All clear I guess-- moral: do not barf in public if you or people around you have anywhere you need to be anytime soon

boy, do some people really mistrust the federal government

and/or racist

stop me if you've heard this one

"they're doing it on purpose to seize power during a crisis"

or this one

"obama's endangering american lives because he identifies with africans more than americans"

oy.

i wonder if someone at the hospital didn't follow protocol, or if the protocols were lacking. either way: scary. feel terrible for the nurse.

the hospital claims she was, but they've been pretty disgustingly dishonest about a few things already so it's hard to take their word for it. i think i read something earlier today that said the CDC was disputing that this was the case. (and not to get too realpolitik, but i found it pretty shocking that the CDC would call out the hospital like that so quickly.)

that said it should be understood that caring for patients with ebola is not risk-free and that adherence to guidelines minimizes the risks of transmission but does not eliminate them. viruses are small and can thwart event the best-laid plans. even removing protective gear can be hazardous -- in fact it's thought that this is where a large part of the danger lies, in exposing oneself while taking off contaminated PPE

@gingerhazing says it turns out it was just a scare, passenger does not have ebola symptoms other than vomiting, did not actually have contact with anyone from west africa just someone from south africa (miscommunication).

I was actually pondering how these workers can safely remove the suits, because whenever I use cleaning gloves I puzzle over how to take them off without just getting the same bleach on me that I was trying to avoid all along. Do they take some kind of shower in the gear first?

iirc they spray the suits down with bleach solution before they take them off. and i think the way they take off the gloves and booties is to peel them off by rolling them inside out from the ends. there's probably some similar principle in how they get the suits off.

here

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/pdf/ebola-ppe-cleaning-crews.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/ppe-poster.pdf

the thing with these things is that adherence is crucial to minimizing risk, but in practice it's just not realistic. there will be lapses. it's incredibly fatiguing to do over and over, and humans will make mistakes, even if their lives and the lives of their patients depend on doing it right

cf The Checklist Manifesto

Though I don't doubt that the people treating the ebola patient used every tool available to minimize their exposure risk.

16 Members of Doctors Without Borders Infected with Ebola, Nine Dead

read today the number of new cases could reach 10k/week by december

that's pretty scary

1918 flu pandemic still scarier imo

bubonic plague still scarier imo

cool contest guys

ya i was beng tongue in cheek if not obvious

plagues POO

Last night a guy on the train got up, put his umbrella on an empty seat, went out between the train cars, and proceeded to loudly vomit for about three stops. I guess that was preferable to throwing up in the train but I wonder about the people walking below.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Wednesday, October 15, 2014 2:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding ding ding - we have a winner for Chicago Ebola vector

― BlackIronPrison, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 2:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NPR's man in Texas, speaking to the BBC, pretty squarely put the failure to contain ebola in Dallas (to whatever extent) at the feet of the Fed gov, specifically the CDC. This is one thing I do not want to federal gov't to sleep on and get wrong, the way they do with everything else. Which makes me realize, yes, we are all doomed.

btw the NYT had a story about how the Liberian military is trying to "rebrand" themselves by being helpful in this crisis, which i guess is necessary if you're best known for shooting govt officials.

not sure i understand why this is the CDC's fault

Because they apparently left it up to the local hospital to handle it without providing much (any?) support or establishing/enforcing standard guidelines for putting on, taking off or cleaning equipment/suits.

For example, apparently in Africa the procedure is no one puts on or takes off protective gear without a trained third party witness present. This was not happening in Dallas, not least because I don't think anyone there was specifically trained in current ebola procedure.

the CDC has been issuing guidelines on what to do since practically day 1 ... easily googleable

but is oversight of that hospital the CDC's job or is that the texas health departments?

Asked why the CDC didn’t send a team as soon as Duncan was diagnosed, Frieden said: “We did send some expertise in infection control but think in retrospect, with 20-20 hindsight, we could have sent a more robust hospital infection control team, and been more hands on at the hospital on day one about exactly how this (case) should be managed. We will do that from now on any time we have a confirmed case.”

http://time.com/3507807/ebola-outbreak-cdc-dallas/

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – The CDC has announced that the second healthcare worker diagnosed with Ebola — now identified as Amber Joy Vinson of Dallas — traveled by air Oct. 13, the day before she first reported symptoms.
The CDC is now reaching out to all passengers who flew on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth. The flight landed at 8:16 p.m. CT.

I get that life goes on, but you'd think anyone who had been directly caring for an ebola patient would wait for the incubation to pass before getting back to business, given that it is a tremendously fatal, very contagious disease with no cure or specific treatment.

yikes. this has made me leery of even interacting with people who've been travelling to/from Dallas. I'm taking part in an academic conference in a few weeks, and by nature those things bring together people who have come from (and traveled through) all sorts of places. I recognize that at present the risk of contracting ebola is infinitesimal compared to being, I dunno, hit by a car on my way to work, but thanks to the media (?) I can't help but worry.

a union of nurses in Texas has come out with a statement, apparently drafted by nurses at the Dallas hospital that treated the initial Ebola patient, saying that there were no effective protocols to avoid contamination. if that's even close to true there could be a lot more infections before this settles down, not to mention a raft of very pricey lawsuits and a lot more fear among the public.

Apparently the plane took five trips before being taken out of service:

However, according to Flighttracker, the plane was used for five additional flights on Tuesday before it was removed from service. Those flights include a return flight to Cleveland, Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport (FLL), FLL to Cleveland, Cleveland to Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), and ATL to Cleveland.

On the plus side, re: the first nurse, who is now in good condition:

Nina Pham was diagnosed with the virus over the weekend and remains isolated in good condition. Pham’s dog — a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Bentley — has been taken into custody and is being cared for at an undisclosed location.

There was a report that the hospital's vacuum tube system was used to send samples from the ebola patient. You don't need to google CDC guidelines to know that was probably the wrong thing to do.

'bentley's gone to live on a farm' xp

yikes x1000. can they flush out that tube system with bleach?

btw they killed the nurse's dog in Madrid. :(

the way this is effecting my thinking is alarming in itself. I was about to go to lunch at an Indian buffet. now the very idea of eating at a buffet seems inadvisable. I'm being paranoid right? I should just go eat the Indian food?

affecting

are you in dallas?

no, i am very far from dallas--wisconsin to be exact. but, you know, someone who was on the plane with that nurse could be eating at that indian restaurant right now.

i should probably just lock myself in my apartment until further notice i suppose.

u probably take your life in your hands when you eat at a buffet at any time tbh

Yeah, that and salad bars. Spray that sneeze guard down with bleach and turn the heat lamps up to 11.

remember when obama ducked that sneezeguard, that's the obola vector right there

yeah I know that about buffets but someone it's not until i've been reading headlines about Ebola for months that i think, "hmmm, maybe that's not the best idea."

xpost

someone = somehow

I get the impression the CDC assumed a certain minimal level of competency/care at the average US hospital that was unwarranted in retrospect. federalism in action tbh

Yeah, that and salad bars. Spray that sneeze guard down with bleach and turn the heat lamps up to 11.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 2:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

standard salad bar recipe iirc

maybe if I get to the Indian restaurant early....

Salad Bars

cdc is an advisory / research body

they can't swoop in with helicopters and commandos and take over the hospital like something out of the movies

i feel like they should be treating patients as though the ebola is already airborne transmittable

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/ebola-infected-dallas-health-worker-was-on-flight.html

Frontier said in a statement that the aircraft “received a thorough cleaning per our normal procedures,”

why do i doubt the effectiveness of these "normal procedures"?

xpost But apparently after the infection spreads, they admit they could have sent "a more robust hospital infection control team" and say they could have "been more hands on at the hospital on day one about exactly how this (case) should be managed." And that "we will do that from now on any time we have a confirmed case."

So helicopters and ET spacemen? Of course not. Yet clearly they could have done more because they have said next time they will do more.

why do i doubt the effectiveness of these "normal procedures"?

Crop dusting: To covertly release intestinal gas while walking. Coined in 1985 on a Northwest Airlines flight from Boston to Frankfurt by Sol Squire, on-board translator, who had just walked the length of the DC-10 aircraft and noted he had "crop dusted" the passenger load.

xpost

i think they overestimated the hospital's ability to handle it themselves.

btw this whole thing provides me with reason #4,226 not to fly.

i think i'm just gonna get a hot dog. fuck a buffet.

make sure to buy it off a street stand

think i'm just gonna get a hot dog.

You, my friend, have just opened a whole 'nother can of worms.

i know, i was joking.

i'll just go eat at the chinese place down the street, surely nothing to worry about there.

or maybe i'll just get a vacuum-sealed bag of dried fruit.

why not just try that new liberian cuisine place that just opened up?

All the food is poison.

That's why I have been slowly exposing myself to all known toxins for my entire life. By the time I'm dead, I will be unkillable.

why not just try that new liberian cuisine place that just opened up?

― Mordy, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 12:42 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually almost ate liberian food a few months ago (in tenessee), but the restaurant wasn't open at a convenient time. i'm sure it would have been tasty. i worry about their business now. :(

saw those lie-beral media stories about how hep c and ebola are equally contagious, but man i don't fear getting hep c from just getting on a plane.

Last night a guy on the train got up, put his umbrella on an empty seat, went out between the train cars, and proceeded to loudly vomit for about three stops. I guess that was preferable to throwing up in the train but I wonder about the people walking below.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Wednesday, October 15, 2014 2:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was this guy wearing a Dave Matthews Band shirt?

I'm glad people are finally listening to me i.e. building a wall around Texas.

saw a tweet yesterday noting that some politicians are hollering for an "ebola czar" and the guy's response, which was "that's called 'the surgeon general' and the gop won't confirm one, because nra."

yeah http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/14/after-smearing-surgeon-general-nominee-fox-wond/201147

This might be easily googlable, but what are the US/Europe/China etc. doing to help stop the spread in Africa? In addition to having humanitarian merit in its own right, doing so would obviously lessen the likelihood of spread to the US/Europe/China.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/another-100-u-s-troops-arrive-liberia-fight-ebola-n225581

though the short answer is surely "not enough"

everyone itt needs to take a deep breath

and inhale ebola germs? hell no.

omg is shortness of breath a symptom of ebola

a reporter that was in Liberia is coming to give a lecture/town hall at my house on Friday...... :x

what are the US/Europe/China etc. doing to help stop the spread in Africa?

friend of mine works for the public health service. his normal beat is tracking/dealing with pertussis in washington state due to anti-vaxxers

he spent seven weeks in guinea from july-sept and is going back for (at least) a month starting next week. so it's not like the us/europe/china is doing nothing, but rather that the conditions are overwhelming

a health care infrastructure can't be built up instantly

im pretty much just staying inside and eating thoroughly boiled vegetables until this whole mess blows over.

a health care infrastructure can't be built up instantly

― Aimless, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 2:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A thought that actually crossed my mind recently was whether any of these Bush/Cheney-connected "logistics" companies that we were so dependent on in Iraq (KBR etc.) are capable of rapidly setting up health infrastructure as well.

probably not (cruel irony eh)

just repurpose the for-profit prison industry and keep ebola locked up in a fully staffed facility!

i imagine you'd have to pay contractors an incredible amount of money to risk exposure to dangers they can't shoot

stockholders in those companies aren't going to have anyone to serve them at their summer homes when we're all dead from ebola
not a longterm strategy

Erik Prince is mostly working in Africa these days, organizing logistics in dangerous places.

aaaggggghhhh

I know, right?

A thought that actually crossed my mind recently was whether any of these Bush/Cheney-connected "logistics" companies that we were so dependent on in Iraq (KBR etc.) are capable of rapidly setting up health infrastructure as well.

― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 15, 2014 3:53 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

strong opposite-world vibes

Dallas-based ilx user here, I walked right by the Ivy Apartments a couple of weeks ago #nofear

stockholders in those companies aren't going to have anyone to serve them at their summer homes when we're all dead from ebola
not a longterm strategy

― cross over the mushroom circle (La Lechera), Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It is bleakly possible that this is why the 1% supports causes that kill access to EITHER sex ed or birth control/family planning or abortion: all the better to keep manufacturing lots of disadvantaged ppl who will compete to serve them in the future.

Like the further above it all you want to be, the more serfs it's going to take to keep you there.

this discussion does bring one of those sad world-historical ironies into focus, namely that the USA can expend billions (trillions?) of dollars and many wasted lives invading a sovereign country but can't commit a fraction of those resources to combating a disease that may very well kill 5,000 a week in west africa.

erik prince makes my skin crawl

erik price has got to be one of the more hated people on earth

Unfortunately that doesn't stop him from making billions of dollars and engineering human suffering wherever there's money in it.

there has historically been very little interest in this thread but maybe it's due for a revival
Evil Taking Sides: Erik Prince or Viktor Bout?

I knew u were my hero when I saw u single handedly keeping that thread alive.

<3

haha!

like you my pulse goes way up when i even think about blackwater much less read about

Yeah, let's just leave it to the local hospitals, they've read the memo, what's the worst that could happen:

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/presbyterian-workers-wore-no-protective-gear-for-two-days-while-treating-ebola-patient.html/?hootPostID=c7c473e639ad2859ea04ad2773012ff1

the comments on that are just grotesque. what is wrong with people?

hazmat suits are not recommended when treating patients with ebola, fyi

thoughts from Andrew WK

CNN and CBS both report that Vinson called the CDC "several times" before her flight Monday and complained of a 99.5 degree fever. But according to CBS, they told her she could fly because her temperature was under the 100.4 "high risk" level.

So she felt bad enough to call them several times, and knew she had a fever, but they're all, like, nah, that's cool, just take the flight, what's the worst that can happen, that you have ebola? Nah, that's dumb, where in the world would you catch ebola?

did she have other symptoms? because 99.5 isn't really a fever. not a huge shock they wouldn't prohibit her from traveling with that. tho obv extra caution may have been warranted

idk, I hate to armchair qb disease experts, but why not just wait until the typical incubation period is over? Cuz if she doesn't start showing symptoms til she gets to another city, now you've got a potential outbreak in a second city.

Looks like dallas county is going to legally bar any healthcare workers who care for an Ebola patient to travel

30,000 gun deaths per year vs. ebola. lol @ usa

The WHO has pushed the incubation period out to 42 days.

Recent studies conducted in West Africa have demonstrated that 95% of confirmed cases have an incubation period in the range of 1 to 21 days; 98% have an incubation period that falls within the 1 to 42 day interval.

People understand guns; they accept them.

With all due respect to gun deaths, they don't have the potential to grow exponentially. I mean I think an epidemic here is unlikely, but there is real reason for concern.

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/dallas-county-to-discuss-requesting-an-emergency-declaration-from-the-state-because-of-ebola.html/

this shit could stop getting so real any time now. i have a pretty busy rest of october on so if ebola could just chill OK that'd be dope.

The WHO has pushed the incubation period out to 42 days.

dunno that pete townsend is the first guy i'd seek out for public-health advice, but that's just me.

really lookin fwd to my 2 weeks in a big-city hospital this winter.

One thing few people know about is the far reaching power of public health authorities to issue enforceable edicts concerning quarantines and the banning of public gatherings when a pandemic disease threatens whole communities. Most of the laws authorizing these powers have lain unused in western nations since roughly 1920. They still exist, if needed. If they are imposed, we need to cooperate with them.

idk, I hate to armchair qb disease experts, but why not just wait until the typical incubation period is over? Cuz if she doesn't start showing symptoms til she gets to another city, now you've got a potential outbreak in a second city.

― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Wednesday, October 15, 2014 10:19 PM (1 hour ago)

there's a difficult balance to be struck in public health situations like these between being overly safe (dozens of people with any contact with duncan being forbidden to leave their house for 3 weeks) and allowing people to live their lives somewhat normally. it comes with difficult calls. technically 99.5 is not a fever; of course in hindsight the CDC probably wishes it were more cautious, but sometimes the wrong call is made. from what i've read, it doesn't seem like an egregious error. (compared with, say, the hospital discharging duncan originally, given his symptoms and travel history)

i fear we're fast becoming a nation of armchair quarterbacks

Do public gatherings even occur anymore? I thought we all just sat in front of computers all day.

Ebola is all "Yeah! I'm finally here in the U-S-of-A! Party land! Where's the party at?! Party?! Helloooooooo?!"

i fear we're fast becoming a nation of armchair quarterbacks

― the late great, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 11:17 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel you, but reading that Dallas news article it's kind of stunning how poorly this was handled

yeah and the magnitude of the mistakes seems to be escalating, somehow

I'm actually quite surprised that no "is it a coincidence that Liberia and Liberal share so many letters?" questions have been asked yet.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nigeria-stopped-ebola-2014-10

stanm you haven't been reading the fox news comments

I don't think it's armchair quarterbacking to complain about the fundamental mishandling of something that has the potential to adversely affect hundreds of people, and possibly kill some of them. It's been pointed out that there is no reason either of the Texas nurses should have contracted ebola. The fact that one of them, a trained medical professional with an understanding of the situation who of her own volition called the CDC several times to complain of potential symptoms and still got the go ahead to travel is mind boggling to me. Whatever happened to an abundance of caution?

That Nigeria article right above gets it right: containment, and an overabundance of caution. "During this contact tracing process, officials made a staggering 18,500 face-to-face visits." And that's Nigeria, which does not have the reputation of running things right. But here in the US, a nurse exposed to ebola concerned enough to call the friggin CDC gets the OK to fly. Again, just to stress: you can quibble that 99.5 is not a real fever, but it is enough to make you feel off, enough so that she knew, was worried, and yet was reassured that she was fine. I'm amazed she didn't second guess the advice and stay home, just in case.

I promise I won't make a Facebook macro out of this, but it says something when you can't bring baby milk on board a plane, but Ebola? Sure, why not.

Well, as long as you drink the baby milk and prove it's safe, it's OK to bring on board. Same with ebola. As long as you're only showing the start of ebola, it's cool, as long as you get where you're going before you start vomiting and bleeding from your eyes.

Cleveland people are already sharing a version of the "Bad News Brian" meme with the captioning "BROWNS START WINNING - CLEVELAND GETS EBOLA." Even though, you know, *nobody in Cleveland has Ebola.*

Nobody in Cleveland has Ebola
No Murray the K or payola
It all might be dire,
like a river on fire,
But we haven't been the same since Lou Groza.

CLEVELAND - Police say a 60-year-old man was arrested at the Cleveland Horseshoe Casino for inducing a panic.

When he went to cash out, he said his wife was a nurse who had returned from West Africa and contracted Ebola.

As a precaution, the casino immediately shut down the pit where the man had been.

He was later arrested at home. No other information is available at this time.

The Ohio Gaming Commission is handling the report.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/60-year-old-man-arrested-at-cleveland-horseshoe-casino-for-inducing-panic-after-ebola-remarks

ED. NOTE - WAS HE ARRESTED AT HOME AT THE CASINO?

Maybe he was arrested twice? Once for inducing a panic, the other for fleeing the scene of a panic?

one of the lesser known side effects of ebola is being arrested extra

from the looks of the case of the nurse who was infected in Spain, "austerity" budget cutbacks were at least partly responsible.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/279361722.html

Naturally, Breitbart ran with the airborne ebola story.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/lax-us-guidelines-on-ebola-led-to-poor-hospital-training-experts-say.html?referrer=

looks like the CDC will be updating its guidelines

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/lax-us-guidelines-on-ebola-led-to-poor-hospital-training-any-idiot-with-half-a-brain-already-assumed-but-glad-the-CDC-is-finally-taking-this-seriously-anyway.html?referrer=

oh did my link not work?

i really feel for frieden, who is a great scientist, if maybe not the best at press conferences and saying the right thing in public. hopefully the hysteria will subside soon

Really good article/summary here, from a doctor involved in the African response: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary

Not just any doctor, Paul Farmer! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer

Texas Health Worker Who May Have Handled Ebola Specimen Is On a Cruise

these texas health workers are real jetsetters, if it weren't for the ebola i'd be jealous of them.

Ebola "czar" on the way for US, this should be "fun"

Just found out last night that my girlfriend's brother is the point man for ebola preparation at one of the hospitals most likely to become the ebola treatment center in the Chicago area. I don't know that I have any more reason to be nervous than I did before, but I'm definitely more nervous than I was before.

well, that one's easy. just refrain from all contact with your girlfriend or her brother!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSAXkp9cqbk

The guy in this article is my new hero:

Peter Pattakos spent 20 minutes Saturday in an Akron bridal shop, getting fitted for a tux for his friend's wedding. Thursday, his friend sent a text message, telling him that Ebola patient Amber Joy Vinson had been in the store around the same time.

"I thought, 'Oh, that's interesting,'" Pattakos said in a telephone interview Friday.

. . . "I didn't exchange any bodily fluids with anyone, so I'm not worried about it," he said. "I'm much more likely to be mistakenly killed by a police officer in this country than to be killed by Ebola, even if you were in the same bridal shop."

"mistakenly"

also:

"I wish people would freak out this much about climate change," he said. "It's one of those problems that's real easy for the media to cover, rather than some of those other problems that people should be more concerned with."

New hero

Really good article/summary here, from a doctor involved in the African response: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary

― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Thursday, October 16, 2014 10:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

highly highly recommend this article btw

http://africasacountry.com/misunderstanding-the-ebola-crisis-is-worse-than-ignoring-it/

Overheard in the elevator this morning: "You know the ebola scare is an enormous marketing opportunity. No one wants to come out and say it, but we're all thinking it."

from Jordan's linked article:

Read any article on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa these days and I guarantee you will come across references to Africans eating wild animals, people hiding infected family members from health workers, patients being taken to witch doctors for treatment, or conspiracy theories about how the disease is man-made

tbh, i've scarcely read any of this. maybe i just pick better news sources? idk.

I've seen "people hiding infected family members from health workers" all over.

Fox’s Andrea Tantaros: African Ebola patients may visit ‘witch doctor,’ not hospital

President Obama selected Ron Klain, a former chief of staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joseph R. Biden Jr., to coordinate the government’s response to the Ebola outbreak.

i heard pieces about 'bush meat' on NPR for sure

curious about the bush meat angle -- is that not how the virus made the leap from its natural host to humans?

Americans say avoiding international air travel over Ebola outbreak

(looking forward to taking advantage of discounts in air travel)

Not this time. It has been a factor in the past but bats are more dangerous and thought to be the source of this outbreak.

would ebola even be a thing without september 2014 being the hottest september on record?

i heard pieces about 'bush meat' on NPR for sure

― festival culture (Jordan), Friday, October 17, 2014 4:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

preparation/consumption of bushmeat is absolutely contributing to the epidemic and has been reported widely in the peer-reviewed literature. i'm not sure what you're referring to but saying that this/distrust of health authorities/burial practices are some sort of right wing BS is incorrect

the article was criticizing the media playing up those things, as oppose to the dire absence of a health-care infrastructure, as being the major cause of the out-of-control ebola epidemic in west africa

causeS

lots of interesting writing about that here:

http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/585-ebola-in-perspective

the outbreak in the Congo, which is being caused by a genetically distinct strain, was traced back to the preparation of bushmeat, for example

right, but as many have pointed out, outbreaks are one thing, global or even regional epidemics quite another

you'd expect periodic outbreaks wherever humans might come into contact with disease animals (or their carcasses, or dung, or food), but for a pandemic to begin there has to be a real inability to combat the spread of the virus.

sorry for not reading other posts between mine, on my phone

Pentagon parking lot puker not ebola positive.

