Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Man Tested For Ebola In NYC

Yesterday a man who recently visited West Africa was tested for Ebola in a NYC hospital. Health officials say it is unlikely he has Ebola. They are probably right, but what if they are wrong. I remember back in the day watching the movie And The Band Played On and the first few minutes of that movie still stick with me. It is a movie about the first AIDS case in the world but the genesis of the virus from Ebola. Anyway, when you watch that movie and see how one, just one person can spread a disease throughout the world almost by himself you realize what a few infected people could do if let loose in NYC. Yes, Ebola is not an air transmitted disease. Either was HIV and it spread like crazy. In the past Ebola has always been something you saw briefly every few years on the news as it killed a few dozen people in some African country. This time though is different. When the numbers start to reach 1,000 and are not confined to a small village that can be easily isolated, think about all the people that each of those 1,000 came into contact with. What about the other 1,000 that have lived and the people they have come into contact with? It does not take long before the multiples get out of hand and also that when the infected people can hop on a plane and be anywhere in the world in a matter of hours that contact group gets larger and harder to track and isolate.

68 comments:

rajahcat said...

let's all hope he is negative

if not we could have a further problem here

TalksTooMuch said...

Lick NO ONE. Scary shite

Rivenisahasbeen said...

[head/desk]

There is so much ignorant privilege in this post. #secondhandembarassment

auntliddy said...

Doc, if that is so, please educate us.

cc423 said...

RELAX. Unlike HIV, we know A LOT more about Ebola and have major drug breakthroughs on the horizon.

auntliddy said...

Oh, and that movie, The Band Played On? It is a must see, great great movie on all levels. See it!

8====D KermitGossnellKnobjob said...

Ebola initial symptoms are like a flu. He may have a goddamed flu and you are terrified.

F word. I live way nearer to Africa (in the PIGS) and have millions of Africans coming to this country every year (both legally and illegally) and we don't give a f word. And you have a dude who will probably have a cold and you are frightened?

Lurkerloo said...

I agree, Doctah. And The Band Played On wasn't about the first AIDS patient in the world. It was about the first in the United States.

shudupdee said...

i rolled my eyes through this entire post.

Ay said...

If you aren't threatened by AIDS, you shouldn't be threatened by Ebola.

TalksTooMuch said...

Also, I feel like I have to say, as I do on every HIV post, that I have a friend that has lived with HIV for almost 20 years. It was nothing like the movie Outbreak that is depicted above

Meanie Rhysie said...

Well, who doesn't love a bit of hysterical fear-mongering with their gossip!?

msgirl said...

TTM - HIV is manageable now but when it began it was a death notice.

skippy said...

So many things are wrong with this post.
The author obviously loves the word 'that', doesn't know the difference between either & neither &&&& 'some African country' ??? Really ?????? Twat.

FrenchGirl said...

@Meanie @Shudupdee
+135

AndrewBW said...

One thing about HIV is that it is very slow acting. A person can have HIV for a long time without any sign of it, which makes spreading it so much easier.

The movie of "And the Band Played On" was ok, but if you want an experience, read Randy Shilts' book. One of the two or three most dramatic and engrossing pieces of reporting ever. Fabulous.

SusanB said...

Agree - Ebola is probably here already, it's not airborne and while one certainly needs to be careful there are other diseases that are just as scary and are already here - the flesh eating virus in Florida waters, TB, Hanta virus, that chikungunya virus that's spread by mosquitos here in Florida - the list goes on. Sometimes I just don't want to leave my house.

NomNom83 said...

" They are probably right, but what if they are wrong."

Calm down, Chicken Little. Ebola is not HIV. It is a terrible, horrific, painful way to die, and it makes MUCH quicker work of it than HIV. Part of the reason the HIV epidemic gained as much traction, as quickly, as it did, was that newly infected people could go a while without presenting any symptoms, during which time they passed it along to others and so on and so forth.

If it makes you feel better, your prognosis for surviving Ebola is about 10% - 40%.

FrenchGirl said...

@auntdiddy @doctahRiven
Thank you

LottaColada said...

Sheesh, this post should've ended after the first sentence.

auntliddy said...

Skip- thats just semantics.

Rivenisahasbeen said...

@auntliddy Just look at the outbreak history on the CDC's site. What's the common denominator amongst all of the countries with fatalities? They're all in Africa or a "3rd world country." They don't have access to clean water, modern medical facilities, or even functioning sewage systems. Well except Russia but both single cases of infection and fatality were "lab contaminations." Now that is far more interesting to me, personally.

