Ebola - cuz it needs its own thread...

Post by **Vince** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 3:45 pm

Interesting story here about some of the stuff we were guessing about in the other thread.

Wasn't the reusing of equipment that got the doctor infected. It was a regular hospital patient that only had a fever. Not the "obviously violently ill" patient like the CDC keeps telling us. On one hand, there's the "everyone has a fever over there", but the flip side of that is that this is an area where they should be best at recognizing the symptoms compared with most. Plus this was one of the doctors with a lot of experience with the disease.

The other thing that kind of boggles the mind is the CDC just wanting to send all of his coworkers home after they got back to the states and them quarantining themselves.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 3:59 pm

Some doctor on The Colbert Report explained all this quite well last night. The chances of you getting infected with ebola are less than the odds of you dying in a car crash or due to a random allergic reaction you have.

Post by **TheCatt** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:18 pm

Vince wrote:It was a regular hospital patient that only had a fever. Not the "obviously violently ill" patient like the CDC keeps telling us. On one hand, there's the "everyone has a fever over there", but the flip side of that is that this is an area where they should be best at recognizing the symptoms compared with most. Plus this was one of the doctors with a lot of experience with the disease.

The other thing that kind of boggles the mind is the CDC just wanting to send all of his coworkers home after they got back to the states and them quarantining themselves.

I've not heard "obviously violently ill," I've heard "symptomatic."

At any rate, it seems time to stop travelers from West Africa from entering the US.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:25 pm

Malcolm wrote:Some doctor on The Colbert Report explained all this quite well last night. The chances of you getting infected with ebola are less than the odds of you dying in a car crash or due to a random allergic reaction you have.

Well... that doesn't make sense. Contracting ebola doesn't have anything to do with the odds of getting in a car accident, and if more people get ebola, it changes the comparison.

The fact is, CDC doctors and shit are just guessing, because ebola has never been here before. Chances are, everything will be fine. Would not be the first time, however, that we knew all the facts and then there ended up being some unanticipated factor.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:28 pm

TheCatt wrote:
Vince wrote:It was a regular hospital patient that only had a fever. Not the "obviously violently ill" patient like the CDC keeps telling us. On one hand, there's the "everyone has a fever over there", but the flip side of that is that this is an area where they should be best at recognizing the symptoms compared with most. Plus this was one of the doctors with a lot of experience with the disease.

The other thing that kind of boggles the mind is the CDC just wanting to send all of his coworkers home after they got back to the states and them quarantining themselves.
I've not heard "obviously violently ill," I've heard "symptomatic."

At any rate, it seems time to stop travelers from West Africa from entering the US.

Read an article earlier that said it wouldn't work... it would keep us from solving the big picture problem, which is curing it in Africa, and to do that researches have to go to and from there.

Sounded like a load of shit to me, but that's what the article said.

I will see if I can find it.

*time passes*

Here it is. It is the CDC Chief using an argument that I find to be really fucking stupid.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/ebola-us-border-111581.html

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:38 pm

You expecting a mutation, Dr. G?

Post by **TheCatt** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:40 pm

GORDON wrote:
Malcolm wrote:Some doctor on The Colbert Report explained all this quite well last night. The chances of you getting infected with ebola are less than the odds of you dying in a car crash or due to a random allergic reaction you have.
Well... that doesn't make sense. Contracting ebola doesn't have anything to do with the odds of getting in a car accident, and if more people get ebola, it changes the comparison.

The fact is, CDC doctors and shit are just guessing, because ebola has never been here before. Chances are, everything will be fine. Would not be the first time, however, that we knew all the facts and then there ended up being some unanticipated factor.

Agreed. The CURRENT odds may be that low, but it's dynamic.

Post by **Vince** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:40 pm

GORDON wrote:
Malcolm wrote:Some doctor on The Colbert Report explained all this quite well last night. The chances of you getting infected with ebola are less than the odds of you dying in a car crash or due to a random allergic reaction you have.
Well... that doesn't make sense. Contracting ebola doesn't have anything to do with the odds of getting in a car accident, and if more people get ebola, it changes the comparison.

The fact is, CDC doctors and shit are just guessing, because ebola has never been here before. Chances are, everything will be fine. Would not be the first time, however, that we knew all the facts and then there ended up being some unanticipated factor.

I thought the same thing. The odds of dying in a car wreck in 1910 was a whole hell of a lot less than it is today. Same deal.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:44 pm

Malcolm wrote:You expecting a mutation, Dr. G?

