Is there *any* disaster which climate change can’t make worse?
About three days ago I tweeted this:
Waiting for the inevitable opportunistic BS story that #EbolaOutbreak is a result of climate change.
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) August 4, 2014
Eric Worrall writes:
The Washington Post has in my opinion stooped to a new low, by trying to tie the ongoing Ebola misery in Africa to the issue of Climate Change. According to the Post;
“A 2002 study published in the journal of Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing found that sudden shifts from dry to wet conditions were associated with Ebola outbreaks from 1994 to 1996 in tropical Africa.
As the globe warms, precipitation extremes are projected to increase. Periods of drought are expected to become more frequent in some areas while heavy rain events, when the occur, are forecast to become more intense. Presumably, those areas which see precipitation variability increases – with abrupt shifts from extremely dry to extremely wet periods – would be most vulnerable to Ebola outbreaks.” (h/t Breitbart)
Ebola is a horrible disease which is ravaging the poorest people of Africa. The new outbreak, which has demonstrated a frightening ability to spread to new victims, and to infect and kill health workers, may yet become the new global plague we all fear – with every new victim, Ebola improves its ability to strike at our vulnerabilities. We are all at risk.
To try to tie this continent wide tragedy to the promotion of global warming alarm, to exploit a catastrophe which is afflicting the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, and to play on people’s deepest fears, to advance an unrelated political position, is in my opinion a new and disgusting low point in the current standards of what passes for mainstream journalism.
We have a winner.
Michael Fumento’s opinion piece:
http://nypost.com/2014/08/05/why-ebolas-nothing-to-worry-about/
“We’re now witnessing the worst Ebola epidemic ever — and on your list of worries it belongs . . . nowhere.
Here’s a rule of thumb about diseases: The rarer and less likely they are to kill you, the more hype they get. The New York Times ran more than 2,000 articles on SARS, which ultimately killed zero Americans.
This is only the deadliest outbreak of Ebola virus disease because past ones were so tiny. At this writing, there have been 1,603 reported cases in Africa and 887 deaths.”
And the word “Extreme” appears (in various forms) 3 times in one paragraph so we know it must be CO2 related because CO2 NEVER causes anything that is less than extreme.
“CO2 NEVER causes anything that is less than extreme.”
Can’t CO2 cause extremely average weather?
Good catch Anthony:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/08/05/will-climate-change-worsen-ebola-outbreaks/
Ah, so it’s not linked to poor education and lack of understanding of transmission of disease amongst the local population then. Not that education standards would benefit from economic growth based on fossil fuels, of course.
Michael Mann is bad, the Washington Post is worse.
Also in the paper from 2002:
“Our analysis is limited by only having one Ebola
hemorrhagic fever outbreak during our period of study.
http://www.asprs.org/PE-RS-Journals-2002/PE-RS-February-2002.html
Surely Eric knows better — who here was not expecting exactly this story?
This example of climate scaremongering is not unprecedented; it falls within the natural variations of slimy journalism.
My knee hurts when the barometer is falling and a storm is coming. I am a victim of “weather change”, but “climate change” is so often used to explain just about any problem that “climate change” should apply to my problem too.
Today I’m applying for aid as a climate change victim from Tom Steyer’s new ‘climate victim fund’.
I plan to ask for $500,000, but would be willing to settle for $50 a day for the rest of my life.
The fact that so many humans could be convinced to fear a climate catastrophe based on a tiny change in the average temperature over 150 years, and computer game wild guesses about the future climate from climate astrologers, is the ultimate comedy.
Extreme ebogosity.
“a new and disgusting low point in the current standards of what passes for mainstream journalism.”
Have they ever had any? My opinion of the press is that they are always at a low & disgusting point! Perhaps it’s just me!
I think it was only a matter of time before somebody somewhere linked some illness to AGW! Trouble is, the number of malaria cases doesn’t seem to be making headlines, perhaps because they’re not rising significantly or at all!
Not the ultimate comedy, the ultimate tragedy , pointing directly to the dumbing down of our education system.
The Journal of Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing? Now there’s a real mainstream media publication for you! One can’t help be wonder how much the editors at WaPo had to dig to find that paper. They obviously decided that the link between climate change and Ebola MUST have been made somewhere, so they finally found it in a twelve year old issue of a very obscure publication. It would be laughable if it wasn’t pathetic. Idiots.
BTW, what are photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing anyway?
photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing – taking pictures to help draw maps. Very climate related!
Climate change sells newspapers, and Ebola sells newspapers, so together they REALLY sell a lot of papers!
“Can’t CO2 cause extremely average weather?”
Heretic!
Can’t CO2 cause dangerously extreme average weather?
If it is cause and effect, should they not wait for the cause to exist beyond computer models before linking it to reality? If there was a virtual Ebola pandemic in the model space I could accept that, but this sounds like a chimera event and hence, unlikely.
I doubt any skeptic can listen to this entire program of the “Aspen Ideas Festival: Solving the Carbon Problem Together” and not have your head explode.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/06/mpr_news_presents
And to acknowledge proper science, variations in rainfall do contribute to viral outbreaks. The unusually dry conditions in 1993 intensified the hantavirus outbreak in the “Four Corners” region of the US (where Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and New Mexico come together). The hantavirus was aerosolized from mouse droppings, so the dry conditions increased transmission.
But I don’t know whether the study linking rainfall variations to Ebola outbreaks has any validity, and I have zero confidence in the increasing “climate extremes” claim.
“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”
(Mark Twain)
Ebola is comparable in many ways to rabies, except that rabies is far more lethal and kills many thousands every year in Africa and Asia. It typically kills several people in US-Canada every year.
– Rabies widespread nature in African dog populations results in about >20% turnover of that population every year, bringing new naive hosts to maintain the virus reservoir. Rabies is >99% lethal once symptoms appear in a human victim. It is found in wild animal populations throughout temperate North America.
– Rabies is transmitted by contact with bodily fluids, usually saliva in a bite wound, but mucosal contact (eyes, nose) transmissions have been documented.
– Rabies has been around thousands of years, long before any possibility of man’s impact on climate. That is not to say that changes in regional climate does not affect dispersal of reservoir animal populations.
– Putting “Climate Change impacts” in an Ebola study grant proposal would simply be dishonest.
So…the message is clear
Don’t farm, it will raise you CO2 footprint….
….eat more bush meat
This outbreak is God’s wrath against sinners.
Okay, WP: prove it’s not.
Paul says at August 7, 2014 at 7:21 am
I’m not convinced about climate change selling papers.
“…the “Four Corners” region of the US (where Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and New Mexico come together).”
That should be Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.