Don't get a hangover in dc. End up in quarantine.

yeah, it appears this is going to destroy the Democrats in 2 weeks

bushmeat sarcasm quotes

ugh
just found out that the bridal shop amber vinson went to is equidistant in the other direction from my parents house as the insane vasectomy cult

ernest angley vasectomy cult -----about 1.5 mi------- my parents' house ------about 1.5 mi-------- ebola bridal shop

wtf akron area

holy shit at the ernest angley church/cult. First I'm hearing about this. What the fuck indeed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/24/doctor-tests-positive-for-ebola-at-new-york-hospital?CMP=twt_gu

yeah, this is gonna make life in the city that much more paranoid for awhile.

Who bowled in Williamsburg last night?

momus

Imagine if he'd been hospitalized on a Monday after going to brunch

lol

Around the time that Spencer decided to go to West Africa, it seemed that the world was finally getting involved. In mid-September, the United States, joined by several other countries, pledged more than $175 million to the fight and 3,000 troops. Days after that announcement, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed an “unprecedented resolution” calling for $1 billion (and an additional $570 million on behalf of WHO) from world leaders in order to send the people and supplies necessary to contain the epidemic.

Ten days later, when the dust had settled, MSF President Joanne Liu called their bluff. “Generous pledges of aid and unprecedented UN resolutions are very welcome. But they will mean little, unless they are translated into immediate action,” Liu said. “The reality on the ground today is this: The promised surge has not yet delivered.” As of Oct. 17, over a month after the plans were set, the UN has only collected 38 percent of its goal.

MSF, the first humanitarian organization to recognize the epidemic, has been waiting for help to come since March. According to a spokesperson, the organization employs 270 international and around 3,018 locally hired staff in the three affected countries: Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Among those nations is a population of 22 million. Some heroic volunteers, like Spencer, have joined the fight—but not enough. “The sick are desperate, their families and caregivers are angry, and aid workers are exhausted,” Liu continued at the meeting. “Maintaining quality of care is an extreme challenge.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/23/why-new-york-s-ebola-case-will-hurt-infected-patients-everywhere.html

http://www.theawl.com/2014/10/checking-in-with-the-ebola-day-traders

Paul Farmer article so good! God, I love him.

I work at one of the biggest hospitals in Boston and the prep going on here is really impressive and extensive but I guess now they're pre-screening every single patient both when they make their appointments and upon arrival which seems both excessive and smart. The IDX dept is right above ours and people keep making jokes about how they're always using our bathroom. ._. For someone with pretty extreme anxiety I'm surprised I'm not more (at all?) worried about this.

yeah same; i read a good thing at the times (on their well blog) about the specifics of transmission, which my medically-untrained mind had got kinda spooked out about, generally just thinking transmission-by-sweat & flu-symptom'ed-patients-on-major-city-transit were a terrifying combo. & it got into how viral loads in any of the more immediately encounterable fluids were just too small to be a concern. it is totally a fascinating & terrifying thing to think about but it's nice being back in a kind of raised eyebrow state wrt the hysteria.

Yeah, I guess one of the reasons I haven't been worried is that I do know a very small about about medical stuff including how transmissible certain things are and how Ebola in particular works. Also, I've never seen Outbreak which I'm guessing is a good thing right now. ;)

It upsets me how much the phrase "viral loads" crosses my mind these days

so did Ebola's CMJ set get rescheduled or what

was it at Brooklyn Bowl?

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119969/new-york-city-ebola-case-why-did-dr-craig-spencer-go-bowling

irresponsible ignorant media bullshit, take 8472673

Christie, Cuomo inform the feds that they will be doing airport arrival quarantines

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/nyregion/new-york-ebola-case-craig-spencer.html

I hope the soundbites of Andy Cuomo now heard around the country are impressing you all with what a pompous dick he is.

"Quarantine means go home, stay home for 21 days.... that's quarantine. But I want to go out for pizza. Really, you can't. Well, I wanna go on one date. Well, really, you can't. That's why they call it quarantine," he said.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/cuomo-christie-announce-mandatory-quarantine-some-returning-travelers/

this is really stupid. there's no medical reason to quarantine people who don't have symptoms. and all this is going to do is 1) discourage people from volunteering and 2) encourage people to lie about their histories

they are both running for something, tho

there's no medical reason to quarantine people who don't have symptoms.

In the case of ebola, where contact with body fluids is required for transmission, the likelihood of transmission just by walking around in public would seem to be extremely low prior to noticeable symptoms. But, really, there has been so little experience with this disease prior to the latest outbreak, that categorical statements about it are a bit premature.

thanks aimless, please send an email to the physicians who make these recommendations and let them know

One problem I see is that someone can become symptomatic while out -- do you really trust yourself to recognize the moment you first have a 100.4 fever? Because that doesn't always feel like much. This isn't the flu but it's not HIV either, i.e. it can spread through ordinary personal contact via bodily fluids. So I don't think it's so crazy for a doctor who has been treating Ebola patients to have a 3-week quarantine. Why are you so against taking that relatively minor precaution?

Also I don't buy that this will "discourage people from volunteering" or "encourage people to lie" -- you really think a doctor willing to treat Ebola patients is going to change his mind because he might have to hang around his apartment for a few weeks after?

the hysteria is understandable but elected officials ideally should defer to the people who know what they're talking about. tho as morbs pointed out there are some political calculations obviously

One problem I see is that someone can become symptomatic while out -- do you really trust yourself to recognize the moment you first have a 100.4 fever? Because that doesn't always feel like much. This isn't the flu but it's not HIV either, i.e. it can spread through ordinary personal contact via bodily fluids. So I don't think it's so crazy for a doctor who has been treating Ebola patients to have a 3-week quarantine. Why are you so against taking that relatively minor precaution?

Also I don't buy that this will "discourage people from volunteering" or "encourage people to lie" -- you really think a doctor willing to treat Ebola patients is going to change his mind because he might have to hang around his apartment for a few weeks after?

― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Saturday, October 25, 2014 3:49 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

someone returning from an area where Ebola exists, even someone caring for ebola patients (who btw is a doctor and has presumably followed the safety protocols) isn't necessarily presumed to have ebola. there is a very well-accepted consensus, based on the best medical evidence available, that ebola can only be transmitted while a person is symptomatic (and having a low-grade fever represents the low end of that continuum; contagiousness increases as the person gets sicker), and even IF the person is symptomatic, it can only be transmitted through exchange of bodily fluids. not by being breathed on, or touching a subway rail, or by shaking hands. professionals who have returned from working with people with ebola are instructed to monitor their temperatures often and report to the authorities at the first sign of symptoms. the risk to someone without intimate contact with an asymtomatic person incubating ebola is essentially zero. not "small" but essentially negligible. and again, it is understandable that laypeople with a poor understanding of the disease are worried, but that doesn't mean policy shouldn't be evidence-based. it also underscores the need for effective public health messaging, which cuomo has now totally fucked up.

requiring that volunteers, who already are too few, spend 3 weeks after returning unable to work or live their lives, in the absence of evidence that this is even remotely necessary, could certainly dissuade them from going over and contributing to the effort where they're most desperately needed. additionally it's well-accepted in public health circles that mandatory disclosures of this sort (see also disclosing HIV status, etc) may have the paradoxical effect of causing people to lie about their histories, making epidemiological work even harder.

anyway hope that's coherent i'm on my phone

public distrust in medical authorities has already played a devastating enough role in the spread in africa. having the city health commissioner, the mayor, the CDC director, and the governor all present different messages based on their particular political priorities is a recipe for disaster, or at best, needless paranoia

really good & illuminating & more than coherent posts ^^^, ty k3vin

speaking of which: After Negative Ebola Test, Quarantined Nurse Criticizes Treatment at Newark Airport

Every unnecessary precaution made by officials validates public fear, which in turn creates more desire for more unnecessary precautions. It's a dangerous cycle, the avoidance of which is one of the most important jobs of leaders when dealing with public health events like this.

well said

i went to the doctor the other day for an ear infection and they asked me the standard pre-screening questions. have you been overseas? have you had any contact with anyone who was recently in west africa? etc. and i live in a midwestern town that's so far been unaffected.

kev k., thanks for the sarcasm. before your reply my life was missing something, but I didn't know what it was.

The experts you place such reliance upon can only work from the data they have. Based on their data of how the virus has behaved in the past they predict how it will behave in the future and recommend precautions that ought to be adequate. That is as far as science can take them.

The problem I was pointing out is not a problem with scientific method or with reasonable interpretations of the available data. The problem is more fundamental. It is how little data they are working from. It's hard to capture outriders when you lack data points. Factors that result in the transmission of the disease on average once in a thousand instances won't emerge from statistical noise when you only have a couple of thousand instances to examine. In a place like NY city, an asymptomatic infected person can easily have casual contact with enough people that a 1 in 1000 transmission might occur.

I suspect that if you spoke directly to the public health officials most intimately informed about ebola, they would be qualifying their statements about the behavior of the disease in ways that are not reflected in statements made to the general public, precisely for the reasons nick said and you approved:

"avoidance of [public fear] is one of the most important jobs of leaders when dealing with public health events like this."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/nyregion/ebola-quarantine.html?referrer=

public administration at its finest

smfh

“We’ve taken this action and I have absolutely no second thoughts about it,”

What a thing to be proud of. Good luck usa.

Every unnecessary precaution made by officials validates public fear, which in turn creates more desire for more unnecessary precautions. It's a dangerous cycle, the avoidance of which is one of the most important jobs of leaders when dealing with public health events like this.

I'm sure this could happen if the official reaction went way overboard into hysteria, but to me, a mandatory 21 day quarantine for returning health care workers who have worked directly with Ebola patients probably strikes most people as reasonable, in the sense that erring on the side of caution strikes most people as reasonable, especially when people's lives are at stake.

It does strike most people as reasonable, but it doesn't strike experts in the field as reasonable. Letting most people take the lead on policymaking here is a bad scene.

P.S. I'm not trying to play internet genius here, ebola scares the crap out of me, and I still haven't gotten my flu shot because I'm lazy and it costs slightly above free and "it's just the flu, right?" I'd probably want to lock up everyone for a couple months just to be safe. But that's why people who know about how these things actually affect the circumstances of a potential pandemic should be making these decisions, not dumb dorks like yours truly.

erring on the side of caution strikes most people as reasonable, especially when people's lives are at stake.

you could use the same criteria to support a mandatory flu vaccination and save far more lives but I guarantee the public outcry would not be reasonable (xpost)

I would welcome compulsory flu vaxes, tbh. Give them at polling places when I'm casting my welcomed compulsory vote.

itt I am a fascist

I don't doubt that the experts know a lot more about Ebola transmission than the average person on the street, however, I think it feeds panic more having experts telling people not to worry about something and authorities appearing to be complacent in the face of constant terrifying media coverage. In this case, I think taking a more aggressive stance may actually help to calm some of the fears, even if many (not all) medical experts might think it's unwarranted.

Christie is going a little overboard, but anyone who's been to a buffet with him knows it's not the first time.

I think the experts lost some credibility with the public after telling people for a long time that Ebola could be easily contained by an advanced medical system like in the US, and then to see 2 nurses fall ill soon after the first case in Dallas. It seemed it wasn't quite the slam-dunk that had been portrayed.

Yeah that's really the problem. I think if the screw-ups at the Dallas hospital had never happened we wouldn't have gotten to this point. Especially since there was so much murk around how the nurses got it -- at first the word was that they had followed all the protocols, so people were like "holy shit, this is more contagious than we thought." Only later it came out that no, actually, they didn't, but there's a lack of public trust now.

