!!!!! Ebola !!!!

[Cosmic Charlie]

Death toll for Ebola outbreak growing | MSNBC

(my old laptop can't pull this video up, but it's the latest breaking news for anyone who can)

p.s. and Charlie, please stay with us. God knows so well that these are hard times for all of us, but we just can't afford to loose a single member here.

Holy snapping turtles.

It's worse then the article says. 50 medical personal dead. A symptomatic patient leaving the hospital in Freetown. This stain is killing people in less then 8 hours. People intentionally not getting medical help because of the civil wars.

I don't know what to say.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Ok, I hope you have your attention.

I've come back here for only one thread and only one reason:

I've read "The Hot Zone". If you haven't you should. It's the story of the only time Ebola got into the United States. Maryland, specifically, about 10 miles for DC.

(That's Washington, DC)

It took the Army, the CDC and the WHO to stop it before it got out into the population.

But that's not way I'm here,

I'm here to scare you. And for the first time in my 11 years on this board ask for prayer.

Guys:

The ONLY good thing about Ebola is that it's so frightening, so fast, and so horrible that when it breaks out somewhere people are scared completely insane and run for the hills.

Thus, Ebola burns itself out because it has no one to infect.

Except now.

Boys and girls we have a problem. This time Ebola got lucky - it hit a mobile population.

It's getting around.

It's in a second wave (an unheard of thing) and in 3 countries.


And spreading. And no one in here in the world seems to have noticed.


News from The Associated Press

{emphasis mine}

A lot of you guys don't pay much attention to me anymore and, that's ok.

But I'm serious as a nuclear attack, we (as a human on this planet) are in some serious trouble here, Africans especially.

If this gets into Europe, I don't even what to think about it.

I think maybe we should as some help.

We might need it.

Thank you for your attention.

Death toll for Ebola outbreak growing | MSNBC

(my old laptop can't pull this video up, but it's the latest breaking news for anyone who can)

p.s. and Charlie, please stay with us. God knows so well that these are hard times for all of us, but we just can't afford to loose a single member here.

I agree with pdudgeon; stick around.

Holy snapping turtles.

It's worse then the article says. 50 medical personal dead. A symptomatic patient leaving the hospital in Freetown. This stain is killing people in less then 8 hours. People intentionally not getting medical help because of the civil wars.

I don't know what to say.

I too have read the book mentioned in the OP. Ebola is as scarey as it gets; it kills quickly but without mercy; it has no favorites; young, old, male, female, it does not care. It also strikes without warning; and there is no treatment. For the most part, the only help that medicine can do is to make the dying comfortable.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

I



I too have read the book mentioned in the OP. Ebola is as scarey as it gets; it kills quickly but without mercy; it has no favorites; young, old, male, female, it does not care. It also strikes without warning; and there is no treatment. For the most part, the only help that medicine can do is to make the dying comfortable.

It makes AIDS (which interestingly arose in Africa at about the same time in about the same place as Ebola) look like a bad cold.

Ebola breaks down the connective tissue holding muscle to bone and organs together. I've seen autopsy photos.

Don't go find them, there are things you can't un-see. One of them is a human being with what looks like 5 gallons of Diary Queen strawberry shake poured into his chest.

Seriously guys, if I ever get this I'm going to look for a quick, painless way out, God forgive me, I don't have the guts for the kind of ending Ebola puts you thorugh

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

It makes AIDS (which interestingly arose in Africa at about the same time in about the same place as Ebola) look like a bad cold.

Ebola breaks down the connective tissue holding muscle to bone and organs together. I've seen autopsy photos.

Don't go find them, there are things you can't un-see. One of them is a human being with what looks like 5 gallons of Diary Queen strawberry shake poured into his chest.

Seriously guys, if I ever get this I'm going to look for a quick, painless way out, God forgive me, I don't have the guts for the kind of ending Ebola puts you thorugh

Charlie, I have seen the photos. A virus is neither living, nor dead. The modus opperandi of a virus is malicious. A virus infiltrates through the cell wall. Some viruses are very particular (Tobacco Mosaic Virus only attacks leaf cells on tobacco plants; Rhino Virus [common cold] attacks human mucous membranes), others like Ebola really don't care what cells in which part of the body they attack.

A virus enters the cell and goes right to the DNA/RNA and changes it to match it's own. It then uses the cell to reproduce more viruses; in the process, destroying the cell. Because Ebola is, for the most part, non specific, and the necrotic damage being so widespread, the body is physically done; beyond repair. Like a burn, cells die; when cells die wholesale throughout the body, the pain is unfathomable.

Yet we have an example in Christ; we pray in the Great Litany (Lutheran):

L: By the mystery of Your holy incarnation; by Your holy nativity;
By your baptism, fasting, and temptation; by Your agony and bloody sweat; by Your cross and passion; by Your precious death and burial;
By Your glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter;
C: Help us, good Lord.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

Charlie, I have seen the photos. A virus is neither living, nor dead. The modus opperandi of a virus is malicious. A virus infiltrates through the cell wall. Some viruses are very particular (Tobacco Mosaic Virus only attacks leaf cells on tobacco plants; Rhino Virus [common cold] attacks human mucous membranes), others like Ebola really don't care what cells in which part of the body they attack.

