"Here's How You Get Ebola"

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

If it were airborne in Africa it would be spreading a lot faster than it is. Airborne disease like flu have infection rates of 10 or more for each person that has it. Ebola seems to have a rate of a bit under 2.

It will be nasty enough without making up stuff before there is evidence. Hundred or thousands of dead here by the end of the year, and millions in Africa.

Source for this projected outbreak? I haven't seen anything like these numbers being projected at the CDC or the NIH.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by icenine

4,000 deaths in Africa and a mortality rate of about 80 percent. And if health care workers are getting it (even if they "screw up") even after using protective gear then Bob Dylan's
phrase "You Do Not Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows" apt here.

DQ I have been x-raying sick patients (even HIV positive ones) for 20 years. I have never been afraid until now.

Why afraid now Robbin?

[bobabode]

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/index.html

More than you ever want to know about Ebola Zaire. Educate yourselves.

Here's the NIH portal http://www.nih.gov/health/ebola.htm

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by bobabode

Source for this projected outbreak? I haven't seen anything like these numbers being projected at the CDC or the NIH.

I'm the source. It's just arithmetic. You take a spreadsheet, play with the numbers a little, and see what transmission rate and time period for each 'generation' of cases gets you from 1 case on Dec 28, 2013 to 10,000 now. Then you just take it into the future. Assuming nothing changes from what got us from 1 to 10,000, we'll be at 1,000,000 around mid-Feb of next year.

I of course hope I'm wildly wrong.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

I'm the source. It's just arithmetic. You take a spreadsheet, play with the numbers a little, and see what transmission rate and time period for each 'generation' of cases gets you from 1 case on Dec 28, 2013 to 10,000 now. Then you just take it into the future. Assuming nothing changes from what got us from 1 to 10,000, we'll be at 1,000,000 around mid-Feb of next year.

I of course hope I'm wildly wrong.

I'd say your projection model assumes nothing being done to combat it. No offense Don but using a flawed mathematical worst case projection and then speaking it as an authority is pretty dang irresponsible. Check out the NIH and CDC resources I've posted.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by bobabode

I'd say your projection model assumes nothing being done to combat it. No offense Don but using a flawed mathematical worst case projection and then speaking it as an authority is pretty dang irresponsible. Check out the NIH and CDC resources I've posted.

"Pretty dang irresponsible" is not a word choice compatible with 'no offense.' I never claimed any special authority, other than my ability to reason. And what is my supposed 'responsibility' here? I'm offering an opinion on an opinion board. Just what happens if I'm wrong that's so awful that you think I'm failing is some 'responsibility?'

I have looked at the obvious data sources, of course.

As i said before, I actually hope I am wrong. But it's as valid to assume that measures to slow the spread of the disease will not be effective, or effective enough, as it is to assume they will. And it's a lot easier to think the infection rate will be slowed, than it is to think it will be driven below 1. That shifts the curve a few months to the right, perhaps, but it doesn't change it's shape.

I hope I'm wrong. Please show that I am wrong. But don't try to substitute shooting the messenger for doing that.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

"Pretty dang irresponsible" is not a word choice compatible with 'no offense.' I never claimed any special authority, other than my ability to reason. And what is my supposed 'responsibility' here? I'm offering an opinion on an opinion board. Just what happens if I'm wrong that's so awful that you think I'm failing is some 'responsibility?'

I have looked at the obvious data sources, of course.

As i said before, I actually hope I am wrong. But it's as valid to assume that measures to slow the spread of the disease will not be effective, or effective enough, as it is to assume they will. And it's a lot easier to think the infection rate will be slowed, than it is to think it will be driven below 1. That shifts the curve a few months to the right, perhaps, but it doesn't change it's shape.

I hope I'm wrong. Please show that I am wrong. But don't try to substitute shooting the messenger for doing that.

Oh Christ, lighten up Don. I explained exactly where I thought your spreadsheet approach was lacking. Shooting the messenger? Touchy are we?

[hillbilly]

Originally Posted by bobabode

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/index.html

More than you ever want to know about Ebola Zaire. Educate yourselves.

Here's the NIH portal http://www.nih.gov/health/ebola.htm

Once upon a time, ( not really that long ago ) on the nightly news I remember a big, big rock was talked about that could have been a close call... but a short while later they told us it would not hit earth and that ''if the day comes'' when they know a big big rock is going to slam earth the government would not allow them to tell us. Reason given was to prevent people from panic trying to get to loved ones to see them one last time. Wasn't Fox either, that was while before I ever learned we have channel 360.

[donquixote99]

From the CDC: Estimating the Future Number of Cases in the Ebola Epidemic — Liberia and Sierra Leone, 2014–2015

By September 30, 2014, without additional interventions and using the described likelihood of going to an ETU, approximately 670 daily beds in use (1,700 corrected for underreporting) will be needed in Liberia and Sierra Leone (Figure 2). Extrapolating trends to January 20, 2015, without additional interventions or changes in community behavior (e.g., notable reductions in unsafe burial practices), the model also estimates that Liberia and Sierra Leone will have approximately 550,000 Ebola cases (1.4 million when corrected for underreporting) [from paragraph 2 in 'Results' section, emphasis added]

My estimate was a quick and dirty, limited-data effort, but I seem to be in the same awful ballpark as these experts.

The CDC paper goes on to outline, in its conclusion, what interventions would be effective to keep this from happening:

Ensuring that approximately 70% of the patients are in ETUs [Ebola Treatment Units] is necessary, or, when ETUs are at capacity, that they are at home or in a community setting such that there is a reduced risk for disease transmission (including safe burial when needed).

Building ETUs is what the Marines are in Liberia to do, but I question whether sufficient units can be built fast enough to get in front of the epidemic. The fallback identified, reducing risk in home or community settings, will not be as effective. But it's what I said would be the foundation of a doable strategy in message 80, and it is the strategy now being implemented by Doctors Without Borders: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org...erway-monrovia

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

Once upon a time, ( not really that long ago ) on the nightly news I remember a big, big rock was talked about that could have been a close call... but a short while later they told us it would not hit earth and that ''if the day comes'' when they know a big big rock is going to slam earth the government would not allow them to tell us. Reason given was to prevent people from panic trying to get to loved ones to see them one last time. Wasn't Fox either, that was while before I ever learned we have channel 360.

I have serious doubts that the government would actually be able to pull off such a feat even with Ebola. Too many loose lips.

Was it 'Deep Impact' that you saw? Cool flick. That rock is named Apothis IIRC.