I think the experts lost some credibility with the public after telling people for a long time that Ebola could be easily contained by an advanced medical system like in the US, and then to see 2 nurses fall ill soon after the first case in Dallas. It seemed it wasn't quite the slam-dunk that had been portrayed.

― o. nate, Monday, October 27, 2014 10:23 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there have been 2 cases in the US and zero deaths. compare that with what's happened in west africa

what strikes most people as reasonable is not necessarily the best policy. you know this. everyone in this thread knows this

Americans are stupid. The end.

well, christie certainly is.

how are people reacting to the nurse's outspokenness? i'm referring of course to the nurse who has been quarantined. she seems rather heroic to me, and i appreciate her reaction.

Kinda interested in what happens to her legal case actually -- "We detain u, people b scared" is not a principle I'd like to see expanded further

she says they wouldn't let her meet with her lawyer, which... i can't imagine this could hold up in court.

but this is american 2014 so...

Christie must just be like "fuck it, I'm gonna look good and we'll settle the lawsuit down the road"

Question for folks who understand this stuff better than I do: if ebola is relatively hard to contract for those being careful, how are these handfuls of people - who I presume have taken mostly recommended precautions against at least the most basic exchange of bodily fluids - catching ebola? What are they (both abroad and home) doing wrong? They understand the risk going in, so what is it that's they're not doing right?

From what I have read, it's not actually correct that it's "relatively hard to contract for those being careful." It's hard to contract from ordinary, passing contact, but it's somewhat contagious for people in close contact with the infected, thus requiring extraordinary precaution. I think I saw one article that described it as "highly contagious and at the same time not highly contagious" because of this.

people sick with ebola discharge copious amounts of vomit and diarrhea, which either gets on nurses or needs to be cleaned up. drawing blood, which is necessary for the diagnosis and determining whether the virus had cleared, also presents a risk. wearing all of that protective equipment, particularly in tropical areas where it is really hot, is fatiguing and even the most otherwise-diligent workers are prone to lapses; organizations on the front lines recommend wearing PPE for no more than a few hours at a time. the risks involved with disrobing have also been well-documented.

also keep in mind that over in west africa, particularly early in the outbreak, they lack the esources and staff to comply with the recommendations. they're left with the choice to work at greater risk or abandon their patients.

But what about in America? How did those nurses get it? If you wear gloves and masks, is that enough? If the blood/vomit/sputum gets on you, is that enough, or does it have to get in you?

There were conflicting stories at first, but I think the official line now is that the hospital really did not do a good job following protocols.

Again, not claiming expertise, but I think like with any virus, the larger a viral load you're exposed to the more likely you are to become infected, so it's not a matter of whether vomit or blood or sweat or whatever "has to get in you" so much as more exposure = more likely to come down with it.

So one infected guy on the train, low odds. A dozen guys on the train, better chance of catching it?

Is washing your hands enough to get it off you, or do you need to totally disinfect?

Like a dozen guys all with early Ebola symptoms in the same car as you at once?

Stop touching their essence, their precious bodily fluids, dammit!

http://i61.tinypic.com/24pdo5u.jpg

i think it's key that if you're around a patient in the worst stages of the disease—as health-care workers are going to be—they are emitting lots of fluids, and those fluids are likely to contain the ebola virus.

it probably seems like it's more contagious than it actually is since we don't read news stories about the 100s of medical professionals working in west africa who don't get ebola.

I wonder how the medical professional infection rate compares to people working with patients with other diseases.

Another thing though: even if infection rate is lower, death rate is much higher per infection (although so far our medical system seems to reduce the death rate quite a lot). So that's another reason people are scared.

wearing all of that protective equipment, particularly in tropical areas where it is really hot, is fatiguing and even the most otherwise-diligent workers are prone to lapses; organizations on the front lines recommend wearing PPE for no more than a few hours at a time. the risks involved with disrobing have also been well-documented.

when it's 100°f/100% humidity you can only wear a ppe for ~30 minutes, so there's a lot of on/off

Can't they combine the suit with one of those little hat fans?

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/oct/27/hidden-truth-about-ebola/

Even as Ebola hysteria rages in the US, the epidemic here in Liberia, which is supposed to be its epicenter, seems to be subsiding. According to official counts, this impoverished West African country of 4 million people is currently home to fewer than four hundred Ebola patients. Not millions of patients; not tens of thousands of patients; not even thousands of patients. Fewer than four hundred patients. Even as the World Health Organization warns that any day now we could be seeing thousands of new cases, and Obama’s UN Ambassador Samantha Power claims the global response to the epidemic is “failing,” the number of new cases each week in Liberia is falling, not rising. In August, the streets of Monrovia were strewn with bodies and emergency Ebola clinics were turning away patients. Today, nearly half of the beds in those treatment units are empty. I’ve been here a week and have yet to see a single body in the street. Funeral directors say business is off by half.

Of course, the situation remains very serious. More than two thousand have succumbed to the disease here since the outbreak began—along with thousands more in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the CDC—and Liberia faces looming economic and political crises. This fragile country urgently needs help—both for the well being of its own people, and for the safety of the rest of this interconnected world. But the epidemic is far from the cataclysmic disaster currently on display on American TV screens. Why does this matter? By portraying Ebola as an out-of-control threat to humanity—the foolish calls for border controls, the needless and cruel quarantining of a healthy volunteer nurse, the canceling of contracts, trade and other exchanges—US politicians and the media are making the disease harder to fight. And that could make the epidemic far more dangerous than it currently is.....

But what about in America? How did those nurses get it? If you wear gloves and masks, is that enough? If the blood/vomit/sputum gets on you, is that enough, or does it have to get in you?

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, October 27, 2014 2:22 PM (5 hours ago)

infected bodily fluids have to get in you somehow, either by contact with mucous membranes or through a cut in the skin. the necessary inoculum size is probably small, though i haven't seen any research address this specifically, probably because it's still early in the information-gathering process in many respects.

and yeah, bears repeating that while the case-fatality rate is alarmingly high (~70% last i saw), that's also partly a function of the resources at the epidemic's epicenter. with world-class supportive care, the case-fatality rate should probably be half that

Iirc from half-watching news broadcasts, the gear the TX nurses were originally given didn't cover their necks--there were gowns/suits of some kind and some facial covering but nothing in between, and if THAT'S the level of protection their employer provided, you can imagine. Also they were often working alone and I think disrobing alone, which should never be allowed--someone else should always be there to watch/help and help you with on/off so you don't accidentally come into contact w fluids.

very good NYT editorial this morning

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/daily-cartoon-141028-travelban-690-719.jpg

my god

https://twitter.com/hashtag/KaciHickox?src=hash

just look at these people fume

https://twitter.com/GenghisConsrv/status/527133230974394368

Bill Godfrey ‏@BillnShari 1m1 minute ago
#KaciHickox: Kaci's ATTORNEY feels she doesn't have Ebola and that her rights supersede the rest of U.S. citizens. So did other patients!

HABEAS CORPUS CAN SUCK MY DICK

Can't wait until this freak-out media scare is over so there's some kind of news on that I want to watch.

Between the NFL and ebola, there hasn't been a news segment of interest to me in weeks.

To the best of my knowledge, public health officials have almost unlimited power to impose and enforce quarantines. It is not a criminal matter, so habeas corpus is kind of irrelevant.

It's pointless to make a rational argument against the word vomit contained in those tweets. #OBOLA #TEAPARTY #DISESE

another cyberspace-teems-with-hateful-ignorant-jerks shocker

yeah, ugh. i need to take a shower. people are horrible.

To the best of my knowledge, public health officials have almost unlimited power to impose and enforce quarantines. It is not a criminal matter, so habeas corpus is kind of irrelevant.

― Scapa Flow & Eddie (Aimless), Tuesday, October 28, 2014 1:24 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1) where are these powers enumerated?
2) so far i'm not aware of any controversial public health-body sanctioned quarantine. the cuomo/christie ones have been ordered by elected officials and have been ordered despite the very clear objections of scientists.

courts have recently deferred to executive actions taken in the interest of "national security" or the like, which i'm sure is what these officials will claim. still their legal defense is anything but airtight imo

I saw Obama referred to as Obola on a anti-vax site today.

public health officials have almost unlimited power to impose and enforce quarantines. It is not a criminal matter, so habeas corpus is kind of irrelevant.

― Scapa Flow & Eddie (Aimless),

seriously, Aimless? Where'd you read this?

It has probably been said itt already but holy christ, it's insane how something that is a mainly a huge humanitarian crisis on the other side of the ocean has been turned in a referendum on Obama. Conservative media will really stretch anything out.

aimless is correct but iirc those laws aimless is referring to date back to influenza days and haven't really been used since then

GOD BLESS OUR CLUSTERFUCK

On Monday night, Mr. Cuomo’s office released an order from the acting state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, outlining the quarantine protocols. Dr. Zucker planned to present the protocols to county health officials on Tuesday....

In what Mr. Christie called “tough, common-sense policy,” the governors on Friday outlined a mandatory 21-day quarantine for travelers who had direct contact with Ebola patients.

But on Monday, after fierce criticism from a nurse detained in Newark, Mr. Christie announced she was being released after three days of quarantine. He said Maine, where she lives, would determine her treatment.

Revealing a new policy detail, Mr. Christie said the nurse — who registered a fever on a forehead thermometer at the airport, but did not when her temperature was taken orally — could be released because she had not had a fever for 24 hours.

New Jersey officials would not say if 24 hours was the new standard for releasing someone from the hospital. Instead, the governor’s office issued a news release on Sunday and two on a Monday declaring that the policy had not changed.

Mr. Christie was defiant. “I didn’t reverse my decision,” he told reporters as he campaigned with Gov. Rick Scott, a fellow Republican, in Florida. “Why are you saying I reversed my decision? If she was continuing to be ill, she’d have to stay.”...

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey filed an open records request for details of the quarantine policy. “We’ve been left with no option, because no one knows,” said Udi Ofer, the executive director. “I’m not sure Governor Christie knows.”...

Mr. Cuomo, meanwhile, all but said quarantine could be a time for rest and relaxation.

“Enjoy your family, enjoy your kids, enjoy your friends,” said the governor, also a recently published author. “Read a book. Read my book.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/nyregion/two-governors-shifts-on-ebola-are-criticized-as-politics-not-science.html

i'm aware that these powers exist, but they were granted by congress and carried out by executives; ultimately their use has to be justified against an individual's 4th amendment rights and right to due process. and hopefully any judge with a pulse would throw out orders that weren't scientifically based

So the Ebola epidemic must be finally over in Africa, I guess, since everything's all about the USA everywhere?

yep, it's all good

One of the chief concerns with US pol power plays is that it could affect the movement of med personnel to West Africa, Stan.

http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantineisolation.html

cuomo is so hateful

why don't we quarantine the politicians amirite?

cuomo is so hateful

― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, October 28, 2014 11:40 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

x 1000

This strikes me as sensible commentary:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-28/what-science-can-t-tell-you-about-ebola

finally, a layperson with ideas about public health

ha ha

o. nate otm.

kev strangely overlooks the fact that, in the commentary o nate linked, the author repeatedly stresses that he agrees with kev's position. he just says that the tenor of kev's arguments in favor of his position are kind of simplistic and a bit stupid. did I mention that the author agreed with kev's position? because he did. repeatedly.

yeah I thought it was a good piece, seemed spot on

Where I disagree is that "the science" doesn't argue *against* mandatory quarantines, it just doesn't support them. However, public health expertise, an understanding of what's most important and useful in stopping this epidemic, does argue against it. It's not "trust the numbers, you dumdums" it's "trust our greater understanding and experience in dealing with these crises as a whole."

I mean if his argument is that the narrative of "panicky folk against science" is stupid then yeah, totally, because all simplistic narratives of news events are stupid as fuck. The way news is reported is mostly stupid. All the time. We all know this.

As a matter of fact I might mostly agree with this piece but it has a crappy headline. Omg am I ~part of the problem~?

