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> Why do people keep saying it's a fairly difficult disease to spread Because that is the truth. When someone is working in close quarters to the disease they

by nmjohn 12y ago

> Why do people keep saying it's a fairly difficult disease to spread Because that is the truth. When someone is working in close quarters to the disease they are substantially more likely to catch it, no? You can wear all the protective gear you want, if protocol for taking off the gear is not followed 100% every single time, you open yourself up to infection. Combine that with fatigue, mistakes happen unfortunately often. If you are just out walking around coming into normal contact with people, it is incredibly difficult to spread.

steven2012 12y ago
It's obviously not the truth. If someone stricken with Ebola makes it into a crowded location, then the chances of several people getting it will be high. This is obvious given the fact that a single Ebola patient infected a trained worker with protective gear. Extrapolate that out to an Ebola victim in the middle of Times Square, puking, coughing, sweating, etc. Right now we can trace people back to those that traveled in West Africa so it make identification relatively easy. But once the disease spreads to the point where people who haven't been to West Africa start getting it, then what are we going to do? Quarantine everyone who starts showing the most basic Ebola symptoms, which are high fever and abdominal pains? And if Ebola starts spreading, what will we do with people with suspected Ebola? Put them in the same facility as those with Ebola? That will drive people to not report their symptoms, increasing their chances of spreading it to others. It's the exact same thing that happened in Africa, and Americans will behave the same way because it's simple Game Theory. If I have Ebola symptoms, and that means I'm going to get stuck into a facility where other Ebola people are, I'd rather just pretend I don't have it because "chances of infection are so low, I probably don't have it."
- nmjohn 12y ago
  >It's obviously not the truth. If someone stricken with Ebola makes it into a crowded location, then the chances of several people getting it will be high. This is obvious given the fact that a single Ebola patient infected a trained worker with protective gear. Extrapolate that out to an Ebola victim in the middle of Times Square, puking, coughing, sweating, etc. Think for one second here. If someone makes it into a crowded location and starts puking, do you think people are going to move towards the puking person or get the hell away? Whereas in a hospital if a patient starts puking is a nurse going to move towards the puking patient, or away? But at the end of the day this is 100% speculation. You are not qualified to have an opinion on the matter and neither am I. This is why I trust the doctors and scientists who are far more qualified to have an opinion when they say there is - for the time being - nothing to worry about.
  - steven2012 12y ago
    They don't need to puke. Sweat transmits Ebola. Someone suffering from Ebola just needs to collapse in the middle of the subway, and people will help the person up, possibly infecting themselves by being coughed on in close quarters, or puked on inadvertently. At this point, once we get uncontrolled Ebola infections in people not remotely associated with West Africa, this is going to be a big problem because we will need to quarantine everyone that has Ebola-like symptoms, which will cause panic and become a huge burden on our medical system. And that's stupid to say I'm not qualified to have an opinion. I don't need to be a doctor to be allowed to have an opinion. I look at what the so-called experts claim, and understand that what I'm seeing in reality doesn't match what they say. And in fact, my opinion matches what other "experts" are questioning, a la LA Times article[1]. So, yes, I am qualified enough to have an opinion just by using simple common sense. You can feel free to be a good sheep and listen to what you're told, but I prefer to think for myself. And to be clear, I'm not worried I'm going to get Ebola. I just don't like it when I keep reading in the news that Ebola is extremely hard to catch, when it's obvious that it's not based on the evidence of who and how people are contracting it. [1] http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007-story.html#page=1 http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007...
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  Ebola has an incubation period of about three weeks before symptoms start to show. Asymptomatic people are not contagious. Ergo, for any Ebola patient admitted to hospital with symptoms there is a three-week window to identify anyone they might have exchanged bodily fluids with. Doing this is not that difficult in the typical case, although obviously anyone with an active imagination can come up with atypical cases, but there is a technical term for people who base their reasoning on imaginary atypical cases. I don't know about you, but I personally am not in the habit of exchanging bodily fluids with random strangers in crowded places, and I have been on buses where people have thrown up--amongst other things--and never once worried that I was getting splashed by anything untoward. Based on that experience I judge the odds of random-stranger transmission to be low. Not zero, but low enough to not be a significant factor in the spread of the disease. With regard to your "simple game theory", you are assuming that people in charge of quarantine and triage are idiots. They are not. They have thought this through. In quarantine patients will be sufficiently isolated from each other to prevent transmission. This is just basic, dumb-as-rocks first order protocol, which you didn't even bother to look up before posting: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/infection-prevention-and-control-recommendations.html http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/infection-prevention-and-co... Read the very first item in the table: "single patient room".
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > I don't know about you, but I personally am not in the habit of exchanging bodily fluids with random strangers in crowded places Are you sure? What about touching the same doorknobs or handles in trains as other person? Are you always wearing sterile gloves and always wash your hands (with a foot-operated faucet) before scratching your face when it itches? If not, you are exchanging bodily fluids with random strangers much more often than you think.
  - steven2012 12y ago
    Incorrect. It has an incubation period of 8-10 days, and as little as 2 and up to 21 days. There is about a 1 week window to identify anyone they might have exchanged bodily fluids with. Bodily fluids include sweat in this case, as well as tear drops, urine, etc. Any clothing or bedsheets, for example, that came in contact with these bodily fluids can also transmit the disease. And as to the quarantine protocol, you have missed my point. My point is people with symptoms will be scared to be admitted into a hospital because they don't want to be quarantined next to someone who has Ebola, single patient room be damned. Instead they'll take all this nonsense about how it's hard to get Ebola and rationalize to themselves that they don't actually have it, so why bother getting locked up with people who actually have it.

