More Ebola “Good News”
A few more news stories explaining why we should all certainly take the “don’t worry – we got this” PC propaganda idiocy fairy tales bullsh!t pronouncements of the CDC and current Administration officials concerning Ebola at face value.
- Texas Presbyterian had a machine that could have diagnosed Ebola in as little as an hour. FDA guidelines wouldn’t let them use it.
- Another Dallas healthcare worker is “self-quarantining”. On a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Seriously.
- Shockingly, Syracuse University is actually erring on the side of caution and public safety. Even if they may be overreacting – good for them.
- NYC 9/11 dispatchers have a new “banned word” on the radio – “Ebola”.
- Pat Buchannan – who’s often rather “out there” – is actually making sense.
- That “21-day” incubation period for Ebola? Well, there’s now a study suggesting it might sometimes be longer.
- Public confidence in the CDC? It’s taken a major hit.
- Dallas healthcare workers who were possibly exposed required to stay home.
- Remember the nurse who flew earlier this week with a low-grade fever? She may have had symptoms earlier than first reported – like 3 or 4 days earlier.
- We now have an Ebola “czar”. He’s a partisan political operative with no public health or medical background.
- US troops deploying to “fight” Ebola in West Africa are indeed receiving training about the virus. All of four hours’ worth.
- And in Africa, as of mid-September (latest date for which complete data exists) the outbreak was still growing exponentially in all 3 affected countries.
And, in a story that’s certainly guaranteed to make you feel “really happy and safe”:
I wouldn’t recommend anyone panic, but the last linked article is IMO a fair discussion of the “worst case” possibilities. It’s worth reading, even considering the source. Because if the tools and fools calling the shots in DC don’t wake up and start taking effective measures – and a few things go wrong – the country could indeed end up in seriously deep sh!t.
Are you listening yet, Mr. President? You might want to – this has the potential to interrupt your weekly round(s) of golf!
Sheesh.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Government Incompetence
I sent this to Jonn earlier.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/amid-assurances-on-ebola-obama-is-said-to-seethe/ar-BB9I7Kb
Seething? HE’S SEETHING???????????
Also, his credit card was rejected yesterday. 🙂
This was the most important statement in that whole article:
‘Viruses mutate and evolve in the wild, and the population of infected Ebola carriers is now bigger than it has been at any point in history—meaning that the pool for potential mutations is larger than it has ever been.’
That is what happened with the Spanish flu, which showed up again in 2006 as a new variant. It happened with measles in Sydney, Australia. Viruses are mean little buggers that have no goal other than survival. They haven’t survived 20 million years without quick adaptation and at-will mutations as part of their makeup.
Yep, Bam seethed…than asked the caddy to pass him the 9 iron.
Ebola…classic tune from Randy Newman.
Classic tune? I thought that was Bobby McFerrin’s song.
Ex-PH2…Thank you for the article. From it:
“At the meeting on Wednesday, officials said, Mr. Obama placed much of the blame on the C.D.C., which provided shifting information about which threat category patients were in, and did not adequately train doctors and nurses at hospitals with Ebola cases on the proper protective procedures.”
Obama blamed the CDC? Are you kidding me? He APPOINTED the Director of the CDC and this CDC clown Has said NOTHING, not approved by the Obama Staff. So if he’s laying it on their doorstep, how about firing the incompetent, political Director NOW! That’s the usual Obama game plan, make appointments to people easy to throw under the bus when the time comes because after all, nothing is EVER Obama’s fault.
“It’s not enough to doggedly and persistently push for answers in meetings. You have to be seen doggedly and persistently pushing for answers.” said David Axelrod.
That about sums up the approach of this klown kar administration. The appearance of doing something is enough. That way this administration can throw someone under the bus and Ebola Obama can face the nation and tell everyone it isn’t his fault.
One, of numerous, mistakes that the policy makers continue to make is misinterpreting our anger. They prefer to tell us not to panic, and still perceive that we are fearful.
No, we are angry. Angry that it is nonsensical government policies which have us in a position to be fearful. Angry that we must take precautions because of what you policy makers are doing and not doing instead of your jobs. Angry that instead of isolating this disease, protecting us from it, you are exposing more Americans (Americans you apparently consider expendable) to it.
LOOK WHAT I FOUND!! It’s B. Hussein 0bama and his pudgy new “Ebola Czar”, YES, the one who spun the Solyndra scandal for B. Hussein 0bama & Company with a message from the administration about Ebola:
In all honesty, Ebola is scary but not that huge of a threat. For one, it is not an airborne disease, the only way to get it is by coming into direct, tactile contact with an infected persons bodily fluids, and even then if you immediately wash your hands or infected body part, you have a very high chance of killing the disease on the spot.The disease itself has only killed 4,493 people since the beginning of this “epidemic”, which is only half of the reported Ebola cases.
Hell, we should be more worried about ensuring people get their flu shots this year and people start eating right and exercising to prevent heart disease. Influenza killing 50,000 a year here in the U.S. alone, along with over 500,000 a year due to heart disease.
