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I was watching on the news the patient with Ebola being taken out of the ambulance on the walkway that leads to the door of the hospital.
I was thinking, that doesn't seem to be very contained. The health care workers were wrapped in plastic, but the patient did not look like they were wrapped in plastic containment. I hope that the germs did not go airborn and now they are in the air ready to invade the next person to inhale the air.
I am not kidding about this. It did not look very contained to me. I am concerned that they are putting this ebola patient ahead of the public's health safety and welfare. That is you and me.
China and the far east countries are also hotbeds for disease waiting to bloom. The concentration of people in heavily populated urban areas are a buffet waiting to be served to disease. The flu and SARS are coming from those areas.
In theory, but China seems to be a lot more efficient in containing these things if they pop up. Unlike Africa, they're organized, disciplined, strict with rule enforcement, and afaik quite clean for the most part in spite of the congested living conditions. A whole village was put in quarantine immediately with the bubonic plague outbreak. Africa is chaos, filth, superstition, and patients running out of hospitals and tossing dead bodies on the street. India is pretty much just as bad.
In theory, but China seems to be a lot more efficient in containing these things if they pop up. Unlike Africa, they're organized, disciplined, strict with rule enforcement, and afaik quite clean for the most part in spite of the congested living conditions. A whole village was put in quarantine immediately with the bubonic plague outbreak. Africa is chaos, filth, superstition, and patients running out of hospitals and tossing dead bodies on the street. India is pretty much just as bad.
I heard that the Chinese have developed some sort of vaccine for the Ebola? My Chinese is not as good as when I was in grad school, so I might be missing the details in the news clip. But in any case, as the recent lock-down of a whole village in western China due to a death by the plague attests, China's government has developed a set of very strict procedures in dealing with possible epidemic/pandemic. The only problem with the Chinese is their cultural lust-habit for strange "wild taste", or the eating of exotic animals which may carry lots of surprises.
China's case is one where an authoritarian government can efficiently and effectively contain an outbreak, regardless of the immediate cost and for the greater good. Do you really want to preserve the rights of a small village and risk a massive outbreak of a disease that, given China's links to many parts of the world, will quickly become a global problem? Whiny liberals need not apply here.
In theory, but China seems to be a lot more efficient in containing these things if they pop up. Unlike Africa, they're organized, disciplined, strict with rule enforcement, and afaik quite clean for the most part in spite of the congested living conditions. A whole village was put in quarantine immediately with the bubonic plague outbreak. Africa is chaos, filth, superstition, and patients running out of hospitals and tossing dead bodies on the street. India is pretty much just as bad.
Yes, but that's putting the best face possible on China's response. The Chinese enforce the rules if flouting them threatens the Chinese political hierarchy. Witness the pervasive tampering/adulteration of food, milk, baby formula, dog food, toothpaste, sheetrock & on & on. The ethos seems to be Do whatever you can get away with & make a killing, but don't get caught.
The Chinese bureaucrats seem quick to impose capital punishment, true enough. But with the Party in charge of military, mass media, judiciary from top to bottom - I wonder if the culprits @ the top ever pay the price. I suspect not.
Of course, it's a sweet deal - if you need a liver or pancreas or something - as long as you can get a genotype match with somebody already in the prison system (the Party's in charge of that too, of course, as well as universities, hospitals, ...), no problem. Think of the inmates as free-range warehouses on the hoof, so to speak. I wonder if the prisoners get extra perks for taking good care of their organs? Maybe better food, an occasional date (gotta keep the pipes running ...)?
How arrogant. IF Ebola were to arrive in the US, it would kill at least as many people, perhaps more, than it is currently killing in Africa. Why? Because we are all still only people.
As I may have mentioned a couple of times, we have a perfect comparison in another hemorrhagic fever - Lassa Fever - a disease that spreads along the same vectors as Ebola, yet keeps its hosts alive for longer and so gets to infect more people. And it's not a walk in the park - 20% mortality rate among those hospitalized. It has a reservoir of an estimated 100K infected people in Africa, where it kills at least 5,000 per year.
It does get to the US. And it doesn't spread, although it makes for amuch better epidemic than Ebola does. The US is not a good environment for hemorrhagic fevers.
Please - stop the insistence that this is the next pandemic, because it ain't.
Please - stop the insistence that this is the next pandemic, because it ain't.
I, for one, don't think this is the next pandemic. But I sure don't want to have even a handful of cases anywhere in my vicinity. I don't want there to even be a small, remote risk to catch it without heading out to a third world country. I want to go back to not even having it on my radar and not monitor the news and hold my breath whenever they have yet another person they're testing for a possible case. Gah.
I, for one, don't think this is the next pandemic. But I sure don't want to have even a handful of cases anywhere in my vicinity. I don't want there to even be a small, remote risk to catch it without heading out to a third world country. I want to go back to not even having it on my radar and not monitor the news and hold my breath whenever they have yet another person they're testing for a possible case. Gah.