I just think a lot of the "it's the science" dismissals are a little too glib and tend to talk past the concerns people are actually raising. Like over and over again I just see the same thing repeated "You can only get Ebola from contact with bodily fluids of a symptomatic person." Ok, but it's very easy to think of scenarios where a person might become symptomatic before they make it to a hospital, after which some other person might become exposed to their bodily fluids. Not to mention that the disease can survive for a decent amount of time on surfaces after bodily fluids touch them -- I realize this doesn't mean I'm going to get Ebola from the fact that a guy with mild symptoms touched a subway pole or bowling ball with his vaguely sweaty hand, but if a slightly more symptomatic person vomited on a crowded subway, that could most certainly infect others. If the argument is that the harm of a quarantine for medical workers who have been close to the disease outweighs the benefit, that's fair, but don't tell me there's "no reason whatsoever" to do it because of "the science," because I'm not fucking stupid and I can clearly see that there are at least vaguely arguable reasons to do it.

Non-quarantine also requires absolute trust in individuals' self-monitoring and self-reporting willingness and capacity.

if a slightly more symptomatic person vomited on a crowded subway, that could most certainly infect others.

I mean I guess if they rubbed it into their open sores.

Or if it got on someone's hands and they shortly thereafter touched their eyes or mouth

Like people are talking about it as though it's communicable in exactly the same ways as HIV, and no more. That's not the case.

Because if you got SOMEONE ELSE'S VOMIT on your hands obviously the first thing to do is put your hands in your mouth. Oh you meant without knowing it, like you touched their vomit residue on the seat (or floor because you rubbed your hands on the floor?) a few hours later assuming an MTA employee cleaned it up badly without using a disinfectant product, well luckily the virus doesn't survive more than a few hours on hard surfaces so

Sure there are scenarios where it could happen but the probability is SO LOW under normal conditions much less with people on alert and washing their hands more/using sanitizer/whatever.

posted in the world music thread but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruYQY6z3mV8
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/how-to-protect-yourself-from-ebola-in-song/

The song, which was written by Kandia Kora and Sekou Kouyaté, both of whom are among the performers, is based on ideas and lyrics sketched out by Carlos Chirinos, a professor at New York University who specializes in music, radio and social change. It runs about five and a half minutes, and is packed with warnings (not to touch the bodies of the sick or the dead, to avoid shaking hands) and encouragements (trust doctors, wash your hands).

I think we'll get a much better view of just how infectious this strain of ebola is following the 82 exposed to [Mali's patient zero](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/us-health-ebola-who-mali-idUSKBN0IH0SW20141028) during a bus ride on Oct. 20, or during subsequent medical care. Among the fellow riders, it may be the (experimentally) cleanest exposure record to date.

I mean I guess if they rubbed it into their open sores.

I am pretty sure that none of the highly trained medical practitioners who have contracted ebola had been rubbing infected vomit into open sores on their skin. Yet somehow, against all probability, they contracted the disease anyway. This suggests to me that there might be other less avoidable avenues of transmission than vomit rubbed into open sores.

From this very thread: i think it's key that if you're around a patient in the worst stages of the disease—as health-care workers are going to be—they are emitting lots of fluids, and those fluids are likely to contain the ebola virus.

it probably seems like it's more contagious than it actually is since we don't read news stories about the 100s of medical professionals working in west africa who don't get ebola.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Monday, October 27, 2014 8:27 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Africa is full of overcrowded public transport — buses, minivans and some trains. There are no known instances of transmission in those environments. On July 20, a dying Liberian-American flew to Nigeria and was vomiting on the plane. All 200 people aboard were monitored; none fell ill.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/ebola-ask-well-spread-public-transit/

So, what you are trying to say here is that rubbing infected vomit into open sores is the only known method of ebola transmission? Or are you still only saying that the probablility of contracting ebola through proximity to infected vomit is fairly low, because I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that the very best way to prevent the spread of an infectious disease is to reduce the reservoir of infected individuals as much as possible, which means that Africa is where 99.5% of the effort needs to be concentrated.

But, it would be nice if someone would clearly explain how those very few medical practitioners, who knew they are being exposed to live ebola virus and who were using best-practice protective measures, managed to contract it anyway. Because I am fairly sure that these low-probability cases represent an avenue of infection that a) exists and b) is difficult to prevent 100% of the time through the prescribed protective measures.

You can't just hand wave away these cases and insist that 'you can't get ebola unless you're extraordinarily careless or stupid.' These cases prove that contention is false.

the point is those doctors/nurses were directly treating people who were in final stages of the disease producing huge amounts of fluids, exponentially greater risk for infecting others and those are not the kind of people who can sneak out to Williamsburg on the subway to go bowling they will be p much incapacitated already

IDK, I like to get a little incapacitated when I go to Brooklyn Bowl too

the point is those doctors/nurses were directly treating people who were in final stages of the disease producing huge amounts of fluids, exponentially greater risk for infecting others and those are not the kind of people who can sneak out to Williamsburg on the subway to go bowling they will be p much incapacitated already

― anonanon, Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nyer piece - last week? week before? - was strong on detailing the conditions in overwhelmed clinics; otm

OMG! Breaking news!

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/maine-pizzeria-awaits-nod-police-deliver-pizza-ebola/story?id=26574508

Stay tuned for our panel discussion with 3 noted pizza experts an a 6-page thinkpiece in our weekend edition.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/11/02/potential-ebola-patient-being-tested-at-duke-results-monday-morning/2/

The Associated Press and other press outlets have agreed not to report on suspected cases of Ebola in the United States until a positive viral RNA test is completed.

Even though widespread panic gets them all those nice clicks they like so much?

want to share a couple of articles i've read over the past couple of days that i think were very strong

there's this from the NYT, which only mentions ebola as a means of illustrating the larger point of the way the public misperceives health threats and the deleterious effects on policy this can have, but is a very good read. the author cites and links to some of the work of lisa rosenbaum, who writes the clearest, most insightful stuff on the human side of medicine this side of atul gawande

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/emotion-is-not-the-best-medicine-ebola-case-further-shows/?ref=health

then there's this (free) essay in the new england journal of medicine, written by a couple of HIV/AIDS activists, describing their reaction to the ebola hysteria. i wasn't around for most of the worst of the AIDS scare firsthand, but the ugliness of that time is one of the first things i think about when i see some of the more troubling responses to ebola's arrival in america

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1413425?query=TOC#t=article

hey so what happened? haven't heard a peep about EBOLA since, oh, last Tuesday.

everybody got sick and died

it's just ~so weird~

you can still panic if you want to

Crap, now my Ebola commemorative plates are as worthless as my Franklin Mint Benghazi Coins and my Ground Zero Mosque pewter figurine chess set.

sounds like things aren't going well in Mali right now, but I guess it doesn't matter since no one in the US is sick

Death toll has passed the 5000 mark.

yeah pardon my glibness upthread. the media's boredom w/ ebola in the last 7 days is offensive on multiple levels.

white people etc

alas no surprise. Dr Spenser's press conference in NY seemed to come off well tho (except for de Blasio comparing the health workers to the US military cuz you know "HELPING" PEOPLE).

They're just deliberately avoiding unnecessary panic by not turning every suspected case into a headline. Which is a good thing + food for the conspiracy crowd simultaneously, I suppose.

World Health Organization trials show new Ebola vaccine to be highly effective

it's over!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35308743

maybe not...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/15/ebola-case-reported-in-sierra-leone-one-day-after-who-declared-the-outbreak-over/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_ebola-920am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

they were pretty straightforward about the fact that they expected some recidivism

great roundup from huffington post here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ebola-panic-us_us_56fabbd7e4b014d3fe243d86?n4h5rzyr8vs6mvx6r

Anthrax making another comeback:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-11/scientists-warn-anthrax-just-one-threat-as-russian-permafrost-m/7720362

Ice-age diseases potentially to follow.

this seems scary: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/19/asia/china-coronavirus-spike-intl-hnk/index.html

We all gonna die and no one gives a fuck?

the population of the wuhan metropolitan area is like 20million and we're talking about only a few hundred cases currently, seemingly all or mainly from tainted meat consumption. i'm not worried

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne-UnC2QpsU

I'm not worried, but that's still the *reported* number of cases. The question is how fast it can spread. Certainly the Chinese government is taking it seriously enough to more or less lock down Wuhan, which is nothing to sniff at for a population of 11 million. 26 dead so far, a couple of cases in the US, a couple in Europe. Those numbers are tiny, but if I've learned anything from movies and books it's that we're all going to die and/or turn into zombies.

26 million people are on quarantine. This is serious. Cases are spreading woeldwide and i wouldn't believe the chinese numbers

We all gonna die and no one gives a fuck?

― nostormo, Friday, January 24, 2020 1:32 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

go to hell imo

Not worried too, but this looks like SARS part 2, numners will rise probably

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlxmKsTvcLg

the people will survive imo

We all gonna die and no one gives a fuck?

Everything is grist if all you want to do is amuse yourself, but if you're going to make fun of it, at least say something witty.

I got a couple of disposable face masks yesterday.

My shoulder hurts, is it coronavirus

is it your dominant arm?

Xi Jinping just called it a 'grave situation' and 30 Chinese provinces are now on high alert.

48 million people on lockdown, 42 deaths, that discrepancy shows that the Chinese government must know even more than it is saying out loud.

I've been writing about this on the China thread, but to sum up.

My wife is from Hubei, her sister is in Wuhan and parents in Ezhou, both on lockdown now. Actually sister and her son were due to fly over to the UK on Wednesday, obviously that has been cancelled. Everyone is just staying home, which works for a while but not forever of course. Also the summer school I run brings about 200 students from Wuhan to the UK every summer, this is also a concern, school will be out of business if they cancel.

The word is that this isn't as serious as SARS but is spreading more rapidly.

Holy shit Camaraderie! Best wishes for your fam.

so far all is fine! just a bit of a stress, of course, and my wife is pretty worried of course.

it's really odd to see Wuhan and especially Ezhou on the news

obv I don’t know how this will all shake out but the level of hysteria in some corners of the internet borders on imo wishful fantasies that it’s a worse case scenario and level of subconscious craving for this sort of apocalypse is it’s own sort of frightening

Nothing new under the sun, etc. Eschatological yearnings are here to stay.

a lot of people subconsciously prefer the apocalypse over their status quo; nb i think this is to some extent misguided but it isn't new

only to some extent misguided to prefer apocalypse to their status quo?

Depends on your status quo, no?

part deliberate understatement as a joke, part i am sympathetic to thinking that a radical upheaval of everything feels preferable to just trudging along sometimes

e.g. the very real pain of having your head sawn off still works as a joke preference after you've had toothache for long enough

They were semi-careful on the radio this morning to be alarming but ... cautiously alarming. The guy who briefed the WHO said, if it's not contained, worst case he expects this to peak late April or early May, with 150,000 cases *per day.* That's what his model showed, at least, and only the worst case scenario. But that's a pretty bad scenario!

there's probably a whole discussion about who's entitled to feel un-Panglossian and who isn't but it shd probably go on another thread. disaster has always been an appealing spectacle to many people for good, bad and indifferent reasons. personally i hope the people of Wuhan and environs can get back to their preferred daily routine asap

I suspect it’s more about the spectacle than the despair but I don’t have evidence or anything

I had to take my daughter to the doctor for something unrelated yesterday and most people were wearing facemasks. TBF, large Chinese population in my neighborhood so maybe people are assuming that there's a decent risk someone here has traveled to Wuhan. Also I think facemasks are just more of a thing in China itself after SARS etc so people from there are probably more accustomed to breaking them out.

So far from what I can glean, it's not so much how deadly this is as how fast it can spread and how new it is (i.e. no one has built up immunity) -- in other words so far it doesn't look likely to kill a large percentage of its victims, but it may just have so many victims that it will cause a significant number of deaths, particularly among more vulnerable populations?

