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

To paraphrase Didier Raoult, the French doctor who started it all, ‘I dare you, run a poll between me and Véran [France’s minister of health], we’ll see who comes out on top’.

the sad thing about this controversy is it's all centering around a paper that, due to the limits of its design, should not change our view of whether HCQ/CQ works one way or another

Senator Bob Casey Jr., Democrat of Pennsylvania, announced he has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies after experiencing mild symptoms. He’s the third senator known to have a confirmed case.

xpost seriously - even if the study was flawed, there isn't a (non-discredited) study which shows that it IS.

and my friend who takes a maintenance prescription for HCQ actually had his latest RX reduced to 30 pills instead of 90 as his carrier cited there was a shortage in availability, presumably due to the extra people taking it for COVID-19.

same, i have a friend with lupus who takes it

If the one human trial is a good indicator, the efficacy of remdesivir against COVID-19 is very modest. According to that WaPo article, the 'break even' cost for the patent-holding company could be around $1/dose. The eventual price should reflect those two factors... but will it?

Martin Shkreli to thread

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-monkeys-escape-with-covid-19-samples-after-attacking-lab-assistant-11996752

Did not have that one on my 2020 dumpster fire bingo card.

come ON

Looks like Trump made good on his threat and is going to pull the US out of the WHO.

They should tell him they need six months’ notice.

so now researchers have figured out how COVID-19 causes so many different symptoms in different organs: It is a disease of the blood vessels. They hope that this will point toward possible treatments.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30937-5/fulltext

Toward the end:

This hypothesis provides a rationale for therapies to stabilise the endothelium while tackling viral replication, particularly with anti-inflammatory anti-cytokine drugs, ACE inhibitors, and statins.

Presumably, since this article was listed as published in late April, this treatment strategy has been attempted in some cases and some preliminary data collected, even if there have not been any trials. I wonder how its going.

people keep touting this blood vessel angle since then but i haven't seen anything really decisive on it (not that i've been paying as much attention the past couple few weeks)

not now ebola

https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/01-06-2020-new-ebola-outbreak-detected-in-northwest-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-who-surge-team-supporting-the-response

USA deaths: after 5 weeks of steady decline, the 7-day moving average is trending positive for the first time since late-April.

what a nightmare

I'm dreading the numbers 4-6 weeks from now

average new cases and hospitalizations have been ticking up in Austin over the last week+

everything plateaued, so they opened things up without letting real decreases happen, genius move

In all fairness, what even is a "plateau"

In this context, I believe it means something like 'when people really really want to start doing normal things again, no seriously like really a lot, do you even know how boring it is being inside all the time'.

Nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop
And an illustrated book about birds

otm

where is charley harper when we need him most

I've hardly thought about COVID all week (and yes, "I'm dreading the numbers 4-6 weeks from now"). Has this been posted on any of the relevant threads?

http://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-06-03-20-intl/h_d9360b4e277953a4490fa5ee17285938

He's always seemed pretty cautious with such pronouncements.

The plan is to manufacture doses of the vaccine even before it is clear whether the vaccines work, making close to 100 million doses by November or December, Fauci said. That’s so if it does work, it can be deployed quickly.

I saw that after I posted--he still sounds optimistic.

“Which tells us, that if the body is capable of making an immune response to clear the virus of natural infection, that’s a pretty good proof of concept,” Fauci said. “Having said that, there is never a guarantee.”

He was a 12-18 months person early on with regards to a vaccine, so early 2021 almost fits that timeline--maybe 2-3 months ahead.

"The US should have 100 million doses of one candidate Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Tuesday.

“Then, by the beginning of 2021, we hope to have a couple hundred million doses,” Fauci said during a live question and answer session with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

uh, what happens between the end of this year and the beginning of 2021? do all other objects get doubled as well? might be a good time to put all your money out on the lawn, make a quick profit for the new year

lol

please touch the Orb of Doubling again Mr. President

but the Orb of Doubling carries a 10% chance of losing it all!!

tbh 2020 is the kind of year where you roll the dice anyway

The second one is a quote, and the first is a weird summary of a quote from one of those guys that's always keen to have an argument about how many 'several' is, and you can tell that he wants the answer to be 'seven'

Cases in Texas are on the rise. So is the positive rate. pic.twitter.com/Qa4iGquhWf

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) June 2, 2020

^ whole state-by-state rundown thread, fyi

Meanwhile, I think I saw (and while the exact numbers may be off the gist remains the same) that after a bunch of contact tracing in Hong Kong, they determined that a small handful of super-spreader events accounted for a huge number of cases, but of those who contracted Covid, 70% did not pass it along. For some reason certain people just spread the fuck out of this.

We don't know if it's the individual or the situation they're in, though. Or some combination.

Like, 25 people all with the same viral load will probably spread a lot differently depending on whether they're sitting home or eating in a crowded restaurant.

I mean just the variation in respiratory physiology and your manner of speaking could explain it. You could be a confident braying firehose of coronavirus vs some other person with gnarled and turbid sinuses that speaks to the floor in whispers.

Elevated levels in TX are definitely worrying me, hoping it's a bump since so many people seem to be doing a good job of sticking to masks and distancing.

a confident braying firehose of coronavirus

lol I needed this, thank you

*You could be a confident braying firehose of coronavirus vs some other person with gnarled and turbid sinuses that speaks to the floor in whispers.*

Being a shoegazer rather than a death metaller finally pays off

I saw Braying Firehose open for the Turbid Sinuses back in '93.

thanking u

I believe it depends on what you're doing and where you are - if you're at a choir or singing in a church or an exercise class or in a loud bar where you have to shout you're much more likely to be blowing it out there. It's not that some individuals are just biologically less likely to spread it.

some details on "superspreader" events here, it does seem possible that it is activity-related:

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/05/22/superspreaders

Being a shoegazer rather than a death metaller finally pays off

scene immunity not herd immunity

A++

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z45yWIXipy8