First Ebola Diagnosis in US

[rehmwa 2]

kelpdiver

In an effort to counteract a strawman argument of PANIC PANIC, he's doing precisely the same on the other end of the spectrum.

Just in general - haven't we pretty much proven that that tactic is a complete waste of time? Haven't we proven that about twice for every page of Speaker's Corner threads since the beginning?

"You strawmaned first",,,,,"NO!! you did, my strawman is just to balance your strawman"....."well, your strawman is 7 of 10 ridiculous and mine is only 2 of 10, so I get to put another 5 of 10 strawman out"......"crazy, then you'll have 2 strawmen and I'll only have 1"......

On the otherhand, it's a pretty decent microcosm of today's politics - "Old people will be melted over toast if -A" well "the planet will implode if -B"

nevermind - it makes sense now

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[billvon 2,406]

>Jake has made quite a few postings indicating a belief that what we saw was as
>bad as it can be, including the one just before your's.

I didn't see anything like that. What I got from the post before mine was this:

"Yeah, we might screw up bigtime. But we DID screw up bigtime this time - and only one person, who had been infected while in Africa, died." And that's a pretty good response to all the people who want to ban travel to West Africa or quarantine all people who might have been exposed for 21 days.

Might it be worse? Might we screw up even bigger? Sure. But odds are that we will learn from our mistakes, and that transmission will decrease even further in the future. Someday in the future we might have two, or five, or even ten people return from Africa with an infection. Provided we screw up as badly as we did this time, we are still in pretty good shape. (A dozen people infected, all of whom recover.) If we learn from our mistakes, we will see even fewer cases transmitted.

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

billvon

..."Yeah, we might screw up bigtime. But we DID screw up bigtime this time - and only one person, who had been infected while in Africa, died." And that's a pretty good response to all the people who want to ban travel to West Africa or quarantine all people who might have been exposed for 21 days...

And the biggest take from that (IMO) is that the only screwups that affected (and infected) anyone else were the failure to follow established protocols by the hospital when Duncan was finally admitted and isolated.

The fairly big screwup of sending Duncan home the first time has shown zero repercussions. Nobody got infected from his travel to & from the hospital, no one was infected while he was at the hospital the first time and no one was infected during the time he was symptomatic & infectious. Not his family, not the ambulance guys, not anyone.

And even though Phang & Vinson did get infected by Duncan, the self monitoring & prompt treatment when symptoms appeared kept anyone else from catching it.
Even though everyone went "Chicken Little" over Vinson's travel.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[jakee 1,257]

kelpdiver

Jake has made quite a few postings indicating a belief that what we saw was as bad as it can be, including the one just before your's. In an effort to counteract a strawman argument of PANIC PANIC, he's doing precisely the same on the other end of the spectrum.

Bill and Joe both have a much better understanding of what I'm saying that you do. Maybe it's because we've disagreed in the past and now you're just trying to be contrary, I don't know.

Still and all, you're committing the fallacy of assuming that the truth lies between two opposing viewpoints when in fact it could be either of the two as well. In this case (as a very wise man once said) Dont Panic is much, much closer to the truth than panic, panic!

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[kelpdiver 2]

wolfriverjoe

The idea of "thousands" of cases is pretty unrealistic. At current infection levels, that would require about 1/3 the population of Liberia to come over here to bring that many cases (assuming a random sample).
Most Liberians are too poor to be able to afford it. The rich ones are educated enough to know how to (mostly) avoid getting infected.

1/3rd of the Liberian population would be well over a million people. (otoh, the population of Nigeria is 173M people) Which wouldn't be a risk because there just aren't enough flights to move that many people that fast, but the question is why you would assume a random sample? The belief (and truth) that there is better medical care available in the US means that the potentially infected would self select. It would not be remotely random.

If this current outbreak in Africa finally dies out but we've made no real strides towards a cure, then I'd expect another flare up a decade or two down the road that would be even bigger, and a bad case scenario of 100+ cases in the US in a dozen + cities. Figure more than a few will be misdiagnosed due to rarity (esp if 10 years have passed), more than a few health workers getting infected. It still burns out fairly quickly, but how gross will the kneejerk reactions be, how disruptive to our economy? I'd rather we not shoot ourselves unnecessarily.

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

kelpdiver

1/3rd of the Liberian population would be well over a million people. (otoh, the population of Nigeria is 173M people) Which wouldn't be a risk because there just aren't enough flights to move that many people that fast, but the question is why you would assume a random sample? The belief (and truth) that there is better medical care available in the US means that the potentially infected would self select. It would not be remotely random.

If this current outbreak in Africa finally dies out but we've made no real strides towards a cure, then I'd expect another flare up a decade or two down the road that would be even bigger, and a bad case scenario of 100+ cases in the US in a dozen + cities. Figure more than a few will be misdiagnosed due to rarity (esp if 10 years have passed), more than a few health workers getting infected. It still burns out fairly quickly, but how gross will the kneejerk reactions be, how disruptive to our economy? I'd rather we not shoot ourselves unnecessarily.

Well, that was my point: There are currently several thousand active cases in Liberia. To get "thousands" here (in a random sample), we'd need a huge percentage of the population.

And you may well be right that potentially infected people would "self select", but again, most are too poor to be able to afford the cost of the trip.

It hasn't happened yet in this outbreak, and I don't see it as a real significant threat.

I don't know if we will ever see a "cure" for Ebola. Developing an actual cure for a viral disease isn't that close. That is, a medicine that effectively heals someone who is already infected. But we are getting close to a vaccine.
There are several that are very close to human trials.

Pretty much any virus can have a vaccine developed to stop it. It's just a question of willingness (and money).

This outbreak has pretty much guaranteed that a vaccine will be developed.

So the "next time" (and there will be one, count on it), it will become much more of a question of who can afford the vaccine and who can't.

Both before and after the outbreak occurs.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[billvon 2,406]

> The threat is more likely to be one of these asian flu variants

From Dr. Dave Stukus, a family care doctor:

Parent: We want to get the Ebola vaccine for our children.
Doctor: We don't have one yet. But we are offering flu vaccines.
Parent: We don't believe in that.