zimboe posted:

Prester John posted:

You should take your meds man. You sound like a crazy person.

NihilismNow posted:

100k is only 2000 per state or one in 3000 people. I would be extremely suprised if a developed country can not isolate 1/3000th of the population. Project it onto a small town of 50k which means the local hospital would have to isolate ~15 people.
To me as a layman this seems very manageable.

zimboe posted:

Good idea in Britain, educate the people with drills so they know what to do if the E gets here in a serious way. It will give them some sense of power over this invisible assassin.
We are at war with this nano-terrorist in every sense. And that's just what E is.
"We have more to fear from fear than from the E". to paraphrase Churchill.
Get people trained, now, before Fear turns us all into panicky dumb animals.
We need to start thinking on a wartime basis.
...
Even the terrorists and their douchetank sponsors are scared of E, I plumb reckon.
That's why I don't think ISIS or whoever the current hobgoblin-of-the-day is will try to use this in a terrorist attack. They would lose all support from everyone, as well as crossing the WMD line.
You can't kill Ebola with a bullet, but you sure can kill any who deliberately spread it with one.
...
How long before other parts of Africa create a cordon sanitaire around WA, backed up with riflemen? Assuming this is even feasible? One guy every hundred yards, shoot anyone heading out of the Hot Zone?
Is it happening now?
A DEZ, if you will.

zimboe posted:

I have heard that copper is anti bacterial- that's why doorknobs are/were made of brass.
Howbout colloidal silver laundry detergent^TM ? A big seller to the suckers, I bet. $100 a bag- fools will buy it.
"Gets your clothes cleaner and brighter and Ebola proof!"
Again, I predict.

various cheeses posted:

This guy posts exactly like a literal crazy person that was in the EVE thread.

zimboe posted:

Nope. Not crazy.

plushpuffin posted:

Oligodynamic effect

The oligodynamic effect (Greek: oligos = few, Greek: dynamis = force) was discovered in 1893 by the Swiss Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli as a toxic effect of metal ions on living cells, algae, molds, spores, fungi, viruses, prokaryotic andeukaryotic microorganisms, even in relatively low concentrations. This antimicrobial effect is shown by ions of mercury, silver, copper, iron, lead, zinc, bismuth, gold, aluminium, and other metals.

Many infections can be spread by doorknobs. Brass doorknobs disinfect themselves in about eight hours, while stainless steel and aluminium knobs never do. Unvarnished brass doorknobs therefore tend to be more sanitary than stainless or aluminium doorknobs. The effect is important in hospitals, and useful in any building.

zimboe posted:

Nope. Not crazy.

Evilreaver posted:

Sounds like something a crazy person would say.

zimboe posted:

But is it antiviral?
Thank you for some solid data.

various cheeses posted:

My favorite part is when he does the ellipsis on a single line.

Also yeah most of our incubators at work have a copper lining to prevent microbial growth/cross contamination of samples.

CoolCab posted:

you advised people produce home made plague doctor costumes as a rational reaction to ebola

zimboe posted:

As a last resort, and to reduce fear. Fear is the enemy here, and anything that people do that can protect themselves will reduce that fear.
Even if it is only a placebo.

zimboe posted:

As a last resort, and to reduce fear. Fear is the enemy here, and anything that people do that can protect themselves will reduce that fear.
Even if it is only a placebo.

Clipperton posted:

If I saw someone walking down the street with Kleenex boxes on their feet and their head wrapped in toilet paper I would be plenty scared.

CoolCab posted:

I feel better already!

zimboe posted:

Join the crowd! Start a trend.
And you would think -seriously- should I wear Kleenex boxes? What does that guy know that I don't?

zimboe posted:

This guy was thinking in the correct direction. They'd stuff the beak full of herbs and stuff hoping to stop the Yersina Pestis bug- still thinking disease was caused by "bad air".
Still better than nothing.

