Looks Like I Called It
This is depressing. But it’s worth reading nonetheless.
Apparently the proposed US military deployment to West Africa to assist with the current Ebola outbreak is not exactly very well thought-out. It’s apparently gotten about the same amount of thought and planning to date as you’d devote to planing taking a shower.
Operation Massive Cluster, indeed. Unfortunately.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Dumbass Bullshit
Thanks to Golfer Mom Jean’s decision to send troops to Liberia to do who knows what regarding Ebola, I visited (or revisited, in actuality) some info on that shithole. It was originally populated by freed US blacks who, with the support of the US government and private capital, bought the country’s land. Its capitol, Monrovia, was named after US President Monroe, and its flag is red, white, and blue with a single star. Liberia refused to grant citizenship to the indigenous people within its borders, and it was a slave country. Yep, you read that correctly. It wasn’t cotton but rubber plantations that required the slave labor. I guess slavery is only bad depending upon who is doing the enslaving. Eventually, Liberia dropped most US laws which accompanied its birth and was recognized as an independent nation. Its history is rather interesting. Did you know of the Free Republic of Maryland? How about the State of Maryland in Africa? This was a short-lived independent country in West Africa that was established by Maryland freed blacks, thanks to the Maryland (US) General Assembly. When it was attacked by a couple of tribes because it was disrupting the slave trade, Liberia came to its aid. Soon thereafter, the Free Republic of Maryland was annexed by Liberia and is today—get this—Maryland County, Liberia.
So, when the US, as it is doing, sends material and troop support to Liberia to, at least, ostensibly, contain Ebola, I’m guessing that there is more than contagion containment afoot here. It certainly fits the Golfer, unlike his Mom jeans.
And the State Department would be in charge. Can you say “Benghazi”? I knew that you could.
As it is a multi US Government department/agency response the appropriate command/directing structure is through the Chief of Mission authorities of the Ambassador as he/she is the direct Executive representative in the country.
well, now, if you try to move past the ideological blinders for a coupla seconds…. it is impossible to deny that a) the State Department was in overall charge of security that night and b) It was an epic fail. Note I did not say what went wrong, who ordered what/how – but face it, it was not handled well or appropriately within State or we would not have had four men dead.
No disagreement from me on that.
They’ll be there. We don’t know what training they will have, how much funding they will have, what training we will give them, what they will be doing, how they will be protected, what kind of equipment they will have, or if we will keep them from catching Ebola, but they’ll be there!
Reading the article, the State Department spokesperson describes Ebola as not ‘easily transmittable’ – that is a highly disingenuous description of something that kills well over half the people who get it. If it is so hard to transmit, where did all those dead folks come from? It’s not hard to transmit, it’s just slow.
David… Thank you. “State Department spokesperson describes Ebola as not ‘easily transmittable’”.
Now I’ve heard bull shit and then I’ve heard more bull shit but that is another “take the cake” bull shit statement. It is absolutely easily transmitted and the liars know that full well. If it weren’t, what the hell is the big problem with Ebola then that we need to send troops in to be exposed?
There’s your problem, Sparks. You’re confusing the argument with logic.
It is, fortunately, actually ‘hard’ to transmit – meaning it isn’t currently airborne and transmission requires coming into contact with mucus, blood, etc. Saliva, through a sneeze or cough, is possible but not a high transmission vector since it can’t be absorbed through the skin.
The reason for the number of bodies has to do with everything from infected food sources such as fruit bats, general lack of hygiene and healthcare protocols and burial customs.
Our soldiers won’t be subjected to the same level of threat as the general population, especially if they’re just building facilities and not treating patients. That’s for another post, though.
Actually, sweat is a bodily fluid that can transmit the virus.
http://books.google.com/books?id=qkLibW2ZikYC&pg=PA199&dq=Ebola+sweat&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZQ8bVKaMC4rNggSVw4LICQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Ebola%20sweat&f=false
People in hot, humid climates sweat. A lot. And when they touch things, they often leave it behind – along with traces of other bodily fluids if they’re sick. Public sanitation there is also pretty bad, which means the streets sometimes aren’t exactly the cleanest.
