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Ebola Fear

#1
Yazata Offline
It seems like whenever I turn on the cable TV news networks, there's an awful lot of Ebola coverage. Not so much Ebola in west Africa either, but about the possibility of Ebola becoming epidemic here. (I live in the US, but I gather that worries are the same elsewhere in the world.)

So...

Do you think that all the anxious news coverage is justified? Or is it maybe being overdone a bit? Or alternatively, is it possible that the public isn't as concerned as they should be?
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
(Oct 10, 2014 12:57 AM)Yazata Wrote: It seems like whenever I turn on the cable TV news networks, there's an awful lot of Ebola coverage. Not so much Ebola in west Africa either, but about the possibility of Ebola becoming epidemic here. (I live in the US, but I gather that worries are the same elsewhere in the world.)

So...

Do you think that all the anxious news coverage is justified? Or is it maybe being overdone a bit? Or alternatively, is it possible that the public isn't as concerned as they should be?

I think it's overdone, at least until we get an outbreak over here. Afterall, the enterovirus is here in America already and has no cure. Maybe we should hear more news about that one. I just got my flu shot today, but who knows if it will cover all mutations that are out there.
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#3
C C Offline
International healthcare workers are being blamed for spreading the illness and greeted or driven back by hostile, often armed mobs. There's supposedly increased mobile and internet availability this time around in some regions -- with texts, circulated emails and local radio talk shows proposing scapegoats (word of mouth carrying it the rest of the way). The heightened awareness might thus actually be assisting the dispersion and magnitude of this outbreak, as it drums up assorted fears and accusations among villagers.

Given its effects where Ebola is truly rampaging, the histrionic coverage is probably contributing more negatively than constructively in the Americas and Europe, as well.
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#4
Yazata Offline
(Oct 10, 2014 03:47 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: I think it's overdone, at least until we get an outbreak over here.

I agree.

My impression is that Ebola doesn't spread all that easily, so it can probably be contained even if some scattered cases appear, as they already have in the US and Spain. One reason why it spreads more easily in Africa is because modern medical care is in short supply there and sick people have traditionally been cared for by their families. So healthy people come into close contact with those displaying symptoms without any protective measures being taken. (My guess is that infection rates might be a lot higher in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone than currently reported, precisely because a lot of cases in rural villages probably aren't being included in the health statistics.)

Quote:Afterall, the enterovirus is here in America already and has no cure.

Yes. That one actually worries me more than Ebola at this point, in this country. It seems to spread much more easily and a certain unknown percentage of people become so ill that they require emergency hospital care. It just looks to me like this one has a significantly higher probability of becoming a serious epidemic in this country.

There's also a new paralytic disease that presents similarly to polio that's recently appeared, that may or may not be related to this virulent strain of enterovirus. That worries me too.

Quote:I just got my flu shot today, but who knows if it will cover all mutations that are out there.

Flu is old news and people aren't that interested in hearing about it. But it remains a killer on a scale that Ebola will almost certainly never approach here in the US. Thousands die from the flu every year in the US and people just shrug.
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#5
Yazata Offline
Reports are that there are an estimated 9,000 Ebola cases in west Africa at the present time.
My own gut instinct tells me that the number is likely higher than that. The reason is that modern medical care is scarce in all three of these countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea) and sick people have traditionally been cared for by their families. That suggests to me that there might be a lot of unreported Ebola cases out there, in remote areas. What's more, Ebola cases reportedly cause a great deal of fear among neighbors and are the targets of heavy-handed quarantine efforts by the government. (Entire neighborhoods of Monrovia have reportedly been sealed off and residents told that they could be shot if they try to leave.) So many families might choose to keep cases quiet.

The scary news is that the World Health Organization in Geneva is predicting that there might be as many as 10,000 new Ebola cases every week in these countries by December. Obviously the WHO epidemiologists think that this thing is still rapidly growing. They also report that the disease is fatal in about 70% of cases in west Africa.
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