I can say, without doubt, that I have read of CO2 causing real trouble– death, even– and that humans were the cause of it. Not in ebola outbreaks, that’s something else. In WW2 submarines. A submarine back in those days had to surface every now and then partly to recharge batteries and partly to ventilate the boat. If the sub lost power while submerged, or was held down for too long a time, the crew would use up oxygen and create CO2 by breathing. When the concentration of CO2 got too high men would pass out and eventually die.
Today that doesn’t happen because modern scrubbing technology does wonders. But, it remains the only place I’ve heard of “for sure” where man-made CO2 could and did kill.
When I lived in Virginia the Washington Post was often called “Pravda on the Potomac”. For the young’uns here — Pravda was the official newspaper of the Soviet Union. It still exists and has a web site. Anyway, the idea was that neither is very reliable — at best some piece of truth existed and leveraged into something else entirely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda
After all, the climate is changing — has been for billions of years — and ebola has become a more noteworthy problem in Africa, so you have a classic case of correlation. Other interesting correlations exist.
http://www.tylervigen.com/ Spurious Correlations. Amusing and clever.
“Number people who drowned by falling into a swimming-pool correlates with Number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in”
“Divorce rate in Maine correlates with Per capita consumption of margarine (US)”
By the way, some of these correlations are more aligned than global warming and CO2 (IMO)
If memory serves me, we still don’t definitively know the origin of this disease?
Here is how manmade climate change is making ebola worse:
The money squandered on hyping the phony climate catastrophe could have been put into infrastructure, clean water, cheap energy, better medical care. Instead we are wasting about $1 Billion per day on fear mongering and fat cat conferences and insider deals on windmills and suppression of economic development in Arica in the name of climate.
PaulH says: August 7, 2014 at 6:37 am
“We’re now witnessing the worst Ebola epidemic ever — and on your list of worries it belongs . . . nowhere.
————————-
Don’t be an idiot. ANY uncontrolled viral outbreak in urban population centers deserves some significant level of concern. Especially this one.
It is out of control in Monrovia, Liberia with a population of about 1 million and has reached the level of bodies in the streets. Cases are have now been discovered in Lagos, Nigeria with a population of 17 – 22 million.
Furthermore, the ineffectiveness of current global quarantine measures has been demonstrated by the instances at Gatwick Airport (London) and others around the globe should instruct us that public health measures must be reinforced. This goes for porous border situations as well. The last thing you want is a disease this deadly going global.
Complacency has no place in this discussion.
The only thing I see increasing because of climate change is stupidity.
It’s Ebola that has caused climate change at the Washington Post.
Ebola is dangerous, of course. But it’s not all that easily transmitted, and it incapacitates its victims too quickly for them to be symptomless carriers in the general population. Once you’re outside densely populated areas, the danger decreases exponentially.
“Global Warming” has evolved into a Religion that divides us. It is an argument about just ‘who is the good guy’, ‘who is the smartest among us’. It really has nothing to do with Climate Change it has everything to do with a band wagon that brings one group together to challenge another — it is not much different than what we are programmed to admire in terms of sports; one team challenging another. We love sports challenge and now our brainwashing has led us to love any contest of team challenge. Those who jump on the ‘I’m the good guy, I’m here to save mankind’ think they have the high road. Those who deny the whole game use scientific facts to challenge emotion. The fact is, emotion is a Religion that can’t be defeated with facts. Mankind is programmed to team challenges; thus sports morphs to politics and any particular flavor of the day dispute that can be sided into a team challenge. Our species is dominated by ‘dumb’ and thus the challenge of emotional dumb vs. scientific fact,
What PaulH said: AW, please don’t fall for ridiculous disease panic hype, keep your healthy skepticism of media coverage across disciplines.
And FWIW, I agree with hunter, too.
The enviros are always inferring they save someone or something from something, but in reality do the exact reverse. For decades deprived Africans have died from malaria in the millions due to the banning of DDT. The lack of electrical power, because of their unwarranted disdain for fossil fuels, is uncompromisingly keeping these people desolate and destitute. They enjoy trying to lay the blame elsewhere.
Eustace Cranch says: August 7, 2014 at 9:40 am
Ebola is dangerous, of course. But it’s not all that easily transmitted, and it incapacitates its victims too quickly for them to be symptomless carriers in the general population.
———————————
You had better learn more about the actuality of the current outbreak, since your life may depend upon it.
– It is so easily transmitted in practice that over 100 health professionals contracted the disease and died. Some portion of these doctors and nurses were in full containment gear.
– It can be anywhere from 2 days to 21 days before symptoms present, so your point about quickly incapacitating victims is totally incorrect.
There is plenty of accurate info on the web; read it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_outbreak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease#Treatment
It could be indirectly linked to climate change!
As you know many people think that humanity is a cancer on the face of the Earth and would like to see the population reduced to 10% of what it is today. It has been a concern for me that someone with this belief could engineer a disease to do just that. It would need few people and few resources. Admittedly a mad conspiracy theory but below is a report on a much applauded speech given saying how suitable Ebola would be for this task if transmission could be made airborne.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/04/doctor_doom_eric_pianka_receiv002118.html
Of concern is how many health workers have died. They must be taking the highest precautions yet are still contracting the disease so it could indeed be capable of airborne infection. A single case in Lagos [a city of 21 million people] has infected five health workers. If they have infected others then it could spread rapidly. People will flee the city, some infected, and spread it elsewhere.
There have only been about 1000 deaths so far, but they have been mainly in rural areas. If the disease enters dense areas of population then we will soon see what ‘exponential’ means. The CDC have declared it a level 1 potential pandemic. It IS of serious concern.
Ebola is a disease carried by fruit bats, which are a source of food in parts of Africa. Transmission is by contact with anything which comes out of the body – urine, faeces, blood, spittle. Death is caused by the liquefaction of internal organs.
I really do hope it will be contained.
Ron Tuohimaa says: August 7, 2014 at 9:57 am
For decades deprived Africans have died from malaria in the millions due to the banning of DDT.
———————————
Completely false. The use of DDT to control Malaria mosquitoes has NEVER BEEN BANNED globally. DDT has been in continuous use to control insect disease vectors since it’s invention, in Africa, Asia, even in the USA, etc.
In 1972 the US withdrew the permit for DDT use on field crops & forest but included an exception for insect disease vectors. The manufacture of DDT (for export) in the US continued for more than a decade. DDT has been used a number of times in the US to control Bubonic Plague outbreaks.
The United States is NOT the world. In the rest of the world, DDT was employed pretty much unrestricted by most any countries that had any desire to use it. In 2001-2004 the effort to ban DDT failed and DDT was specifically allowed by permit for any signatory of the Stockholm Convention. Non-signitories did whatever they damned-well-pleased.