Or I guess 80 deaths / 2700 cases maybe is particularly deadly?

SARS apparently had a 10% death rate and a 50% death rate for patients over 65 years, by comparison. Avian flu was much higher -- 60%, but much less transmissible.

IANAV but my sense is that the fear depends on believing that China is lying about the numbers but aiui WHO has been on the ground and would know if a massive coverup was underway?

So far I actually get a sense of China really trying to get out ahead of this in comparison to past outbreaks, but who knows.

That's what his model showed, at least

Seems like it would be hard to build a reasonable model for that when you haven't discovered the method of transmission, yet.

I’ve started seeing people - mostly Chinese I think - wearing facemasks in the UK and California. On the street, in meetings,...

I was going to buy a box of disposable facemasks on amazon but they seem to be mostly sold out/on backorder. Might pop out today to try to get more from a local store. Even if I don't use them for this I want to start wearing them on planes.

xp I always see Chinese tourists wearing masks out and about in London, haven’t noticed an uptick. I remember being impressed when I was in HK (I think?) that the escalators were disinfected on their handrails, but ofc it makes a huge amount of sense considering.

I went to my local asian grocery store on saturday and every one of the dozen or so people working there was wearing a mask and latex gloves which has never been the case before

apparently masks being worn in NYC

what exactly is wrong with people

I am so into the masks. I wish it became common in nyc especially in winter. (keeps your face warmer, provided humidity, makes people leave you alone).

that's true, could add a cane for the last

Some work rando accosted me in the restroom like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Okay, dude I've never talked to before, congratulations on working from home for the foreseeable future, I hope your incipient prepperdom serves you well.

Oh ok, so there has been totally a run on masks. https://www.bbc.com/news/51245373

My nephew who has been living n Shanghai for 12 years, is married to a Chinese girl and is moving back to the UK, his wife and kid are flying out this week - 3 months early - because of the situation, he's saying most everyone there is staying home, minimising interactions and so on.

2018 nCoV death toll to 108 as of last hour.
R0 (how many newly infected when an infected enters) estimates I've seen are 2.8 and 3.8.
In hospitalized, 15% mortality. Total mortality in infected likely lower (3-4%).
Fairly infectious during the asymptomatic incubation period.

Science-wise, 79% sequence similarity to SARS, 98.5% sequence similarity to other bat corona viri. So its bats, again.

I have a case of N95 masks and plenty gloves, but stocked up on hand sanitizer and instant potato flakes today.

sanpaku u may live to 120 but can u answer why it is that a virus that doesn't kill bats* does kill humans

*maybe it does?

That should be: 2019 nCoV (2019 novel Coronavirus) above.

Imago: Parasites coevolve with their normal hosts. Lethality is selected against, not just in the hosts but in the parasites.

It's when zoonotic diseases jump to new hosts that regulation goes awry. And of course, unexposed populations have no adaptive immunity.

What's the seasonal flu's current mortality rate in China?

ty for your answer. guess i'd been thrown by thudding explanations of tuberculosis killing humans because 'this virus is meant to only give a huge animal like a cow a mild fever but look at what it does to us' but obv it's more complex than that

Germany confirms first European human-to-human transmission

https://www.theguardian.com/science/live/2020/jan/28/coronavirus-first-death-in-beijing-as-us-issues-new-china-travel-warning-live-updates

I'm not sure if other countries are getting the same "What measures are being taken to return our sovereign citizens to the UK?" - it seems to me a mixture of "obviously they won't have caught this foreign disease" with "but theoretically if 100 people sneeze on them, that might be a problem"

xpost

R0 (how many newly infected when an infected enters) estimates I've seen are 2.8 and 3.8.

I saw this useful point of comparison:

The so-called R naught, a mathematical equation that shows how many people will get an illness from each infected person, is somewhere around 1.5 to 3, she said. Measles, which is one of the most contagious infections in the world, has an R naught of around 12 to 18, by comparison, she said.

What's the seasonal flu's current mortality rate in China?

I don't know but I saw this article this morning which highlights a question mark about the official figures (there are also some numbers quoted but I don't see winter 2019/20 figures for China):

"The US flu mortality rate includes cases where flu causes other illnesses to worsen and lead to death, while China only counts people who die directly from flu," an observer who prefers to be anonymous told the Global Times

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1177725.shtml

btw best wishes to Camaraderie's family and sorry for the worry and disruption to their plans

My daughter was mildly fretting about this yesterday, and I reminded her that she was too afraid to get the flu shot this year (apparently not that effective, but still), even though the flu killed something like an estimated 8-20,000 in the US last year, with millions more infected.

what was her response?

Thanks for the link, aps.

xpost She didn't have a good response, honestly. She's deathly afraid of needles and is the only one in the family that didn't get the flu shot. But she at least seemed to recognize the contradiction.

Dude who had a coronavirus freakout on me while I vainly attempted to urinate yesterday also asked if I'd gotten my flu shot (which I monosyllabically responded that I had) and proudly asserted in turn that he doesn't do that. And what good would it even have done now that we're in the midst of a whole other epidemic? He seems like a rational actor, for sure.

the degree to which people rationalize not getting the flu shot fuckin blows my mind

There is an old timer blowhard who is in a lot of my yoga classes, and I almost lost my shit when he started lecturing everyone about how flu shots cause dementia.

the flu shot gives u autism iirc, the only sure way to avoid the flu is to cover yourself head-to-toe every morning in hand sanitiser before squeezing into a protective full-body condom

Yeah, dementia isn't autism, dummy. You can tell him I said that.

There is an old timer blowhard who is in a lot of my yoga classes, and I almost lost my shit when he started lecturing everyone about how flu shots cause dementia.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, January 28, 2020 9:33 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Did u ask him how many flu shots it took for him to come by this opinion

I did not want to engage at all because I knew I would get extremely angry very quickly, and also didn't want to learn about the rest of the class's insights on vaccines, I'm sure it would be a very depressing and futile conversation.

Acupuncture needles work just as well as inoculation needles against the flu, afaict, and with 100% less autism and chakra contamination.

i've heard that a knitting needle delivered directely into the brain through the eyeball immediately drops the risk of infection to zero

A 2100-year old Chinese mummy told me the trick is to draw blood, otherwise you get the coronavirus, or worse.

ehhhh

I'd like to thank the scientific community for teaching me her language or I wouldn't have been able to share this ageless insight with you.

ehhhh

My favorite sad lol flu shot story came from several years ago. I popped in to a drug store to get it, put my name on a list, and then waited a couple of minutes. There was a mother and her teen son sitting in the waiting area, too, and after I put in my info the mother declares derisively "I hear the flu shot *makes* you get sick." And then her son, lost in his phone, sort of mutters an affirmation, "uh-huh." And I turn to her and ask, why would they design a shot that purposely makes you sick? And she basically muttered some version of "well, I dunno about that ..." (Echoed years later when I was stuck next to a crazy old Trump supporter on a plane, and when we landed he started ranting about Obama - this was during the election - blah blah blah. And then he starts complaining that Obama is anti-military, and that Trump is more respectful of the troops. And I finally turn to him and say, you know Trump is a draft dodger who made up medical conditions to get his deferment, right? And he called avoiding VD his own version of Vietnam, right? And the guy just mutters "well, I dunno about that ...")

Over the Christmas holidays back in Montreal a cashier at the supermarket told me her mother fell prey to Alzheimer's after getting the flu shot and she looked at me pleadingly, saying 'that's got to be it, right?', and I had absolutely no idea how to respond save via a half-mumbled and utterly inadequate 'it must be hard, I lost my grandmother to it as well'.

Lol!

via a half-mumbled and utterly inadequate

This came out as 'ehhhh' didn't it?

lol it certainly did, although I had yet to learn the tongue of the Ancients at that point.

:D If anything you offered some consolation to the poor woman. That's something.

The extent to which people dispense with logic in a desperate pursuit of etiology is truly tragic.

You should tell these people that dementia could likely be caused by bacteria from poor dental hygiene and then stare straight at their mouth.

josh in chicago, you could get your daughter a tattoo to get her over needle phobia.

lol she doesn't seem to be afraid of (the idea of) tattoos or piercings! just medical needles.

you should make her start donating plasma for her allowance.

a woman in the supermarket yesterday was having a prolonged coughing fit near the dairy, into the seafood and then meat section. I gave her such a death stare down and kept diverting my path like I had a restraining order of 20 feet on her. I finally noticed her husband glaring at me. TAKE YOUR WOMAN OUTSIDE!

looks like we are about to have the first fatality from this in Paris, an ~80 year old Chinese tourist from Hubei province

xpost Seriously, do as the kids do and embrace the Vampire Sneeze.
https://2gm3eq3zfq5s1iqp1h2j2dit-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/15114435_web1_190118-HGO-FluUpdate.jpg

'Tis what I was taught. It feels like a North American shibboleth whenever I do it in Europe but maybe I'm making this up?

As the global death toll from an alarming new coronavirus surged this week, promoters of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory were urging their fans to ward off the illness by purchasing and drinking dangerous bleach.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-conspiracy-theorists-magic-cure-for-coronavirus-is-drinking-lethal-bleach

drinking bleach to own the libs

you know what i'm ok with this

haha yes

take the bleach challenge, 4chan

Do we have a thread for uplifting news? If so, this should be cross-posted there.

can’t catch coronavirus if you’re dead

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/022/138/highresrollsafe.jpg

Pour it all over each pizza slice for extra effectiveness.

Silly 4chan. Bleach doesn't work unless you inhale it.

It says purchasing and drinking dangerous bleach. maybe don't drink the dangerous stuff?

yeah, stick to "drinking bleach"

Wow. I'm fairly certain that I made a joke (perhaps more than one) about Trumpites being credulous enough to drink bleach under the right circumstances but...(sniff) but I never dared to truly dream the impossible dream.

Honestly, could care less about adults doing this to themselves. But the dark underbelly here is the tens of thousands of parents of autistic children that make their children drink bleach, thanks to the internet and boundless credulity. The same demographic as Q-Anon.

tens of thousands of parents

citation needed

oh, see, Sanpaku never repeats anything he didn’t read on the Internet first

am i reading this right parents of autistic children are the same demographic as Q-Anon?

Perhaps you haven't encountered articles like: Parents are poisoning their children with bleach to 'cure' autism. These moms are trying to stop it.

Tens of thousands is perhaps an overstatement. It's definitely in the hundreds.

Mordy, the sort of parents that engage in conspiracy-minded thinking about autism, and attempt to cure their children with bleach, turpentine, urine, chelation etc. reflect the same credulity and lack of critical thinking skills that we see in Q-Anon followers.

just a couple of orders of magnitude, nbd

lol @ "perhaps"

it’s a venn diagram, but one that increases in overlap with concern

My best friend is coming to visit me next week and I am in a place throbbing with chinese and japanese tourists right now. We do not have a very good record of trips together. She got swine flu on our trip to Belize and Mexico like 10 years ago. And that was not even in the top 3 of worst things that has happened. I should probably get some kerosene and matches.

I would say hand sanitizer and face masks but maybe you’re going in the scorched bedding and body bag direction?

these are pragmatic times!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPct4t5X0AAofxW?format=jpg&name=large

Just saw that the number of confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus has overtaken the 2003 SARS outbreak inside of mainland China.

Also a reminder (via a doctor on the radio) that face masks help prevent you from transmitting stuff, but don't necessarily prevent you from contracting stuff. You need a much higher grade of mask for that, the kind doctors wear.