Also there are millions of people, including celebs who frequent these BIs, who travel to Africa every year. I can name 2 actors who "vacationed" in west Africa earlier this year during the outbreak. We don't give a damn do we though? Not until one patient who we know is infected is brought to the US. *rolls eyes* Despite the fact that not a single person actually exposed to that patient during transit has gotten sick, media is still trying to whip us in to a frenzy. Anyone remember swine flu? Or bird flu? Those "outbreaks" we all had to prepare for never happened, did they?

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/resources/outbreak-table.html

Sarah said...

SCARE TACTICS

auntliddy said...

Doc, yhank you so much, im very interested in the science of this stuff. And of course im not scared or panicky. What good wld it do anyway? Just take a sensible approach.

Frufra said...

Truly, I recommend TURNING OFF 24 hour news channels. They spread panic like nobody's business. I think that's why everyone's hysterical these days. Our brains have been rotted by wonks who have a lot of airtime to fill. Keep showing the same four clips of a "crisis", use scary background music and a dramatic graphic, and suddenly we're all too scared to leave our houses.

auntliddy said...

Fru-i see right thru their crap, so it can be amusing. My favorite is when they whip everyone into a frebzy over their IMAGINED screnario, and then have experts come in and talk about what to do about the IMAGINARY scenarios, lol.

parissucksliterally said...

ha- I am re-reading And The Band Played On for the 30th time right now....

Frufra said...

@auntliddy - it is rediculous, isn't it?? I enjoy the hell out of watching Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert skewer all of it. I just save time and watch them :-).

But seriously - someone like my MIL, with mental health issues - add in a strong daily dose of Fox News, and you've got a real situation on your hands. Can you say "tinfoil hat"??

Rivenisahasbeen said...

@AuntLiddy oh yeah and any derision or eye rolling in my comment is solely for Enty and other media personnel. They need our attention for ratings, what's better than a good ole pandemic? Every year they cause hysteria over a medical issue, this year it's Ebola. I mean yes it's a huge outbreak but our country didn't care at all until an American doctor got sick. It disgusts me. :-(

Also I confess I've been monitoring it closely out of interest so I've learned a lot about Ebola. It just makes me feel for the millions of people stuck in those countries, they're the ones who need our help most, they're the ones who are far more likely to die than anyone on mainland US.

Sincerely,Your Friend said...

How are we supposed to guess who he is if we don't have his A / B / C List ranking?
Too broad, this could be anyone.

skippy said...

Tinfoil hat

Rivenisahasbeen said...

Oh man Liddy & Fru, do you remember the cooler bombs that were supposedly going to happen over summer the year after 9/11/01? Yeah, that was hilarious. They tried pulling the same crap every summer until Bush left office, not a single barbecue cooler ever exploded though. I think the terror alert colors are funny, I never take them seriously now.

Tru said...

Catching this virus mandates coming in contact with bodily fluids. How many fluids do you exchange with total strangers in an airport or mall?

Frufra said...

@skippy - yay! Good job!

Frufra said...

@Doc - no, I honestly don't! I had my second baby in October of 01, so all I remember for about a year after 09/11 is entertaining a bored 3 year old and taking care of a little one! I do remember lots of Thomas the Tank Engine, though :-).

skippy said...

April fool's day (Bryce Courteney) is also a great read. Very sad. True story about his sons battle with Aids. Written in the early nineties.

auntliddy said...

Fru, sorry about your mil and her jaunty tin hat, lol. Seriously, this is my main huge beef with these types of stations: they are deciminating this nonesense for ratings. They know it isnt true or in any way factual. But some of their listeners DO have mental problems, and they get very upset, at the least. At the most, these people take some dramatic action based on some inane blather spewed by this newsnutter. They have a moral and ethical responsibility not to spread fear and misinformation, yet they do it for the almighty dollar. I find that deplorable.

rajahcat said...

they are not totally sure about the fluids thing

there have been cases of spread in animals that were caged separately so no exchange of fluids and Ebola did spread airborne

this is not 100% factually true about the fluids as I understand

MISCH said...

We better get used too this, it's a very small world.

Frufra said...

liddy, I couldn't agree more - very well said.

Michael said...