And I think you’re wrong about the skin being an absolute barrier, too. Even a tiny break in the skin (pimple, scratch, abrasion) is more than big enough to introduce the estimated 10 virions needed for infection. That’s precisely why healtcare professionals use gloves and/or more extensive barrier methods when caring for patients with Ebola.
It’s far more readily transmitted than other bloodborne pathogens like, say HIV or hepatitis.
That is correct – contact with pretty much any bodily fluid, including sweat, will do it.
God help us if it mutates and acquires the ability to spread via aerosol droplet – like the common cold, the flu – or smallpox.
A very scary and sobering point.
Second point: bats are now thought to be the natural reservoir of Ebola – apparently they do not get sick and die from the virus. However, contact with bats is only thought to provide the index cases (e.g., “patient zero”) for each outbreak. After that, transmission is believed to be almost exclusively either (1) person-to-person or (2) via contact with items contaminated with body fluids from an infected person.
That’s interesting – I hadn’t seen that. Got a source? I had thought they were still claiming that eating fruit bats was one of the transmission vectors for this outbreak, not an initial cause.
Multiple “patient zeros” are at least theoretically possible – e.g., one family or group eating an infected bat and all contracting the disease. So could multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
But I’m reasonably certain that person-to-person (including fomite) transmission, not foodborne transmission, is still considered to be the mode of transmission beyond the index case(s). Foodborne transmission would be possible, but would require food to be contaminated after cooking via contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids. Even in areas with poor hygienic practices, I doubt that’s particularly likely.
Thanks – I just found an interesting article that says they traced this outbreak to a single toddler who ate a fruit bat. You’re correct that person-to-person transmission is responsible for the spread.
Here’s one (of many) articles that talks about it – http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/08/nih-scientist-ebola-outbreak-traced-back-to-single-animal-bite-to-single-human–106590.html
I’m choosing this one since there was that stupid TFA article a few days ago talking about math being for old white men, and the person who did the study, mentioned in the article, is an Iranian-American woman working with the NIH. 😉
Math is relatively simple when you assign value.
For example: 2 turds + 2 turds = Turd Bolling!
The CDC has an infographic on Ebola transmission from bats
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/images/EBOLA_ecology_800px.jpg
I’m for us sending people there because as the outbreak grows the risk of a global pandemic increases. It’s not certain what a full-blown pandemic would look like in a country with modern health care like the US, but I’d wager any sort of risk analysis of lives lost and economic cost puts this way above ISIS in terms of near-term threats to the US.
My understanding of the mission is that the troops are providing training and logistical aid, not direct treatment. The logistics comes in the form of medical kits and, more importantly, facilities for sick patients. Currently word is that local facilities are having to turn away patients due to lack of beds, which just releases them back into villages or towns, able to infect more people. The training is because basic understanding of communicable diseases is pretty low there, and things like “don’t eat dead fruit bats, please” and “don’t touch people bleeding from multiple orifices” is, surprisingly, not common knowledge.
If our guys are not distributing medical kits among local populations and are not in common contact with locals during training, their risk is small. Not negligible, but pretty small. That seems a calculated cost compared to the risks we’ll face if this continues unabated.
I wish we had another group of people ready to deploy fast in an organized structure and establish facilities like this, but we don’t. The Army is the closest fit, not the ideal response.
At the end of the day, there should be other people, it probably should’ve been sooner, it should be better organized, etc., etc. But it’s still better than not taking action.
Just seems to beg for the contributions of all those “I’d serve my country but I just couldn’t join the military for moral/religious/philosophical/craven/etc reasons”. We really need a national service corps of people to go to places like this, or do immunizations in Pakistan, or whatever. There is no sense whatsoever in sending the real military on most of the “peacekeeping” missions we send them on. This is a job for a community organizer!!
And if you could point me towards a sizable group with the organization, discipline, leadership structure and skills necessary, I’d say by all means, choose them.
But we don’t have one, and we can’t assemble a functional, large team with all those criteria on short notice. The military is the closest thing we’ve got.
Just tell Code Pink there’s a TV camera over there in Liberia. Problem solved.
