outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

every time this stuff gets in the news i have an anxiety attack just reading about it

do you think we're all going to die of a plague, soon?

I watched Contagion 2x in a row on a recent intercontinental flight and within 24 hours of landing I was sicker than I can ever remember being.

-Peter

that was a scary one because you know that's exactly how it's going to go down, too

my dad is of the opinion that we're all gonna drop dead from mad cow disease eventually from a lifetime of pink slime exposure

Ebola in Uganda, new flu killing East Coast seals...

Who the HECK would choose Contagion for in-flight programming???

-Peter

There is still this other side of me that wishes I'd embarked on one of my many fig tree dream careers of epidemiologist. I really get a kick form this kind of thing. Someday we will all be dead.

So how worried should we be now, anyway.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/25/us-heath-ebola-nigeria-idUSKBN0FU1LE20140725

Fanning flames, paranoia: http://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/article/New-fears-about-Ebola-spread-after-plane-scare-5651721.php

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — No one knows for sure just how many people Patrick Sawyer came into contact with the day he boarded a flight in Liberia, had a stopover in Ghana, changed planes in Togo, and then arrived in Nigeria, where authorities say he died days later from Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known to man.

Now health workers are scrambling to trace those who may have been exposed to Sawyer across West Africa, including flight attendants and fellow passengers.

Health experts say it is unlikely he could have infected others with the virus that can cause victims to bleed from the eyes, mouth and ears. Still, unsettling questions remain: How could a man whose sister recently died from Ebola manage to board a plane leaving the country? And worse: Could Ebola become the latest disease to be spread by international air travel?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-virus-top-sierra-leone-doctor-shek-umar-dies-of-disease-9636406.html

Sierra Leone's top virologist has died in the current outbreak.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/health/patient-at-mount-sinai-has-ebola-like-symptoms-hospital-says.html

This is terrible, reports of hospitals shutting their doors, infected rotting corpses in the streets and ebola nurses downing tools after not getting paid measly $30 a week risk money pledged by the Sierra Leone gvt. Conditions described as "medieval" in parts where the health system has totally collapsed.

i heard a woman talking on the radio about it the other day and she was not holding back about how grim it was -- she was a reporter but i don't remember her name
she used the same analogy, like it was medieval in terms of what people believe about medicine as well as the degree to which people receive/shun medical care when they need it

Little did we know all the right wing survivalists had the right idea for the wrong reason. It's not Obama they should fear, but ebola.

I read an article about the stress of being an ebola nurse. Encased in completely enveloping PPE in a hot climate for 12 + hour shifts. Dealing with infectious, dying patients that constantly fall out of beds, spray blood and diarrhea all over the place. The people that deal with these patients ... I just have no idea where they get their courage from.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-armed-men-attack-liberia-ebola-clinic-freeing-patients/

holy shit

Yeah,

Plague Inc is my favorite game

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/08/19/341412011/shadow-and-d-12-sing-an-infectious-song-about-ebola?

dr. brantly speaking now, was just discharged from emory

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/tests-under-way-for-ebola-following-donegal-death-1.1904073

Shit got real. school with this guys sister

Pharmeceutical industry person tries to defend the industry re charges they have not done enough re ebola because it is in poor countries

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2014/08/18/washington-post-off-base-in-critiquing-pharma-efforts-in-ebola/

the incentives for the pharmaceutical industry are what they are, unfortunately

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/ebolanomics

Irish guy didn't have Ebola. Was a false alarm.

South Africa and Senegal trying to bar some folks from countries at issue from entry

First US case in Dallas. Take that NYC & LA! We're number one!

Yikes!

I wonder how many crisis of this kind will happen before countries take the WHO seriously and decide to invest in a proper international health structure to prevent this kind of outbreak. Freaking hate to see institutions like the FMI giving up to 130 millions $ but then pressure politicians in the region to go for austerity, it's a waste of money for everyone.

ebola USED to be at the top of my list of irrational fears. presbyterian hospital is about 5 miles north of where i'm sitting right now.

welp

#patientzero

The Frontline piece on this a week or so ago was eye-opening. Hospitals that are barely more than cordoned off fields, mass graves, disinfecting the back of trucks (where patients ride, near death) by tossing in buckets of bleach, doctors and other aid workers more or less forced to visit villages free of any special suits for fear of scaring the shit out of everyone, children orphaned and alone overnight. Just heartbreaking. It's both a matter of doctors struggling to keep up with a rapidly and easily spreading illness and a population almost impossible to isolate. Bodies being dumped and left by the side of the road, families taking members out of quarantine, superstitious treatments co-mingling with modern medicine ...

Here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ebola-outbreak/

The saddest bit may be at the end, where grave diggers, one by one, list all their families members who have succumbed.

I'm just a few miles further away, art. Drive by it almost every day as I head up to Richardson.

Your risk of dying from ebola (total confirmed 2014 ebola deaths: a few thousand worldwide) is still lower than your risk of dying due to complications related to seasonal influenza (on average, 5800-7500 a year in the US). Get a flu shot. Don't get too preoccupied by ebola.

wanna c&p that on every damn facebook post I see for the next week

be my guest

i have total confidence in the medical system to properly handle any other arising cases. that said, i am still illogically terrified

Sick Burn I saw on FB:

Don't worry about Ebola spreading in Dallas. The Cowboys have shown us that people in Dallas can't catch anything.