I think a virus like Ebola kills too quickly to become a pandemic. Unless it mutates, the infected person will become ill and die before they have a chance to move around alot.

rajahcat said...

you could touch something that was still damp with fluids anywhere in public.......

nothing is 100%

Gayeld said...

>>Hanta virus>>

Don't play with mouse poop. There, fixed that for you!

bellaluna said...

Love, love, LOVE And The Band Played On.

I do believe the media has long since crossed the line into hysteria (I'm looking at you, Faux News) and this is just another way to try to get already lathered up people more so.

NaughtyNurse said...

Ignorant fear mongering.

SusanB said...

I go back and forth between Foxnews, MSNBC and CNN - from what I've seen CNN seems to be the most hysterical about Ebola.

J Ruth said...

Oh my God yes. I cringed.

Groggy said...

Wake up y'all. Have you been reading about the diseases coming across the southern border? Major national health disaster is brewing.

Unknown said...

headdesk

__-__=__ said...

Stop Eating Fruit Bats Now! And ... watch the other hand.

Sherry said...

Truly some very smart and rational people who post here. Kudos to all who bring intelligence and sanity to the conversation.

Amartel said...

You morons are just as manipulated and led about by the media you watch as any FoxNews or CNN viewer. Ya ignant parrots who get "news" from comedy shows.

Fact: At least 70 people from West African nations affected by the current ebola outbreak (Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia) have been apprehended trying to sneak into the US since January. And that's just the people who were apprehended.
Fact: The current ebola outbreak is from a virus that is much more virulent than in prior outbreaks.
Fact: Doctors know some ways it spreads (btw, the fruit bat thing is how it's spread in Africa where people are really poor and eat fruit bats) but they can't rule out other methods of transmission. The doctor who treated the doctor who's now back in the US for treatment got infected and he wasn't eating fruit bats.
Fact: The way to fight a contagious outbreak is to isolate it from spreading to other people and treat it at the source.

The concern that untreated and infected people are in the U.S. is a valid one. People could get infected. Not you of course so maybe that's why it's easy to turn it into a jumping off point for hilarious comedy jokes.

0_0 said...

Everything I know about the Ebola virus, I learned from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six novel.
Probably his last good book before going completely stupid on us.

WritergirlinLa said...

I'm working on a project down here in FL. I love to sail but won't go sailing for fear of flesh eating virus. A sailor friend lost part of his foot to it. My immune system sucks. I should buy a bubble!

Yoj said...

It's a rare treat (especially on the internet) to encounter people with an abundance of well-informed common sense.
Well done good sirs/ladies!
*applause*

DevOcean said...

They said the virus can survive in the moisture drops in the air. Major news is leaving that fact out. That's how it spread to animals that weren't in contact with each other.

Gayeld said...

Maybe John Travolta has one he can lend you.

Trilby said...

Yes. And the medical professionals caught it even with protective suits. I agree with Enty on this one. And I'll admit to having a really bad feeling about this, & being scared.

Trilby said...

Yes. People are being too dismissive of this. There is terrible potential for disaster.

Trilby said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
NaughtyNurse said...

I apologize I still cannot do the clicky link thing. Please read:
http://jezebel.com/the-paranoid-hypochondriacs-guide-to-the-ebola-outbreak-1614724719

Blasie said...

People should be worried about getting shot by a random gunman or crashing our cars because too many people can't stop using "smart" phones.

Henriette said...

I'm more worried about the flesh eating virus that people are contracting accidentally in parks and the West Nile virus.

Jennmcn said...

Fuck, fuck, fuck and fuck. This isn't AIDS. I lost family, who were hemophiliacs in the 1980's and friends, including my best friend 19 years ago.

We won't still be talking about Ebola in 30 years. It has a short incubation period, can be isolated quickly, they actually know what it is, how to treat it and they might actually be close to a serum.

The stupid, it hurts!

Jennmcn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

While I am happy to hear that both the American workers who have returned to the US seem to be recovering, due to blood transfusions and experimental drugs, It is sad that like AIDS, we are only truly concerned when it effects our people and then they tend to get the very best treatment while thousands of the poorest in the world die. Maybe they also gave transfusions and drugs to the African doctors and patients who contracted Ebola, or maybe they didn't even consider it.

Nipple said...

HIV is not that easy to get as the virus cannot survive outside the human body. If someone is too dumb to wrap their bits during sex, they probably deserved the Darwin award anyway.

Jacq said...

They said he recently traveled to Liberia, which is the part that makes this potentially dangerous

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