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The Ebola virus ×

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Bri

Bri

Well-Known Member
I cant help but feel pretty wary of the latest news coverage that I got a glimpse of.

Anyone else nervous?

Anyone have any links so I can look into it somemore some more before I lose my sh**. Just kidding but just so I can debunk the hype.. if any.

Thanks (:
 
Bri said:
I cant help but feel pretty wary of the latest news coverage that I got a glimpse of.

Anyone else nervous?

Anyone have any links so I can look into it somemore some more before I lose my sh**. Just kidding but just so I can debunk the hype.. if any.

Thanks :)
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Hi!
This is a good one to worry about if you like that sort of thing because hemorrhagic fevers are so spectacular and the mortality rate is so high (as high as 90% for this strain, though the current stats are looking more like 60%-70%).

So it's a bad one.

However, if you want to learn about them, you will probably get less worried. If you were in Liberia, you would have good reason to be terrified and to be very, very cautious in your contact with other people. But if you don't live in Liberia, Sierra Leone, or southern Mali, you can relax a lot. No point worrying about it unless it comes to your neighborhood.

You might find this interesting, if you have a scientific sort of mind: TWiV 283: No Reston for the weary

Anyway: I am not currently nervous as the odds of contracting ebola here are very low.
 
Not at all. If anything, I worry about common exposures that can be lethal. Not exotic ones I only read about or see in disaster films.
 
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Adamantium said:
Hi!
This is a good one to worry about if you like that sort of thing because hemorrhagic fevers are so spectacular and the mortality rate is so high (as high as 90% for this strain, though the current stats are looking more like 60%-70%).

So it's a bad one.

However, if you want to learn about them, you will probably get less worried. If you were in Liberia, you would have good reason to be terrified and to be very, very cautious in your contact with other people. But if you don't live in Liberia, Sierra Leone, or southern Mali, you can relax a lot. No point worrying about it unless it comes to your neighborhood.

You might find this interesting, if you have a scientific sort of mind: TWiV 283: No Reston for the weary

Anyway: I am not currently nervous as the odds of contracting ebola here are very low.
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Great! Thank you (: and yes, I love science!
 
Bri said:
Great! Thank you :) and yes, I love science!
Click to expand...

Science love!
One thing I have found really, really good about autistic communities is the number of people who share this love of science. learning and the patterns of reality. Awesome.
 
Yes, I'm worried. People can say that I may worry too much, but I have to work with sick people and I know how quick stuff spreads. Everyone also thinks that just because it's "over there" it's nothing to worry about. The Ebola was contained just to Africa as far as I knew and has now hit four countries with US health officials saying it could land here as well (most likely by airplane transmission). They thought it was just transmitted by person to person contact, but now they are thinking it's airborne which would be much worse as transmission could happen easier in buildings and airplanes through the duct systems. (Watch the movie "Outbreak".)

There's something else I'm worrying about more over here. In Colorado there was a bubonic plague incident which they have had outbreaks before (I guess), but this one is a "pneumonic plague" which is a rare form of the disease and the most life threatening. The bubonic plague killed millions transmitted by fleas and infected animals (rats). We may have antibiotics now, but they aren't working as well anymore because of the way people have been taking them in the past so bacteria have learned how to regrow themselves in order to "outsmart" these antibiotics. We now have an untreatable form of TB. What worries me about the bubonic plague outbreak in Colorado is that I think hospital employees should be informed of these kind of outbreaks so we know to look for certain symptoms in patients, but we are not being informed by the "higher ups" - we're being informed by each other.
 
THIS IS SCARING THE CRAP OUT OF ME!

I just read another article that said a US doctor working in Liberia (who lives in Texas) had his family visiting him there. His family is back here now under a 21 day quarantine because it was found out that a few days after they left Liberia, this US doctor came down with Ebola! The family came back by airplane. This is why this stuff scares me to death. Diseases can be transmitted too easily and quickly now. There's no cure for Ebola.

CDC Downplays Ebola's Threat to the United States - US News
 
nurseangela said:
THIS IS SCARING THE CRAP OUT OF ME!

I just read another article that said a US doctor working in Liberia (who lives in Texas) had his family visiting him there. His family is back here now under a 21 day quarantine because it was found out that a few days after they left Liberia, this US doctor came down with Ebola! The family came back by airplane. This is why this stuff scares me to death. Diseases can be transmitted too easily and quickly now. There's no cure for Ebola.