I'd imagine the form-fitting N95 masks I have do a respectable job of reducing inhaled bronchial aerosols. The main problem will be that not many people have the experience from infectious medicine health care to remove them, gloves, and other protective clothing in a way that doesn't contaminate their bodies or home. The closest experience I have is cancer cell culture in a lab (ambient microbes kill human cell lines in petri dishes), which took days to learn. I imagine if it comes to a lockdown, I could set up my apt entrance with a small table, waste bin, hand sanitizer, spray bottles of Everclear and bleach. Outer garments left outside, laundry bagged, everything sprayed down with bleach and then covered with a tarp and weights to prevent air circulation.

There are already runs on masks at home improvement stores through the US. Later today I plan on seeing the situation on hand-sanitizer. 190 proof grain neutral spirits in a spray bottle will do in a pinch, though, and are just a dilution away from vodka.

I'm filling a tub with bourbon, just to be safe.

that face masks help prevent you from transmitting stuff, but don't necessarily prevent you from contracting stuff.

can you explain? does not compute that virus can go one direction but not the other. i'm actually interning in san bernardino county EHS dept. and would ask, but they're all out preparing/taking care of the flight that is arriving @ a air force base

that was a xpost.

then there's also the fact that people are gonna feel protected with the mask, like gloves in a kitchen and wear them too long and wash hands too infrequently ime.
not to mention you only get a seal with fitted masks. i wonder how eyes being exposed adds to risk also.

it makes sense that your sneezes / moisture go straight into the cotton but air comes in through the sides of the mask where there are gaps.

xpost I'm not a doctor, but yeah, what I heard seemed to imply that while they can't hurt, their effectiveness is unclear, and because they are frequently loose fitting or worn (or disposed of) improperly, droplets and the like can indeed get in. The best way to avoid illness is (duh) to avoid being around sick people, and also to wash your hands a lot.

Not necessarily if the mask isn't fitted
Xpost
Asked a supervisor and the nurses on hand are wearing full face masks.
He also said the common over the ear type are pretty useless for this sort of thing

My understanding is that there are more vectors for the virii getting into your body than just the mouth. Your hands touch contaminated objects then you touch your eyes, nose, etc.

that face masks help prevent you from transmitting stuff, but don't necessarily prevent you from contracting stuff.

can you explain? does not compute that virus can go one direction but not the other.

Also you wear a mask for a bit, you have a nice little warm moist petri dish sitting in front of your mouth and nose to aspirate from.

frequent hand-washing and not touching eyes/nose/mouth are more important preventative measures than wearing a face mask

there are lots of current things online from doctors about the worthiness of facemasks (medical and N95).

anyway, one of my favorite videos from last year was Naomi Campbell's cleaning routine when she flies. It starts around 2:30. Puts on the gloves, sanitize wipes everything down, puts her personal clean blanket over the seat, hydration masks, face masks. I went through a phase where I was alcohol wiping everything down on planes when flying. It helped so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-U_jT9qWvs

anyways, i saw a article that talked about a Chinese doctor a week or so ago that contracted the virus through his eyes. he confirmed it. those too, are a mucous membrane, mind.

starting to get a wee bit nervous about this one. nobody seems to have any idea wtf to do about it

A French patient is currently being treated with paracetamol in Bordeaux, so we're good.

Usually French doctors load you up with three prescriptions for various things just to be safe!

xxp I might not be paying enough attention here but isn’t it less deadly than both SARS and MERS? There’s nothing besides trying to stop the spread that can really be done, just try to take normal precautions. Obviously shit for anyone immunocompromised, but so is flu season.

If I understand correctly, it's less lethal than SARS but more so than the regular flu.

There is no regular flu. Some variants are worse than others and they can generally only vaccinate for a few strains anyway.

Sorry, I worded it wrong: more like 'average'.

I was flummoxed when the WHO called this an 'internal Chinese affair' just ten days ago. Anyone could see this would spread, and fast, in today's world. Not sure what to think of the French and Dutch sending planes to "bring back" citizens though.

Canada hesitated at first and will now be doing the same. On a purely emotional level, I'm glad they made this call as one of my ex-colleagues who married a guy from Wuhan is currently stuck there with their two children. None of them are exhibiting any symptoms (so far) but no matter what happens they're better off in a Canadian quarantine for the next few weeks than smack dab in the infection's middle, so to speak.

The shoddy handling of repatriations, the ridiculous assurances from the WHO, both bad, but the real trouble is from the Chinese government keeping it secret for weeks.

If anyone feels like watching it, here is a scary real-time map https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Not clicking on that lol.

Pom, I'm glad your ex-colleague is ok and will have the chance to return. Can she bring her husband and kids though? (there was a story about a Dutch man who had to choose between staying or going back but having to leave his wife there...)

Her husband and the kids are all Canadian citizens, so it thankfully won't be an issue. I did come across that story you mention – just awful.

As an aside, the Sinophobia that has predictably erupted to the surface in the West (and elsewhere) as a result of this ordeal is just as depressing.

…with France unsurprisingly at the forefront:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51294305

It's as predictable as it is ugly, indeed, but I've not seen it as awful as that. Ugh.

I tried to take my collleagues to a (very good) Hunan restaurant in Sydney and was overruled. Chinese restaurants appear very empty here and normally this would be a very busy time just after lunar new year. A mixture of a massive drop in incoming Chinese tourists and people being stupid and racist it seems.

bloke on the tv just now saying that we should be better at this and spend the time between outbreaks preparing antidotes for the next virus. isn't the point of these outbreaks that they are new and can't be predicted / prepared for? there's no universal antivirus that'll work against everything, is there?

(the guy was some american politician, responsible for some kinds of chemical attack preparedness)

(joe lieberman. from the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense)

FYI we hate him, he is the worst

My friend in singapore just canceled his short trip to HK. I thought that was a bit much but I guess if you wouldn't feel comfortable moving about freely in HK then I guess? The price gouging of face masks online right now is ridiculous.

Officially a WHO global health emergency (well, yeah).

xp: Lieberman's an idiot. There is constant monitoring of emergent flu strains in order to identify which may pose the greatest risk in the following year, but creating, testing, and distributing each year's flu vaccine still takes the better part of a year.

For novel zoonotic diseases, there are no shortcuts. It still generally takes over six months to identify the pathogen, culture it in animals or cell lines, devise a way of attenuating it's virulence while maintaining its ability to provoke immunity, testing, upscaling production, and distributing a new vaccine.

I think a lot of countries are going to look at China's lockdown of Hubei, which went far beyond the WHO's recommendations, for insights on how to slow emergent epidemics. I suspect when this is over it will have saved thousands of lives. You can bet the US CDC, FEMA and military will be talking.

To prevent this in the first place, we'd need to convince entire nations to not fux with wild animals, which are the reservoirs for novel epidemic strains. Hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in Africa generally stem from the bushmeat trade. China shut down wet markets like the one in Wuhan for several years after the 2003 SARS outbreak. The WHO could push nations to inspect their CAFOs to ensure they're not being used by wild bats (source of both SARS and 2019 nCoV) as shelters, etc.

they sell bush meat all over the place in London. Brixton market definitely. i have to say i'm amazed something like this hasn't happened in London.

yeah I live a short walk away from the main bushmeat market in Paris (the marché Dejean)

I think the difference is in China the animals are often live. It’s the mixing of live animals that presents the biggest risk. Flu viruses tend to originate in southern China due to the close proximity of pigs, poultry and humans in a hot and humid climate.

I went to costco today to pick up contacts and I saw a white woman with a facemask on trying on multiple pairs of glasses. I was irritated but also couldn't settle on what part of it I was most irritated by.

Don't worry. Fashion will endure the apocalypse.

http://313ct818yszd3xd6xa2z47nm-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Vogmask-Faceslap-HKFW14-Show-026-1.jpg

First 2019-nCoV death outside of China (in the Phillipines), global toll hits 304. Only 328 recovered.
14,380 cases, with 19,544 suspected (there's a shortage of diagnostic kit and hence significant lag).

Coincidental that UK evacuees are travelling in four Horsemen buses.
https://i.imgur.com/K0afFK5.jpg

This is nuts

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-and-travel-to-china-foreign-secretarys-statement-4-february-2020

In light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office advises against ‘all but essential’ travel to mainland China and now recommends that British Nationals who are able to leave China do so.

On the one hand, I appreciate them taking this so seriously. On the other hand, they are taking this even more seriously than many of the news reports have indicated it merits, which makes me think that it's worse than they're letting on.

There has been some talk about why Xi has not appeared in public for over a week now, lots of different theories, all of them worrying in different ways.

First confirmed cases of local transmission in Singapore today - though affecting people who had direct contact with Chinese tourists.

There's a lot of stupid conspiracy theory crap going around, as usual, but this feels like it's kinda based on science, dunno?
The theory is: the virus was developed for developing vaccines but got out of a lab:

https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2020/01/30/on-the-origins-of-the-2019-ncov-virus-wuhan-china/

and a follow-up a couple of days later:
https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2020/02/02/moderately-strong-confirmation-of-a-laboratory-origin-of-2019-ncov/

Isn't this just a basically nasty cold virus that gives you pneumonia? Which kills approx 2.5m people a year anyway? 305 people seems like... not that many relatively?

Trying to figure out where I should stand on the 'freaking-out-ometer' basically

That's the cognitive dissonance. The flu kills millions, pneumonia kills millions. This virus has killed 300, mostly in a country of over a billion, and governments are restricting travel and evacuating citizens.

It’s at minimum 20x more likely to be fatal that common flu aiui and there is scope for it to get worse.

i suspect it has to do with comments like this: "First 2019-nCoV death outside of China (in the Phillipines), global toll hits 304. Only 328 recovered. 14,380 cases, with 19,544 suspected (there's a shortage of diagnostic kit and hence significant lag)." which makes it seem like maybe there's a 50% fatality rate but i'm pretty sure even tho i'm not an epidemiologist that this is a confused representative of the numbers.

if you're not in china, no, you don't need to be worrying. i think the fears are highly related to the fact that it's transmitted by human-to-human contact, and there isn't a vaccine right (expected sometime in summer). so if it isn't contained, and the epidemic became a pandemic, your city might become a version of wuhan. it's one of those things where you should be very glad that the pros are freaking out, because their containment measures are what's keeping it from spreading more rapidly.

yes i agree with that. let the professionals freak out.

As I mentioned up-thread, my nephew who lives in Shanghai has booked a flight to the UK, instead of coming straight home to his folk's house he's booking into a hotel for two weeks to quarantine himself (of sorts) which we wondered might be a bit over the top but he works in pharma and seems a little spooked, so maybe things over there are more intense than is being reported.

I'm just repeating the numbers. BTW, death toll as of 4 February 2020 was 427.

From all appearances this 2003 SARS redux, just with a third higher R0 (reproduction number, "infectivity"), about the same lethality, and a Chinese government that's taking it seriously (and which will save thousands of lives, How I wish I had similarly competent governance).

4000 people in China die prematurely from air pollution every day. We're still in the 70-100 range for 2019-nCoV daily deaths. It's barely significant, yet. I would watch the secondary outbreaks in Thailand and Kerala/India, as while they benefit from milder climates they don't have the benefit of an autocratic government with ample resources.

it is so weird when you say things like “they don't have the benefit of an autocratic government with ample resources”

or "How I wish I had similarly competent governance"

They might be harvesting organs from minority groups but they sure make the trains run on time!

also this highly effective resourced competent government allowed the conditions that lead to the outbreak and acc to WHO are much more poorly prepared than the US for contagion so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hubei is 4% of the Chinese population. If you think the U.S. could have cordoned off Illinois or Pennsylvania (and shut down automotive traffic) in a day you haven't spent much time around Americans or its government. We don't have nearly the authoritarian mindset (even in our authoritarian party)(cf: see any hurricane evacuation), and our government doesn't have the resources on command. Should the U.S. face a similar epidemic, we won't be able to slow its spread (for the months until a vaccine is possible) nearly as well.

