Ebola and other Epidemics, Inadequate Healthcare Threatens Millions

[jimmy olsen]

Liberian government fiddles while Monrovia burns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/world/africa/sierra-leone-ebola-medical-supplies-delayed-docks.html?_r=0

[Martinus]

Tim, are your no-brainer one liner comments to the posted articles meant as a self-parody or are you being serious?

[grumbler]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=moran

And this dude's name is actually Moran.  Unfortunately apt.

From this:

[jimmy olsen]

Tim, are your no-brainer one liner comments to the posted articles meant as a self-parody or are you being serious?

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

I definitely post in that fashion because it's my personality here and it's expected of me, but they are serious in this case. I mean, what else can you say when entire nations are barreling towards their doom and the very people who have the responsibility to prevent it are facilitating it.

[Martinus]

I think you are overreacting.

People are dying in throes in Africa because people are dying in throes in Africa. If it is not Ebola, then it is sectarian or tribal violence, famine or AIDS.

On the other hand, given that there have been 2 cases of Ebola in America during this outbreak so far, I don't think it is "really alarming" that all hospital staff everywhere is not fully trained to deal with Ebola patients, as it would be a massive waste of resources (I bet there are countless of other diseases with a similar near-zero occurence in the US for which the staff is not specifically trained either).

[Liep]

The problem is this has the potential to spiral out of control. If it didn't, then it'd be absurd to focus so much on Ebola when more people are dying of hunger each day or of any of the other diseases going about because of poor hygiene or whatever.

[jimmy olsen]

Because of the complete lack of effective intervention, the middle projection is now the conservative estimate. And it still hasn't been plausibly explained how we would have been able to handle and put a stop to an epidemic with more than 3,000 cases a day let alone the 10,000 that are projected by the middle line. Simply put, we can't. It's going to run out of control until the number of survivors outnumbers the number of uninfected.

[jimmy olsen]

The report of 121 dead in one day in Sierra Leone was misreported after all, that was only the confirmed cases. If you added in the probable and suspected cases as Liberia and Guinea do then 245 died. 

I really hope they're just finally adding in all those bodies they found during the quarantine, otherwise it's worse than even I thought.

Oct 4 report
http://health.gov.sl/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Ebola-Situation-Report_Vol-129.pdf

Oct 5 report
http://health.gov.sl/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Ebola-Situation-Report_Vol-130.pdf

[mongers]

Excellent tv report about Liberia from SkyNews's always good Alex Crawford, worth a viewing:

http://news.sky.com/story/1347989/ebola-deaths-hidden-as-fear-grips-liberia

[Grey Fox]

Any idea if this has made it's way to China/India?

[CountDeMoney]

Any idea if this has made it's way to China/India?

Nah, but don't worry;  it'll be China that's going to eventually give us the influenza bug that's really going to scare the piss out of you.

[Grey Fox]

I will be scared for me, my friends and my family. But I will not fear for the species.

We need a major reduction in numbers anyway.

[derspiess]

I think you are overreacting.

  Nooooo.  Tim-- overreact???

[derspiess]

I will be scared for me, my friends and my family. But I will not fear for the species.

We need a major reduction in numbers anyway.

I think North America is fine.  For other places, it might not hurt.

[Monoriu]

We need a major reduction in numbers anyway.

Nah, we need more people.  More people = higher GDP.  We can squeeze more people onto this planet.  Reclaim more land from the oceans.  Make it so that every city has Hong Kong's level of density.  Dig deeper into the ground.  Taller buildings.  Buildings all over the place.  We need more people.