Here is the current list of some of those who manufacture and employ DDT to control
Malaria Vectors:
http://www.pops.int/documents/registers/ddt.htm
PaulH was citing an article by Michael Fumento. That was his quote. I’ll repost it below, since you evidently didn’t get that far in your reading.
To recall the opening post (but not its “told ya so” snark), the parents of global warming alarm are once again claiming grandparentage – this time ebola is the latest offspring of their own unwed and wayward child. (May they all someday occupy the same crowded ring of hell together). If you truly possess “bio” skill, you know the real “concern”: claimants of AGW want funding and attention. You should know better than most how scarce money should be allotted in an epidemic: to enforce quarantines and fragile laws in countries prone to gang and tribal conflicts, to public health infrastructure, doctors, nurses and workers on the “front lines”, the latest vaccines, supplies…
As deadly as ebola is (no doubt a horrible way to die), most people who contract it don’t die. The 90% and higher figures we have heard on alarmist newscasts (News Hour first reported 90% a few weeks ago – not “…up to”, or “…as high as”, just “90%”) refer to encapsulated populations in the Congo or Angola, where outbreaks first occurred, and where non-existent health measures, and routine handling of bodies during burial is an age-old custom, create a perfect storm for contagion. In the only outbreaks known in modern countries (compare Marburg Fever outbreak in Germany, only 25% die, vs. 80% in Angola)
Fumento’s point (and Paul’s) is that third world countries have more urgent concerns than just corralling this disease; others mentioned in the article Paul cites kill an order of magnitude more.
So… what’s the priority, Bio Bob? Global warming funding? Or disease prevention?
Michael Fumento’s opinion piece:
http://nypost.com/2014/08/05/why-ebolas-nothing-to-worry-about/
Well, as the warmer latitudes move north there’s been a correlation noticed between the frequency of street hos happening and warmer temperatures; but it’s problematic whether the more reported street hos are just a linguistic construct of particular social groups expanding their range, the current economic difficulties, or an artifact of more frequent reporting of the phenomena by agencies of social control, namely vice squads, to enhance continued enforcement funding to bust soliciting johns rather than the influence of warmer temperatures. Fortunately Ebola is not classified an STD, although intimate contact with bodily fluids seems to be the major vector for contamination. The last climate caused global viral STD that came out of Africa, HIV, did end the Free Love era though. Bummer.
……”The new outbreak, which has demonstrated a frightening ability to spread to new victims, and to infect and kill health workers, may yet become the new global plague we all fear”…..
==========
This excerpt is pure hype, I’m reluctant to even comment upon it but it was there.
Paul H says SARS killed zero Americans, by which he presumably means inhabitants of the U.S.A. It did, however, kill quite a few Canadians. A friend of mine barely survived it. Three members of his family did not.
@BioBob
From the wikipedia link you posted
“It is not entirely clear how Ebola is spread.[16] EVD is believed to occur after an ebola virus is transmitted to an initial human by contact with an infected animal’s body fluids. Human-to-human transmission can occur via direct contact with blood or bodily fluids from an infected person (including embalming of an infected dead person) or by contact with contaminated medical equipment, particularly needles and syringes.[17] …The potential for widespread EVD infections is considered low as the disease is only spread by direct contact with the secretions from someone who is showing signs of infection.[17] The quick onset of symptoms makes it easier to identify sick individuals and limits a person’s ability to spread the disease by traveling. Because dead bodies are still infectious, some doctors disposed of them in a safe manner, despite local traditional burial rituals.[20]
Medical workers who do not wear appropriate protective clothing may also contract the disease.[21] In the past, hospital-acquired transmission has occurred in African hospitals due to the reuse of needles and lack of universal precautions.[22]”
————–
Ebola is not curable but it is preventable, unfortunately preventative measures are more unlikely in rural areas and in some cases opposed (conflict with burial rituals for example) and that is where the concentration of deaths have occurred. Bottom line Ebola is not easily spread, requiring mixing of bodily fluids to spread. There is a threat, it is serious, it should be addressed, but the panic and fear rhetoric is not equivalent to the threat. Put in perspective about 600,000 people in the United States die of Heart Disease alone every year. Add cancer and it is over 1 million.
It can also be used as a biological weapon, lab tests with aerosoling Ebola have proved effective. I do not believe currently there are any claims of terrorist involvment in this outbreak though. I think those kind of claims were during the Bush administration, in this administration Climate Change has superceded terrorists as a primary object of evil.
Another pablum adherent redirect, I suppose. You AND PaulH chose to post the link that is idiotic — and thereby are tarred by the same brush, since you apparently like it. I don’t – Fumento is full of bullcrap.
Spare me the BS with the strawman argument about AGW. I am writing about Ebola and the level of concern about it and the facts at hand concerning the disease and the seriousness of this outbreak. AGW is and always has been BS as well, and of no concern to anyone with half a brain. and certainly not to me, except as to the absurd notion that anyone else should care about the pile of crap they call “data”.
Also, YOU NEED TO READ THE LINKS. The MAJORITY of people who contract Ebola DO die.
Current mortality rates overall are at 55.3%, but the total numbers really need to get higher for more precision, and the variances resulting from the various levels of post infection support. No worries on that account; we are entering the exponential phase of infection rates since the disease is completely out of control and has entered urban areas in several countries. Mortality rates for untreated infections supposedly is about 90%. Given the current conditions in many areas, we will see the numbers trending in that direction.
===============
So… what’s the priority, Bio Bob? Global warming funding? Or disease prevention?
———————–
RE: the above:
You have issues with chewing gum, walking at the same time ?
I don’t; here is my optimal funding distro since you ask:
Global Warming Funding: Zero
Quarantine & Public Health Measures: more than we are spending at this moment of your apparent total unconcern
If we don’t get off our collective asses, there may not BE any functional countries left in West Africa and perhaps beyond to speak of. Malaria requires enough population to spread. If Ebola remains an issue of the current magnitude or worse, the disease will take care of the Malaria problem.
If uncontrolled Ebola goes global AGW, will be our least concern. Or is that your point ?
While we know virtually nothing about this virus it may be entirely possible that the statement about increased rainfall leading to an increased chance of an Ebola outbreak may be more or less correct.
Just about as correct as saying that if the climate does not change at all the chance of an increase in Ebola may be possible.
The climate not changing may be basically impossible and observations show that it may always be in a state of flux. Contrary to the believe of some (many?) that it is only the last 30 odd years where climate has changed notably.
Therefore it may be easy to conclude that a changing climate may have something to do with an increase in outbreaks and nobody can prove you wrong. “May” being the defining word in all science these days or so it seems, no one says it “is” these days which may be too definite.