SedanChair posted:

Good thinking man. Why don't you suit up and post a picture of your ersatz PPE or get the gently caress out.

zimboe posted:

I'm serious in these proposals.

zimboe posted:

now lets not get all gibbisy shall we?
I'm serious in these proposals.

plushpuffin posted:

Oligodynamic effect

The oligodynamic effect (Greek: oligos = few, Greek: dynamis = force) was discovered in 1893 by the Swiss Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli as a toxic effect of metal ions on living cells, algae, molds, spores, fungi, viruses, prokaryotic andeukaryotic microorganisms, even in relatively low concentrations. This antimicrobial effect is shown by ions of mercury, silver, copper, iron, lead, zinc, bismuth, gold, aluminium, and other metals.

Many infections can be spread by doorknobs. Brass doorknobs disinfect themselves in about eight hours, while stainless steel and aluminium knobs never do. Unvarnished brass doorknobs therefore tend to be more sanitary than stainless or aluminium doorknobs. The effect is important in hospitals, and useful in any building.

zimboe posted:

now lets not get all gibbisy shall we?
I'm serious in these proposals.

Redgrendel2001 posted:

Caro, part deux.

MeLKoR posted:

My question was seemingly lost in the sea of so I ask again to anyone with more knowledge of this poo poo than me, wouldn't those disposable tyvek painter suits/gloves/face mask make a reasonable ghetto protection?

MeLKoR posted:

My question was seemingly lost in the sea of so I ask again to anyone with more knowledge of this poo poo than me, wouldn't those disposable tyvek painter suits/gloves/face mask make a reasonable ghetto protection?

quote:

Macedonia on Saturday ruled out the Ebola virus as the cause of death of a British man in the Balkan country on Thursday.

"We have just received the results from the lab in Hamburg and they are negative for Ebola, which means that the patient did not have the Ebola virus," said Dr. Jovanka Kostovska of the Health Ministry's commission for infectious diseases.

Ebola Roulette posted:

I couldn't have possibly been referring to West Africa

Nintendo Kid posted:

If you were you were an idiot for using it in an argument about deaths in the US, jesus christ.

quote:

Officials Admit a ‘Defeat’ by Ebola in Sierra Leone

By ADAM NOSSITEROCT. 10, 2014

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Acknowledging a major “defeat” in the fight against Ebola, international health officials battling the epidemic in Sierra Leone approved plans on Friday to help families tend to patients at home, recognizing that they are overwhelmed and have little chance of getting enough treatment beds in place quickly to meet the surging need.

The decision signifies a significant shift in the struggle against the rampaging disease. Officials said they would begin distributing painkillers, rehydrating solution and gloves to hundreds of Ebola-afflicted households in Sierra Leone, contending that the aid arriving here was not fast or extensive enough to keep up with an outbreak that doubles in size every month or so.

“It’s basically admitting defeat,” said Dr. Peter H. Kilmarx, the leader of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s team in Sierra Leone, adding that it was “now national policy that we should take care of these people at home.”

“For the clinicians it’s admitting failure, but we are responding to the need,” Dr. Kilmarx said. “There are hundreds of people with Ebola that we are not able to bring into a facility.”

The effort to prop up a family’s attempts to care for ailing relatives at home does not mean that officials have abandoned plans to increase the number of beds in hospitals and clinics. But before the beds can be added and doctors can be trained, experts warn, the epidemic will continue to grow.

C.D.C. officials acknowledged that the risks of dying from the disease and passing it to loved ones at home were serious under the new policy — “You push some Tylenol to them, and back away,” Dr. Kilmarx said, describing its obvious limits.

But many patients with Ebola are already dying slowly at home, untreated and with no place to go. There are 304 beds for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone now, but 1,148 are needed, the World Health Organization reported this week. So officials here said there was little choice but to try the new approach as well.

“For the first time, the nation is accepting the possibility of home care, out of necessity,” said Jonathan Mermin, another C.D.C. official and physician here. “It is a policy out of necessity.”

Faced with similar circumstances in neighboring Liberia, where even more people are dying from the disease, the American government said last month that it would ship 400,000 kits with gloves and disinfectant.

