Ebola Is Airborne

[Hermit]

...attacking the messenger. I understand it is bad news but...attacking the messenger.

A certain beer hall rhetorician in Munich during the 1920's was a messenger of doom and gloom.

[cronus]

...attacking the messenger. I understand it is bad news but...attacking the messenger.

A certain beer hall rhetorician in Munich during the 1920's was a messenger of doom and gloom.

No, he provided false hope. A thousand years of greatness. The very reverse of my doom and gloom. I'm saying if you listen to me you will live. I never mentioned the squalor you will inherit on a ruined Earth, yet it will be your reality. It will change your idea of living and what it is about.

Anyway. Ebola might be listening to my rants on over-population, still it's own virus.

[JimC]

So, it's had parachute training...

[pErvinalia]

[cronus]

Ebola wants you to laugh.

[JimC]

Ebola wants you to laugh.

No, Ebola wants you to vomit uncontrollably over everybody you meet...

[Seth]

I generally avoid the sickly, and always avoid the dead.

Unless I happened upon Scarlett Johanssen's corpse. I probably bang it. If it was reasonably fresh, of course.

Had a girlfriend in high school who resembled Scarlett Johanssen's freshly-made corpse during lovemaking. I'd rather bang my fist thanks.

"Imaginary lovers never disagree...."

[Seth]

Low efficiency airborne, like is known already, however when the temperature and social context is exactly right, like the flu season in the new year, efficiency of transmission will increase dramatically. Do not do the seasonal party this year, avoid all unnecessary gatherings. Take to reading books and saying the wrong thing to the gregarious types until they go away without you. It is easy to be a survivor and easier not to be.

There's airborne, wherein spores or viral carriers that float on the breeze such as micro-milled <5nm Anthrax, are released as an invisible powder that contaminates surfaces and is drawn into the lungs, and then there's droplet infection. "Airborne" is used incorrectly much of the time to identify droplet infection from sneezing, coughing or otherwise flinging microscopic infected droplets of body fluids about at random.

A simple misting system contaminated with Ebola could infect everyone who breathes the invisible mist.

Thus the P100 filters on full-face respirator masks as the first line of defense against droplet infection.

[JimC]

Low efficiency airborne, like is known already, however when the temperature and social context is exactly right, like the flu season in the new year, efficiency of transmission will increase dramatically. Do not do the seasonal party this year, avoid all unnecessary gatherings. Take to reading books and saying the wrong thing to the gregarious types until they go away without you. It is easy to be a survivor and easier not to be.

There's airborne, wherein spores or viral carriers that float on the breeze such as micro-milled <5nm Anthrax, are released as an invisible powder that contaminates surfaces and is drawn into the lungs, and then there's droplet infection. "Airborne" is used incorrectly much of the time to identify droplet infection from sneezing, coughing or otherwise flinging microscopic infected droplets of body fluids about at random.

A simple misting system contaminated with Ebola could infect everyone who breathes the invisible mist.

Thus the P100 filters on full-face respirator masks as the first line of defense against droplet infection.

The point is that Ebola will only achieve such a method of transmission through deliberate human agency, not via natural processes such as colds and flu.

But I agree that it could potentially be used as a weapon in the way you describe...

[Calilasseia]

Low efficiency airborne, like is known already, however when the temperature and social context is exactly right, like the flu season in the new year, efficiency of transmission will increase dramatically. Do not do the seasonal party this year, avoid all unnecessary gatherings. Take to reading books and saying the wrong thing to the gregarious types until they go away without you. It is easy to be a survivor and easier not to be.

There's airborne, wherein spores or viral carriers that float on the breeze such as micro-milled <5nm Anthrax, are released as an invisible powder that contaminates surfaces and is drawn into the lungs, and then there's droplet infection. "Airborne" is used incorrectly much of the time to identify droplet infection from sneezing, coughing or otherwise flinging microscopic infected droplets of body fluids about at random.

A simple misting system contaminated with Ebola could infect everyone who breathes the invisible mist.

Thus the P100 filters on full-face respirator masks as the first line of defense against droplet infection.

The point is that Ebola will only achieve such a method of transmission through deliberate human agency, not via natural processes such as colds and flu.

I wouldn't bet on that. Viral recombination can produce some, shall we say, interesting results.