We in the military’s strategic planning field have a fitting adage – if you want it bad, you’ll get it bad. It’s a corollary to the maxim “good, fast, and cheap; pick two”.
Also known as the Iron Law of Project Management.
When is someone in one of those hearings going to say “Quit lying to me and the rest of the country right now.”?
This is a virus. Viruses mutate as easily as night turns into day. Per this article, ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) can easily changes its transmission method.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-09-airborne-ebola-transmission-impossibility.html
Sayig it is ‘hard to transmit’ is disingenous, becuase that is completely not true. If it’s ‘hard to transmit’, explain how three aid workers picked it up when they were wearing protective gear and following preventive measures.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ebola-outbreak-third-u-s-aid-worker-infected-with-virus-identified/
Actually, LC – the most effective thing we could do to protect America would be to impose a complete and total ban on all entry to the US for anyone who’s been on the African continent (or in any other location where Ebola is present outside a medical treatment facility or lab) within the previous 28 days (7 week max incubation factor plus 1 week safety factor). This would include a quarantine at an off-shore location of such duration for anyone who goes their on official US government business or as part of an international relief mission.
This has the potential to be as bad as smallpox or the 14th century “Black Death” if it gets established in major urban centers. Most people have no concept of how bad those diseases were – and still are, in the case of plague. But at least we have effective treatment for plague if caught early.
We have no such effective treatment for either Ebola or smallpox. Unlike smallpox, we also have no vaccine for Ebola. And Ebola’s mortality rate is anywhere from 1.67x to 3x that of variola major – which was the worst variant of smallpox.
Smallpox would literally be a nation-killer today (Google “Dark Winter bioterrorism” if you want to read something that will scare the hell out of you). Since there’s no vaccine against Ebola, Ebola could easily be as bad if not worse.
I don’t disagree, at least not in theory. I think quarantine protocols should already be in place for anyone who has direct contact with patients, and sure, a full travel ban and full quarantine of all passengers would protect us… in the short term.
Looking longer term, though, the longer this epidemic lasts, the further it’ll spread, only increasing the list of places we’d need to institute travel bans on, and, ultimately, we’d fail anyway. If it becomes a global pandemic, closing our ports will delay it, but not by much. Take your pick of causes – human trafficking, international trade, terrorism, etc. Somehow it’ll get here. Doing what we can to contain it now, and at the same time work on countermeasures for the future, is the best option. There aren’t any vaccines, but clinical trials of two (I believe) are underway now.
I don’t think a comparison to smallpox is accurate yet, though, since there’s no evidence (yet) of the virus going airborne. As you said above, yes, sweat can transmit the virus, but not through the skin itself – it needs to hit a mucus membrane or an open cut. It’d be very, VERY bad to have an outbreak in the US, far worse than anything else I can foresee possibly happening in the next year, but it wouldn’t be on the scale of smallpox, thankfully.
Happy thoughts for a beautiful Thursday, huh?
Someone needs to think them. The current Administration certainly seems to be taking the “don’t worry/be happy/we gotta do SOMETHING” approach regarding the potential danger instead of minimizing our risk.
Oh, agreed again. I have no faith in the competency of the current administration to come up with a coherent plan, but taking some positive action (and I do believe this to be a net positive), however imperfect, is better than taking no action.
And while I have no faith in ‘management’ at most levels, I do have some faith in the doctors, medical experts and US Army personnel to have a positive effect.
It’s not the ability of Army personnel to do good things and have a positive effect that concerns me, LC. It’s the potential baggage they might unknowingly bring back.
I have zero faith in the US healthcare system’s ability to handle an Ebola outbreak. And I have no desire to see an “Andromeda Strain” scenario personally. Reading the book was enough.
I’m not so concerned about them bringing Ebola back with them. Sure, there’s a risk, but I imagine they’ll be subject to some pretty thorough screening. Far more so than countless other potential vectors into the country.
As for the US healthcare system, I’m ‘cautiously optimistic’. To my knowledge, there’s never been an outbreak in a country with modern infrastructure, but various infectious disease experts have said we’d fare considerably better. Not great, as in, still many dead, but considerably better.
