Ebola Virus

namelessfly wrote:
Ebola has nothing to do with anyone's race or ethnicity. (unless it turns out to be like Malaria which some races are more resistant too then others)

However; Ebola is a slate wiper that is greater than fifty percent lethal for which there is no known vaccine and no known treatment.

The only feasible strategy for dealing with Ebola is containment, quarenteen and exclusion.

This means that governments have a moral obligation to prevent the disease from entering their country by controlling their borders or even regulating travel within their borders to prevent outbreaks from spreading. There is nothing racist about demanding that the US Government control the borders of the country. By engineering the current border crisis as a political stunt to demonize Republicans and give himself a pretext to take EXECUTIVE ACTION, Obama has neutralized the only plausible defense that the United States might have had against Ebola.

If Ebola Obama's grandstanding on immigration reform results in Ebola entering the US outside of a controlled environment such as Emory University and becomes an epidemic or pandemic,
individual citizens will act to prevent their homes, their families and their communities from being exposed to the disease. Those protective actions are likely to become extremely ugly.

You may well be right about the negative actions communities may take. If so, it is very sad and frightening.

The proper thing to do, if it hits our shores, is to treat it like the worst storm that ever hit your area and STAY INSIDE. You must be prepared to ride it out ... INSIDE. Let the professionals worry about containment outside of your four walls. YOU worry about containment inside of your four walls. SERIOUSLY!

Vigilantism is idiotic. Vigilantism in the face of disaster is lunacy. Regarding Ebola Zaire ... it very well may be catastrophic. Killing people wholesale may result in dead infected bodies littering the streets. There are people who will be ignorant and or ill-informed. Ignorant opportunists may see a chance to rob and pilfer an infected body ... mistake. That ignorant person may be your friend, sibling, child, husband, wife ... ... who brings it right to your doorsteps.

STAY INSIDE. KEEP OUTSIDE OUT. INSIDE IN.

Prepare now. Do you have enough food and water for 2-3 months? A plan?

Northstar wrote:

cthia wrote:
"Prevention is not just better than cure, in this case it is essential."

The death count and infected are up!

This is serious!

There are two Western medical pros infected with it so far over there. One just died of it. Ebola is a level 4 agent and makes The Black Death and Smallpox look like the common cold.

This has zero to do with anyone's race, ethnicity, immigration policy or anything else. It is a virus. It does not give a toodles darn about any of that human stuff.

The only saving grace is it does not appear, so far, to be airborne spread.

The Hot Zone is a scary good book, as is The Demon in the Freezer - about Smallpox, and a novel, The Cobra Event, also by Preston, but there are alternate views about this stuff. Can I now remember titles? Alas, no. Got on a kick of reading a bunch of them years ago. Look up books about the CDC virus hunters etc and you'll probably find them.

Those are some of the bravest/ most foolhardy people on earth. Amazing folks who run into Hot Zones whenever they manifest.

Meanwhile Ebola is indeed a slate wiper... if it goes airborne. Probably not if it stays fluids dependent for transmission. But even at that level it is a horrific way to die. Completely horrific. And fluids can include getting sneezed on or touching someone who has it in their sweat or snot etc.

Frankly, I think their announced so called protective measures so far are way too little and not likely to be effective. People lie about this stuff to get home. People get a fat case of denial about how sick they are. This bug has been trying to break out for decades. Let's hope it fails this time also, but the half arsed stuff they're implementing.... Hah. Get educated about this, people.

And if it break out here... well, have the sense to stay home and ride it out. Hospitals are death wards in slate wipers. You survive or not as fate, deity's Will or your luck and fortune dictate. Are you prepared to wait out a viral burn at home? Say for 4 months? Helps with other fiscal emergencies too. Call it insurance of a practical nature.

Here's hoping that is utterly never ever needed.

Read about the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 for some real world playout of a major killing epidemic right here in America. Being silly in any direction is pointless, but... give it a good hard think. Keep safe, please. OK?