Everything is now classified in “likely” scenarios, from highly likely to highly unlikely and we add % numbers with it to give it more impact. But even with “highly likely” we leave the escape hatch open just in case it turns out to be bogus.
The disease was first properly classified in the 70’s but who knows how long it has been around. It seems that the early symptoms of infection are similar to a number of diseases, malaria being one, and as such it is quite possible that plenty of earlier outbreaks have gone unreported. (this statement IS correct as there is no evidence otherwise at the moment and never will be in a conclusive manner).
What is known is that the most likely sources for humans seem to be primates and a small antelope. With primate contact being the most traced source or so they conclude so far.
Perhaps these primates had contact with an antelope carcass and in turn were hunted and eaten by humans so that the real source is the antelope. Possible that in times of heavy rains the primates are easier prey for these hunters and/or being caught up with this virus is likely to slow them down a bit becoming easier prey also. A bit like AGW, you can theorize plenty and draw correlations.
But it is a serious health threat and with the speed and ease of travel can very quickly jump continents.
Had it not been for all those medical workers in that region working hard to contain it and restricting travel this could have been a big one and may still prove to be.
Sputter away all you like, Bob. You’ve got your alarm and, well, it’s your alarm… and nobody is gonna take it away from you, and anybody who tries is… well, just an idjit. So there.
As far as I can see, you’ve just conceded the only point of concern of this thread: global warming gets – and should get – zero funding.
Now I need to get back to building my ark. The rains are coming.
Hunter. Well said! It would indeed be a bitter irony for mankind if there was a global pandemic of a virus that wiped out millions of people which need not have happened if global resources had not been squandered on a non-existent problem that benefited the non-deserving who propagated AGW in the first place.
Alx says: August 7, 2014 at 11:12 am
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Alx, I am unsure exactly what your point was in this post.
I do find the first sentence of interest, however, and am especially interested exactly how “Western-Medicine-Trained” doctors and nurses in more or less full containment outfits are contracting the disease, and if that is actually a fact, or if some ‘off duty’ aspect was involved. We know that Ebola is contracted by body/fluid contact, either indirect (e.g.door handle) or direct, sexual transmission. One study indicated inhalation of contaminated body fluids was possible.
One thing is certain. We are going to find out one way or another. This outbreak of Ebola is going to get much, much worse before it gets better. All should understand, once a viral disease reaches a large population size, the cloud of potential mutations increases and the probability of undesired new behaviors increases, like new modes of transfer, as does the potential for decreased lethality or whatever.
Wes Spiers says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:12 am
Paul H says SARS killed zero Americans, by which he presumably means inhabitants of the U.S.A. It did, however, kill quite a few Canadians. A friend of mine barely survived it. Three members of his family did not.
———————————————
Yes, sadly in Canada 438 people contracted SARS and 44 died.
It is interesting that SARS is coming up in this discussion being that SARS was an influenza pandemic. Unlike ebola a flu can easily spread, but at least is not as deadly as ebola.
It is only a matter of time before the WP editors realize thay can start tying the flu to Climate change since during the flu season it does cause quite a few deaths. I can see a fancy graphic now that looks something like this (climate–>season–>flu—>death).
BioBob on August 7, 2014 at 10:28 am writes:
Ron Tuohimaa says: August 7, 2014 at 9:57 am
For decades deprived Africans have died from malaria in the millions due to the banning of DDT.
———————————
Completely false. The use of DDT to control Malaria mosquitoes has NEVER BEEN BANNED globally. DDT has been in continuous use to control insect disease vectors since it’s invention, in Africa, Asia, even in the USA, etc.>
But it’s absolutely true . . .
The environmentalists were joined in this effort by such entities as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Program, and UNICEF. These aid bureaucrats warned impoverished countries whose populations were at high risk of contracting malaria, that if they continued to use DDT as the lynchpin of their anti-malaria programs, grants to their governments would be withheld.
Only a few nations—among them Ecuador, Mexico, and South Africa—possessed the financial resources necessary to fund their own DDT programs without the help of the aforementioned foundations and organizations. And for as long as they continued to use DDT, they remained malaria-free.
Since the issuance of Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring” in the early 60’s, environmentalists have directly killed millions and millions of poor destitute Africans. And, as Michael Crichton once said, “didn’t give a damn”.
PeterD says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:03 am
Thanks for the correction.
Eustace Cranch says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:40 am
Jet air travel considerably changes the range of “symptomless carriers”, and we all know people continue their planned routines in spite of all kinds of symptoms.
The US Coast Guard was originally instituted as a tax collection service as the early US Federal government relied on import tariffs for a considerable portion of its income. But due to their practice of boarding ships on arrival in port (before they had a chance to offload cargo), the Coast Guard quickly acquired the duty of ordering and enforcing quarantines should crew or passengers show symptoms of infectious disease. Except for medical and Coast Guard personnel nobody could board or leave a quarantined ship, which had to fly a quarantine flag as a warning.
This heritage entitles the US Surgeon General to wear the uniform of a Coast Guard Admiral.
We don’t do this routinely any more in the age of air travel, and I don’t know whether many international airports even have quarantine facilities.
Bill Parsons, but at least do it accurately while you are at it. Seems to me that inaccuracy and passing off of ignorance and unconcern fit the definition of ‘sputter’ better than my post, but opinions always vary.
By all means, get back to building your ark. Hopefully, more concerned heads will treat the current Ebola outbreak with a bit more concern than you exhibit, as it deserves. The CDC apparently thinks so, it has elevated it to it’s highest level of concern, class 1.
http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/cdc-high-alert-ebola/2014/08/07/id/587493/
Actually WaPo pulled off a twofer of low down, rotten Ebola articles. In addition to claiming that global warming will exacerbate the spread of Ebola, they wrote a story chastising the CDC for providing the American medical missionaries with the experimental drug rather than giving to African health workers. Of course, if the experimental drug was given to Africans first, WaPo would be screaming that we are using Africans for Ginnie pigs rather than providing the drug to the infected Americans.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/08/wapo-plays-ebola-race-card-why-do-two-white-americans-get-the-serum-not-africans/
WaPo, how low can you go?
Ron Tuohimaa says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:41 am
I am not going to get into a pissing match in this thread with you Ron. If you refuse to do your homework and believe that Potemkin-Village-all-the-way-down meme brought to us by a dood named Bates, feel free.
DDT is so cheap and easy to produce that any organic chemist can make low quality but perfectly functional DDT in his garage. The fact that that powerhouse, Ethiopia, decided to manufacture and employ DDT for Malaria control should tell anyone with a brain all they need to know.
