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Here's The Most Terrifying Thing About Ebola
BI - Slate ^ | 9-20-2014 | Benjamin Hale, Slate

Posted on 09/20/2014 1:42:23 PM PDT by blam

Benjamin Hale, Slate
September 20, 2014

As the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has spiraled out of control, affecting thousands of Liberians, Sierra Leonians, and Guineans, and threatening thousands more, the world’s reaction has been glacially, lethally slow. Only in the past few weeks have heads of state begun to take serious notice. To date, the virus has killed more than 2,600 people. This is a comparatively small number when measured against much more established diseases such as malaria,HIV/AIDS, influenza, and so on, but several factors about this outbreak have some of the world’s top health professionals gravely concerned:

Its kill rate: In this particular outbreak, a running tabulation suggests that 54 percent of the infected die, though adjusted numbers suggest that the rate is much higher.

Its exponential growth: At this point, the number of people infected is doubling approximately every three weeks, leading some epidemiologists to project between 77,000 and 277,000 cases by the end of 2014.

The gruesomeness with which it kills: by hijacking cells and migrating throughout the body to affect all organs, causing victims to bleed profusely.

The ease with which it is transmitted: through contact with bodily fluids, including sweat, tears, saliva, blood, urine, semen, etc., including objects that have come in contact with bodily fluids (such as bed sheets, clothing, and needles) and corpses.

The threat of mutation: Prominent figures have expressed serious concerns that this disease will go airborne, and there are many other mechanisms through which mutation might make it much more transmissible.

Terrifying as these factors are, it is not clear to me that any of them capture what is truly, horribly tragic about this disease.

(snip)

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africa; disease; ebola; ebolafacts; ebolaoutbreak; virus
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1 posted on 09/20/2014 1:42:23 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

No. The most terrifying thing about Ebola is that we have to rely upon Obama to protect us from it.


2 posted on 09/20/2014 1:44:33 PM PDT by Cyclops08
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To: Cyclops08

No kidding, the golfing marxist probably doesn’t even care.


3 posted on 09/20/2014 1:50:17 PM PDT by Bullish (You ever notice that liberalism really just amounts to anti-morality?)
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To: SmokingJoe
I emailed this article, Ebola Worst-Case Scenario Has More Than 500,000 Cases , to my son (PhD physics) who is vacationing in Copenhagen. Here is his email response to me :

"The day of reckoning may be near. Why do you think we (US) are sending command and control? What the article does not expound on is that if we get to those much larger numbers the current response is not scalable. At some point, probably now already we need to focus on enforcing quarantine between populations that are capable of managing incursions and those that are not, ala epidemic scenario. And with half survive with immunity, we need to prepare for those infected populations once stabilized because those left alive are immune, now possess a potential WMD. "

4 posted on 09/20/2014 1:50:45 PM PDT by blam (Jeff Sessions For President)
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To: blam
Confirmed: Survivors of Ebola selling blood on black market - WHO
5 posted on 09/20/2014 1:54:22 PM PDT by blam (Jeff Sessions For President)
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To: blam

Liposomal Vitamin C

Garlic

Oil of Oregano

more bio-absorbable b-12

manuka honey

and anybody, don’t mock it. they turned to tobacco extracts to save a few people from this. enhanced natural stuff can be an option when the experts say we can’t treat it, just give supportive therapy.


6 posted on 09/20/2014 1:54:36 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Bullish

Hey, he’s sending our troops off to get it! How’s that for caring? We share the burden...


7 posted on 09/20/2014 1:54:46 PM PDT by livius
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To: blam

A thinking man wrote that email.


8 posted on 09/20/2014 1:56:28 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: blam

The most terrifying thing to me about Ebola is that the incompetent morons running the U.S. “Government” think it is no worse than a case of the sniffles while the dumbass in the White Hut is going to send the Army to “fight” against it? WTF?!


9 posted on 09/20/2014 1:57:32 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Don't just stand there! Help fight political correctness!)
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To: FlingWingFlyer
“the dumbass in the White Hut.” Way too polite.
10 posted on 09/20/2014 1:59:48 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: Secret Agent Man
Don't forget this one:

The Antibiotic Vitamin

"Deficiency in vitamin D may predispose people to infection"

11 posted on 09/20/2014 2:00:31 PM PDT by blam (Jeff Sessions For President)
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To: blam
Something else to consider:

Medical professionals are early and common victims. Ebola will therefore kill a lot of people who never get ebola -- you need kidney dialysis? Chemotherapy? Surgery for a car accident? Sorry -- clinics and hospitals pretty much closed up because the professionals died or decided to stay away.

And the tertiary effects: Food production and distribution? If ebola makes an impact in the population, then there are fewer workers who can (or are willing) to engage in business-as-usual. Now some regions -- regions with no ebola -- those regions may have food shortages. Or energy shortages.

It spirals out of control and the population crash picks up speed over and over the actual spread of the virus.

And then there is the aspect of war and invasion ...

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride together.

12 posted on 09/20/2014 2:01:11 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("Now is not the time for fear. That comes later.")
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To: blam

If anyone is planning on it’s government to stop this, they are delusional.

This is the time to prepare. It is the time to talk. It is time to explain to all family members what is going on, and how we deal with these things.

Americans are all about inclusion and fairness these days. They have no idea how unfair and indiscriminate a virus can be. We have not faced a brutal enemy on our homeland in centuries.

If this show us, it will teach a lesson to our children that will dwarf the stories of the Greatest Generation.

Many here a convinced we are immune to the crap the rest of the world faces. They are wrong. Let’s assume we can keep the death rate of Ebola to just 1/5th of it’s current rate. That’s still 10% of all infected.

So, if half the people are infected, and 10% of them are killed! we are still looking at 15,000,000 deaths in the US.

Crazy stuff, huh?


13 posted on 09/20/2014 2:06:46 PM PDT by Vermont Lt (Ebola: Death is a lagging indicator.)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: blam

“Deficiency in vitamin D may predispose people to infection”

but we are told to use sunblock. why God chose to put that cancer causing sun up in the sky is a mystery.


15 posted on 09/20/2014 2:12:13 PM PDT by willywill
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Comment #16 Removed by Moderator

To: Secret Agent Man

ZMapp wasn’t just a tobacco extract. It was an extract from genetically modified tobacco plants. Tobacco plants on their own do not express the antibodies that were extracted from the GMO tobacco plants. ‘Tobacco extracts’ on their own are likely useless to fight this.

I would love to be wrong however.


17 posted on 09/20/2014 2:20:32 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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Sorry everybody, I’ve heard this all before and the end-of-the-world scenarios never happen. Y2K, AIDS, swine flu, bird flu, years later people can’t even remember what the fuss was about. I will focus on keeping my own immune system healthy instead of fixating on yet another world-ending disaster.


18 posted on 09/20/2014 2:23:28 PM PDT by ar15cz75
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To: blam

I was channel surfing Friday afternoon and landed on The Doctors, a medical talkshow. They were talking about the Ebola outbreaks, US troops, and the potentiality for Ebola to transform and become airborn.

They didn’t offer any solutions, but they seemed scared that a potential pandemic outbreak could occur in the US, due to the openness of travel in and out of the country.

Video:

http://www.thedoctorstv.com/videos/containing-the-ebola-outbreak


19 posted on 09/20/2014 2:23:55 PM PDT by TomGuy
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To: Vermont Lt
The Trouble With Keeping Commercial Flights Clean

"With the Ebola Crisis in the Background, Standards for Disinfecting Planes Vary Based on Time, Class"

20 posted on 09/20/2014 2:31:41 PM PDT by blam (Jeff Sessions For President)
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