Don't monitor the news, don't hold your breath, adjust the noise filter on your radar. In 2014, more people will die from cattle-related accidents than from Ebola in the US.
Yes, but that's putting the best face possible on China's response. The Chinese enforce the rules if flouting them threatens the Chinese political hierarchy. Witness the pervasive tampering/adulteration of food, milk, baby formula, dog food, toothpaste, sheetrock & on & on. The ethos seems to be Do whatever you can get away with & make a killing, but don't get caught.
The Chinese bureaucrats seem quick to impose capital punishment, true enough. But with the Party in charge of military, mass media, judiciary from top to bottom - I wonder if the culprits @ the top ever pay the price. I suspect not.
Of course, it's a sweet deal - if you need a liver or pancreas or something - as long as you can get a genotype match with somebody already in the prison system (the Party's in charge of that too, of course, as well as universities, hospitals, ...), no problem. Think of the inmates as free-range warehouses on the hoof, so to speak. I wonder if the prisoners get extra perks for taking good care of their organs? Maybe better food, an occasional date (gotta keep the pipes running ...)?
I think you have been reading too many propaganda news stories from the banned Falung Gong group hiding in the US. The fact is, any country going through massive changes and development, like the US in the 1920's and China today, will have corruption that runs all the way to the top. This was true in the US and it is true today in the PRC. China's corruption is made worse by a one party dictatorship, and the Chinese may find a novel solution yet. They are in uncharted territory, but I seriously do not think, at this point, China can benefit from a US style "democracy". Heck, this US style democracy isn't working all that smoothly here in the US these days either.
Regardless of what you think about China, their focused top down directive driven approach to containment and quarantine, and their willingness to pay the price for the greater good should serve them well in a massive outbreak scenario. I am not sure that we, with all the fancy technology and protocol, can do much better.
I think you have been reading too many propaganda news stories from the banned Falung Gong group hiding in the US. The fact is, any country going through massive changes and development, like the US in the 1920's and China today, will have corruption that runs all the way to the top. This was true in the US and it is true today in the PRC. China's corruption is made worse by a one party dictatorship, and the Chinese may find a novel solution yet. They are in uncharted territory, but I seriously do not think, at this point, China can benefit from a US style "democracy". Heck, this US style democracy isn't working all that smoothly here in the US these days either.
Regardless of what you think about China, their focused top down directive driven approach to containment and quarantine, and their willingness to pay the price for the greater good should serve them well in a massive outbreak scenario. I am not sure that we, with all the fancy technology and protocol, can do much better.
No, I don't follow Chinese internal politics/issues all that closely. It seems to me that the Chinese Party still has the nomenklatura mentality - save the Party - & its members - first, above all others. Would they truly act for the greater good? Let's hope it never comes to that choice - the notion of Mandarins still rings in Western history, if not exactly enshrined in Party orthodoxy. Or @ least, not for public consumption.
I think PRC, like N. Korea & even the reconstituted Japan - can cohere & pull together when the rulers/administrators are perceived to have the Mandate of Heaven, or however they phrase it these days. Once any doubt creeps in about the hierarchical nature of loyalty & reciprocal feelings of belonging, however, those societies seem to fall apart in a spectacular way. Then it's chaos all around, until some new organizing principle manages to round up enough support to impose their vision/will upon the country.
The reality is that currently Ebola Virus has a high probability of killing and a low transmissibility when precautions are used. Unlike H1N5 which was highly transmissible but not lethal Ebola is the reverse; lethal yet not easily transmissible. That said, there are some initial senses of the infectious disease community that in the setting of spraying off contaminated personal protective equipment Ebola virus may have become aerosolized. This means that wet moist droplets were either inhaled, swallowed or entered a body by some other means, and those persons may have become infected. It is clear that touching people who have Ebola is often fatal without the use of PPE.
Virus are smart little cells contained in protein. They mutate and develop the ability to spread. Why? Because like all LIFE the virus wants to reproduce and grow. It is the purpose of life....to grow and flourish. Good or bad, angelic or evil that is the way the code of life is written. To grow.
So then, it makes sense that some virus mutate H1N1 and some do not. Some mutate into more pathogenic (lethal) forms and others do not. The worst combination is high transmissibility and high lethality (1918 flu). Bear in mind that this is not a boilerplate idea, in other words the mutations or growth are unpredictable and therefore monitored very closely by very smart people in W.H.O. and CDC. The virus however is equally smart, so collectively pronouncements of how safe we are (currently quite safe without contact) are only as good as the mutations allow.
At this point in time, each person who is concerned should think over what would be needed to avoid contact with any person who is infected with any virus (yes the common cold) and learn how to use PPE to your advantage.
If the Ebola virus mutates then society may change. Thus far it has not, Testing occurs each day in several countries with very smart people closely watching. Thinking that we can be in control is only as real as our thinking is clear.
Stay well, Be prepared.
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Losing face, & everything else besides