Thucydides wrote:What I find disturbing is the fact that so many people who have been in contact with infected people seem to have been allowed to walk away. One victim arrived on a commuter airplane, was diagnosed and isolated, but the @ 50 other passengers have dispersed (and been in contact with how many people now?)

Luckily Ebola is not an airborne pathogen, or Lagos in Nigeria would be wiped out in a matter of weeks. Some very tough decisions will need to be made, and I can see a quarantine being enforced over a large part of Africa if the disease keeps spreading.

All too true. This way too casual attitude will be the culprit if Ebola - or some other nasty bug - breaks out into the wider world, this time or some future time. It can be easy to get scared goofy by Ebola Zaire... it is equally easy to blow it off and play Cleopatra, Queen of Denial, about it. Neither is helpful.

Nor is the way too sloppy and casual way hospital people dress when dealing with incoming folks. This is why you do not even think about going to a hospital in a really serious bug. They'll all get it and there you would be, cut off from all your own support system, which is at your home. Hospitals are death traps in slatewiping pandemics, as some have been in Africa in previous Ebola outbreaks.

I love how the evening news casually mentions hemorrhage as a symptom. An Ebola bleedout is hemorrhage like a 9.0 earthquake is a little lampshade twitcher.. See, this sucker breaks down the integrity of cell walls, blood vessel walls in particular. An Ebola bleed out dumps all the blood in a human out on the floor, complete with severe projectile vomiting of blood black with virus bricks. Isn't that wonderful? So not. It is a truly horrific way to die and my heart goes out to the people infected with it.

How long can you and your family carry on with what supplies are in your house right now? How much gas do you keep in your car? Are you prepared to care for seriously ill people at home, right now, no warning? Gloves, diapers, masks, lots of sheets, waterproof bedpads...something for body bags - God forbid it be needed. What's the old line? It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. And when it starts raining, it's too late.

I am NOT a doomsday prepper. Never have been. Civilization goes down for a year it ain't coming back anytime soon and I'm too darn old to deal anymore.

However, keeping the gas tank always at least 3/4ths full and at least 4 months stuff in the house and alternate heat and light has been prosaically handy for various things over the years, like snow-ins and job loss and power outages and the like. At least you never run out of gas, eh? And always can feed folks.

Riding out H1N1 flu, which yours truly and Mr Northstar got to experience having a few years ago when there was an outbreak here reinforced my notions about all this. Not fun. Trust me, you do NOT want to experience H1N1 flu. It is awful and it took months to get our health really back. Was I real glad I was prepared to cope with serious illness at home with zero notice? Oh yes.

Quite apart from slatewipers, icky stuff of various sorts happens, usually in the middle of the night with no notice. Surprise.

Having one week of supplies is better than none, Two is better than one and so on. Our personal stop point was 4 months. You have to draw a line somewhere and that was our 'where'. Yours should be what your wallet and space and personal intuition dictate. Work it up a few items a week. But if something awful hits... too late then, guys. Just sayin....

It is all very well to suggest staying within your four walls to ride out an epidemic. However; almost no one has that capability to do so unless public utilities including power and water remain functional. I am one of the very few people who has such capability. However; my location is not so remote that I will be unaffected by the social chaos that will result from an epidemic. If possibly infected refugee / looters fleeing from urban areas steal or destroy my life support system which is not contained within my four walls, then my family is screwed. As a result, my defensive zone will extend far beyond my four walls out to about one mile which is .50 BMG range. However; going it alone is problematic. Banding together with my few neighbors and may be the local town increases my defensive depth and diversity of resources. Allying with nearby towns increases defensive depth even further. Road blocks and patrols can exclude infected refugees from the community. Alliances reduce the potential pool of looters and vandals.

