Ebola is now running wild in America

[pErvinalia]

The flu will kill vastly more numbers of people than ebola will. Get a fucking grip.

[Hermit]

The flu will kill vastly more numbers of people than ebola will. Get a fucking grip.

And when the Mongols brought the plague to Europe in the 14th century, somewhere between 30 and 60% of the continent's population was wiped out in seven years. Looks like it has recovered a tad since then, and no, that recovery did not take 700 years.

[cronus]

http://www.rense.com/general12/bub.htm

'Black Death' Was Caused By
Ebola Virus - Not Bubonic Plague

History textbooks have got it wrong about the Black Death, which they say was caused by bubonic plague spread by rats and their fleas. A new study suggests that it was in fact caused by an Ebola-like virus transmitted directly from person to person.

If the findings are confirmed it could mean that a modern form of the Black Death can emerge without requiring the insanitary conditions of the Middle Ages.

Generations of schoolchildren have been told that the plague bacteria transmitted by flea bites caused the great pestilences of medieval Europe which first appeared in the 14th century and killed at least 25 million people more than a quarter of the entire population ñ over a 300-year period. But two infectious disease specialists who have analysed the Black Death have concluded that it bears a closer resemblance to modern outbreaks of haemorrhagic fever caused by the Ebola virus.

They also claim that a key mutation in a gene that protects people against infection by the Aids virus is estimated to have appeared at about the same time as the Black Death and served a similar function in that it gave carriers some protection against the virus.

Both observations point to an Ebola-like virus rather than bubonic plague bacteria ñ being responsible, according to professors Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott, of the University of Liverpool.

"Intuitively, the Black Death has all the hallmarks of a viral disease rather than one caused by plague bacteria. The history books are wrong, there's little doubt about that," said Professor Duncan, who studies the way epidemics spread.

The first recorded outbreak of the Black Death occurred at the Sicilian port of Messina in 1347 and was brought in by Genoese galleys returning from the Crimea on the Black Sea.

A year later the disease arrived in the West Country of England and soon spread to towns and cities where it caused fear and panic among a superstitious population who thought the red blotches on the chest of affected individuals were "God's tokens".

Professor Duncan said people soon learnt that the only effective way of dealing with the Black Death was to put affected families and even entire villages into quarantine for 40 days. "A quarantine period was first instituted in the city states of northern Italy in the late 14th century and this was gradually adopted throughout Europe and maintained for the next 300 years until the plague disappeared," professors Duncan and Scott say in their book Biology of Plagues.

A quarantine would not have been effective if the disease was spread by rat fleas," said Professor Duncan. "Rats don't respect quarantines. This disease was transmitted directly from person to person which suggests an infectious virus."

Bubonic plagues spread in a complex fashion because they rely on the interaction of fleas, rats and people. Yet the pattern of spread of the Black Death was relatively simple and predictable, indicating person-to-person transmission.

(continued, )

[rainbow]

Well, it is now on the loose, and nobody knows who is infected.
Why on earth are they allowing visitors from Liberia with this sort of risk lurking?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/o ... exas-virus

Excellent question. I think I recommended blockade of Africa some time ago. Too late, it's here.

It was a stupid idea.

[mistermack]

The flu will kill vastly more numbers of people than ebola will. Get a fucking grip.

Nobody knows that.
Not even you.

I suspect that that's probably right, myself. But, it's a shitter if it isn't. This particular ebola virus seems to transmit between humans much better than previous ones.

In Africa, it obviously started with one case. Now, nine months later, there have been 3,000 plus confirmed.
Probably many more not confirmed. So it can jump from 1 to about 5,000 cases, we know that.
So each of those 5,000 cases can lead to 5,000 new cases in the same way, in another nine months.

That's 25 million cases by the middle of next year, if the current infection rate was to continue.
Which would result in 15 million plus deaths.

And of course, there's no guarantee that it will remain just in Africa.

[mistermack]

Excellent question. I think I recommended blockade of Africa some time ago. Too late, it's here.

It was a stupid idea.

I disagree.
What would it have cost the US to ban incoming travel from Liberia?
Practically fuck-all.

Even if the one person has not spread it in the US, the risk is still there now, for another person to do the same.
If I was in power in the US, I would be banning incoming travel from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

[pErvinalia]

The flu will kill vastly more numbers of people than ebola will. Get a fucking grip.

Nobody knows that.
Not even you.

I suspect that that's probably right, myself. But, it's a shitter if it isn't. This particular ebola virus seems to transmit between humans much better than previous ones.