Ignore the reality that Malaria continues to be a problem because there are real limits to human abilities and the usual seven deadly sins are the universal bane of humanity. The fact that mosquitoes are damn difficult to control may have something to do with it too…..
“…a new and disgusting low point in the current standards of what passes for mainstream journalism.” I believe this is referred to in the Journalistic Standards and Practices Handbook as standard operating procedures. We know it as d*****baggery.
@Biobob. It must be exhausting being this hysterical and alarmed all the time. How do you cope, how have you managed to not have a heart attack? From what you have posted on here, you’re very ignorant to what Ebola does, how it infects and how it is transmitted.
I would post a million links to article wrote by real life Virologists. But I fear I’d be wasting my time.
You’re mind is made up. WE’RE ALL DOOOOOOMED!
Bob,
I’m not complacent. I just don’t care if you think I am. If you know something about the disease and the epidemiology concerned, I’m all ears. So far, you are all about alarm, with little information.
Really, this is a fairly distant concern, and should be low on the priority list of most people in the U.S. at the moment. I’m not saying healthcare workers here shouldn’t be getting ready, and apparently they are setting up quarrentine units at airports, as they are at OHare for example.
One characteristic of ebola that I do believe is being fairly reported by the media is its indolence. It is not easily transmissible by people unless they are clearly sick – visibly weak, feverish and vomiting. People in this condition don’t want to travel to other countries, let alone leave their beds. Carriers who are in the infectious stages are therefore relatively easy to spot. Moreover, travel in and out of the affected zones is being squeezed shut by authories of those provinces. Thanks in part to the media alarm in the affected countries, air and ground travel are being monitored. It’s still spreading, and I have little faith in African authorities to do the right thing, but I don’t believe any claims of an “exponential” spread.
paddylol
We can’t give the serum to Africans. Not only is it made from evil tobacco, it’s derived from GMO tobacco! Oh noes!! We can’t have people from third world countries getting stuff like that or golden rice or something. (/sarc for those who didn’t catch on)
I smell a Pulitzer!
Sorry Bill, if you do not like my posts (not really). At least I don’t post garbage links and factually incorrect points, like you did. I post no alarmist points, simply the facts as I understand them along with links that actually have facts in them as opposed to opinions like those of some wannabe lawyer / journalist turd like Fumento who wants us to think he knows something about new pandemics with atypical behaviors.
I have no idea why anyone would think any new and totally uncontrolled, incurable disease outbreak with EXPONENTIAL GROWTH INCIDENCE NUMBERS and 55% mortality rate is of no concern. It has gone exponential because the numbers of people contracting the disease is growing exponentially. Is there some part of that you do not understand ?
I can help you if you like – see this and see exponential:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_2014#mediaviewer/File:Diseased_Ebola_2014.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth
I have no idea why anyone would not be concerned when a disease that is supposedly difficult to transmit suddenly spreads to 4 or more additional countries and urban areas containing multi-millions of people.
I have no idea why a disease that is supposedly hard to transmit infects well over 100 health professionals, some using modern western containment methodology, would not be concerned.
So naturally anybody concerned would be pissed when apparently unconcerned people post links to propaganda pieces like those from Fumento.
Nothing to see here….move along…right ?
I believe Ebola was brought to the USA by the government; not by a change in the weather.
“Periods of drought are expected to become more frequent in some areas while heavy rain events, when the occur, are forecast to become more intense. ”
Having lived in tropical and subtropical countries for 32 years this makes no sense at all. The ‘periods of drought’ are expected to increase in an environment of increased water content in the atmosphere? That makes no sense(1). What exactly does ‘heavy rain’ mean? As heavy rain occurs in most places, is it really going to become heavier? If it due to increased water vapour content in the air, then it will rain sooner and more frequently, spreading the heat around more evenly, not less frequently and ‘more intensely’. That makes no sense(2).
If the whole globe warms, the rainfall is likely to come in more frequent, less stormy, gentle rains because the temperature differences will be decreasing, what with polar amplification and all.
The thunderstorm heat vent hypothesis has it that storms will arise sooner and perhaps higher (implying greater energy involved). But they might form sooner and more frequently and smaller, with the same total increased heat venting capability as a few large storms. If the air over the Sahara Desert is a lot more humid, it would rain a lot more. The Sahel has moved 500 km north over the past 30 years ‘during the warming’ so obviously being ‘warmer’ it is good for rainfall, farming and grazing.
@george e. smith
“I believe Ebola was brought to the USA by the government; not by a change in the weather.”
Or an agency of the government, in a plane that looks it came out of a spy movie.
Ebola has been brought to the US of A many times before so they would investigate its potential threat and no doubt as a weapon of mass destruction. Each outbreak, a team from the US was sent to collect samples. We have no idea whether or not someone carrying the disease was brought with it to a disease centre. An American doctor survived Ebola in 1974 and he is a carrier of the virus and the antibodies so … sounds like a stretched claim.
Something that has not made the news in the US of A is that the treatment (monoclonal antibodies) is produced from a tobacco plant created by gene-splicing (OMG, its GM Tobacco!) resulting from a Canadian research effort. I am waiting for the commenters on CNN to mention that this is a Canadian treatment not something ‘from the CDC in Atlanta’.
Watch the green fanatics refusing treatment with a genetically modified product created by Big Pharma in league with Big Tobacco. Where are those 350.org volunteers when you need them…
Maybe ebola will breed an immune variety of human, which will then take over the world.
@BioBob
South Africa also uses DDT routinely in the control of malaria. Works well, like nothing else.
Don’t know yet if it’s true, but I read that DDT is actually a repellant, not an insecticide. Come to think of it, never saw clouds of (or any) mosquitoes dropping out of the air in the mist from the spray trucks we kids used to follow and chase…
@ Crispin in Waterloo says: August 7, 2014 at 1:41 pm
Actually, the monoclonal antibodies treatment for Ebola has been in the news both on the web and TV News (4,290 results in Google News), but certainly not as much as it could be. Would not want to upset the masses by mentioning incurable diseases, would we ?
The companies who invented & developed this potential treatment are actually small pharma startups (produced by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.), hardly ‘big pharma’ but certainly in league with somebody evil (lol).
We could produce gallons of the stuff by redirecting a good portion of the funds already allocated to AGW researchers and ban it’s export to any country regulating “genetic manipulation” agricultural products. What goes around, comes around, neh ? Probably too soon since we really don’t have human trials atm, but a good fantasy at any rate.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:45 pm @BioBob
South Africa also uses DDT routinely in the control of malaria. Works well, like nothing else.
————————-
Yep, I know. South Africa is on the list I linked of those with permits issued by the Stockholm Convention process (WHO). Pisses off those who spout the Bates meme to no end too, lol.
