Hmmn, from a strictly eugenic POV I suspect that a Pandemic would cause a lot less long term damage than the socio-economic alternative and might even confer some long term benefits.
Ebola scaremongering?
- Thread starter Mynight
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Hmmn, from a strictly eugenic POV I suspect that a Pandemic would cause a lot less long term damage than the socio-economic alternative and might even confer some long term benefits.
The thing is with Ebola, as the virus stands now, it can be stopped easily. When I say easily I mean with hard measures that we are already seeing on the news.
I am quite confident that in this and other countries, should it make its way here we are more than adequately equipped to cope with it even without the equipment that we would say is vital for it. We all know that the reason why this has spread so quickly and so far is because of the local practices, indifference and mis-trust of any authorities, superstitions and lack of education. We would not have any of those problems here in the UK to any great extent.
With a new Influenza strain, it would be here before we know it as we saw in the UK with swine flu. I have read the Government Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy and they have accepted this fact; once it was here is spread quick due to airborne infection. For this reason they state that closing borders etc would be ineffective. I believe that this would not be the case with Ebola.
if one or two cases arrived and were quickly isolated, they would be dealt with quickly, would hopefully survive and we would move on. Lessons learned would be applied and we would be better equipped to deal with any further cases. If we for some reason started having many many people failing ill then closing borders to the countries where the most infected are turning up, would be effective in stopping infection and I guess would be done. This would be for a period of time whilst a) effective quarantine zones were set up or b) infection rates subsided. This would have course have to be done in collaboration with other countries.
The disease is not endemic in our country, so once all human infections have run their course, it will not magically re-appear; it cannot set up camp here. Flu can and does; people are still getting Swine Flu today in the UK. Even if it does (lets say it used rats as a natural reservoir), rats bites are not that common and we would deal with that carrier should that happen. Look at how we dealt with vCJD. Ebola keeps popping up in Africa because people continue to consume dried bush-meat (not cooking it - cooking destroys the Ebola virus). We would not have this problem here.
As Prof. Peter Piot said recently, he cannot believe that people are still dying from this when containment works so well.
It is easy to get caught up in the panic that some papers can spread, however at least they are getting the message out there; the more people know the more we can recognize and deal with it. Maybe we should send the latest red-tops to West Africa now; maybe that would scare them into submission!
South China Morning Post ran an article a couple of days ago on the air passenger who returned from Kenya with a fever recently and was immediately isolated in the Queen Mary Hospital. She was cleared of any Ebola infection and all is fine. However they were criticized by some readers who stated that a none-infection is not news. I disagree; it gets it out there and showed that Hong Kong can react and was quick to act.
Don't get me wrong, Ebola scares the hell outta me ever since I discovered it reading Hot Zone when I was about 12. It is easy to get caught up in the panic over this and you can see how this can get worse. However if you apply logic to this you can see how we can tackle this very easily, and hope can come from this.
I do hope that we see the other side of this soon. I am amazed that anyone out in West Africa could be ignorant of this by now, but you have to respect what they have been put through over the years. I have nothing but admiration for the incredibly brave medical staff on the front line out there, they are modern heroes and should ever be treated as such.
I am quite confident that in this and other countries, should it make its way here we are more than adequately equipped to cope with it even without the equipment that we would say is vital for it. We all know that the reason why this has spread so quickly and so far is because of the local practices, indifference and mis-trust of any authorities, superstitions and lack of education. We would not have any of those problems here in the UK to any great extent.
With a new Influenza strain, it would be here before we know it as we saw in the UK with swine flu. I have read the Government Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy and they have accepted this fact; once it was here is spread quick due to airborne infection. For this reason they state that closing borders etc would be ineffective. I believe that this would not be the case with Ebola.
if one or two cases arrived and were quickly isolated, they would be dealt with quickly, would hopefully survive and we would move on. Lessons learned would be applied and we would be better equipped to deal with any further cases. If we for some reason started having many many people failing ill then closing borders to the countries where the most infected are turning up, would be effective in stopping infection and I guess would be done. This would be for a period of time whilst a) effective quarantine zones were set up or b) infection rates subsided. This would have course have to be done in collaboration with other countries.
The disease is not endemic in our country, so once all human infections have run their course, it will not magically re-appear; it cannot set up camp here. Flu can and does; people are still getting Swine Flu today in the UK. Even if it does (lets say it used rats as a natural reservoir), rats bites are not that common and we would deal with that carrier should that happen. Look at how we dealt with vCJD. Ebola keeps popping up in Africa because people continue to consume dried bush-meat (not cooking it - cooking destroys the Ebola virus). We would not have this problem here.
As Prof. Peter Piot said recently, he cannot believe that people are still dying from this when containment works so well.
