The Ebola Thread

[Beet]

“All entertainment centers are to be closed; All video centers are to be closed at 6:00 PM.; Commencing Wednesday, August 20 there will be a curfew from 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM,” she said in a nationwide address on Tuesday. The President said West Point in Monrovia and Dolo Town in Margibi is quarantined under full security watch meaning there will be no movements in and out of those areas.

Holy sh**t, imagine living there right now.

http://frontpageafricaonline.com/index.php/news/2717-ebola-curfew-liberia-announces-9-6-restrictions-west-point-quarantined

[Beet]

The latest update from W.H.O. is not good. Guinea is accelerating again after a long dormancy. The international orgs are fully on top of this now yet they are stretched beyond their limit to respond. Any additional scale up would have to come from national governments, but at this point the costs are getting increasingly prohibitive. World leaders may have missed the chance to nip this thing in the bud. Obama is distracted.

Meanwhile, riots in West Point today; apparently the coast guard has also been called out to prevent people from boarding rafts. They're still going to have to get food in...

[Beet]

A visual of the situation (and keep in mind W.H.O. says these numbers are "vastly underestimated"):

[Beet]

Heroic American Christian aid workers have been cured and released from Emory University.

Donald Trump's reaction.

[Beet]

Most charities have shied away from creating specially dedicated pages for ebola fundraising, but UC San Francisco has a page where you can give directly to the response effort. For $50 you can provide personal protective gear for one health care provider. I've given $300 to the ebola effort thus far this year. (A wealthy donor has pledged to match all donations over $250).

https://crowdfund.ucsf.edu/project/53e4f5e60920655b8211663c

Watch the video as well; MSF, WHO, and the Ministry of Health are not taking care of this.

[Beet]

It rolls on: Senegal, Ivory Coast, have shut their land borders and other states have shut sea links.

Food shortages are starting to develop, as ships required to bring in imported rice are reluctant to dock in disease-hit countries. Communal work arrangements have broken down, threatening the harvest.

[Beet]

The kid who was shot in the leg during the West Point riot last week has died. The kid had a totally treatable wound, he was on the front pages of the news all over the world. It's not like this was a massacre, only two or three people were shot. Most prominent was this teen, who had gone to the store to buy food and got caught in the crossfire coming home.

Apparently, the kids' family drove him to JFK hospital where he was refused admission; then they drove him from hospital to hospital all over Monrovia and not a single one admitted him. Finally he ended up at Redemption Hospital and bled to death. He needed an infusion of blood but there was no one in the whole city who could give him blood, so after 2 days he just bled to death, his wound totally untreated.

This is a guy who was on national news and his photo was splashed over every paper in the country. And he couldn't get someone to treat a simple wound for 2 days, and died. Health workers dressed in full ebola gear came to pick up his body and wouldn't let his family near him.

There are stories of pregnant women wandering from hospital to hospital in Monrovia and getting rejected, finally giving birth with no care and some of them died.

This is the new Liberia... NO health system AT ALL. You might as well be in the stone ages. On top of that, it is reported that there are thousands of HIV patients who are no longer getting their retrovirals because the clinic they were going to has stopped functioning.

[Beet]

True. Part of the reason the healthcare system was knocked down so easily is that it was so weak to begin with.

[Beet]

First good news for Africa in a while -- the situation in Nigeria seems to be stabilizing.

[Beet]

C.D.C. director Tom Frieden is touring Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (his initial flight was cancelled because Senegal is no longer allowing Brussels Airlines flights to stop over in that country). Here are his comments:

He emphasized that the toll is "far larger than has been recorded, not because they are trying to hide anything but because they are really overwhelmed by these numbers." Beyond this, he said, the cases "are increasing at an extremely quick rate, and this is very alarming."

Because of the outbreak, Liberians who require other kinds of medical care have avoided seeking help. "Urgent health needs are definitely going unmet," Frieden said. "Hospital occupancy" is 10 percent. This means one of the urgent tasks ahead is to make sure treatment is available to patients who are not suffering from Ebola.

Ending the crisis hinges largely on improving infection control and burial practices, Frieden said. Until now, "cremation was not part of the burial culture here," he said, but people are increasingly accepting it.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/08/26/343436300/cdc-director-on-ebola-we-are-definitely-not-at-the-peak

The situation is not slowing in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The only realistic solution to this is going to be a massive public education campaign. Since there are not enough health workers to deal with treating the sick, and disposal of bodies is going to become a much more labor-demanding task as deaths pile up, only massive cooperation by the public is going to stop this epidemic. In countries that have not yet seen ebola yet are at risk, such as Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Nigeria, massive training through community leaders, church leaders, the media, schools and government must be undertaken to get the population to practice the correct behaviors.

[Beet]

"We have staff at the gate who do nothing but turn away people. This is not easy, because we don't know where they could go," said Karline Kleijer from MSF.

