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Will the Ebola epidemic go global and become the new Black Death? Should we all stock pile gold and weapons?
Ebola will become the new zombie apocalypse. Paranoia will reign supreme, at first only in Africa.
Im really freaked out by this new ebola outbreak.
They haven't even stopped flights in or out of Africa!
If you look up the Black death symptoms they are nearly identical...even the black spots from internal bleeding. If you compare photos of the illnesses they even look alike. I cant believe they are bringing infected doctors to Georgia for treatment, I mean why would they put us all at risk?
My husband works in a hospital and hes already said if it comes to the US hes quitting and were moving to New Mexico. Sounds crazy but the east coast of the US will be hit much harder.
I also am not convinced that its not able to be spread through water droplets like coughing or sneezing How did the doctors get it? Viruses mutate all the time.
Most of all I don't believe anything the government says because, gee its not like thieve ever lied to us before...
No, it won't. Ebola has been around quite some time now and there are outbreaks all the time. This is nothing new. I'm guessing you watch Fox and CNN a lot. They love to sensationalize these things and scare people (their viewers) so they'll stay glued to their news shows. They'll get Ebola under control again before it starts killing white folks, don't worry.
Get it under control? Pffft, that's what they said about AIDS thirty years ago. With no vaccine or effective treatment, history is not working in your favor. At some point, this outbreak could hit critical mass, there will be too any cases to stop the exponential spread completely.
Do the math. Outbreaks of 20-30 cases in isolated areas are stopped easily. This outbreak has hit 700 people and it has spread to cities for the first time.
You are wrong... everything thegypsysailor said is right, we are able to control the Ebola virus since it's just a very small are in which it broke out and it won't spread around any further...
AIDS/HIV is something completely different since there already where millions infected before it was even discovered...
Ok, but have you noticed that the situation with HIV hasn't necessitated stockpiling weapons or gold in most of the world?
tell me that when youre left to bury the seeping dead bodies of the people you love (if you actually love anybody that is...
Killed thousands before? I beg to differ. Since you like to read, click this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ebola_outbreaks
The CDC says it will be a marathon effort to stop the disease this time. You don't need to be worried on your boat with your 19 year old girlfriend, but DolphinAngel should be scared, really really SCARED. (Unless she is the 19 year old girlfriend.)
The CDC, like any other governmental entity, needs money to operate. Without a "marathon effort" they won't get the funds they want, so once again the scare tactics are employed. Relax, unless you are on your way to Africa, I doubt you are in much danger.
I am relaxed. The original question of this post was whether the epidemic will eventually go global. The other contributors have made contrary points using sound logic and causal arguments to that end. You simply ignore the question and use supposition to discredit any view contrary to yours.
You have already stuck your foot in your mouth by supposing that previous outbreaks have exceeded 1000 people. I'm afraid your performance on this post could scarcely get you a passing grade in high school English.
I can only shake my head, go back to school.
Hey, hey, 2/3 fatalities. Good to clean out the riff-raff every couple of centuries. Nice point there, old fellar.
First of all its not cool to indicate that white people only care about white people getting this disease( theres a lot of WHITE doctors in Africa helping and a few of them have caught it.) Second, I am not convinced that its not being spread more easily than touching contaminated body fluids...were all these people who caught it wallowing in blood and urine? I don't think the doctors who caught it were careless, in fact they wear hazard suits when dealing with patients.
I wouldn't be surprised if some strains of ebola are contagious through coughing and sneezing. Maybe not everyone can get it this way but who knows? The CDC and government has certainly lied about things before.
I agree with the person who said most people are in denial because they don't want to imagine this really could be a big epidemic... and if they don't stop all planes and boats coming in and out of Africa it easily could.
Ebola has not mutated and most likely will not because it kills too quickly. It is transmitted through bodily fluids, which is why it's spread to people who are treating those infected. If the virus was airborne it would have infected many more people. Please read a book before you go around making ridiculous, panic based assertions.
Health workers have never fought Ebola in a densely populated urban environment before. The fate of the world rests on their effectiveness.
Oh, and while not the same as Ebola; have you ever heard of Typhoid Mary?
I bloody well hope not! Can you imagine the fear and panic? Did you hear about the doctor who had Ebola and traveled by plane in Africa, possibly putting many other people at risk? Apparently, he was supposed to come back to America in August but was prevented from doing so. He died in Africa. I am relieved that he wasn't able to make it back over here.
They are bringing another infected doctor to an Atlanta, Georgia hospital within the next day or two.
Why put this entire country at risk? He will either die or he will survive...and considering he asked that the better vaccine be given to the other woman who got sick I doubt hed be happy if he was the cause of bringing a plague to his home country.
When I first read about that in the DM, I was "Oh, hell no!". I hear where they are taking them is very close to the Disease Control Center. I've read up on how contagious Ebola is and what if it gets out and hits America? It is so scary. They should've left them in Africa and had them continued being treated there! Now with one of the doctors, he originally came with his family who later moved back to America. They had contact with him. I am hoping that they were tested for Ebola too.
What would stockpiling gold do for you, during a pandemic or apocalypse???
Gold allows you to buy things if you don't want to shoot people to get what you want. With general civil breakdown money becomes worthless.
I don't know about that. During total break down of civilization, why would anyone care about pieces of metal?
I would think that most people would likely depend on trading and bartering for things that they could make real time use of like food, water, soaps, and specialized services that knowledgeable people could offer. -Mechanical skills, medical skills, child care, cooking, hunting and the like.