“The home kits are no substitute for getting people” to a treatment facility, said Sheldon Yett, the Unicef director for Liberia. “But the idea is to ensure that if somebody has to take care of somebody at home, they’re able to do so.”

More than 4,000 people have died from the outbreak in West Africa, but the United Nations funding appeal remains woefully short, with countries pledging only one-fourth of the $1 billion that the world body says it needs to contain the disease, the United Nations deputy secretary general, Jan Eliasson, told the General Assembly on Friday.

Britain has pledged to get an additional 400 beds into urban areas around Sierra Leone by sometime next month. More rudimentary holding centers for patients awaiting space in hospitals are planned by the government here. And promises of international aid have increased substantially since the outbreak was first identified in neighboring Guinea in March.

But on Friday, Sory Sesay, 2, lay face down on a bench at his home, an arm dangling, his eyes open, listless and apathetic.

What remained of his family was sitting immobilized on the front porch with him at their house in Waterloo, just outside Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. All of them were sick: his father, who had already lost his wife and daughter; his 11 year-old brother; and a 16-year-old neighbor, whose mother had already died.

They had no painkillers, no rehydrating solution, and only a sack of rice to eat.

“The government has not yet come in to assist us,” said Sheka Dumbuya, the local community leader. “Mr. Sesay is actually traumatized. We took them the day before yesterday to the health center, but there is no space for them.”

In a sign of the difficulties confronting the growing epidemic here, Stephen Gaojia, the head of the government agency overseeing the Ebola response here, angrily denied that the policy to help ailing families at home had been adopted. C.D.C. officials said he left the meeting before the vote took place.

“We are not so desperate as to go to that level right now,” Mr. Gaojia said.

An official with the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone, Dr. Zabulon Yoti, said that the decision on Friday would help people with no other options. “We support the families,” he said. “They should have some basic things as they are struggling” to take care of their families.

Down the hilly road from Mr. Sesay’s house, at the local health center in Waterloo, people with Ebola-like symptoms drifted in to be registered, but most of them “sneak away and go home” because there are no services for them, said Alhassan Bangura, a health worker.

A holding center is being set up — the government is banking on them all over the country — but in some places these facilities are little more than death traps, offering scant treatment or hope for the people inside.

Nobody knows exactly how many have died from Ebola in this country. The government figure of 900 to 1,000 is thought by international officials to be a serious underestimation. Even some senior government figures have suggested it is untruthful, and the situation in holding centers and cemeteries suggests the government number is far from reality.

A man arrived at the Waterloo health center on Friday, clutching his seriously ill 4-year-old daughter. He had ridden from a town more than 100 miles away in a taxi shared with others — possibly exposing them to the virus — and he was exhibiting Ebola symptoms. The girl, her eyes open, was rigid in his arms. She had high fever, diarrhea and had vomited — classic symptoms.

A nurse shouted angrily at the man from a few feet away, close enough to be infected: “Are you trying to spread the virus?”

He was too ill to respond.

On the porch of the center lay a corpse, a man dead shortly after arrival. Perpendicular to him lay a patient, still alive but rigid, motionless and prostrate. Inside the center, a few yards away and unprotected from them, dozens of patients had crowded in, seeking treatment for other illnesses.

In another section of Waterloo, burial team workers said they had collected 15 corpses in less than a week, and they carried away another on Friday, spraying it with chlorine as they left. The community chief denied that Ebola was present — health care workers at the clinic insisted it was — and attributed the deaths there to “witchcraft.”

Aissata Kargbo sat at the edge of her bed in a darkened house off the dirt road, trembling and unable to speak. Her brother, trying to take care of her, said he had no medicine, that there was no space at any treatment center, and that even an ambulance that had come into the community had no room for her.

“When people are sick, you want to touch them,” said the brother, Mohammed Kargbo. “Now, I cannot even touch her. It is a problem.”

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from the United Nations and Norimitsu Onishi from Monrovia, Liberia.