To form such alliances, people will have to form voluntary associations with like minded neighbors. They will inevitably and neccessarily discriminate against outsiders, especially outsiders whose race, ethnicity or social class makes it more difficult to be compatible with the existing voluntary association. If an Ebola epidemic results from it entering the nation via illegal
immigration from Mexico or Africa, then the ethnic groups involved will inevitably infect people within their own ethnic and racial group at a higher rate then the general community. These
ethnic and racial groups will inevitably and justifiably be regarded as very high risk and discriminated against.

My point here is not to justify balkanization and vigilantism. My point is that this is what will happen in an Ebola epidemic is allowed to happen because Obama refuses to control the border to advance a political agenda.

The wealthy will have a distinct advantage in that they have the resources to ride out instability and protect what's theirs (gated communities with private security services isn't there to keep people inside...)

Still, there are many steps that you can take to insulate yourself from various forms of disaster or hardships, including making a "Victory garden" in your back yard or balcony, investing in a rain barrel (and something to distill or filter the water), and stocking up on canned or dry goods. Learning skills like hunting or using tools for practical purposes is also well worth while. Taking a page from the extreme retirement movement and eliminating debt and financial obligations to whatever extent you can also frees resources for your use. Forming communities of like minded people in your neighbourhood amplifies your chances, simply because you can leverage more manpower and resources.

What will really make the difference is attitude. The people who walk around with their faces stuck to their smartphones are not exhibiting any survival skills; their lack of situational awareness is quite alarming to see (I'm always surprised that more people don't walk into walls or traffic). The ones who are waiting for their next welfare cheque or handout are also not going to make it in a prolonged survival situation (major power outage lasting weeks or months, severe weather event that cuts access to the outside world, pandemic disease, etc.)

The ones who will make it are the ones who will roll up their sleeves and start doing the hard work of surviving, caring for their families and friends and keeping the pilot light of civilization going.

Has Ebola become airborne? No? Then consult this handy chart about how panicked/enraged you should be.

Saw his link on FB suggesting Ebola Virus may now be air borne in latest African infestation:

http://kellidgordonlibertyblog.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/heads-up-on-ebola-by-virologist/

Can't comment on source reliability though.

Poker

The E wrote:Has Ebola become airborne? No? Then consult this handy chart about how panicked/enraged you should be.

If you read THE HOT ZONE, you would know that we have already experienced an Ebola strain that went airborne to annihilate a primate center. Fortunately; the US Army ignored the legalities by asserting presumed authority to contain and annihilate it.

The fact that Ebola has surpassed 1,000 infections with over 700 fatalities suggests that this time around the virus spreads much easier than before. As the article that CPOPokermind cites, the doctors and nurses who were treating Ebola patients in Africa are being withdrawn because the normal protocols for dealing with fluid born pathogens ARE NOT WORKING!

Everyone should be scared shitless about Ebola. It has the capability to inflict such a massive fatality rate that civilizational collapse will be realistic risk.

I reluctantly support evacuating the affected medical personel to Emory University Hospital only because it enables us to study the virus.

However; POTUS' refusal to control the Southern border to achieve political advantage is absolutely insane! Dispersing illegal immigrants that have NOT been properely quarenteened is profoundly negligent if not intentional, biological warfare against the US. This is not about race or ethnicity or the politics of demographics. It is a matter of survival.

Fatalities surpass 800.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c16d860e-1b0e ... z39LyB2dKx

Keep in mind that the infected doctor who has been transferred to Emory Hospital was wearing a biohazard suit (he walked in which is miraculous) because it is suspected that the virus has become airborne. They are bringing him there because he has survived which means that he might have developed antibodies which can be isolated to develop a vaccine.

namelessfly wrote:Everyone should be scared shitless about Ebola. It has the capability to inflict such a massive fatality rate that civilizational collapse will be realistic risk.

I'm much more concerned about the next big flu variant. Is Ebola scary as shit? Sure. But so far, the flu has a much better track record when it comes to almost wiping out the human species.