That said, I sure as hell don’t want to see this put to the test.
My limited experience: TB screening beat down before I went OCONUS via a deployment center. Coming back through the same center, not even a question, skin test, or x-ray. But I did get the “did you see a dead body” question. Then they sent me a bill just for the “mental health counseling” which consisted entirely of that one question.
The administration is using the “do something, even if it’s wrong” philosophy . Maybe we can all sing “Feelings”?
I also think there’s a whole lot of ‘do something, anything!’ mentality in the White House right now, but I think they’ve got this one more right than wrong. By how much, I’m not sure.
Agreed, those who think that one has to do “something, anything” seem to be the closest to being in charge.
There are other things you should remember about this virus, because they apply to all diseases. Anthrax, for instance, creates spores that have a shell and can lie dormant for as long as is necessary in the soil, including over a century, until conditions are just right, e.g., excessive rain and snow, and then the spores will revive.
Venezuelan equine encephalitis, once contracted and active, can kill an otherwise healthy horse in less than 24 hours.
Ebola is a virus. Viruses mutate in the wild with the way the wind blows. The bird and swine flu scares a few years back showed that the H5N1 virus was a naturally-occurring recombinant virus from three sources: avian, human, and swine flu. It occurred IN THE WILD, not in a laboratory.
Measles has been shown to do this, as well, and measles in adults is lethal.
There is no evidence so far that any strain of ebola is unable to survive outside a host, i.e., bat or human, and unlike feline immunodeficienty virus (FIV) and feline leukemia, it is not a weak virus. This suggests that it is able to survive and lie dormant until it finds a new host to inhabit, and the symptoms do not show up quickly, unlike rhinoviruses such as colds and flu.
By comparison, the varicella organism which causes chickenpox will lie dormant in your system for up to 60 years, hanging out on your nerves, until it decides to reactivate in the form of shingles.
The assumption that someone who is asymptomatic coming back from a hot zone like Liberia may only indicate a strong defensive immune system, NOT a lack of infection.
Ex-PH2: while many viruses can indeed survive outside a host, best evidence seems to indicate that Ebola generally won’t survive all that long outside a host. Stuff in cold storage (blood, tissue) seems to hold viable virions the longest (several weeks). Otherwise, it appears to be a matter of hours. See section IV of
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/res/psds-ftss/ebola-eng.php
However, recovery poses a different issue. Per Section II of the above link, the virus apparently remains present in the tissues of certain organs of patients who recover long after clinical recovery. In particular, it’s been isolated from semen as long as 82 days after the individual had clinically recovered, and sexual transmission has occurred up to 7 weeks after recovery. This would appear to have significant public health/safety implications. A post-recovery quarantine may also be required – and based on the above, it won’t be a short one.
I think you just repeated my last sentence, Hondo: just because someone is asymptomatic (without symptoms), it does not mean he/she is NOT still infected, nor does it mean he or she cannot still transmit the disease.
The ‘typhoid Mary’ scenario is strong here, don’t you think? I could be carrying it after recovery, eat at a restaurant, leave the virus (in my saliva) on a glass and fork, theu are picked up by the busboy, put into the bin, and handled by the dishwasher. Two people now have it on their hands. Body fluids? It may only require liquid like tea or coffee and some sugar to stay alive for a short period. Not a lot is known about it, you see. And there’s that whole thing with public toilets, too – the splash factor. It’s a strange virus, you know. It may have a survival rate that simply depends on a period of dormancy followed by a wet period. Or just a mutation could get it restarted.
Oh, yeah – Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ and the UK TV show ‘Survivors’ were based on the same idea, a virus that mutated quickly to suit its own needs for survival. Viruses are not actually alive outside a host organism, and they adapt quickly to survive.
Don’t really think so, Ex-PH2 – at least not permanently, as was the case with Typhoid Mary.
My impression is that a survivor’s immune system suppresses replication of the Ebola virus, and eventually sheds it completely. (Disclaimer: I’m not a virologist.)