A virus enters the cell and goes right to the DNA/RNA and changes it to match it's own. It then uses the cell to reproduce more viruses; in the process, destroying the cell. Because Ebola is, for the most part, non specific, and the necrotic damage being so widespread, the body is physically done; beyond repair. Like a burn, cells die; when cells die wholesale throughout the body, the pain is unfathomable.

Yet we have an example in Christ; we pray in the Great Litany (Lutheran):

Thank you for the biology lesson.

 

[pdudgeon]

Charlie, I have seen the photos. A virus is neither living, nor dead. The modus opperandi of a virus is malicious. A virus infiltrates through the cell wall. Some viruses are very particular (Tobacco Mosaic Virus only attacks leaf cells on tobacco plants; Rhino Virus [common cold] attacks human mucous membranes), others like Ebola really don't care what cells in which part of the body they attack.

A virus enters the cell and goes right to the DNA/RNA and changes it to match it's own. It then uses the cell to reproduce more viruses; in the process, destroying the cell. Because Ebola is, for the most part, non specific, and the necrotic damage being so widespread, the body is physically done; beyond repair. Like a burn, cells die; when cells die wholesale throughout the body, the pain is unfathomable.

Yet we have an example in Christ; we pray in the Great Litany (Lutheran):

sounds just like satan--he comes to steal, kill, and destroy as well. Yesterday's science fiction becomes today's headline science fact.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

sounds just like satan--he comes to steal, kill, and destroy as well. Yesterday's science fiction becomes today's headline science fact.

It is indeed; as Scripture tells us "like a thief in the night". When we see death this horrible and on this scale it reminds us of the wages of sin; yet we need not fear death; eternity is longer and way better!

 

[Kitty.]

Yes, that's true.
I wonder why it's spreading so well.
Perhaps contaminated water or similar.

I read that a really big reason it is spreading so rapidly is because of the funeral services over in the villages. Oftentimes, they bury their dead, so whoever buries them comes in contact with the bodily fluids of the dead person. Additionally, the relatives of the dead come in contact with the body as well.
Villages are also very close knit with inadequate sanitation procedures so it's easier for a virus like that to spread. It's spread through contact with infected bodily fluids.
It's also possible for them to eat infected bushmeat and catch the virus.

 

[Antigone]

Reddit has an AMA with Stephen Morse, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, if anyone's interested. You can read it here.

 

[Lollerskates]

The saving grace in all of this is that Ebola is not extremely easy to spread. Infection requires direct contact with body fluids and secretions. It usually kills victims so quickly that there isn't time to infect a large number of people.

And, yet doctors and peace corps volunteers are getting it, as well as tourists.

Are they mounting people, or is this thing something more - perhaps it walks like ebola, and talks like ebola, but is not ebola (i.e. maybe the lab coasts are wrong.)

 

[Antigone]

And, yet doctors and peace corps volunteers are getting it, as well as tourists.

Are they mounting people, or is this thing something more - perhaps it walks like ebola, and talks like ebola, but is not ebola (i.e. maybe the lab coasts are wrong.)

Perhaps the prevalence of good sanitary facilities can slow down a potential outbreak in the West? Ebola isn't contageous before symptoms start to show. Good hygiene is the best prevention, according to that Reddit AMA guy.

 

[Lollerskates]

Perhaps the prevalence of good sanitary facilities can slow down a potential outbreak in the West? Ebola isn't contageous before symptoms start to show. Good hygiene is the best prevention, according to that Reddit AMA guy.

Let me be facetious for a minute.

The narrative goes that ebola is hard to get conventionally - about as hard as it is to get HIV (i.e. exchange of bodily fluids.) Yet, this is a worldwide crisis. Surely, doctors know proper hand washing techniques - I learned that in high school. Hand washing - proper hand washing - is the first line of defense for most all transmission of pathogens. Yet, infection among Western doctors (who undergo rigorous training in preventative measures, especially trauma doctors) are not only at risk, but getting infected.

Peace Corps volunteers are more understandable for contraction, but still, what bodily fluids are they coming in contact with such that they are getting infected.

And now, this is a global issue, yet it is so hard to contract?

And, why are these infected, and potentially exposed people flying back to their respective "Western" nations when 1) despite vehement assertion apparently this ebola is transmittable, and 2) the incubation period is 8-20 days? The West is not as sanitary as it is portrayed, and certainly not everyone knows not to touch their face, not to overuse sanitizers, to wash their hands for at least 30 seconds, and other preventative basics. Some people barely wash their hands after using the bathroom, and even so still touch surfaces (like handles, knobs, etc.) So, if all it takes is exposure to unsanitary practices and environment, then the West had better ignore the anthem that this is nothing to worry about.