Yes, I read it. I wish everyone who commented on this post did as well...at least then they would know what they are talking about.
I watched a tv series called the Hot Zone backin the late 90s I think(it was partly sci-fi but I recall one of the characters boyfriends died from ebola). It was about strange infectious diseases and a team of doctors and a weird rich guy, is that the same book as the show?
Looks like a cool book. Judging from the emotional denial in many of these comments, there is no way most of these people could handle it. Just too scary for them.
I really doubt it will become a global epidemic like HIV/AIDS. If it does than so be it. It is what it is and people can only deal with it and try to contain the outbreaks the best that they can.
Highly unlikely; Ebola is only contagious when it's symptomatic and it has a relatively short incubation period. It's not probable that this disease would spread overseas, for various reasons.
You dufus. Wikipedia says, "Men who survive may be able to transmit the disease sexually for nearly two months." Africans don't have enough self-control to use condoms consistently for 2 months.
I love being called a dufus by people who learn everything they need to know on Wikipedia and who think "Africans don't have self control."
So, you're partially right, but this is irrelevant for several reasons, As indicated by RT-PCR and ELISA antigen results from blood, the shedding of EBOV in saliva corresponded almost exactly to the period of viremia, with the last positive saliva specimen noted at day 8 after disease onset. In contrast, specimens of breast milk and semen were found to be culture positive and RT-PCR positive at days 15 and 40 after disease onset, respectively, when EBOV was already cleared from the blood. semen was negative when retested at day 45.
Basically, Ebola virus is present in the semen when it is no longer present in other bodily fluids...ie when the patient is in remission...however, if you consider mortality rates, which are extremely high for treated cases, and exponentially larger for untreated cases. The notion of the virus being transmuted by someone who received no medical treatment and was therefore left undiagnosed is beyond unlikely. Secondly, remission does not make a patient asymptomatic.
So, let's review...for the presence of Ebola in the semen after remission to even be relevant in terms of overseas transmission, your patient zero would have to have survived the Ebola virus with no medical treatment whatsoever (because a diagnoses won't get you a plane ticket), be asymptomatic at the time of travel, and then immediately start fucking bitches and smashing pussy left and right once he reached his destination.
Oh god, start stockpiling ramen.
Very scholarly. An African dude in remission with minimal symptoms may start fucking bitches and smashing pussy. Two percent (or so) of males are like that. (20 dudes in remission out of a 1000 remission cases is enough to keep the epidemic going in Africa.)
No one said anything about patient zero. I'll leave that grim scenario to your wishful thinking.
"IIN that the African Ebola epidemic will go global." Interesting attempt to shoehorn a current event into an Is It Normal question :P
I doubt it, but I suppose it's possible. This is the biggest outbreak of Ebola ever. But in more developed countries, containment and quarantine arrangements would probably be easier to impose and maintain.
I'm watching series 2 of a TV show called Utopia at the moment, and in that there is a planned outbreak of a virus ('Russian Flu') by a secret organisation called the Network in order to justify giving everyone a vaccine that has been tampered with.
So something like this happening at the same time makes me want to get my tin foil hat out :)
Ebola has not been able to spread across continents like bird flu n swine flu. I don't think so
Nope, I do not think it will become pandemic. I do think we should be aware, but it isn't anything I will lose any sleep over.
Perspective
1633-1634 Small Pox destroyed 70% of the Native US population. (Mashantucket Pequot museum and Research center)
1793 Yellow fever caused 2000 deaths in Philadelphia.
1830-31 Cholera was responsible for 130,000 deaths worldwide. (CDC)
1918 Spanish flu was the cause of 675,000 deaths in the US and 20 million people worldwide. (US department of Health)
And that doesn’t even touch on the estimated 30-60% population decreases caused by various plagues throughout history.
If you want to talk about disease, let’s talk about something more serious and that would be the fact that eradicated diseases are coming back. Now that is truly more terrifying than Ebola.
Or, maybe worry about Malaria- it kills over 1 million people a year.
Notice that each of those diseases on your list is either treatable or has vaccines now. Ebola has neither. A vaccine has been developed for chimpanzees, but a vaccine for humans is a few years away.
And why does that bring you comfort? Kind of scary that treatable diaeases still cause more deaths. You are still far more likely to catch a deadly flu than to catch Ebola. Even an untreatable cancer will likely be your demise over Ebola.
But I can see logic has escaped you.
Wait! Yes yes. Ebola is coming to get you. Run. Hide. Quarantine yourself.
Although I get the feeling you dont interact much with the outside world to begin with.
It brings me neither comfort nor despair. In many ways, Ebola is more manageable than some of the diseases on your list. It's not spread by coughing, or insects. The chimp vaccine caused a strong antibody response. A future human vaccine will likely do the same.
The problem with your response is that it doesn't answer the original question "Will the African outbreak eventually go global?" Get a hold of your emotions, think about the way epidemics are managed, and then give us your carefully formulated response. We would like to hear what you have to say.
I said no. And I gave you perspective on the reality of disease.
The reason I say no is because it has been around for nearly forty years and it hasn't really left the region. Unlike HIV/AIDS which has circled the globe and been around for a shorter time period. But to be fair, it isn't an obvious disease so there was opportunity for spreading.
Although, I'm not sure why you expect a dissertation on global disease with a simple question. Or perhaps just a small essay on pathology? Did you confuse us with medical students?
To me, it sounds like you want to spread fear among the masses. That, or you just took a class on pathology of disease and want to feel all smart.