In West Africa, the Ebola epidemic is still spreading rapidly. To help patients MSF opened an emergency clinic last week in the Liberian capital Monrovia. After four days the clinic was full.

Currently there are about 200 patients in the clinic. According Kleijer that could have been more than 600 already if they had opened the doors. That can not be, because so many people infected with Ebola would be a danger to the employees of MSF.

Not administered
Because there are not enough emergency clinics and regular healthcare is not functioning most Ebola patients can not be administered. Therefore, the clinic expanded by another dozen beds. But even that is not enough. "We know that there are thousands of patients are walking in the street, infecting other people," says Kleijer.

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=227003

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Crematorium exhausted:

"Monrovia (AFP) - The crematorium in the Liberian capital Monrovia is struggling to deal with the dozens of Ebola victims whose bodies are being brought each day, the Red Cross said Thursday.
Fayah Tamba, the secretary-general of the Liberian division of the charity, said workers were having to return corpses to a hospital in the city after being told there was not the capacity to cremate all the victims.
She told a local radio station that she believes it may now be necessary for international organisations to take over responsibility for handling the crisis from the national authorities."

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=226840

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Ebola-infested bodies lying the street being consumed by dogs:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201408260125.html

[Beet]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/29/putin-ukraine-soldiers_n_5734322.html#68_ukraine-says-it-will-seek-nato-membership

A man from Guinea confirmed to be Senegal's first case of ebola in this outbreak

Wrong link, but sh**t. Our only hope was that this could be contained in those three countries. This cannot be allowed to devastate Africa. The continent is on the verge of an economic explosion, similar to where East Asia was in 1960. If the virus is allowed to head that off, it would be the greatest tragedy since the outbreak of WWI.

[Beet]

MSF asks for more: not lip service, but action

http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-failures-international-outbreak-response

[Beet]

CDC: Window is Closing on Containing Ebola

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/02/cdc-window-is-closing-on-containing-ebola.html

Days after returning from West Africa, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden opened a press conference with a sobering admonition about the effort to contain the Ebola epidemic to West Africa: “the window is closing.”

In an impassioned call to action, he urged American doctors, nurses, and health care professionals to join Africa in its fight. “This isn’t just the countries’ problem,” he said. “It’s a global problem.” With vivid detail, Frieden painted a gruesome picture of overcrowded isolation centers in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, where health care workers are struggling to keep up with “basic care.” He mentioned deficiencies not only in the number of doctors, nurses, and health managers available, but the protective gear needed to keep them safe. Without an immediate change in the current landscape, he said, the worst is yet to come. “The level of outbreak is beyond anything we’ve seen—or even imagined,” Frieden said.
...
But even more alarming than the disturbing images, was the lack of outside support. “The most upsetting thing I saw was what I didn’t see,” he said. “No data from countries where it’s spreading, no rapid response teams, no trucks, a lack of efficient management,” he said. “I could not possibly overstate the need for an urgent response.”

[Beet]

The U.S. ambassador to Liberia, Deborah Malac, admits that more should have been done months ago:

"I don't think any of us quite realized the scope of what we were dealing with. This is the largest outbreak in history of this disease. We are serious in doing what we can from the U.S government side to address this..[but] we need the government of Liberia; we need the people of Liberia; we need WHO (the World Health Organization); we need all the other international partners out there, because this is a global issue.

"It's not just a Liberia issue," she said, "It's something that we all need to confront".

http://allafrica.com/stories/201409021646.html?aa_source=acrdn-f0

The CDC is committing $21 million from its budget, and WHO has asked for $430 million. Two months ago the numbers were being quoted in the hundreds of thousands:

The EU has provisioned 500,000 euros and this alone will allow Medicines Sans Frontiers, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent a significant expansion of resources. 500,000 euros!... $1 million is going to make a huge difference. Six months from now, $1 billion might not be enough.

Well it's only been two months and we're already nearly halfway there...

[Beet]

There are reports of suspected cases that come in from all over the world on a nearly daily basis; and surely even more that aren't being reported. So far virtually all of them have come out  negative, which is why I've stopped posting about such instances. However, if the disease continues to spread in West Africa, it is only a matter of time before it escapes the region.

Another concern is that it was reported about a week ago that a Harvard team decoded about 99 ebola virus genomes and found over 50 mutations of the virus since it first broke out in West Africa. The more people the virus infects, the more chances it has the mutate, and the longer it goes on, the more it infects.

Meanwhile, the NY Times has published a good article on how budget cuts have devastated W.H.O., leading the response to the current outbreak to be unprofessional, understaffed, lacking in experienced people, and lacking in leadership.

[Beet]

Meanwhile, the virus is spreading even faster than I had anticipated. If anyone thinks I have been too worried or too concerned about the virus, it appears that the opposite was true, as at the end of July when the last update was just over 1,300 cases, I predicted there would be roughly 3,000 cases by September 1, then revised that to 3,200 cases three weeks ago.