In Africa, it obviously started with one case. Now, nine months later, there have been 3,000 plus confirmed.
Probably many more not confirmed. So it can jump from 1 to about 5,000 cases, we know that.
So each of those 5,000 cases can lead to 5,000 new cases in the same way, in another nine months.

That's 25 million cases by the middle of next year, if the current infection rate was to continue.
Which would result in 15 million plus deaths.

And of course, there's no guarantee that it will remain just in Africa.

I am talking about in the West (aka the OP). When you look at the death rate in healthy people who get early treatment, it isn't that bad. I'll bet you it won't kill more people in the West than flu will. I'll send you my bank account details to deposit the money.

[mistermack]

The flu will kill vastly more numbers of people than ebola will. Get a fucking grip.

Nobody knows that.
Not even you.

I suspect that that's probably right, myself. But, it's a shitter if it isn't. This particular ebola virus seems to transmit between humans much better than previous ones.

In Africa, it obviously started with one case. Now, nine months later, there have been 3,000 plus confirmed.
Probably many more not confirmed. So it can jump from 1 to about 5,000 cases, we know that.
So each of those 5,000 cases can lead to 5,000 new cases in the same way, in another nine months.

That's 25 million cases by the middle of next year, if the current infection rate was to continue.
Which would result in 15 million plus deaths.

And of course, there's no guarantee that it will remain just in Africa.

I am talking about in the West (aka the OP). When you look at the death rate in healthy people who get early treatment, it isn't that bad. I'll bet you it won't kill more people in the West than flu will. I'll send you my bank account details to deposit the money.

Well, if you are going by the cases so far, it's a fair bet that that's right.
But isolating intensive care beds are few in number, and if the epidemic got hold, it wouldn't be possible to give that sort of care, so the death rate would go up and up.

Send me your bank details by all means. I'll post them on facebook, in case anybody wants to take you up on the bet.

[Hermit]

If I was in power in the US, I would be banning incoming travel from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Cute idea. It won't catch the reporter - or anyone else, though - who travels from those countries to, say, report on a health conference in Mumbai, Oslo or wherever or whatever, then returns to the USA.

[pErvinalia]

If I was in power in the US I would ban Republicans.

[mistermack]

If I was in power in the US, I would be banning incoming travel from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Cute idea. It won't catch the reporter - or anyone else, though - who travels from those countries to, say, report on a health conference in Mumbai, Oslo or wherever or whatever, then returns to the USA.

No, it's just a question of affecting the odds, not a guaranteed prevention strategy.

The visa people could impose their own more detailed restrictions, if the situation got serious though, and I'm sure that that would happen, if the outbreak got out of hand.

This is from the daily snail :

''The Times also revealed that Mr Duncan may have contracted Ebola while helping carry his landlord's seriously ill, pregnant daughter to hospital.
The woman, named by The Times as 19-year-old Marthalene Williams was taken to a hospital on September 15, but turned away because there was no room to treat her. She died the following day.
The landlord's son and three neighbors who came in contact with the woman also died soon afterwards.
That seems a pretty infectious bug, going by that.
The man who carried it to the States, Mr Duncan, told the Texas hospital that he had recently been in an Ebola area in Africa, but they sent him home.

It makes you wonder if his insurance status was why they didn't admit him
It would be pretty ironic if ebola got going in the US because of the health insurance system.

[rainbow]

Excellent question. I think I recommended blockade of Africa some time ago. Too late, it's here.

It was a stupid idea.

I disagree.
What would it have cost the US to ban incoming travel from Liberia?
Practically fuck-all.

Even if the one person has not spread it in the US, the risk is still there now, for another person to do the same.
If I was in power in the US, I would be banning incoming travel from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The stupidity is in that the infected person in the US didn't fly directly from Africa.

[Seth]

http://www.rense.com/general12/bub.htm

'Black Death' Was Caused By
Ebola Virus - Not Bubonic Plague

Very interesting article scrumple, thanks. They make a very plausible case indeed.

[rainbow]

The flu will kill vastly more numbers of people than ebola will. Get a fuckinggrip griep

Fixed.

[mistermack]

[
The stupidity is in that the infected person in the US didn't fly directly from Africa.

You are inventing your own stupidity there.
Seth's ''blockade'' didn't mention that it was restricted to direct flights from Africa.
Nor did my ''travel ban''.

Change the meaning of a post, and then call it stupid? That's ....... daft.