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

very possible that this will become endemic though, meaning possible yearly outbreaks of a lesser severity

I'm so glad I can be comforted by the fact that we have strong leadership with a robust plan for rolling out the vaccine. No, wait, we are fucked.

well let's see how we do with an administration that doesn't consider it a hoax

We had one of those and iirc fuck-all happened

i seem to remember several hundred thousand people dying

oh I got confused I thought we were talking about climate change for some reason

Interesting thread on the UK variant, the dust is beginning to settle and basically I'm getting a sense that we didn't lock down early enough for long enough, that we didn't look at schools and so the variant has been made more of than it perhaps should've.

#COVID19 hospital admissions in London seem like they're continuing to fall

I was skeptical about the new variant story early on, here's a short thread in chronological order of things I wrote about ithttps://t.co/5OTD0vO2DF

— Joshua Loftus (@joftius) January 14, 2021

The crowded tubes and the huge amounts of people mixing indoors aren’t getting the blame they should (from government).

From a WGN article about Chicago's vaccine plans:

The city says the biggest problem its facing is not receiving enough vaccines.

“When I think about 600,000 people to vaccinate in that next phase, getting 36, 32, 35,000 doses a week isn’t going to be enough to move ahead quickly,” Dr. Allison Arwardy said.

This doesn't make me feel great. The "next phase" they are referring to is the 65+ older/essential workers phase (1B). So assuming 35,000 doses per week, it's going to take more than 17 weeks to get through that phase (assuming we ignore the second dose, for the moment). Considering this phase hasn't even started yet, we are looking at June before we even start to get to Phase 1C, which is other essential workers and high-risk folks under 65. We're in for a long, long, long ride.

Wow that sucks. Texas has already given 1M shots!

League tables for this here - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html

congrats to california and the deep south

Georgia is really going to have to step it up to avoid relegation.

Two million deaths worldwide now according to Worldometers:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

(although they seem to skew both higher and lower than various other tallies I've seen)

Re double-masking: I started doing it about 10 days ago. Don't notice any difference at all in comfort-level; I wear glasses, so still a nuisance, but I do feel safer.

(Prompted by the newer strain.)

https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036

🇫🇷🦠 #France will impose a nationwide 6pm #curfew for at least 15 days starting on Saturday to stem the spread of coronavirus, PM #Castex said.

A #Covid19 #vaccine will also be offered to those at high risk from Monday regardless of age.

France 24's @cfbennett2 reports ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/qCaYcsnfhz

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) January 15, 2021

onimo I thought of that immediately as well LOL

God I don't think we will ever reckon with the mental health destruction this has wrought.

I struggled off and on, a ton, throughout 2020, but I'm flabbergasted by how much worse I feel now. Complete despair and hopelessness.

Sorry to hear that, jon. Don't ask me for a citation, but my general sense is that things are bound to get better from here on out.

Saw some hope that the current USA post-holiday spike has "perhaps" reached its apex.

I'm just struggling to find any good news. At least one new strain that is considerably more transmissible, exactly when we are opening schools back up around here. A complete failure of a vaccine roll-out which, at the current rate, will take more than 5 years to hit ~80% of the 16 and up population in my state.

It's not going to stay at the current rate

FWIW, we're about to have a new presidential administration that actually takes this shit seriously.

last two posts otm

Yeah, I get the despair, we are currently at our lowest point and it's horrible, but there's some very obvious reasons to assume that this will turn around over the next few months.

Hey, I hope so, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Is there a strong reason to doubt it? Vaccinations just started in the last month. It's been a mess but it's actually happening despite an utter void of leadership. Biden is coming in with an actual plan to manage vaccinations effectively and the manufacturers are ramping up production. It won't happen nearly as fast as we'd like, but this stuff is actually happening.

This could be a critical time, with some reasons to be hopeful

- at least some new restrictions potentially having teeth
- holidays over
- vaccinations proceeding (albeit slowly)
- in a lot of places it's still too cold to go do outdoor gathering / concert-type stuff

Well, I mean *gesturing wildly around at the last ten months*, yeah, there is a lot of reasons to doubt it. I mean, obviously having an administration that believes in science and cares about this stuff is very important and will make a tremendous difference. But it's not like waving a magic wand and the hour Biden is inaugurated, things will improve. It is more likely to take months to start by untangling the mess Trump made of everything before we can even start more efficient distribution.

Yes, that's why I said it won't happen as fast as we'd like, but there's a clear change in conditions that will improve things.

My work has sent round an email asking if anyone wants to be a volunteer at the medical research facility that's next door to us and is being used as a vaccination centre. The USP being that you'll be vaccinated youself if you volunteer - Pfizer (you'll also be vaccinated against Hepatitis B too). No-one I'm in contact with seems very enthusiastic.

There are a range of roles people can volunteer for, including marshalling, checking people into the FCI facility, looking after people awaiting their jab, and actually administering the vaccination.

Looking after people waiting for their jab? Must get working on my balloon animal skills.

krautrock song & dance routine

One thing to remember about the vaccine rollout is that once the most vulnerable are at least partially protected, the fatality rates should plummet. Unfortunately this might mean the likes of the UK government triumphantly telling everyone it's all over, but HOPEFULLY it won't be looking nearly as bleak as it is right now.

- in a lot of places it's still too cold to go do outdoor gathering / concert-type stuff

that's probably a negative, since people will just gather inside instead

as little faith as I have in government it seems apparent that vaccinating everyone as quickly as possible is the most important and helpful thing you can do so I don't doubt the incoming admin is going to be taking this seriously. worth mentioning that the vaccine itself only got approved like...last month?

(xp) I obviously wouldn't mind getting the vaccine but I very much doubt I have the bedside manner to reassure some old dear worried about getting the jab.

I just know I'd make some badly formed joek about it having microchips in it and this snowballing to an embarrassing degree

... or Bill Gates. Hard to resist tbh.

there's some very obvious reasons to assume that this will turn around over the next few months.

more money will be forthcoming. vaccine manufacture will run at capacity. weak spots in various state programs will be identified. the amount of direct federal coordination and assistance will increase. the big problem is states are stretched so thin they are always playing catch up as events continually run ahead of them.

(xp) I obviously wouldn't mind getting the vaccine but I very much doubt I have the bedside manner to reassure some old dear worried about getting the jab.

― Waterloo Subset (Tom D.), Friday, January 15, 2021 1:33 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you could read them ILX posts!

biden has hinted at this previously but 100% should commit to invoking the defense production act to ramp up vaccine manufacturing

Since this is Biden, he'll actually end up only committing to 70% of it then.

Yeaaaah, seeing Biden trying to tamp down expectations for the vaccine already isn't making me feel any better. Undoubtedly it will get better, but seeing the "if necessary" qualifier added to his talk about the Defense Production Act doesn't thrill me.

I mean, if this pandemic doesn't make the DPA "necessary", what's the fucking point?

agreed, but i assume the problem with the DPA as written is the companies it applies to will sue the federal government if it's invoked and they might win.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/nyregion/nj-vaccine-smokers-covid.html

🤦‍♂

ahhaha are they serious? ffs

this seems like a preview of what we're going to see when everyone is eligible https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-16/more-than-40-of-l-a-firefighters-still-unvaccinated