However, the latest W.H.O. update indicates 3,685 cases as of August 31. If the virus is growing at an exponential rate, the exponent is increasing. There approximately half as many cases about 23 or 24 days prior to the 31st, meaning that the doubling time is dropping.

[Beet]

I have updated my extrapolations based on the current growth rate (past 24 days). At this rate, there will be 60,000 infections in three months and about 900,000 infections in six months.

If it ever reaches that point, of course W.H.O. will have stopped keeping track.

[Beet]

Great news... the EU is committing about $200 million to the fight.

[Beet]

It looks like Obama is finally starting to take this seriously:

The US military will join the fight against fast-spreading Ebola in Africa, president Barack Obama said, warning it will be months before the epidemic slows.

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Better late than never, bud. Godspeed!

[Beet]

Beet, quick question.  Do you have a wall (or two) of your home covered in news clippings, maps, photos, etc?  Perhaps with red string pinned all over to connect them together?

What, am I supposed to care about things in the proportion as they are reported on CNN? I determine the importance of situations through logic, not being led mindlessly by what some news executives in Atlanta or NYC deem will generate the most advertising dollars for their corporate entity. I am grateful for the mainstream media for first alerting me that Ebola had reached Conakry in April, after that I followed the story on my own.

The same logic and instincts that led me to think that there would be a populist backlash against Obama in November 2008, or that the Euro crisis was more serious than was being credence for in April 2010 (or that it had reached its peak by October 2012), led me to believe back in June that this Ebola situation was more serious than the mainstream media was giving it credit for. The last 3 months have vindicated me again and again, as well as MSF/Doctors Without Borders, which I have been holding up from the beginning as the ones we should be listening to. I am glad that the POTUS is finally coming around.

[Beet]

Me back on July 19:

The kicker is the guy took the taxi to the hospital, potentially leaving his bodily fluids all over it and infecting however is the next person to take that taxi. There was no mention in the article that the taxi was tracked down and de-fumigated.

W.H.O. today:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/08/us-health-ebola-who-idUSKBN0H31RU20140908

I'd say being six weeks ahead of the World Health Organization based solely on reading news reports is pretty damned impressive. Another thing I deserve accolades on with this.

[Beet]

Liberia: Ebola Patients Starve At JFK

The three patients, all men, escaped butt naked after they reportedly frightened unarmed security officers assigned to the holding center at Cholera Unit, threatening that if they were not allowed outside, they would transmit the virus by vomiting and urinating on the security.

"The worst of it all during the dramatic scene, it took the Response Unit of the Ebola task Force about four hours to come on the scene to disaffect the area. They were running like though armed robbers were after them, touching everything they came across: children, women and men ran as fast as their feet could take them," he added.

The patients, who was seen crying bitterly for food, narrated that since many of them were taken to the center, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare abandoned the center, leaving them to the grace of God for survival. [...] he later narrated his ordeal that the managerial staff at the center only spray them on a regular basis and provide a meal once a day. "My people, hunger will kill us first before the Ebola Virus can reach its peak in our bodies. Nobody cares for us;, they collect us from our houses with high expectation that the government will provide food and medication, but it is proven to be the contrary," he said in tears.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201409081328.html?viewall=1

Jeez. This is like a horror movie. Ebola is raping this country.

[Beet]

Beet, quick question.  Do you have a wall (or two) of your home covered in news clippings, maps, photos, etc?  Perhaps with red string pinned all over to connect them together?

The same logic and instincts that led me to think that there would be a populist backlash against Obama in November 2008, or that the Euro crisis was more serious than was being credence for in April 2010 (or that it had reached its peak by October 2012),

Did those same insticts also tell you Christine O'Donnel was going to win her senate race?

I think they're the same instincts that told him that it was a waste of time to post news stories about other GOP candidates for the 2012 presidential nomination, when Palin would obviously be the nominee.

Got me there, Mr. Morden, but why does Panda Express know about this? He/she has only been a member since July.

[Beet]

Beet, quick question.  Do you have a wall (or two) of your home covered in news clippings, maps, photos, etc?  Perhaps with red string pinned all over to connect them together?

The same logic and instincts that led me to think that there would be a populist backlash against Obama in November 2008, or that the Euro crisis was more serious than was being credence for in April 2010 (or that it had reached its peak by October 2012),

Did those same insticts also tell you Christine O'Donnel was going to win her senate race?

I think they're the same instincts that told him that it was a waste of time to post news stories about other GOP candidates for the 2012 presidential nomination, when Palin would obviously be the nominee.

Got me there, Mr. Morden, but why does Panda Express know about this? He/she has only been a member since July.

I'm a quick learner.

Or you're a previous poster known as Aizen who was staunchly anti-Hillary? That explains the vendetta against me.