The ebola panic

[Gravekeeper]

On the other hand, if you live in Texas, maybe you SHOULD panic. Seeing as everyone there that comes in contact with ebola loses 50 IQ points.

[lordlundar]

I know it's a bad comparison, so please don't take it that I'm comparing the symptoms or the disease or even the number of deaths with each other, but the PANIC reminds me of Swine Flu a few years back.

Funny, I was thinking of the Y2K bug at the turn of the century. Media sites being "the first" to say the world is doomed and instill panic over something that has already been dealt with.

More things change, the more they stay the same.

[Gravekeeper]

I know it's a bad comparison, so please don't take it that I'm comparing the symptoms or the disease or even the number of deaths with each other, but the PANIC reminds me of Swine Flu a few years back.

Swine flu is more contagious and had a far far far higher body count ( we're talking like 100 times more ). It was a phase 6 pandemic, which is the highest level the WHO has. The panic was a tad more justified with the swine flu since there were infections in pretty much every country in the world.

Ebola is almost exclusively limited to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone right now. Its difficult for ebola to spread without the wonderful assistance of the absence of medical care, sanitation and plain old human stupidity and superstition.

Its kind of hard to isolate and treat the outbreak there when people are killing aid workers because they think they are what causes the disease.

[blas87]

I know it's a bad comparison, so please don't take it that I'm comparing the symptoms or the disease or even the number of deaths with each other, but the PANIC reminds me of Swine Flu a few years back.

In reality, I don't think hardly anyone I work with got it. A few of the hypocondriac attention whores claimed they got it (including my ex, Satan Himself), but I never really saw anyone put their lives on hold or really stop going about their business for as much panic as they spoke of.

[Gravekeeper]

I can't help but feel there would be less of a panic if all of the US news networks didn't go into a 24/7 "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO FUCKING DIE" cycle as soon as ebola was mentioned. >.>

[Greenday]

So basically just don't touch someone with Ebola and don't touch any bodily fluids that have been left behind by them. Sounds simple enough.

Just saw a kid is being examined for Ebola-like symptoms in Delaware.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Probably not a septic tank.

It boils down to - in water or outside the body, not very long. Obviously anything that preserves the environment for Ebola helps it survive but it's not excessively hardy.

That said - in a dead body you've got the equivalent of a virus bomb. It survies a long time.

[HYHYBT]

That brings up another question: how long does a contaminated substance stay dangerous? For example, could someone pumping out a septic tank years later get ebola that way?

[BlaqueKatt]

yet biowaste-transmitted illnesses like norovirus spreads quickly when someone is sick, and a lot of the reason is due to scant traces of the fluids being spread onto anything the ill-stricken come into contact with.

highly incorrect, most of the cases of norovirus outbreaks are due to a sick person working in food service. NOT community contact.

comparing the two is really apples/oranges as people contagious with noro are usually still well enough to wander around while ebola the most wandering you do while infectious is to seek medical attention.

Also the R nought for norovirus is around 14 because it's NOT only fecal-oral, it's person to person*(like a cold), and waterbourne. Also 23 million cases in the US, and 267 million worldwide annually. (one case a patron vomited in a restaurant, 52 got sick from just being in the same room-ebola doesn't transmit that way)


*you can get norovirus just walking next to a sick person, you cannot get ebola walking next to a sick person.

[TheHuckster]

The problem is not just the vomit in the parking lot, but that chances are traces of biowaste is on the patient's hands and other body parts. Anything he touches, at that point, becomes contaminated, and it doesn't matter if you can't see it, or even smell it, the germs are there.

Again, people don't willingly touch or consume others' vomit and other biowaste, yet biowaste-transmitted illnesses like norovirus spreads quickly when someone is sick, and a lot of the reason is due to scant traces of the fluids being spread onto anything the ill-stricken come into contact with.

Yes, washing hands and taking other precautions will help contain it, but it's not always foolproof, and the difference between ebola and norovirus is if you're a healthy individual, you will survive norovirus. Not necessarily so with ebola.

[AccountingDrone]

You said it yourself. One must make contact with the infected substance to be at risk of catching it.From there, you'll need to get it into your system somehow. Either through your blood, stomach, or mucous membranes. Simply seeing the puke, or even standing/walking by it, will not cause infection.