by nmjohn 12y ago

steven2012 12y ago

It's obviously not the truth. If someone stricken with Ebola makes it into a crowded location, then the chances of several people getting it will be high. This is obvious given the fact that a single Ebola patient infected a trained worker with protective gear. Extrapolate that out to an Ebola victim in the middle of Times Square, puking, coughing, sweating, etc. Right now we can trace people back to those that traveled in West Africa so it make identification relatively easy. But once the disease spreads to the point where people who haven't been to West Africa start getting it, then what are we going to do? Quarantine everyone who starts showing the most basic Ebola symptoms, which are high fever and abdominal pains? And if Ebola starts spreading, what will we do with people with suspected Ebola? Put them in the same facility as those with Ebola? That will drive people to not report their symptoms, increasing their chances of spreading it to others. It's the exact same thing that happened in Africa, and Americans will behave the same way because it's simple Game Theory. If I have Ebola symptoms, and that means I'm going to get stuck into a facility where other Ebola people are, I'd rather just pretend I don't have it because "chances of infection are so low, I probably don't have it."

nmjohn 12y ago
>It's obviously not the truth. If someone stricken with Ebola makes it into a crowded location, then the chances of several people getting it will be high. This is obvious given the fact that a single Ebola patient infected a trained worker with protective gear. Extrapolate that out to an Ebola victim in the middle of Times Square, puking, coughing, sweating, etc. Think for one second here. If someone makes it into a crowded location and starts puking, do you think people are going to move towards the puking person or get the hell away? Whereas in a hospital if a patient starts puking is a nurse going to move towards the puking patient, or away? But at the end of the day this is 100% speculation. You are not qualified to have an opinion on the matter and neither am I. This is why I trust the doctors and scientists who are far more qualified to have an opinion when they say there is - for the time being - nothing to worry about.
- steven2012 12y ago
  They don't need to puke. Sweat transmits Ebola. Someone suffering from Ebola just needs to collapse in the middle of the subway, and people will help the person up, possibly infecting themselves by being coughed on in close quarters, or puked on inadvertently. At this point, once we get uncontrolled Ebola infections in people not remotely associated with West Africa, this is going to be a big problem because we will need to quarantine everyone that has Ebola-like symptoms, which will cause panic and become a huge burden on our medical system. And that's stupid to say I'm not qualified to have an opinion. I don't need to be a doctor to be allowed to have an opinion. I look at what the so-called experts claim, and understand that what I'm seeing in reality doesn't match what they say. And in fact, my opinion matches what other "experts" are questioning, a la LA Times article[1]. So, yes, I am qualified enough to have an opinion just by using simple common sense. You can feel free to be a good sheep and listen to what you're told, but I prefer to think for myself. And to be clear, I'm not worried I'm going to get Ebola. I just don't like it when I keep reading in the news that Ebola is extremely hard to catch, when it's obvious that it's not based on the evidence of who and how people are contracting it. [1] http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007-story.html#page=1 http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007...
tjradcliffe 12y ago
Ebola has an incubation period of about three weeks before symptoms start to show. Asymptomatic people are not contagious. Ergo, for any Ebola patient admitted to hospital with symptoms there is a three-week window to identify anyone they might have exchanged bodily fluids with. Doing this is not that difficult in the typical case, although obviously anyone with an active imagination can come up with atypical cases, but there is a technical term for people who base their reasoning on imaginary atypical cases. I don't know about you, but I personally am not in the habit of exchanging bodily fluids with random strangers in crowded places, and I have been on buses where people have thrown up--amongst other things--and never once worried that I was getting splashed by anything untoward. Based on that experience I judge the odds of random-stranger transmission to be low. Not zero, but low enough to not be a significant factor in the spread of the disease. With regard to your "simple game theory", you are assuming that people in charge of quarantine and triage are idiots. They are not. They have thought this through. In quarantine patients will be sufficiently isolated from each other to prevent transmission. This is just basic, dumb-as-rocks first order protocol, which you didn't even bother to look up before posting: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/infection-prevention-and-control-recommendations.html http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/infection-prevention-and-co... Read the very first item in the table: "single patient room".
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > I don't know about you, but I personally am not in the habit of exchanging bodily fluids with random strangers in crowded places Are you sure? What about touching the same doorknobs or handles in trains as other person? Are you always wearing sterile gloves and always wash your hands (with a foot-operated faucet) before scratching your face when it itches? If not, you are exchanging bodily fluids with random strangers much more often than you think.
- steven2012 12y ago
  Incorrect. It has an incubation period of 8-10 days, and as little as 2 and up to 21 days. There is about a 1 week window to identify anyone they might have exchanged bodily fluids with. Bodily fluids include sweat in this case, as well as tear drops, urine, etc. Any clothing or bedsheets, for example, that came in contact with these bodily fluids can also transmit the disease. And as to the quarantine protocol, you have missed my point. My point is people with symptoms will be scared to be admitted into a hospital because they don't want to be quarantined next to someone who has Ebola, single patient room be damned. Instead they'll take all this nonsense about how it's hard to get Ebola and rationalize to themselves that they don't actually have it, so why bother getting locked up with people who actually have it.