CDC Downplays Ebola's Threat to the United States - US News
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Wow what is really shocking is how the microbiologists see it as a mere common cold! AIDS is only spread through the blood and can be found all over the world. So how do they expect to keep this contained so well that it doesn't make it's way to major populations?! Yeah maybe not this week or month it's going to set off but it could be like a roller coaster effect and get out of hand. The hygienist only showed signs of a fever... That is terrifying.
 
Adamantium said:
Science love!
One thing I have found really, really good about autistic communities is the number of people who share this love of science. learning and the patterns of reality. Awesome.
Click to expand...

Big time! It doesn't just stop at one area of study either (: I can't believe no one caught on in high school about my ASD when I would fail math yet I took had taken every science available at the school!
 
Bri said:
Wow what is really shocking is how the microbiologists see it as a mere common cold! AIDS is only spread through the blood and can be found all over the world. So how do they expect to keep this contained so well that it doesn't make it's way to major populations?! Yeah maybe not this week or month it's going to set off but it could be like a roller coaster effect and get out of hand. The hygienist only showed signs of a fever... That is terrifying.
Click to expand...

And like the title of the article says - the CDC is downplaying it otherwise they know they could have a panic (like what I'm doing right now). Some of the latest articles are saying they really aren't sure if its airborne or not, and even if its droplet it can pass as easily and quickly as the common cold.

I just need to retire and become a hermit. :oops:
 
No way! I bet you're great at what you do and you love it very much!! I can actually say niw that I'm glad that my father in law is a doomsday prepper haha.
 
nurseangela said:
And like the title of the article says - the CDC is downplaying it otherwise they know they could have a panic (like what I'm doing right now). Some of the latest articles are saying they really aren't sure if its airborne or not, and even if its droplet it can pass as easily and quickly as the common cold.

I just need to retire and become a hermit. :oops:
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It's a close relative of Reston, right. And Reston was airborne, but just happened not to infect humans. Obviously, IT'S JUST A MATTER OF TIME. And if the filoviruses don't get you, entropy will surely get your descendants some day. You can't win!
 
Adamantium said:
It's a close relative of Reston, right. And Reston was airborne, but just happened not to infect humans. Obviously, IT'S JUST A MATTER OF TIME. And if the filoviruses don't get you, entropy will surely get your descendants some day. You can't win!
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I was trying to go to sleep and then I read your quote. Wth is entropy??? :eek:
I tried looking it up but couldn't understand it even then. Can you tell me what entropy is in English?
 
Second law of thermodynamics basically says all things tend towards greater disorder. Entropy is the measure of disorder. You can probably instinctively observe it, even if you don't know the name. For example, if you watch a movie of a girl on a swing, you can not tell if it is being played forwards or backwards. But if she drops something, you know it is being played forward - there is an increase in disorder. On the other hand, if something flys up into her hand, you know it is being played backwards because entropy only flows in one direction, just like time. (In fact, when we measure time, what we are really observing in change in entropy.)
 
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The article says: "However, the death rate from Ebola during the current outbreak is about 60 percent"
The scary thing? that 60% figure is presented as good news. !!!
The death rate from small pox was about 30%, for comparison.
 
I’m not overly concerned, though perhaps I should be. With the influx of foreign students moving onto the campus, I’m sure there’s the possibility of one or more being a carrier of something nasty. Still, considering I’ve had swine flu, English flu, Asian flu, pneumonia 3 times, and chicken pox at 30, I’m hard to kill.
 
Just wanted to remind everyone that Ebola has never been found outside of Africa, and despite what some political figures have said, nobody is bringing it across the southern border of the United States.

I don't mean to single anyone out here, but let's please be careful about saying that people from other countries are bringing in exotic diseases since that has long been a way in which immigrants have been dehumanized.
 
Just wanted to remind everyone that Ebola has never been found outside of Africa, and despite what some political figures have said, nobody is bringing it across the southern border of the United States.

I don't mean to single anyone out here, but let's please be careful about saying that people from other countries are bringing in exotic diseases since that has long been a way in which immigrants have been dehumanized.
 
I'm kind of nervous, but there have been a few outbreaks in the past and they all eventually died down. While I hope that the crisis subsides in Africa, I know that a lot the reason it's spreading there is because of poor public health systems and lack of infrastructure/resources, so I'm not really worried about it reaching developed countries. I just wish we would authorize some extra aid and orchestrate a really effective response to help them stem the tide.
 
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