On August 1, residents of Toledo, Ohio, were advised: “don’t drink the water.” The city’s water supply, which comes from Lake Erie, was infected with microcystins, toxins produced by algae that feed on nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer runoff and sewage sludge.
On August 3, the Christian Science Monitor ran an article by Mark Sappenfield titled “Behind Ohio drinking-water ban, a Lake Erie mystery.” The gist is that agricultural runoff is putting a lot of phosphorus into the lake, but even though levels were higher in 2007 than in 2011, the 2011 bloom was larger. Consequently, “Scientists are investigating whether rising temperatures connected with climate change could be intensifying the blooms.”
Lake Erie water temperature on August 3, 2007, was 76 degrees. On August 3, 2011, it was 78 degrees. Warmer water, more algae.
But on August 3, 2014, water temperature was only 72 degrees. Do falling temperatures associated with climate change also intensify algae blooms?
No mention in the article that current lake temperature is below average, what the current phosphorous levels are, or how extensive the algae bloom is compared to 2011. Just a bunch of suppositions stoking global warming anxiety.
Intensive industrial-scale farming and animal feedlots have increased phosphorus and nitrogen runoff, and lack of maintenance at Detroit’s wastewater treatment plant have resulted in massive outflows of sewage sludge. Phosphorus concentrations in Lake Erie are approaching 1970s levels.
Once upon a time, journalists played a part in stoking citizen outrage and forcing EPA action to restore water quality in Lake Erie. Sappenfield downplays real pollution and shifts blame to CO2. Is he a tool of “big fertilizer,” or just a poopoohead?
Brian H says: August 7, 2014 at 1:51 pm
Don’t know yet if it’s true, but I read that DDT is actually a repellant, not an insecticide.
—————————————
Yep, that’s true in some cases, where DDT has been used long enuf for insecticidal action to cause resistance. Same as MERSA where antibiotics lose their effectiveness after years of overuse and misuse. And that’s exactly what happens with DDT, or ANY insecticide as well.
In the cases of mosquitoes who are capable of detoxifying DDT and which do not die from exposure at certain normally encountered levels, the chemical still irritates the mosquito, making is move from applied surfaces.
Kat says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:47 pm
There is a word for your post: transference.
I give the Ebola outbreak exactly it’s proper concern level based on my understanding of the science. Anybody who gives it less is a fool. And that is and was my point.
The fact that effective quarantine measures are nearly non-existent, that our borders are as porous as a sponge, people are posting & reposting opinion pieces saying ‘nothing to see here…move along’, and the known characteristics & behavior of the virus are proper topics of anybodies concern.
There is a difference between informed concern and panic. I will be sure to tell you when panic is warranted. Go back to sleep.
BioBob believes “I give the Ebola outbreak exactly it’s proper concern level based on my understanding of the science. Anybody who gives it less is a fool. And that is and was my point.”
Yeah, I do that too except for not calling others fool. I just write YMMV.
“Is there *any* disaster which climate change can’t make worse?”
Answer: the Obama administration comes to mind – immediately
Here’s the ultimate answer.
Eliminate everyone that:
is sick with a communicable disease (to eliminate the spread/source of the disease)
has an STD (to eliminate the spread/source of the disease)
has a genetically induced illness (to strengthen the Gene Pool)
that supports an extremins view (wait, does this post indicate the support of an extremist viewpoint?)
Nevermind
Paul says –
“Climate change sells newspapers”
check out the plummeting circulations of MSM that pushes CAGW.
CAGW fares no better on TV, tho that won’t stop it being nominated for Emmys!
Wikipedia: Years of Living Dangerously
A TV show is rated by the percentage of its target-demographic group watching the show – most often, adults 18–49 years old. The four Sunday evening episodes of Years of Living Dangerously, from April 13 to May 4, 2014, had ratings of 0.07%, 0.04%, 0.04% and 0.04% in that demographic…
The series was nominated for two 2014 Emmy Awards: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series and Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming (for Episode 3: “The Surge”).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Living_Dangerously
Michael 2, I would just love to be among those who just write YMMV as well, except the rest of us are now facing potentially a life terminating outcome based on the lack of concerns of others.
If there were reasonable (based on the nature of THIS threat) quarantine measures in place, I would be there in a New-York-Minute. Unfortunately, we have ZERO such effective quarantine measures in place right now. The intelligent alternative would be to ban air-travel to countries with active uncontrolled Ebola outbreaks.
Let me give you the reality of this situation. Read this article:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ebola-terror-gatwick-passenger-collapses-3977051
Note the woman collapsed on the jetway while debarking, died hours later, and that ALL 128 passengers plus crew were blithely released to potentially spread whatever disease into what ever/where ever their final destination. Quarantining the plane later is the same as the proverbial barn door. Just by the by, the 1st reports I read said the woman was vomiting on the plane during the flight and subsequent articles said she had no symptoms but she managed to die hours later that same day without symptoms. Yeah, right. As far as I am concerned, this was a wake-up call.
Passenger jets continue to fly into & out of countries with active outbreaks and none are quarantined for the apparently requisite 21+ days. Hawaii quarantines dogs for 60 or 90 days for much less reason. It’s absurd. We used to routinely quarantine immigrants who displayed symptoms of then common diseases like TB but now apparently we release them into the general population with Obama’s best wishes.
So YMMV indeed.
BioBob says: “Michael 2, I would just love to be among those who just write YMMV as well, except the rest of us…”
My comment is more intended to challenge your authority to speak for “us”. The only way you can speak for “us” is if they are all “you” (or you clearly establish which “us” you speak of and make it clear that you are simply guessing at their fate, in which case, their mileage may vary).
This is the grand key of the left wing. When all is distilled, a left-winger thinks, feels, speaks in terms of “group” of which naturally he is smarter and spokesperson for it. Even when pretending to be something else, this habit gives you away.
There’s a lot to be said for “group” and that’s why it exists. However it seems that spokespersons for each group seem to think of themselves as dominant and exclusive — the phrase “the church” is assumed by a great many people to be so obvious as to not need explaining which one of thousands you mean.
I would expect from a ‘legal’ perspective that the definition of ‘climate’ covers too many grey area’s. P.T. Barnum must be laughing his a$$ off. This has gone beyond the ridiculous.
BioBob, you do keep spewing about your level of concern. Apart from enclosing yourself in a Clorox-saturated bunker, what exactly have you done to prepare yourself for the biological armageddon you anticipate? Will you be embarrassed when the current, ghastly epidemic fades from view? Talk to us in another month.
Meanwhile, I see what you mean about exponential: you think the disease will continue upward at the same angle your toes curve with delight every time you deliver a zinger.