And if I, a known klutz trips and falls into a now more or less dry puddle of vomit trying to avoid it, or having been my normal klutzy self. I now have abrasions on my hands that have been on the contaminated vomit.

Fecal matter occurs - and all it takes is one stupid accident for that fecal matter to happen to some poor schlub that otherwise would be healthy. Why do you think they quarantine people? To reduce the chance that someone will biohazard on something and expose someone. How about those noncompliant roomies - let me go to the grocery to pick up some fruit .... *sneeze* handle several fruits looking for a nice fresh one, and snarfe on my hand and use the same hand to grab the plastic bag roll to get one to put fruit in. Oh, and let me snarf all over this $20 bill and hand it to someone to stack with other bills to pay for that nice bag of apples. On the way home, I think I will stop for a coffee - so now I have opened the door from both sides, stood in line, rested my snarfy hands on the counter and then gone over and added milk and splenda, touching the counter and the garbage can.

Go watch the mythbusters when they do snot transmission with the UV responsive fake snot.

[tabbyblack13]

He apparently told the hospital that he had been in a country with Ebola but no one in the hospital made any connection . He also lied on his airport survey by stating that he hadn't been in contact with anyone that had Ebola. He helped a woman to the hospital that later died of Ebola.

If you don't have contact with anyone or anything contaminated then you should be fine. Clorine beach is one of the most effective way to kill this virus and to stop the spread on objects. Even in Africa I've heard that churches are not shaking hands or doing communion. Then they wash there hands with bleach water. People are learning but there are still a lot of distrust in officials in Africa so it's harder to get people to do the right thing.

[crashhelmet]

Honestly? If I were a resident of that complex where he *vomited* in the parking lot and it sat uncleaned up for several days, I would be walking into the nearest hotel, telling then I had been exposed to Ebola infected biowaste products, demanding internal to the hospital quarentine and charging the cost to both the hospital that neglected to hold onto the jackass, and the local health department for dropping the ball, and then for good measure I would charge the asshole and the co-residents of his apartment with assault. He is *worse* than Typhoid Mary, in her defense the germ theory hadn't caught up with common education and she was the first asymptomatic illness that was deadly and contagious and they had no real education in the issue, they currently KNOW that people are contagious even if they are not expressing the disease directly however the asshole VOMITED IN THE PARKING LOT, shall I repeat myself? HE VOMITED IN THE PARKING LOT AND IT WAS NOT CLEANED UP. How does one get exposed to ebola? Through contact with biowaste products. What is vomit? Biowaste product. So, hwo many people were actually exposed to VOMIT IN THE PARKING LOT?

You said it yourself. One must make contact with the infected substance to be at risk of catching it.From there, you'll need to get it into your system somehow. Either through your blood, stomach, or mucous membranes. Simply seeing the puke, or even standing/walking by it, will not cause infection.

[HYHYBT]

Well, that depends. How many people, on seeing vomit on the ground, are going to touch it?

[AccountingDrone]

this covers why the health people aren't panicking-the R-naught is similar to that of HepC.

how contagious is ebola?

Honestly? If I were a resident of that complex where he *vomited* in the parking lot and it sat uncleaned up for several days, I would be walking into the nearest hotel, telling then I had been exposed to Ebola infected biowaste products, demanding internal to the hospital quarentine and charging the cost to both the hospital that neglected to hold onto the jackass, and the local health department for dropping the ball, and then for good measure I would charge the asshole and the co-residents of his apartment with assault. He is *worse* than Typhoid Mary, in her defense the germ theory hadn't caught up with common education and she was the first asymptomatic illness that was deadly and contagious and they had no real education in the issue, they currently KNOW that people are contagious even if they are not expressing the disease directly however the asshole VOMITED IN THE PARKING LOT, shall I repeat myself? HE VOMITED IN THE PARKING LOT AND IT WAS NOT CLEANED UP. How does one get exposed to ebola? Through contact with biowaste products. What is vomit? Biowaste product. So, hwo many people were actually exposed to VOMIT IN THE PARKING LOT?