That is why I asked if they were mounting people, because the rhetoric in the media contradictory calls this a global issue/crisis, but claims that the transmission of this ebola is so hard that we need not worry. Which is it, and why? Or, are we all missing something (again, perhaps it walks like ebola, talks like ebola, but it is something else.)

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I wonder, is there an underlying condition which is predisposing some to contract it more readily?

 

[Lollerskates]

I wonder, is there an underlying condition which is predisposing some to contract it more readily?

Eric Pianka - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[AMDG]

The first peace corps aid from Samaritan's Purse that contracted ebola should arrive here in the U.S. shortly. The other will follow a few days after that. Both will be flown by Gulf Stream to a military base in Georgia and then transferred to the hospital where they will be quarantined. The hospital that is receiving them said that the plan is that they will be receiving palliative care in the hope that the body's natural defenses will "kick in" and defeat the virus. Said that the two workers will have the best chance of survival here and there is practically NO chance of anyone catching the disease. Is our hygiene that much better? Is THAT what they are saying?

 

[brewmama]

And, yet doctors and peace corps volunteers are getting it, as well as tourists.

Are they mounting people, or is this thing something more - perhaps it walks like ebola, and talks like ebola, but is not ebola (i.e. maybe the lab coasts are wrong.)

If the medical workers are getting it, I think it's crazy to bring it here. I'm appalled.

 

[Antigone]

You're saying that Africans being under European colonialism is why they have poor sanitary practices?

Seriously? You expect us to believe that?

Come on.

Well, colonialism is partly to blame. We didn't exactly feel inclined to share our wisdom and technology with them back then, and by the time we left they hated us so much - and with good reason - that they didn't want to take our advice anymore.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

Let me be facetious for a minute.

The narrative goes that ebola is hard to get conventionally - about as hard as it is to get HIV (i.e. exchange of bodily fluids.) Yet, this is a worldwide crisis. Surely, doctors know proper hand washing techniques - I learned that in high school. Hand washing - proper hand washing - is the first line of defense for most all transmission of pathogens. Yet, infection among Western doctors (who undergo rigorous training in preventative measures, especially trauma doctors) are not only at risk, but getting infected.

Actually it's a bit easier to get then HIV which usually requires intimate contact.

Ebola is not airborne but is very easily spread by saliva, blood, sweat, etc.

Peace Corps volunteers are more understandable for contraction, but still, what bodily fluids are they coming in contact with such that they are getting infected.

Blood, sweat, saliva, mucus .....

And, why are these infected, and potentially exposed people flying back to their respective "Western" nations when 1) despite vehement assertion apparently this ebola is transmittable, and 2) the incubation period is 8-20 days? The West is not as sanitary as it is portrayed, and certainly not everyone knows not to touch their face, not to overuse sanitizers, to wash their hands for at least 30 seconds, and other preventative basics. Some people barely wash their hands after using the bathroom, and even so still touch surfaces (like handles, knobs, etc.) So, if all it takes is exposure to unsanitary practices and environment, then the West had better ignore the anthem that this is nothing to worry about.

Well, there are several reasons but mostly because the most of the West isn't a moist, hot jungle like environment.

Ebola, that God, does not survive in dry, cool environments well an actually breaks down when exposed to direct sunlight.

That is why I asked if they were mounting people.

What are you talking about ? Mounted people ?

Like, on horses ? On plaques on walls ? ....huh ?

because the rhetoric in the media contradictory calls this a global issue/crisis, but claims that the transmission of this ebola is so hard that we need not worry. Which is it, and why? Or, are we all missing something (again, perhaps it walks like ebola, talks like ebola, but it is something else.)

Or perhaps "global" means "involving parts of the whole planet". Just because it's not happening in your neighborhood doesn't means it's not a big problem somewhere else.

 

[Lollerskates]

Well, colonialism is partly to blame. We didn't exactly feel inclined to share our wisdom and technology with them back then, and by the time we left they hated us so much - and with good reason - that they didn't want to take our advice anymore.

Exploitation, and resource mining is more to blame. Treating humans as commodities is to blame.

But, West Africa is very much health conscious, and preventative. The States may have the CDC, but the populous does not necessarily follow their preventative measures. It is good no one has to write a thesis on African imperialism by Europeans, but they also (African/West African countries) take their own responsibility*. European imperialism has nothing to do with what is going on. This ebola is something else, and Africa has often been the guinea pigs of biological incidences, as per the "poor Africa" narrative.

I have spent substantial time in West Africa - eating food, drinking water, bathing, and walking about. The stereotype is a lie; this ebola is not what the lab coats think it is. The archived specimen don't line up with the contaigen and transmission of this virus. As I said, what are the doctors and people exposing themselves to that has so fundamentally gone against their health training that they get this. After all it is so hard to get.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

If the medical workers are getting it, I think it's crazy to bring it here. I'm appalled.

Look, I'm as scared silly by Ebola.

And I'm not particularly scared of a lot.

But let's not get completely out of hand here.

See here for some information and keep calm.

Be advised. There are reasons I'm scared of Ebola and some of those reasons are graphically depicted on this

https://imgur.com/gallery/9TVVU