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Could urban areas become a petri dish for ebola. The higher density of urban dwellers makes them more susceptible to communicable disease. Are you prepared to make lifestyle changes?
Could urban areas become a petri dish for ebola. The higher density of urban dwellers makes them more susceptible to communicable disease. Are you prepared to make lifestyle changes?
Your misapplying the idea of a petri dish. Few areas in the US are in any way like a petri dish. While our healthcare system is terrible for how much it costs and the benefits it does provide for that cost, it, along with our bureaucracies, are too good for such a metaphor to make sense.
Your misapplying the idea of a petri dish. Few areas in the US are in any way like a petri dish. While our healthcare system is terrible for how much it costs and the benefits it does provide for that cost, it, along with our bureaucracies, are too good for such a metaphor to make sense.
Nope, public health and sanitation is too good for US cities to be a petri dish for Ebola. Senegal and Nigeria have managed to keep a lid on Ebola, the US certainly would. But yes, high density living may make cities better environment for the spread of some other infectious diseases. Not enough to make me change my lifestyle, however. I think my current lifestyle leads to overall higher health then living in a rural area would, despite slightly higher risks of some specific conditions. For example, people in rural areas of my province have to worry about fungal lung infections and parasites that I don't have to.
Nope, public health and sanitation is too good for US cities to be a petri dish for Ebola. Senegal and Nigeria have managed to keep a lid on Ebola, the US certainly would. But yes, high density living may make cities better environment for the spread of some other infectious diseases. Not enough to make me change my lifestyle, however. I think my current lifestyle leads to overall higher health then living in a rural area would, despite slightly higher risks of some specific conditions. For example, people in rural areas of my province have to worry about fungal lung infections and parasites that I don't have to.
The CDC isn't even sure how to handle the Ebola threat.
There are several advantages the U.S. has over West Africa in considering Ebola.
1. We have far better public sanitation.
2. No one but people in the medical field and morticians handles dead bodies.
3. Our health care system, while not perfect, does have more resources than those of developing nations.
4. We're, by international standards, a very socially isolated people. Most of us do not come in direct physical contact with anyone outside of immediate family in a typical day.
By themselves, these don't assure no one will be infected. However, if current stats are correct, the average person infected with Ebola in West Africa infects in turn a further two people. If U.S. base practices in and of itself reduce transmission by 50% then, each person infected with Ebola here should infect (on average) one person or less. Which means we don't get an outbreak.
I still think the NYC subways are a major potential vector for Ebola. It can be transmitted by bodily fluids, so all you have to do is touch the same subway pole that an Ebola-shedding person did, then touch your face, and you can be infected. Whether it will actually happen depends on how much virus people shed before they get too sick to go out and about; it could have started already.
I still think the NYC subways are a major potential vector for Ebola. It can be transmitted by bodily fluids, so all you have to do is touch the same subway pole that an Ebola-shedding person did, then touch your face, and you can be infected. Whether it will actually happen depends on how much virus people shed before they get too sick to go out and about; it could have started already.
That seems like a valid concern. But, that is a wholly different position than urban areas in general being a petri dish for Ebola.
10 or 15 willing Isis fighters catch the virus and go out of their way to infect people is my concern. Low tech bioweapon.
In the US, also a low efficacy strategy.
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