It is easy to get caught up in the panic that some papers can spread, however at least they are getting the message out there; the more people know the more we can recognize and deal with it. Maybe we should send the latest red-tops to West Africa now; maybe that would scare them into submission!
South China Morning Post ran an article a couple of days ago on the air passenger who returned from Kenya with a fever recently and was immediately isolated in the Queen Mary Hospital. She was cleared of any Ebola infection and all is fine. However they were criticized by some readers who stated that a none-infection is not news. I disagree; it gets it out there and showed that Hong Kong can react and was quick to act.
Don't get me wrong, Ebola scares the hell outta me ever since I discovered it reading Hot Zone when I was about 12. It is easy to get caught up in the panic over this and you can see how this can get worse. However if you apply logic to this you can see how we can tackle this very easily, and hope can come from this.
I do hope that we see the other side of this soon. I am amazed that anyone out in West Africa could be ignorant of this by now, but you have to respect what they have been put through over the years. I have nothing but admiration for the incredibly brave medical staff on the front line out there, they are modern heroes and should ever be treated as such.
I dunno about bsl4 but there are a few commercial labs that can be repurposed for high level containment in the event of a major incident - where my dad works has a system in place for it (its either cl 3 or 4) - he also has inoculations and training for dealing with some of the real nasty stuff due to his experience in the field - which is a bit scary as he'd be on the frontline in that regard if anything major did kick off.
EDIT: They are trained and have a system in place for CL3 dealing with anthrax specifically and/or theoretically smallpox, etc. in the event of an incident but in an emergency the system is in place to upgrade to "whatever" level is needed.
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Dealing with samples will be "relatively" easy as you say things can be upgraded but treatment of patients would be a logistical nightmare of epic proportions and the NHS is nowhere near a state where it could cope with large infection volumes.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28610112
Quite a statement by the WHO. Frustratingly it seems to be spreading so fast due to a largely uneducated population and deep seated social practises. In theory it should not be hard to control!
Quite a statement by the WHO. Frustratingly it seems to be spreading so fast due to a largely uneducated population and deep seated social practises. In theory it should not be hard to control!
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Scary stuff, did some reading the other day and its a nasty virus. Props to the doctors for having the balls to help patients, not sure I could.
Ah yeah.
Really? Because all the pictures I see are just basic protective clothing and nothing else. I would not go near an ebola patient without a spacesuit lol.
Hardly unexpected for the WHO to start alarming everyone.
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An interesting and troubling read, thanks for posting
Well obviously they need to get some support, but they wouldn't release such a statement if it wasn't true. It is alarming that they can't get a handle on this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28634903
Woman from West Africa dies at Gatwick airport, tested for Ebola. Apparently the test was negative but I can't help thinking that if it were positive, would they tell us?
Woman from West Africa dies at Gatwick airport, tested for Ebola. Apparently the test was negative but I can't help thinking that if it were positive, would they tell us?
Yes. Trust here is key and the government knows it. If they covered up and then it was found out subsequently, which would be pretty easy to find out (family access to body etc), then we would have a similar situation to West Africa potentially emerging.
The key to stopping any epidemic risk here is trust. No matter how scary the prospect would be to get it here, building trust is the only way to fight it at the moment.
In this case, if it had been positive then they would have to have immediately informed airport staff who had contact, plus they would be seeking other people from the passenger manifest. Both groups would not be isolated (unless they had had direct contact with the patient I imagine), but be told to look out for symptoms and seek specialist medical care should they show any signs of infection. This would be hard to keep from the press. If this was covered up and therefore the above action was not taken then we would be literally inviting an epidemic here. I cannot imagine that would be the governments aim.
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First doses seem promising;
http://www.businessinsider.com/zmapp-serum-used-to-treat-ebola-infected-americans-2014-8
Fingers crossed.
http://www.businessinsider.com/zmapp-serum-used-to-treat-ebola-infected-americans-2014-8
Fingers crossed.
why wouldnt they? i mean seriously what does anyone but an evil mastermind wanting to wipe out man kind gain from covering this up?
Yeah - according to GD I thought the government liked us living in 'fear' blah blah blah...
dude.. it's scorza. He thinks the Queen is reptilian.
Soldato
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What? Who mentioned anything about eugenics?
I think you're getting me confused with someone else ... again! The David Icke adoring reptilian believers are all in the Ukraine Crisis thread trying desperately to find evidence that the US shot down MH017 in a false flag.
There are good reasons for keeping news of an outbreak of a serious disease like Ebola quiet. Preventing panic in the general population means that the spread of the disease is easier to monitor and predict, imagine if people started panic buying petrol which meant hospital workers couldn't get to work etc. At least that's what fictional representations of serious epidemics have suggested.