But I agree that it could potentially be used as a weapon in the way you describe...

It's actually hard work to achieve this with a virus that doesn't already possess some usable basic features. Plus, what the military are actually interested in, is containable bioweapons, that unleash their havoc over the target area, then come to a halt, and biodegrade harmlessly prior to the movement of friendly forces. Something that's going to bite one's own troops on the arse hard if they even sniff the air downwind of the target, isn't what your average general wants. Even if one is intending to use bioweapons strategically instead of tactically, the same proviso applies - it has to be containable, something that, in a biosphere subject to evolutionary processes, simply isn't going to be achievable for anything intended to last more than about a week.

[Sean Hayden]

[JimC]

Calilasseia wrote:

It's actually hard work to achieve this with a virus that doesn't already possess some usable basic features. Plus, what the military are actually interested in, is containable bioweapons, that unleash their havoc over the target area, then come to a halt, and biodegrade harmlessly prior to the movement of friendly forces. Something that's going to bite one's own troops on the arse hard if they even sniff the air downwind of the target, isn't what your average general wants. Even if one is intending to use bioweapons strategically instead of tactically, the same proviso applies - it has to be containable, something that, in a biosphere subject to evolutionary processes, simply isn't going to be achievable for anything intended to last more than about a week.

This would be true for conventional forces, but it wouldn't worry the mad mullahs if they wanted to launch a biowar terrorist attack on a western country...

[Seth]

Low efficiency airborne, like is known already, however when the temperature and social context is exactly right, like the flu season in the new year, efficiency of transmission will increase dramatically. Do not do the seasonal party this year, avoid all unnecessary gatherings. Take to reading books and saying the wrong thing to the gregarious types until they go away without you. It is easy to be a survivor and easier not to be.

There's airborne, wherein spores or viral carriers that float on the breeze such as micro-milled <5nm Anthrax, are released as an invisible powder that contaminates surfaces and is drawn into the lungs, and then there's droplet infection. "Airborne" is used incorrectly much of the time to identify droplet infection from sneezing, coughing or otherwise flinging microscopic infected droplets of body fluids about at random.

A simple misting system contaminated with Ebola could infect everyone who breathes the invisible mist.

Thus the P100 filters on full-face respirator masks as the first line of defense against droplet infection.

The point is that Ebola will only achieve such a method of transmission through deliberate human agency, not via natural processes such as colds and flu.

I wouldn't bet on that. Viral recombination can produce some, shall we say, interesting results.

But I agree that it could potentially be used as a weapon in the way you describe...

It's actually hard work to achieve this with a virus that doesn't already possess some usable basic features. Plus, what the military are actually interested in, is containable bioweapons, that unleash their havoc over the target area, then come to a halt, and biodegrade harmlessly prior to the movement of friendly forces. Something that's going to bite one's own troops on the arse hard if they even sniff the air downwind of the target, isn't what your average general wants. Even if one is intending to use bioweapons strategically instead of tactically, the same proviso applies - it has to be containable, something that, in a biosphere subject to evolutionary processes, simply isn't going to be achievable for anything intended to last more than about a week.

We're not talking about "military" forces, we're talking about insane Islamic jihadists who are willing to die who aren't smart enough to understand that they cannot contain a pandemic that's just as likely to get back to their country and kill their grasshopper eating, camel-fucking comrades who wipe their asses with stones and shit everywhere too. They think Allah will protect them, so they don't mind releasing a pandemic virus that kills infidels.

This is not an intellectual exercise folks, it's potentially the end of human civilization unless drastic measures are taken to stop the spread.

[pErvinalia]

Man you are a fear filled man. I assume you are in your bunker already..

[Seth]

Man you are a fear filled man. I assume you are in your bunker already..

No, I'm a realist who has information that you don't about the potential for bio-war weapons of mass destruction to be easily and undetectably distributed by relatively unsophisticated enemy agents. If you want to take this lightly, go right ahead. And no, I'm not in the bunker, but I can be if and when it becomes necessary. What the fuck are you going to do?

Die, that's what you are going to do. Infection, starvation or civil disorder, it doesn't matter much what the cause will be, but you will certainly die if you fail to train and prepare to execute a plan for survival.

I don't have to live in fear BECAUSE I have the knowledge, training, skills and resources with which to maximize my chances of survival, regardless of the cause or origin.