However, that process of ridding the body of the virus completely apparently is relatively a slow one, taking weeks. Until that time, the person is IMO at least a carrier, and possibly a source of new infection. Hence the persistence of detectable levels of the virus in blood and semen of “recovered” Ebola patients.
The max known detection period was somewhat over 80 days. Thus a post-recovery quarantine of 90 days (or perhaps slightly longer) is possibly sufficient to prevent recovered Ebola patients from acting as a modern-day Typhoid Mary with respect to spreading the virus.
Again: not a virologist, so I could be wrong. But that’s the impression I have from a cursory review of what’s been published.
Hondo – picky point – check your math – 7 weeks plus one for insurance is 56 days, not 28
It’s 3 weeks, not 7.
Also, I’ve read that this virus is persistent on surfaces. If this is true, it would not need to be airborne.
Incubation time, not recovery period.
Read the link I provided above. The virus is indeed somewhat persistent on some surfaces but not terribly so – it’s viable on such surfaces for hours, not days or weeks-. And it’s rather easily destroyed with common disinfectants.
Direct personal contact is a far greater problem.
David, Valerie: there are two different conditions/scenarios requiring quarantine, thus two different quarantine periods. Apples and oranges, so to speak.
Three weeks is the estimated maximum post-infection latency (incubation) period during which an infected period is asymptomatic. The three-weeks-plus-one quarantine period would be for folks who’d been to a place where Ebola was known to exist “in the wild”, but are now apparently healthy. It’s necessary because they may be have been infected before returning but could now be asymptomatic – just like you are for a few days with a cold, the flu, or (formerly) smallpox while the virus is incubating.
The 7 week figure referenced in a different comment is the longest known time after surviving Ebola and being declared “cured” that someone who had clinically recovered from the disease is known to have passed the virus on to a sex partner (as I recall, that unfortunate partner died). It’s analogous to a man having a vasectomy, but not being immediately rendered sterile due to the presence of sperm “in the pipeline” before the vas deferens were cut. Since the virus has been detected in semen far longer than 7 weeks – 80+ days, as I recall – a 90-day quarantine for “recovered” Ebola patients may well be in order.
Hope this clarifies things.
And the fruit bats that carry the disease are immune to it because it is a parasite they’ve carried for generations.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/V/Viruses.html
It’s a single-strand RNA virus, which allows it to lie dormant in a host organism (fruit bats) for years until it finds a new host that allows it to replicate and spread to other organisms, just like varicella.
Don’t really think so, Ex-PH2 – at least not permanently, as was the case with Typhoid Mary.
My impression is that a survivor’s immune system suppresses replication of the Ebola virus, and eventually sheds it completely. (Disclaimer: I’m not a virologist.)
However, that process of ridding the body of the virus completely apparently is relatively a slow one, taking weeks. Until that time, the person is IMO at least a carrier, and possibly a source of new infection. Hence the persistence of detectable levels of the virus in blood and semen of “recovered” Ebola patients.
The max known detection period was somewhat over 80 days. Thus a post-recovery quarantine of 90 days (or perhaps slightly longer) is possibly sufficient to prevent recovered Ebola patients from acting as a modern-day Typhoid Mary with respect to spreading the virus.
Again: not a virologist, so I could be wrong. But that’s the impression I have from a cursory review of what’s been published.
Fruit bats are the vector organism for the ebola virus.
Vector organisms have developed immunity to the diseases they carry over many generations, making it possible for them to spread a disease without being made ill by it.
Deer mice are the vector for Hanta fever. Deer ticks are the vector for lyme disease. Vampire bats are one vector for rabies. Mosquitoes are the vector for a wide range of diseases, such as west Nile fever, encephalitis, and meningitis.
Fleas carry Yersinia pestis (Plague), using rats as a means of transport and jumping to humans, who spread it more rapidly than rats. If the human population had engaged in regular bathing during the Dark Ages, it’s entirely possible that the Plague might not have been quite so widespread. But they didn’t, and the clothing they wore included padding with chaff from grain harvests, which gave fleas a perfect place to hide and breed.
These vector organisms are all genetically immune to the diseases they carry. When they parasitize other organisms like dogs, cattle, deer or humans, they transfer the diseases they carry.