Best case for US is we slow it enough that it doesn’t start breaking out until the end of flu season. It’s likely to go into hibernation then until next winter, giving more time for preparation.

xp: And yeah, its pretty dumb that the Chinese people continue to fux around with eating chrysanthemum bats after SARS. They've also decimated sharks worldwide for fin soup and African elephants for powdered ivory aphrodesiacs. I'm mainly speaking of the ability of the government to essentially imprison 4% of their population in a day, to build infectious disease hospitals in 9 days, etc.

what i wouldn't give to live in a country that can imprison 4% on their population in a day

if only the leaders of the united states just had a more, i don't know, authoritarian mindset

I mean, how else are you supposed to get shit done?

I mentioned up-thread, my nephew who lives in Shanghai has booked a flight to the UK, instead of coming straight home to his folk's house he's booking into a hotel for two weeks to quarantine himself (of sorts) which we wondered might be a bit over the top but he works in pharma and seems a little spooked, so maybe things over there are more intense than is being reported.

― Maresn3st,

This is insanely troublesome imo
What if, god forbid nephew is contagious? He leaves the room for housekeeping to be exposed and no chemical decon for the next guest? Isn't it possible to be a carrier and not have symptoms?

Mordy: I'm not making a moral judgement. I'm just saying mainland China is way more likely to contain a novel epidemic from the bushmeat trade than say D.R. Congo.

Nephew doing this at an airport hotel would be a pretty good plot point for a disaster thriller.

Useful chart for perspective:

https://i.imgur.com/czzQbWu.png

that is useful, and as usual i fear that not enough people will notice the logarithmic scale

I keep seeing numbers like this

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Which says, roughly, 500 dead, 900 "recovered", and it's easy to read that as a 30%+ mortality rate. I figure it's only because recovery takes longer than dying and there's just not been enough time yet.

The actual infected and recovered rates from Hubei are only indicative.

To move from "suspected case" to "confirmed case" requires a positive test for the virus, and to my knowledge they're still using PCR kits, which are presently limited to 2000/d for the province (and this despite the fact that China's national virus institute is 15 km from the Huanan wet market). Similarly, to move from "confirmed case" to "recovered" requires a negative result from the same test. As you might imagine, there's more demand for tests in the symptomatic than in the recovered.

If the testing kits / testing throughput were unlimited, were reported without several days lag, and everyone with symptoms was tested, we'd see more confirmed cases, and more recovered cases, as well a lot of people developing symptoms not severe enough to go to the hospitals for treatment. We'd perhaps also learn of some who got sick, stayed at home and died (and aren't currently counted). When this is all over in 6-12 months we'll get the retrospective statistics, which will infer a lot more cases and deaths that didn't match reporting criteria.

From here/now, it looks like a viral pneumonia with similar lethality to SARS (<10%, though higher in the elderly), but also somewhat more infectious than SARS.

As an aside, the Sinophobia that has predictably erupted to the surface in the West (and elsewhere) as a result of this ordeal is just as depressing.

First British national to contract the virus confirmed. Seems likely they attended the conference at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore that's linked to a bunch of the cases.

I'm in Jakarta at the moment and have my temperature taken every time i enter my hotel.

XP to Outdoor Miner, we found out he's actually rented an AirBnb, so not very much better if he is contagious but at least no contact with anyone until the two weeks have elapsed.

This is mildly encouraging:

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/coronavirus-chinese-data-of-82-cases-are-mild-says-who

Seems they're turning Milton Keynes, or at least a bit of it, into the UK's main quarantine facility. Best thing for the place tbh.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-britons-evacuated-from-wuhan-to-be-quarantined-in-milton-keynes

Foxconn, the electronics company that supplies Apple, has begun manufacturing its own surgical masks, allowing Chinese workers to churn out iPhones uninterrupted as the coronavirus crisis continues.

*whistles cheerfully*

Five British nationals have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in France, after staying in the same ski chalet and coming into contact with a person who had been in Singapore, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on Saturday.

The total number of people infected with the virus in France has now reached 11.

Buzyn said the group of people newly infected with the virus were not in a serious condition.

They had formed "a cluster, a grouping around one original case" after staying in the same chalet, in the Contamine Monjoie resort in Savoie in eastern France.

"That original case was brought to our attention last night, it is a British national who had returned from Singapore where he had stayed between January 20 and 23, and he arrived in France on January 24 for four days," Buzyn said.

thanks Britain

classic brits-abroad behaviour

if brexit stops this coronimperialism then I'm team boris

this guy calmly saying some mildly discouraging things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALQTdCYGISw

Two bits that jumped out at me: 'we think that the epidemic is roughly doubling in size every five days' and 'we expect the infection levels to peak at the epicenter, Wuhan, in about a month's time'.

When I sneeze up in the place
You better wash yo self
Wuhan
got you all in check
I got that street fish steez
make you respect death
Wuhan
got you all in check
And you know we come through
to wreck the medical tech
Wuhan
got you all in check
Throw your hands up in the air
You better disinfect
Wuhan
got you all in check

is that from the Wu Han Clan?

We met up with a woman from Beijing yesterday, we are trying to do business with her. She said that she thought the Chinese government should seal off Hubei and let the disease run its course there. My wife is from Hubei and most of her family are still there, so this didn't go down well. The woman also said that she thought the people of Hubei must be genetically weak and this is the work of nature improving the species. She laughed at my wife for suggesting that if the current leadership cannot handle this they should be replaced, she said without the CCP there would be no new China. Look at the UK, she said, they used to have an empire, now they are weak, and we Chinese are strong. Look, they changed their leader and now they have a worse leader. My wife is sad to hear this, not really surprised, though. This woman is from the 1% in China, from our experience her views are not exactly unusual.

Not sure why I'm writing this here, except that I feel like writing it somewhere.

Christ :(

Ime it's not just the 1%ers who buy into that rot. Let it not be said that Chinese state propaganda is ineffective.

it's not just the 1%, it's true

On a somewhat related note, one of my friends, a Canadian of Chinese descent, just got back from Hong Kong and is reportedly sharing articles over Facebook about how the seasonal flu's mortality rate is supposedly higher in the US than the 2019-nCoV's in China. According to him, disregard for this 'alternative' narrative is yet another instance of Western imperialism.

He's also a Jordan Peterson stan and claims to have fully adopted his all-beef diet…

of course the real natural selection is for people who decide to live on beef and bleach to own the libs

Just heard that more people have now died of this than died of SARS, fwiw.

I was talking to a friend yesterday whose company's HK offices are now all closed. There was also a sad piece on the radio featuring Chinese families resistant to quarantine centers, because while they feel their family members would be nominally cared for (that is, fed), they recognized that sending loved ones to a quarantine center was tantamount to sending them off to die.

a friend in LA tells me that at some chinese restaurants there they are taking everyone's temperature when they enter the restaurant and making them wear masks. that's quite overboard. people in downtown SF are wearing masks as well....but they are probably 80% asian. i don't think they're helping with the sinophobia; on the other hand maybe they don't care about that, they just want to make sure they don't get sick.

Speculation on what's going on in North Korea other than five dead already

https://www.dailynk.com/english/sources-five-north-koreans-died-coronavirus-infections/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-koreas-secret-coronavirus-crisis-is-crazy-scary/

Crazy that that biggest outbreak anywhere outside of China is a cruise ship with 3600 as-yet-uninfected people still aboard. 136 cases confirmed on the Diamond Princess so far. Sounds like a nightmare scenario - especially given the advanced danger with the cruise-ship age demographic.

I'm going to Singapore tomorrow.

3600 as-yet-uninfected is actually quite reassuring (I mean excluding the obvious possibility of them becoming infected).

On the Diamond Princess, the passengers/crew were originally told that with every new case, their 14-day quarantine would be reset. The ventilation system between cabins is connected, and people without any close contact with known cases were infected. It was like some preface to a J.G. Ballard novel social breakdown.

The current plan is they'll keep the original quarantine end date of Feb 19 for the whole ship, except for resets “only for close contacts of newly confirmed cases.”

There's still probably a interesting low-budget screenplay in the story...

Speaking of cruise ships, some of the strictest health security I've ever experienced was on a cruise ship. Virtually non-stop invitation/instruction to wash or disinfect hands, and an explicit disclaimer that anyone seriously ill will be quarantined. But cruise ships are also a good example of how this stuff often goes down. The cruise lines get a lot of shit for making people sick, but more often than not it's someone on board that was sick to begin with that gets the germ ball rolling. And then things spread and people are stuck.

all is well

Nothing can stop them from dancing! Optimistic patients with mild symptoms caused by the #coronavirus dance at a temporary hospital in Wuhan pic.twitter.com/EKY0jyczh4

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) February 10, 2020

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b50b698a36ce50bad98d86f5b77c461705c19f9c/24_26_3193_2367/master/3193.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=4769c993f26a16f58258d4cd45481587

You (literally) make me feel like dancing ...

Interesting that life in Chinese cities far from Wuhan have been affected this much:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/f0qjm9/what_the_coronavirus_forcing_me_in_lockdowns/

Sobering analysis:

GAZETTE: But what is most important for the public to know about this?

LIPSITCH: There’s likely to be a period of widespread transmission in the U.S., and I hope we will avert the kind of chaos that some other places are seeing.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/harvard-expert-says-coronavirus-likely-just-gathering-steam/

My wife was on the train yesterday morning, and seated across from her was a woman wearing a face mask. When my wife sneezed, the woman got up and moved.

I hope that I die to a disease with a more impressive name than COVID-19.

It’s an abbreviation for “coronavirus disease 2019.” The World Health Organization’s director-general explained in a media briefing Tuesday how careful they had to be when picking a moniker: “We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people, and which is also pronounceable and related to the disease.”

Shouldn't have a name so close to the best birds IMO

Relatively few face masks here in Singapore, compared to Indonesia.

Jesus.

we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6

This paper offers a potential reason why COVID-19 (and SARS, which also attaches to lung cells via the ACE2 receptor) is more virulent in Asians. The study clearly needs replication with more tissue donors.

We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47% of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian area.

(which was not peer-reviewed)

Rather little of the COVID-19/2019 nCoV literature has gone through the whole peer review process. We're already up to ~540 results on Scholar, mostly preprints.

More cruise ship drama:

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/coronavirus-cruise-ship-rejected-by-five-ports-runs-out-of-options

2300 people being scooted around in international waters as nobody is willing to let them dock, food and medicine running out.

I guess it makes a change for wealthy westerners to be the boat people being forced away from ports.

this guy sells knockoffs and also ends up describing what he's seeing https://www.fashionrepsfam.ru

^ spam

There has been a very big jump in the number of cases within China in the last 24 hours, though that has followed a change to the way in which patients are diagnosed, so it’s not obvious whether things are getting worse or whether they’re just getting better at identifying how bad it was.

Russian containment measures are going about as well as you’d expect:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/02/12/russians-escape-coronavirus-quarantine-cages-a69257

A woman who’d been told she’d tested negative but still had to stay in lockdown for two weeks short-circuited the electro-magnetic lock on her hospital cell and escaped.

My understanding is that today's case/death jump is a one-day info dump in which current and past cases and deaths that only had clinical diagnoses (incl. pneumonia in CT scans), but not PCR-test confirmation of the COVAD19 virus (which is bottlenecked), were reclassified.

Drill down to serious/critical cases and there's actually some improvement:

Yesterday - 5,724 serious /1,517 critical
Today - 5,647 serious / 1,437 critical

Not new, but food for thought: 29% of the infected at one Wuhan hospital are medical staff.

COVAD COVID

Oh good a coronavirus patient just turned up at my local A&E in an Uber.

Good advertising idea for Uber: "We'll take anyone in our cabs'.

uber: no longer just in the business of killing traditional taxi businesses

gig economy more like gag, you cough on me. In my opinion