Where are the whole "fight it over there so we don't have to fight it here" homeland security neo-cons screaming their heads off when we need them?

jmakin - c'mon - you - spewing **** - just ask chevron

any **** I'm spewing is ebola-free.

Ordered some shoes online that just arrived today. They were routed through Dallas. Dun dun duuuunnnn.

Do they have ****, vomit, mucus or sperm on 'em? If not, I think you're probably
okay.

Don't put them on your feet dude! Feet sweat!

you guys are bullies. ebola has feelings too.

Sitting on a plane leaving lax here in a few. More than a couple people wearing face masks.

For those downplaying this outbreak, what do you think is the most likely scenario from now onwards? I mean 400 healthcare workers have already contracted the disease in Africa and they are having problem recruiting enough staff. Right now every patient is infecting 2 others leading to exponential growth. What exactly makes you think that this will turn around as healthcare will get increasingly overloaded?

Here is an an article describing the huge challenges ahead. I suggest some of you people mocking those concerned read this.
http://www.economist.com/news/intern...-and-could-yet

I also believe that if this gets to the point of hundreds of thousands infected, it will be a conciderable challenge to contain Ebola to the African continent. Nobody is completely safe from this! Jmakin, even if the chance of a truly global spread is say only 1%, then you are more likely to die from ebola than the flue in the coming years.

There is some real hope for a variant of a vaccine which has worked on monkeys, however under the most optimistic scenario it won't be able to be mass-produced before the end of January and that is a long time to wait when the number of infections is doubling every 2 weeks or so.

To quote the article you posted: "Despite it having infected health-care workers in America and Spain, and worries that one of those Americans could have passed it further, public-health experts are largely confident that outbreaks can be contained in countries with robust medical systems and the ability to trace contacts."

There you go.

For the third world, yes, it can be a very serious problem and all efforts should be made to contain the outbreak. But remember that the countries now affected are pretty much the nut low, healthcare wise.

Sure, it is likely that outbreaks will be contained in the developed world, for now, however if the outbreak spirals out of control in Africa and air travel and travel by sea routes continue, then the number of cases to contain will also increase exponentially, there is always room to **** up.

If the spread in developed countries somehow reached critical mass to overwhelm the limited capacity and very challenging care taking of Ebola patients, then our superior healthcare won't be of much help. If that happens, then the big question will be the spread rate or Ro in developed countries. We are more mobile than these African countries, an argument for a higher Ro, on the other hand we are more educated of the dangers of Ebola transmission, an argument for a lower Ro. It is however only guesswork.

couldn't believe how many ppl a day are dying in these 4 combined countries. tragic.

The death rates are certainly high but the raw counts of deaths might exaggerate the issue. Those countries have about 200 million people combined, even if they had identical mortality rates to the US the deaths would still be in the thousands per day.

People looking at, say, the number of deaths in Nigeria for a year and being surprised that it's a big number are probably more shocked by how big Nigeria actually is in population (more than half the US) than shocked by the mortality rates.

^^^^

meant to say "... dying from AIDS in these ..."

Dieing from diarrhea cannot be fun.

This is a really good, somewhat long blog post about the outbreak: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary

Some shocking things, ebola health workers being slaughtered with machetes, only 1% of Liberia having electricity, etc. These are reasons why an outbreak over there is so hard to imagine over here. It's just a completely different world.

Oh ok, will I'm sure the unnamed public health experts can't be wrong.

Another interesting quote from the above blog: "Here’s my assertion as an infectious disease specialist: if patients are promptly diagnosed and receive aggressive supportive care – including fluid resuscitation, electrolyte replacement and blood products – the great majority, as many as 90 per cent, should survive."

That sounds very optimistic considering patients in western hospitals have mostly (? not sure about the exact numbers here) died.

look at Nigeria. Right next to the countries with outbreaks, **** healthcare compared to the western world (though great compared to most of the rest of sub-saharan africa), and they've been able to entirely contain and stop the outbreak.

Most likely scenario is playing out right now. You'll get some people bringing in the disease from Africa, procedures and training won't be fully adequate so a few healthcare workers will catch it before everyone realizes that it is actually more infectious than HIV (but still far less infectious than the flu). From here on out, you'll likely see a few isolated cases from people bringing it in and infecting maybe 1 or 2 others but that's pretty much it.

Uganda, same deal: http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...rica-contained

But hey, if you're hellbent on freaking the **** out, I'm not stopping you. Make sure you share your uninformed opinion with the rest of us though for the LOLs.

Is it safe to order a pizza?

it never was

Nigeria does not border any of the infected countries and is 1220 miles from Liberia, so right next to seems a tad over stating it.