I do not think bats are immune to rabies. They will succumb to the disease, they just bite other animals while infected and before the rabies kills them.
Hey look, PRIVATE SNAFU IS BACK!!
Yes, Mark L., our PVT SNAFU, this is what I picture him as:
Interesting comment from someone whose previous statements here almost certainly puts their age in the 35-41 range.
…Someone who was bawling about *GASP!* being locked down in some camp in the desert…
And referencing “Spyker PX”. Not to mention the knife kill, and all the Iraqis we did not leave hanging. The guy’s a moe-ron.
Marky Boy,
Age is not an issue when my boot is so far up your overboard discharge pipe, that you have trouble chewing your Gummy Bears!
GFY!
We are sending 3,000 people into West Africa. Ebola is a disease that is difficult to detect. People who have ebola are infectious but for quite a while they appear healthy. Given that people are people and there are 3,000 of them, it seems a pretty sure bet that one of them will be infected and that it will not be detected when they return home.
Is it better to take that chance or send no one?
Did I read somewhere that illegal aliens were sometimes moved around packed into trucks, does that sound right? I wonder how hard it would be to get an infected person from Africa into Mexico?
OK … Listen up:
There are two words we need to consider here …
1. Mutate
2. Mutation
OK … Listen up:
There are two words we need to consider here …
1. Mutate
2. Mutation
OK … Listen up:
There are two words we need to consider here …
1. Mutate
2. Mutation
I’ve said it above, but this is actually why you take the fight to it sooner – the more people it infects, the more chances it has to mutate into an airborne strain.
I doubt anyone really knows the probabilities involved, but when you’re talking about one of the most sinister creations in all of nature, I think ‘lower is better’ is a good mantra to go by.
Marky Boy,
I am throwing the BS card on that!
Show me in a simple www clip from any respected source that Camp X Ray was built for unfortunate souls inflicted with AIDS.
If I am wrong … I will still tell you to GFY! Because I might be going on this mission.
You are a moron of biblical proportions …
May I have an IP check, with GEO location, coordinates for launch sequence with weapons release authority … PLEASE!
US troops in US uniforms building bases in Liberia. What could possibly go wrong?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/18/missing-health-workers-in-guinea-were-educating-villagers-about-ebola-when-they-were-attacked/
Here’s an update on what Valerie posted.
http://news.msn.com/world/eight-bodies-found-after-attack-on-guinea-ebola-education-team?
Total dead to date: 2,630
Total infected: 5,357 so far
These aid workers were trying to educate these ignorant, supersititous idiots on how to avoid getting the disease and they were slaughtered for it.
Yes, we should most DFINITELY send 3,000 of our own people over to those pisshole countries to be infected with a deadly disease, or die at the hands of a bunch of ignorant fools whose superstitions send them into panic and have them attacking anyone who is trying to help them.
Yes, that makes incredibly good sense.
And when OUR people do get infected – and they will – they get to be restricted to quarantine with no guarantee that they’ll ever get OUT of it.
And don’t give me that mealy-mouthed crap spouted by bodaprez. It makes me gag. I have never been as disgusted with anyone as I am with that asshole.
Good point, Ex.
Perhaps the President should send his beloved pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as a good-will ambassador. Mr. Wright can explain how all his stories, about how the US had invented HIV infection as a means of killing people of color, do not apply to Ebola.
These people are ignorant and superstitious, but they have also been lied to, about what we do. Anyone who thinks this isn’t a subtext to this story is naive.
I think there is more to come on this than just the news we’ve been getting.
The actual numbers of dead people do not include those whose illness and deaths were NOT reported prior to the outbreaks in west Africa.
This thing is picking up momentum by the day.
Reportedly a few folks sent over to assist & educate were murdered (included 3 journalists & preacher). Just have to shake your head…bunch of savages.
http://news.yahoo.com/eight-bodies-found-attack-guinea-ebola-education-team-204810695.html
Latest update this morning, some military have already arrived with medical supplies.
http://news.msn.com/world/1st-us-anti-ebola-military-aid-arrives-in-liberia
The poor poor troops…get images of Somalia style looting & ransacking of relief supplies.