Ebola does have a high mortality rate, but it has a low infection rate. The U.S. needs to stop buying into sensationalist news broadcasts.
Rerun0369: you are aware that
1. the reported cases (and fatalities) are believed to be approximately 40% of the actual total;
2. the estimated fatality rate for this outbreak is 70% – not 50%;
3. the CDC counts as a “close contact” being within 1 meter of an Ebola sufferer for an “extended period of time”, and considers that “low risk exposure” – e.g., a nonzero chance of transmission;
4. the outbreak is still expanding at an exponential rate, and is projected to hit 10,000 new cases a week by the end of November, and
5. there is some evidence that airborne transmission may indeed be possible – and has been documented between animals (monkeys and/or pigs)?
And yes – there are reliable sources (CDC, WHO, NE Journal of Medicine, etc . . . ) citing each of the above facts. They just don’t highlight them, presumably to “avoid creating panic”.
Methinks you need to do a bit of homework here, amigo. This ain’t the cold or a case of the clap.
Thanks for the instant replay of the CDC misdirection re ebola.
The infection rate isn’t low until Ro << 1. Ro is now approximately 2.
Can you say "exponential"? I knew you could! A bit of caution is indicated. It is not yet time to panic.
Your flu remarks are well taken.
Actually, Mike, he’s correct about Ebola being relatively hard to transmit. An R of 2 does indicate a disease that’s relatively difficult to spread. Here’s a chart that shows some diseases that are considered easily transmissible (higher R means more easily transmissible).
http://practice.sph.umich.edu/micphp/epicentral/basic_reproduc_rate.php
The current overall R for the West African Ebola outbreak seems to be around 1.7 now. That means Ebola is about 1/3 as transmissible as smallpox.
Unfortunately, the strain of Ebola in the current outbreak (fatality rate approx 70% per best current estimate) is nearly 2.5 times as deadly as smallpox (historical fatality rate of about 30%). And there’s no vaccine for Ebola – yet.
So long as the R value is greater than 1, the number of cases will increase exponentially (just with a smaller base). Even an R of 1 is problematic when you have 5000 or 10000 cases a week, all of which will require intensive medical care – and 70% of whom are going to die.
So that means that Ebola, if it becomes a pandemic, has the potential to be roughly as deadly as smallpox – and until a vaccine is developed, control will be damned difficult. It also takes a heavy toll on healthcare workers, so treating those afflicted may also become problematic.
For comparison, smallpox is the most deadly disease in human history. It’s believe to have killed between 300 and 500 million since it first hit the human race several thousand year ago.
Anyone who isn’t taking this seriously IMO is seriously naive – or a damned fool. This could be truly bad.
I see nothing wrong with staying informed, especially since some public officials seem to be uttering incorrect statements about ebola, such as ‘water kills it’ (GA State Public Health director).
Here’s a link to a bunch of updates all in one place.
http://newsblogged.com/ebola-outbreak-uganda-news-latest-real-time-updates
Hondo Thank you. From the “Ebola Czar” article, Ron Klain is…well… “He’s not a doctor… The man the President has tapped to lead America’s effort against Ebola has no medical background. Mr Klain is a Harvard lawyer by training but he’s best known as a Democrat political operative who preps the party’s presidential candidates ahead of television debates.” Great, so instead of the top virologist or epidemiologist in the nation we get, a Democratic speech writer, campaign guru and all around Administration screw up savior. But why should he need medical experience? After all he is only the new “Ebola Czar” to handle the Obama politics of this, not help America contain this. He will be the one to keep saying, “Oh no Mr. President, we can’t ban flights from infected regions. We also can’t close and secure the Southern Border. The poll numbers say your Democratic base would erode even further. We can’t let that happen. I say “slight of hand” until after the mid terms and then some strongly worded statements. We can figure the ins and outs of those later. Right now, the first and ongoing order of business is YOUR poll numbers and YOUR support base.” (Obama interjects, “What about the Ebola though?”) “Sir, we’ve known each other a long time now, if all this and my appointment were about Ebola, you would have hired a top medical professional. You and I both know this is about keeping YOU looking good no matter what. Ebola? That’s for the CDC, WHO and the real medical professionals, only those we want to quote by the way. I’m here for one thing…to keep you ass covered in all this, nothing else.” (Obama responds, “Man I’m glad I picked you and have you in my corner! The walls were really closing in on this and I was worried…until you came along. Wow, can I pick ’em or what! Hey, how about a round or two of golf this afternoon? I can do this intel briefing thingee from my cell phone.”) Sarcastic? Yes a bit. But it is what I believe… Read more »
It does boggle the mind, Brother.
Meanwhile in other Ebola news, our favorite inner-city Houston Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson (I’m too dumb to breathe in and out without an occasion kick in the head.) Lee says:
“So I’m very frustrated with that. I will also say that CDC suffers from the continued gridlock in Washington and Republicans not funding fully. Even though the fight against Ebola is bipartisan, CDC has suffered in its funding along with NIH. If we ever get called back to Washington early that’s what we should be called back for, and I would certainly join to do that. We need those resources.”
