About this Ebola thing...

We've got an infected man down in Texas who may have spread the disease to dozens of others, the administration refuses to shut down travel from Africa but pinky-promises to catch the next carrier, and the CDC is saying that everything is fine and dandy even though we've got a grand total of four hospitals equipped to deal with Ebola.

Time to start dusting off those zombie plans from 2011, folks.

Does Tyler have our bunker ready yet?

There's no way that ebola can get out of hand in a first world nation. It's one of the simplest diseases to contain. Is the subject bleeding from every orifice? If yes, quarantine them. They've got a 50/50 chance to survive, and should probably remain quarantined for about two months after symptoms stop showing. If no, keep an eye on them. Onset of symptoms is usually pretty quick (a couple days), and you literally can't spread it until symptoms start to show, which is the aforementioned bleeding out of every orifice. And even then, it's not airborne, it's not waterborne, it has to be transmitted by direct blood-to-blood exchanges. It's basically super AIDS. The difference is, the symptoms are so obvious and debilitating that it's normally next to impossible to transmit. The main reason it's such a big deal in Africa is because of their very intimate healing and burial rituals, and because the locals have taken up arms against the government and are actively resisting quarantine. If there was an ebola outbreak in the United States, it would be unfortunate, but I can't imagine it could possibly spread to more than a score of people worst case scenario.

That said, ebola is my virus of choice for the zombie virus. With exception to the whole raising from the dead bit at the end, the symptoms of ebola very closely match those of modern zombie pop culture. So who knows, maybe the reason it's gotten so serious in Africa is actually because zombies.

Rotaretilbo wrote:There's no way that ebola can get out of hand in a first world nation. It's one of the simplest diseases to contain. Is the subject bleeding from every orifice? If yes, quarantine them. They've got a 50/50 chance to survive, and should probably remain quarantined for about two months after symptoms stop showing. If no, keep an eye on them. Onset of symptoms is usually pretty quick (a couple days), and you literally can't spread it until symptoms start to show, which is the aforementioned bleeding out of every orifice. And even then, it's not airborne, it's not waterborne, it has to be transmitted by direct blood-to-blood exchanges. It's basically super AIDS. The difference is, the symptoms are so obvious and debilitating that it's normally next to impossible to transmit. The main reason it's such a big deal in Africa is because of their very intimate healing and burial rituals, and because the locals have taken up arms against the government and are actively resisting quarantine. If there was an ebola outbreak in the United States, it would be unfortunate, but I can't imagine it could possibly spread to more than a score of people worst case scenario.

That said, ebola is my virus of choice for the zombie virus. With exception to the whole raising from the dead bit at the end, the symptoms of ebola very closely match those of modern zombie pop culture. So who knows, maybe the reason it's gotten so serious in Africa is actually because zombies.

Actually, ebola is spread by any sort of bodily fluid including saliva, and has been proven to travel short distances through water molecules suspended in air. So while not as infectious as some diseases, it isn't a joke. Many of the doctors and nurses treating these patients in Africa have themselves fallen to the virus. Let us also not forget that there have been multiple mutations of this strain since its outbreak in Africa. The more it infects, the more risk we run of this thing developing more mobility. I'm not the guy to say that this is the doomsday virus, but it is a serious threat and we should treat it as such. Microbes after all are humanities greatest enemy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/10/08/texas-ebola-patient-has-died-from-ebola/

Well, he died. Hopefully some of these ebola treatments they're testing work and they stop fighting against the quarantine measure in Africa.

Dud's got it right. Ebola is transmitted through bodily fluids like feces, urine and sweat. If you've got an Ebola patient in a hospital, they need to be quarantined until they die or get better. The doctors and nurses who treat them have to wear cumbersome PPEs that they aren't trained to wear. A nurse in Spain came down with Ebola, even though she was wearing PPEs when she was exposed.

Worse yet, when a patient shows up at a hospital with Ebola, they're contagious even though they only look like they got the flu. Even if they're admitted and not just turned away with antibiotics, they're lounging around in the waiting room with a bunch of other warm bodies. Do I need to spell out why that's a disaster in the making?

Well it seems that hundreds of marines are now being deployed to Africa to "fight" ebola. Not exactly sure what use we're going to be. I most likely won't be going but I do have friends that are cbrn (our hazmat type shit)

On a related note, who else has destroyed the world with ebola in plague?