Ebola spreads by physical contact with bodily secretions and fluids. That makes it easier to contain in a place like the USA or Europe, where there are lots of medical facilities and a patient's recent contacts can be quickly discovered and tracked down.

Even so, if ebola strongly establishes itself in Africa, with a reservoir of infected people who keep the virus continuously viable and circulating, then not only will massive numbers of africans die, but ebola will keep leaping to other parts of the world, including the USA and Europe. It can be compared to sparks thrown out from a wildfire, which land on tinder and start other fires away from the main fire. You can put out many of these small satellite fires, but it is hard to extinguish all of them, and the more new places that start burning the harder the firestorm is to keep contained.

That's a good analogy. I really wish international focus between the Ebola outbreak and ISIL was better divided.

run for the hills imo

*not the hills of West Africa, tho*

http://i.imgur.com/LHm72Rq.png

ugh goddamned parody accounts :(

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html

this is a very difficult article to read

apparently the problem is not money but organization and time

Oh jeez:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/texas-ebola_n_5919522.html

at what point is it ok for me to start panicking?

supposed to go to the state fair this weekend and have resolved not to touch any surfaces and to bathe myself in hand sanitizer after it is all over.

the panic is hilarious. Especially from folks who drive on the streets of Dallas. You should be much more afraid of north Texas drivers than ebola.

until there is an effective vaccine I consider ebola as a threat, but in the USA it is a long term threat, which gives the researchers plenty of time to develop that vaccine.

truly despicable imo for rand paul, a physician, to be saying things like this to score political points

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sen-rand-paul-sounds-ebola-alarm/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html

this is a very difficult article to read

apparently the problem is not money but organization and time

― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, October 1, 2014 7:27 PM (Yesterday

disorganization and lack of preparedness (not to mention distrust of medical authorities, belief in traditional healing, etc) are consequences of poverty, though. this was from a few weeks ago but i think it's a good primer

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1409494

First, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia are resource-poor countries already coping with major health challenges, such as malaria and other endemic diseases, some of which may be confused with EVD. Next, their borders are porous, and movement between countries is constant. Health care infrastructure is inadequate, and health workers and essential supplies including personal protective equipment are scarce. Traditional practices, such as bathing of corpses before burial, have facilitated transmission. The epidemic has spread to cities, which complicates tracing of contacts. Finally, decades of conflict have left the populations distrustful of governing officials and authority figures such as health professionals. Add to these problems a rapidly spreading virus with a high mortality rate, and the scope of the challenge becomes clear

for/with is an important but extremely subtle distinction, and it's often used as FUD by people who suggest people admitted with covid are somehow not relevant to the pandemic.

people who are admitted to hospital (for anything) are more likely to have comorbidities that makes covid more dangerous, and getting covid doesn't improve the prognosis of anything else. so the implication that people admitted with covid are not in danger from covid doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

you can't see it in case data yet (it lags a few days, and testing capacity is saturated and growing, so reported cases may continue to grow even while real cases fall) but ... based on boston shit, seems like the north east may have peaked

😃💩 pic.twitter.com/LaOdDahuDA

— free the young (@theripsnorter) January 11, 2022

Getting weird out here

Trump says politicians who won't say whether they've been vaccinated are "gutless."
Trump said, "Say it. But the fact is that I think the vaccines saved tens of millions throughout the world. I’ve had absolutely no side affects.” #TrumpVaccine https://t.co/SfN1rTS21s

— Rick Folbaum (@RickFolbaum) January 12, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-omicron-spreads-some-nations-offer-a-second-covid-19-booster-11641911892

second booster? :|

I mean, I'll take all the boosters you have, whatever. I'm going to be coming up on 6 months since my boost in April.

I've kinda been anticipating boosters every six months, so doesn't surprise me too much. I'd much prefer to get on an annual booster thing, but whatever.

same here - also figured it'd be a six month deal, annoyingly. hopefully less often after next year

It's very hard to watch today as the US hospitalizations climbed above 150,000, ICUs more than 25,000, and nearly 2,700 deaths—the vast majority were preventable by vaccinations and/or boosters.
And >900,000 new cases, some of whom will progress to severe disease or #LongCovid

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 13, 2022

It's getting to the place where a significant number of 'excess deaths' beyond the expected baseline death rate during the pandemic are from causes other than covid, but from diseases or conditions that were left untreated or under-treated due to lack of resources or preventive measures designed to reduce covid transmission.

in the UK the new baseline for calculating excess deaths over and above the baseline is the average of 2016, 17, 18, 19 and 21. Until recently it was 2015-19.
Some debate over whether it's reasonable to include 2021.

Why, if they’re they’re including 2021, would they omit 2020?