I would bet a dollar on it, but not much more. I don't think there will be a massive spread of the disease.... but I am not willing to bet my family's lives on it because shit happens. Closing the border border to people who have been to west africa recently is a fairly easy thing to do - we already have do-not-fly protocols in place that keep people from getting on planes to the US, and it is pretty easy to read passport stamps. It wouldn't be perfect, but is it really that much of an extreme measure?

How about a 21 day quarantine?

Anything would put voters at ease, the response is to do nothing. I would like a threshold number so we know when it was a mistake. 10 people infected? 50? When does it become a bad decision?

Post by **Vince** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:50 pm

GORDON wrote:Here it is. It is the CDC Chief using an argument that I find to be really fucking stupid.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/ebola-us-border-111581.html

I'm not for sealing the border, but I think a 3 week quarantine from the impacted countries isn't a bad idea.

But the CDC is pretty stupid.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:00 pm

Vince wrote:
GORDON wrote:Here it is. It is the CDC Chief using an argument that I find to be really fucking stupid.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/ebola-us-border-111581.html
I'm not for sealing the border, but I think a 3 week quarantine from the impacted countries isn't a bad idea.

But the CDC is pretty stupid.

To me they sound arrogant. If they hadn't been making mistakes all along I would be less uneasy.

History shows again and again how nature points out the follies of man. Ebola!

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:03 pm

And I never said seal the border. No one has said seal the border. We're just saying restrict travel from the fucking region with the rampant plague that makes you shoot blood from your eyes, ears, and asshole. It doesn't sound unreasonable, to me. Maybe I am just a panic-stricken moron.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:27 pm

Someone on Fark pointed out that the same people who say a half degree rise in temperature by the end of the century is going to kill us all are the same ones saying no one in america is going to die of ebola. Applies to fark people, not here.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:54 pm

...and if more people get ebola, it changes the comparison.

I have little to no medical training. Unless the means of transmission changes, even I know how to avoid getting sick. I have enough clothing and duct tape to MacGyver up a cleansuit. Someone might die, but I will guarantee you're talking a single digit death toll, if that.

Post by **Vince** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:03 pm

GORDON wrote:Anything would put voters at ease, the response is to do nothing. I would like a threshold number so we know when it was a mistake. 10 people infected? 50? When does it become a bad decision?

I've been trying to figure out where my trigger should be for getting out of town. Already told my boss if it looks like a pandemic then I'm bouncing.

I've survived being unemployed before. I've never survived being dead.

Trick is to set your thresholds before you have a chance to convince yourself that it isn't that bad yet.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:07 pm

It'll be greater than four. Four Americans were killed at Benghazi and most people don't believe any mistakes were made by the government, so the ebola death number will be greater than that before people get angry.

(Wonder if the filmmaker is still in jail that obama called out)

Post by **TheCatt** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:29 pm

I have no significant worry of pandemic from this thing. But I'd still prefer we took some precautions.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:44 pm

TheCatt wrote:I have no significant worry of pandemic from this thing. But I'd still prefer we took some precautions.

This seems like a reasonable answer.

Why does it make some people so angry?

Post by **TPRJones** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:57 pm

Maybe I am just a panic-stricken moron.

I do not consider you a moron. The rest of it, however, might be true.

If you live in a third world country and someone in your immediate family has Ebola and is being taken care of at home and you don't have any special knowledge or medical supplies to do it right and are spending the entire time of their infection right there with them, then the odds of you getting it as well are one in seven.

Change any of those factors - send them to hospital, use modern sanitation, limit your exposure, use gloves and disinfectants and avoid direct contact with infected blood - and your odds of getting Ebola plummet tremendously. And that's for people who have someone in their family that has it.

Of the "100 people exposed" to the sick guy in Texas, extremely bad luck might mean one of them will get ill. But even that is unlikely. That's hardly going to make for a very good pandemic. If an evil genius tried to end the world with an Ebola outbreak the other evil geniuses would all laugh at him.

Edited By TPRJones on 1412392066

Post by **Vince** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 5:43 am

TheCatt wrote:I have no significant worry of pandemic from this thing. But I'd still prefer we took some precautions.

My biggest worry is that I'm in a call center where most people are hourly (thus they tend to come in even when they're fairly sick) and we're all in pretty close proximity without individual cubes. It would be a pretty easy place to get contaminated.