Yep, that’s right. Lee’s blaming the Ebola problem in America on Republicans not giving enough money to the CDC and NIH. Now I know full well how she stays in Congress. Her constituents tell the whole story. Too bad there’s not a significant intelligence test required for all candidates before they can run for office. It would sure keep dimwits like her at home. But here I am, dreaming again.
I’ve been trying to say this. As far as transmission of disease goes, Ebola is rather slow. Flu can be passed, and grow at an exponential rate in a given population in a matter of days. Ebola can take weeks. If I were a terrorist and wanted to wipe out a population with a bio weapon I’d pick a very deadly strain of flu. It’s all in the numbers.
The Ebola virus as killed in the thousands. The Flu virus has killed in the MILLIONS.
Mark Lauer: the 1918 Pandemic Influenza had a transmission rate estimated to be between 2 and 3. It killed between 50 million and 100 million in 3 years – but was nowhere as lethal as Ebola. Its estimated mortality rate was somewhere between 10% and 20%.
Ebola’s current outbreak has an overall reproduction rate of somewhere around 1.7 – not much below the lower end of the estimate for the 1918 Influenza strain that caused the worldwide pandemic. But for this strain and this Ebola outbreak, the current best estimate of the mortality rate is approximately 70%.
You do the math. Suffice it to say that if this becomes a true worldwide pandemic, it could be far worse than the pandemic influenza outbreak of 1918 – which happens to be the worst single flu pandemic in history.
To be clear: the Spanish flu strain of 1918 was genetically the same flu strain that surfaced in 2006.
It functioned the same way, attacked the same population groups – NOT elderly, NOT young children, but rather young adults – but did NOT kill OR INFECT the same numbers it had hit in 1918.
It was the same strain, created the same way in the wild, as the 1918 strain but by 2006 we had better medical care for people who contracted that flu virus.
There seems to be some misunderstanding about whether or not the US medical system, meaning hospitals (NOT clinics) can hand an epidemic crisis generated by an aggressive disease like ebola, whether it mutates or not. Here are the facts: the number of available BEDS in the US, in total includes acute care (ICU, isolation, quarantine). This link gives us the actual number of available hospital beds in the US, in registered (AHA) hostpials (920,829) and community hospitals (800,566). These are numbers for the year 2014. http://www.aha.org/research/rc/stat-studies/fast-facts.shtml The US has a population census of 310++millions at the last census count (2010) and this does not take into account illegal immigrants or people who were not occupying residences, e.g., homeless people sleeping under Wacker Drive in Chicago, or people who are temporarily here, e.g., on business. This means, in plain English, that we have available 1.7 million hospital beds to care for accident victims, the sick, elderly, surgical patients, cancer patients, etc., Those are the statistics. Since ebola is considered to be both an aggressive disease and a fatal disease, the likelihood of being cared for and occupying a bed or room in the general wards or ICUs or any other place where patients who do NOT have ebola is slim. The need to take extreme precautions with an aggressive and lethal disease like ebola, smallpox, anthrax, or any other disease with a comparatively high mortality rate should be understood. Therefore, patients with ebola symptoms will not be put into or treated along with the general patient population. Ebola is a disease that requires acute care as well as isolation and quarantine. This link gives the 2006 census for the number of critical care beds per city and state, per 1000 individuals: http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/data/table.aspx?ind=135 Again, these are data for 2006, and the numbers may or may not have changed. The reason this is so important should be clear to anyone who is concerned about this: we DO NOT have enough acute care beds to treat a projected infectious rate of 10,000 people per week, as projected by the WHO. I don’t have to… Read more »
‘can hand an epidemic’ s/b ‘can handle an epidemic’.
Update this morning from the news:
The CDC has now (admitted it mad3e a mistake and) revised its incubation period to MORE than 3 weeks (21 days).
Isn’t that just splendid of them? What we knew all along and found through reliable resources, they finally figured out?
I’m not going to say we are SO screwed, but we are going to be on our own in this, and the best thing to do is GET FACTS, and ignore rumors.
Here’s a Reuters link to all things ebola:
http://www.reuters.com/subjects/ebola
I want to add that in Sierra Leone, people are being left to die in the streets because no one will help them get to the hospitals. And once they die, the dead body is left untouched. This is causing riots and panic, and the police are using tear gas to try to control the crowds.
In addition, in all three of those countries with a high ebola demographic, people who manage to survive the disease are being treated worse than lepers. They are NOT being reintegrated into general society and are viewed as pariahs.
At the mess hall, I asked the gal to bring me EBOLA soft vanilla ice cream.
Unfortunately, the ice cream dispenser was empty.
She wondered about why I wrote that I wanted EBOLA soft vanilla ice cream, and I had to explain (she couldn’t figure this out?) that I was enjoying a bit of fun, all over the Internet, over the past couple of days.
Yeah, EBOLA soft vanilla ice cream would help soothe my throat as I continue recuperating from surgery on my cervical spine.