There was a positive case this week in my son's class at school. The sick kid was already at home, but had been in school the day before. The one unvaccinated kid in the class was sent home to quarantine, but otherwise life basically went on as usual. Seems like a reasonable way forward.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10397797/Man-claims-lost-1-5-inches-length-penis-Covid-vascular-damage.html

otm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koro_%28medicine%29

xps I think the intention was always to omit 2020 as a pandemic year skewing the average. I don't know why you would include 2021 unless it's worse to use old data than it is to use likely atypical data.

By any measure 2021 was also "a pandemic year skewing the data".

well yeah of course

maybe it's the new normal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5QErPDNcj4

smoke weed every day

https://news.ohsu.edu/2022/01/13/study-shows-hemp-compounds-prevent-coronavirus-from-entering-human-cells

https://i.imgur.com/cawTD5I.jpeg

I feel the same way

holy shit

Some with recent Covid diagnoses are finding that contracting the illness they worked so hard to dodge for so long has brought them an unexpected reprieve from anxiety — instead of compounding it further. https://t.co/zjs7ppIO7J

— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 17, 2022

Not unfamiliar! A couple friends down for the holidays, in part facetiously, were like PLEASE GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY.

They have no children and are not immunocompromised.

Knowing myself, I would also probably vacillate from disappointment to the mildest of relief.

blundering straight into the path of the ratio is praxis

Some soldiers are surprised to find they experience a sense of relief when, during a battle in which others around them were killed or wounded, they receive a minor wound and are able to leave the front line for a while.

When I did a rapid test at my sister's on Christmas Eve day, I absolutely had mixed feelings: I wanted a negative, simply so I could stay, but--knowing how relatively mild my symptoms had been the past week--part of me wanted a positive.

The twitter reaction as usual has been weird -- no one quoted "sought out" the virus. The people I know who've gotten omicron after three vaccinations aren't going to bars or restaurants and fucking hated missing Noche Buena and/or NYE. But this sense of ugh can co-exist with "Well, this anxiety's over for a while."

Not unfamiliar! A couple friends down for the holidays, in part facetiously, were like PLEASE GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY.

we absolutely thought this during the holidays, and i suspect a lot of parents did. getting it now would would be much much more disruptive and upsetting for all of us.

Yeah I don't think that sounds weird at all, I'm sure I'd feel some relief too and I'm not even sure why one would consider this "unexpected." Doesn't mean I'd seek it out.

i assume milo's point is that feeling this way is a privilege, which yes.

yes

-- bachelorhood

-- no children or dependents

-- flexible job

-- a tolerance for three-hour cinema should the need arise

I know a couple of families (double vaxxed kids/boosted adults) where one member got it and everyone hoped the rest would just get it right away as it would decrease the overall impact by serving their isolation periods concurrently instead of consecutively. In the end it was only the one person who got it anyway.

I don't think it's hard to understand those kinds of feelings. I was kind of freaked out why kids tested positive last spring, but they were both fine — one with mild symptoms, one none at all — and I was able to relax a lot more after that about them doing various social things. Now they're both vaxxed, boosted AND prior infected, which makes me even more relaxed. I would never have deliberately tried to get them infected, but knowing that they were and were fine has made the succeeding months that much less stressful.

Sorry, was freaked out when my kids tested positive ...

i assume milo's point is that feeling this way is a privilege, which yes.

Less about people feeling one way or the other more about the media taking this tack as Omicron rages and we’re essentially being abandoned by the government.

-- bachelorhood
-- no children or dependents
-- flexible job

Ditto--plus the timing of the positive, Dec. 24, would not have impacted my availability to work at all.

It just comes down to spending almost two years fearing this thing (which has, I realize, mutated more than once), thinking I had contracted the latest variant, and wanting to be able to say "Okay, that wasn't that bad, and maybe my immune system is such that any future infections will be comparable."

So, even though I believe I tested right at the very end of an Omicron infection, I was negative, so I still don't know for sure.

I think I mentioned it on this or probably another thread, but I have a good friend who was absolutely relieved when he and his whole family got it, despite their (relative) precautions. After so many months/years of literal fear for their lives, once faced with the most mild of symptoms they were thankful for the vaccine and for the chance to just (at least this time) get through it all unscathed.

At the booster clinic I worked over the weekend, we (staff and fellow volunteers) were discussing our own personal experiences, and how we'd all been fortunate that everyone we knew who caught it had mild or next to no symptoms. Then another volunteer offered that she had just gone to a funeral. For covid? we asked. She shook her head yes. Were they vaccinated? She frowned and shook her head no.

to paraphrase dorothy parker, i hate suffering through a contagious disease but I love the presumed resistance to reinfection

Hmm:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/17/all-covid-restrictions-in-england-could-end-in-march-under-no-10-plans

Don't see why not.

Attn. US posters: https://special.usps.com/testkits

Thanks, now I'll see if it works.

It puts you on an FBI watchlist

I'm glad it wasn't worse (Russians draining my bank accounts).

The FBI is now owned by Russian gangsters so...

At my place of employ, the key stats are now:

Total Number of Positive Patients: 65

Unvaccinated: 19
Primary vaccine series (2 doses): 33
Boosted: 13
COVID-positive but not admitted for COVID: 16
ICU: 10