But I doubt that it will. Ebola seems no different from other deadly diseases in terms of the numbers of new cases per day, and the places where it initially spreads. Whooping cough, diphtheria, flu, even measles and chicken pox have had their hayday, and every one of them takes off with big numbers in communities where people have poor sanitationi, dense poplulations, poor education, low income, weak civic infrastructures, and primitive healthcare facilities. Mortalities tend to rise fitfully, plateau, then fall off, and in many cases they drop off before vaccines are ever introduced. Populations become decimated, immunities develop, and people learn what to do to avoid getting exposed.
Again, stop spewing and namecalling. Tell us your recommendations for what us innocent lambs should do. Otherwise you’re nothing but a namecalling jerk with nothing to offer but insults.
But, BioBob, the Gatwick passenger didn’t have Ebola!
http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2014/08/04/48883/test+for+ebola+carried+out+on+passenger+who+died+at+gatwick.html
If you really must panic, start with seasonal influenza, which WILL kill thousands in the UK and tens of thousands in the US every year. Or malaria, AIDS and TB, which will EACH kill hundreds of thousand of people in Africa. Or even the next meningitis outbreak, which typically kills tens of thousands of Africans,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/ebola-worrying-disease.
I’ve done a lot of work for Monoclonal antibody therapeutics developers over the years, so I find the misinformation on the zMapp drug, (especially on Twitter, sigh) particularly frustrating:
Scaling up a transgenic-tobacco derived MAb therapeutic will not be fast–for one thing the tobacco plants have to grow up, which takes weeks to months. So, even if Mapp Biopharmaceutical was able to bypass the regulatory development process (they haven’t started human safety testing yet!), they can’t produce “gallons of this stuff” anytime soon. I expect the current Ebola outbreak will have burnt out before they get their IND to proceed with Phase 1. And, fond as I am of private enterprise, in addition to the Canadians, BARDA, NIH and other US gov’t money did support research on the antibodies. http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/guinea/qa-experimental-treatments.html Notice, however that the transgenic tobacco part is downplayed!
ellenmmartin says: August 7, 2014 at 5:28 pm
But, BioBob, the Gatwick passenger didn’t have Ebola!
————————-
Yep, lucky that – BTW, funny, does it say what she DID have ? The point was not that she had or did not have Ebola, and I did not even mention that, did I. My point was that we STILL did NOT follow proper quarantine protocol required for containment of a pathogen like Ebola as late as last Saturday. You find that acceptable, do you ?
About all the other diseases….YES…they are all also already global in extent, at least to the ability of the pathogen (we are not doing too well on that quarantine thingee are we ?). None even approach the current 55% mortality rate of Ebola and the last thing we need is ANOTHER global disease, especially one as nasty as Ebola. I have to admit that the resistant strains of TB and Gonorrhea are troubling but neither is as infective in scope as Ebola.
No panic yet, I will let you know the moment I rate this crisis worth panic. Given all the unconcern and poo-poohing, I expect it could actually happen. Very Sad.
Everybody keeps saying Ebola will burn out but the numbers of infections keeps rising exponentially and we are perhaps over SIX months into this outbreak. Given all the misinformation you encounter vis monoclonal antibodies (which is perhaps to be expected given how few have any education in genetics & microbiology), what makes you think the Ebola misinformation deserves a pass ?
Steve C, that quite was apparently not from Mark Twain:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/12/10/fake_twain_quotes_and_other_hazards_of_twitter_116376-3.html
Bill Parsons says: August 7, 2014 at 4:58 pm
——————-
I think you are finally getting it. I want people to understand the importance of learning about Ebola for their own sakes. I want them to stop minimizing, ignoring, spreading misinformation and take appropriate measures given the current nature of this disease outbreak. Certainly thinking we should all ignore it or minimize its dangers like Fumento is counterproductive. We do not know what the future holds but we certainly control our destiny in this regard. Thousands more or even millions could die or we could expend some effort and gain control over this outbreak while it is still possible. Right now, it is totally out of control.
Understanding is the 1st step. Prodding those in power to take appropriate quarantine measures should be next. That will apparently not happen unless people demand it and perhaps not even then. So, there you go … call someone and demand it, or spread the word so that it happens by grassroots demand. Actually controlling the outbreak itself will likely take months, at least, IF the effort is made, but a quarantine could be almost instantaneous and could contain the outbreak to west Africa, at least at this moment.
Even I know this is something we should NOT ignore and that the current situation is untenable. No more Fumento’s.
FYI, Latest info:
http://news.yahoo.com/ebolas-spread-us-inevitable-says-cdc-chief-205903838.html
Today’s Ebola hearings Aug 7, 2014 2:00pm to 5:00pm
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-combating-ebola-threat
From the CDC link with inflammatory headline you cited:
“But we are confident that there will not be a large Ebola outbreak in the US.”
Bob,
I don’t “get” anything but a headache listening to you harp.
If you had something to offer to either the crisis in Africa or to this discussion, I would be eager to hear it. Your suggestions are earnest disiderata, wistful and without substance. You get a “D” for your final effort, but with this note: Don’t worry. Your alarm will play itself out. And you’ll be o.k.
Fumento places the outbreak in its proper and necessary perspective against a backdrop of the irrational alarm of people like yourself. I liked his article because it reminds us to think of other, more important public health issues that afflict Africa. Remember Africa? That’s where this is happening. I couldn’t say it any better than Fumento:
And finally, there’s this:
And that is where you come in. I know. You’ll have more to say. Have at it. I’m done.
LOL – you want to have a good read, check out the 1000+ comments on the Yahoo article I linked. Health care professionals who are insisting that they will abandon their posts if Ebola hits their hospital just especially give you that heart warming experience. I am sure you could learn something useful.
When US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden says “Ebola’s spread to the United States is “inevitable” due to the nature of global airline travel, but any outbreak is not likely to be large…” I feel little comfort for those who will be affected. I live in the back of beyond, so it probably won’t be me…happy days.
Hopefully you will not be one of the “little people” in the ‘not very large’ US outbreak he is so cavalier about. Feel free to stick your head in the ground, you are certain to hit bleach or something sure to save your ass. Or perhaps you just have ‘faith’. Good luck with that.
Alan the Brit says:
August 7, 2014 at 6:59 am
“a new and disgusting low point in the current standards of what passes for mainstream journalism.”
Have they ever had any? My opinion of the press is that they are always at a low & disgusting point! Perhaps it’s just me!
I think it was only a matter of time before somebody somewhere linked some illness to AGW! Trouble is, the number of malaria cases doesn’t seem to be making headlines, perhaps because they’re not rising significantly or at all!
