What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola

In the cases of the urban areas that are overrun at this point I think it’s airborne. By another means.

Insects.

If you have puddles of ‘bodily fluids’ lying about on sidewalks, roadsides and alleyways they’re likely covered in flies. Ditto the dead bodies in the streets. And the poop piles left by the infected yet asymptomatic dogs tha roam the streets. That then fly off and land on food in the market, someone’s face, a child’s toy, you name it. And carry the virus with them.

It only takes 1-10 virus particles to begin an infection chain. How many people in a poor country can afford to throw away dinner if a single fly walks on that at some point?

Liberia: Somebody Had to Do It: Turning People Away [Ebola]
( Medecins Sans Frontieres)
http://www.msf.org/article/liberia-somebody-had-do-it-turning-people-away-overwhelmed-ebola-treatment-centre

Pierre Trbovic, an anthropologist from Belgium, arrived in the Liberian capital, Monrovia in late August to help with MSF’s response to the Ebola epidemic. Finding the treatment centre full, health staff overwhelmed, and sick people queuing in the street, Pierre volunteered for the heartwrenching job of turning people away.

I can’t speak as to the number of people sent away. As such, any model I build as to the mathematical escalation will continue to use official numbers.

By using official numbers, it can’t be assailed. Anyone I choose to present the numbers to is forced to agree with it. They don’t have an alternative, because it is WHO reporting.

You can argue they are competently compiling the numbers, which is fair, but then the discussion goes to the degree to which it is under sampled, not over sampled.

The fact is, because the law of large numbers starts kicking in about Feb 15, it doesn’t matter what the under count is - at all.

All that matters is that the doubling period is accurate. On the basis of that, you can quibble around the edges as to the number. When 100K goes to 200K, which goes to 400K, which goes to 800K which goes to 1.6M, you are only talking about being off by single digit months.

Let’s say we are off by 2X, you are just going to have May’s numbers in April. Off by 4X? You’ll get May’s number in March.

What’s going to start happening is that the ratio of cases to deaths is going to drop for a period - from around 54% to the high 40’s. That’s the disease progressing faster than the death rate. At a certain point, as you run out of healthy bodies to infect, that ratio will creep up to, and stabilize at, around 70 to 75%.

The clinical attack ratio on this bad boy is officially 94%, but it is probably higher than that, as you point out.

R0, globally, is currently 1.5.

We’ll see if GSK can come up with a vaccine or a serum soon. That will be the first real mitigating intervention if they do.

I haven’t done any math yet on the economic damage projections, but most of the strategic metal and construction materials (bauxite, et. al.) come from Africa. The offshore platforms are going to get screened like there is no tomorrow to keep them pumping down there. They will do strange things to ensure contact between the OSV’s and the rigs are as controlled as they can be.

The chart of the Spanish Flu is a fact (in relation to what happened during Spanish Flu pandemic) but it has ZERO to do with Ebola. Why you cannot understand that is beyond me. Do you happen to live in Rio Linda BTW...?

Ebola, Spanish Flu, Global Warming, Fukushima, Swine Flu, Fracking, Et al have nothing do do with each other in isolation but they are intimately related in terms of being a tool used by government agencies, enviro groups, communists, marxist, leftists, ect to emit emotion and ultimately a propaganda tool.

Michael Osterholm happens to be a tool that is likely getting paid for yelling fire in a crowded theater. There are several articles out today with hysterical headlines about ‘what if’ Ebola goes airborne even though there is not a single shred of evidence that it is mutating into a virus with a greater propensity of going airborne.

Then we have people like you taking the Osterholm propaganda and promoting it by throwing up a chart of the Spanish Flu...even though there is ZERO relationship to the current Ebola outbreak. Irresponsible at minimum Kart...

It makes you wonder about Dr. Eric R. Pianka’s standing ovation in front of the Texas Academy of Science in 2006, after calling for the annihilation of 9 out of 10 people on Earth with *airborne* Ebola.

The only difference between him and some frothing kook on the Internet is that his audience had many people who might eventually be capable of creating a GM form of pulmonary Ebola.

So if there is any indication that a airborne form of Ebola exists, and there is any trace of GM about it, Pianka should be given a one-way ticket to Ebola inflicted Africa, so he can see his dream in action.

Eeeee-bolllll-aaaaaa ping!

Bring Out Your Dead

We’re gonna need

a bigger cart!

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

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