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.
let's all hope he is negative
ReplyDeleteif not we could have a further problem here
Lick NO ONE. Scary shite
ReplyDeleteAlso, 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
Delete[head/desk]
ReplyDeleteThere is so much ignorant privilege in this post. #secondhandembarassment
Oh my God yes. I cringed.
DeleteDoc, if that is so, please educate us.
ReplyDeleteOh, and that movie, The Band Played On? It is a must see, great great movie on all levels. See it!
DeleteRELAX. Unlike HIV, we know A LOT more about Ebola and have major drug breakthroughs on the horizon.
ReplyDeleteEbola initial symptoms are like a flu. He may have a goddamed flu and you are terrified.
ReplyDeleteF 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?
They said he recently traveled to Liberia, which is the part that makes this potentially dangerous
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeletei rolled my eyes through this entire post.
ReplyDeleteIf you aren't threatened by AIDS, you shouldn't be threatened by Ebola.
ReplyDeleteWell, who doesn't love a bit of hysterical fear-mongering with their gossip!?
ReplyDeleteTTM - HIV is manageable now but when it began it was a death notice.
ReplyDeleteSo many things are wrong with this post.
ReplyDeleteThe author obviously loves the word 'that', doesn't know the difference between either & neither &&&& 'some African country' ??? Really ?????? Twat.
Skip- thats just semantics.
Delete@Meanie @Shudupdee
ReplyDelete+135
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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
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.
DeleteAgree - 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.
ReplyDelete>>Hanta virus>>
DeleteDon't play with mouse poop. There, fixed that for you!
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!
DeleteMaybe John Travolta has one he can lend you.
Delete" They are probably right, but what if they are wrong."
ReplyDeleteCalm 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%.
@auntdiddy @doctahRiven
ReplyDeleteThank you
Sheesh, this post should've ended after the first sentence.
ReplyDelete@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.
ReplyDeleteAlso 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
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.
Delete@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. :-(
DeleteAlso 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.
SCARE TACTICS
ReplyDeleteTruly, 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.
ReplyDeleteFru-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.
Delete@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 :-).
DeleteBut 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"??
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.
Delete@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 :-).
DeleteFru, 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.
Deleteliddy, I couldn't agree more - very well said.
Deleteha- I am re-reading And The Band Played On for the 30th time right now....
ReplyDeleteHow are we supposed to guess who he is if we don't have his A / B / C List ranking?
ReplyDeleteToo broad, this could be anyone.
Tinfoil hat
ReplyDelete@skippy - yay! Good job!
DeleteCatching this virus mandates coming in contact with bodily fluids. How many fluids do you exchange with total strangers in an airport or mall?
ReplyDeleteApril 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.
ReplyDeletethey are not totally sure about the fluids thing
ReplyDeletethere 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
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.
DeleteYes. 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.
DeleteWe better get used too this, it's a very small world.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteyou could touch something that was still damp with fluids anywhere in public.......
ReplyDeletenothing is 100%
Yes. People are being too dismissive of this. There is terrible potential for disaster.
DeleteLove, love, LOVE And The Band Played On.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
Ignorant fear mongering.
ReplyDeleteI go back and forth between Foxnews, MSNBC and CNN - from what I've seen CNN seems to be the most hysterical about Ebola.
ReplyDeleteWake up y'all. Have you been reading about the diseases coming across the southern border? Major national health disaster is brewing.
ReplyDeleteheaddesk
ReplyDeleteStop Eating Fruit Bats Now! And ... watch the other hand.
ReplyDeleteTruly some very smart and rational people who post here. Kudos to all who bring intelligence and sanity to the conversation.
ReplyDeleteYou 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.
ReplyDeleteFact: 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.
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DeleteEverything I know about the Ebola virus, I learned from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six novel.
ReplyDeleteProbably his last good book before going completely stupid on us.
It's a rare treat (especially on the internet) to encounter people with an abundance of well-informed common sense.
ReplyDeleteWell done good sirs/ladies!
*applause*
I apologize I still cannot do the clicky link thing. Please read:
ReplyDeletehttp://jezebel.com/the-paranoid-hypochondriacs-guide-to-the-ebola-outbreak-1614724719
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.
ReplyDeleteI'm more worried about the flesh eating virus that people are contracting accidentally in parks and the West Nile virus.
ReplyDeleteFuck, 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.
ReplyDeleteWe 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!
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ReplyDeleteWhile 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.
ReplyDelete