=============
err recent american claims for such are?
the west Nile virus, chikungoonyah/gunya think I saw ref to rocky mountain spotted fever as well, and I am sure Ive read more ..they sorta blur together after so many wild claims get made.
in aus weve had a couple of chickungunyah cases come down from N guinea and the clims of mozzie borne with climate change are common media fodder here too,
My idea of posting the link to the Fumento article simply was to present a different viewpoint to the idea that Ebola would become the feared global plague. (And to promote some vigorous discussion. Mission accomplished. 🙂 ) I have no expertise in the field, but I have read a few of Fumento’s articles over the years and I generally find value in his viewpoints. People are welcome to call me an “idiot” for linking to the article, and that’s OK as I have a thick hide. But keep in mind such ad hominem attacks make for flimsy arguments. And if you disagree with what Fumento says, it is more useful to direct your comments to him instead of me.
Myself, I heard of the Ebola scourge potentially wiping out a big percentage of humanity some 20 years ago, placing it in the same category as SARS, AIDS, bird flu, etc. Is it hype or reality? Color me skeptical – I want to hear the facts. BUT, I agree with Fumento when he says there are already too many deaths from Ebola.
Appears to be spreading rapidly.
WHO : “Nigeria, of which he was “deeply concerned” due to the population density in Lagos for instance, has admitted 139 patients are now being monitored for Ebola (up from 8 mere days ago). This, along with “the outbreak moving faster than we can control it,” drive the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, an “extraordinary event” and now constitutes an international health risk.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-08/who-declare-health-emergency-admits-stretched-limit-out-control-ebola-outbreak-niger
If it spreads to other countries, either accidentally or deliberately, then the world could be radically different in six months time.
BioBob says: “the rest of us are now facing potentially a life terminating outcome”
How many of you are in there?
anticlimactic says: “the world could be radically different in six months time.”
In fact, it could be radically different tomorrow. Remember that you asked for radically differerent in 2008 when it was called “hope and change” and now it’s just “Forward!” In either case there’s no mention of the goal.
But climate change causes all bad things, right? A partial list: acne, flatulence, layoffs, earthquakes, low sex drive, diarrhea, incontinence, constipation, violent crime…etc.
There is a new Intendo super-computer game called Climateology: Best Guess. It is going to sell big this Christmas.
Just more FYI links today and the news is NOT good. The number of cases in Lagos, Nigeria more than doubled (since the last info I had) to 13 and I sure hope they can get that under control FAST.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/08/08/four-new-ebola-cases-in-nigeria-all-related-to-american-to-who-brought-virus-there/
WHO finally got off their butts:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/08/who-declares-international-health-emergency-for-ebola/
But it looks like the US won’t require effective quarantine measures unless considerable pressure is brought to bear. CDC boss (powers that be) is apparently more than willing to sacrifice a few “small outbreaks” (=dead little people) so that airlines won’t lose some money. Lovely.
You what-me-worry and minimizer types should just shut it. It is CERTAIN that way too many people are going to die a horrible death in the next few weeks and this all possibly could have been prevented if various health organizations had gotten off the pot months ago. They left the solution to exactly TWO (2) NGOs (Doctors-Without-Borders) & Samaritan’s Purse with minimal support. We are well past the no-worries and that “this will immediately burn out” stage.
BioBob says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:48 am
“You what-me-worry and minimizer types should just shut it.”
Given the exponential growth of the outbreak this is guaranteed to happen pretty soon. Depends on what body count makes them flip. One doubling per month ATM.
Climate Disruption Causes Hemorrhoids… and Irritable Bowel Syndrome!
Details to follow. Video at 11.
Consider that far more people are being killed in Iraq by ISIS fanatics and nearly as many are dying trying to cross the desert southern border into the USA. Then put a natural pathogen into contextual contrast to truly Anthropogenic Global Disruption.
Now add Putin’s sanctions on imports from Australia, Europe, Canada and America. But he left their alcohol imports OK. It’s because it is colder there now than it should be. These people need to pull in their heads from where the sun doesn’t shine. Like the bubonic plague and pneumonic plague, this is a very very nasty disease. They’ve had ebola before, and actually they burned the bodies, as even dead, the disease can still be contracted. Of course I hope it isn’t part of a chemical bio-attack. I don’t think so, as it is contracted through bodily fluids.
Liberia and Sierra Leone are also affeceted, in fact almost the whole west African side is affected at one level or other. I understand the first case of Ebola was reported in Liberia a few months ago. I also understand from friends in affected countries, Sierra Leone in particular, that there are lots of people migrating out to other countries. Ebola has, almost, spread as far east as Ethiopia.
Michael 2 says: August 8, 2014 at 8:46 am
How many of you are in there?
——————————————
total number of living humans on Earth ( As of 2013) estimated at 7.181 billion
yeah, I know you were trying to make some sort of joke
here is a another one I read: Obama has introduced “Ebolacare”
unless you like dark humor, neither is especially funny.
Ronald Bailey says that one reason for the rapidity of ebola’s spread in Sierra Leone is that quarantined patients go shopping and accept visitors and won’t go to hospitals, and that enforcement of quarantines is ineffective. He also argues that medicine is coming up with breakthroughs that will reduce the severity of future epidemics:
http://reason.com/archives/2014/08/08/ebola-dress-rehearsal-or-show-closer
Brits panic without Bill Parsons permission:
——————————————————-
Border staff threaten to strike over risk of deadly Ebola entering the UK. TERRIFIED UK border staff are threatening to strike over fears they could catch the deadly Ebola virus.
Border Force staff at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports are furious no measures have been put in place to preserve their health.
An insider told the Daily Star Sunday: “There is panic. It takes one person to come into this country with Ebola and all hell will break loose.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/393606/EXCLUSIVE-Border-staff-strike-threat-over-Ebola
A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. It was like the first AIDS victims, no one wanted to touch them even. But AIDS does not spread so fast. I wonder if people who get a bloody nose and bleed will panic?
More perspective for Bob:
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2014/08/dialing-it-up-to-eleven.html
http://reason.com/archives/2014/08/08/ebola-dress-rehearsal-or-show-closer#comment
I think the point is that Bob thinks he’s a warning voice and I think he’s panic-mongering.
Bob’s points are worth pondering in that panic would be the worst reaction to an outbreak outside Africa–he thinks he’s part of the solution, when he is part of the problem.
And from an epidemiological perspective, the very nature of hemorrhagic fevers and how they are transmitted makes them self-limiting compared to influenza or HIV.
False prophets of doom, again, really they are banking that this Ebola crisis will spread from Africa, then they can stand up and say ‘I told ya so’ and weep, as nobody took any notice of them to prevent it.