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Ebola


Barrs Court Red

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I'll put my mortgage on the government regretting not doing more sooner once its out of control here.

 

If those unfortunate folks with Ebola were considered to be as dangerous as an idiot with a gun (they are to all intents) then we'd have a secure, coordinated approach re. flights in and out of the country.  The EU should ban all flights from infected areas without a full screening (coordinated by us, paid for by the carrier) before take off.

 

Of course there are counter-arguments but the risk is too high and we can't simply change our mind later once its in through the back door and out of control.

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The real problems will begin when people start to try to flee.

Why's that then, mate? No more Public Services for you?

A controversial line I'll bring to the table: Mother Nature has generally decided, throughout history, when to make a cull. Whether that be the Black Death, Cancer or Ebola.

I was gonna elaborate on that but don't know if I can.

I'd pigeon-hole myself as 'Middle', politically.

She's a cruel Mistress is Mother Nature.

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I thought with Ebola, you aren't contagious until you show symptoms?

The early symptoms are the same as a common cold and the time people become contagious varies. The point is you can't really detect it at a border, you have to fence in the outbreak completely and in the countries that suffered the initial cases that is very difficult.

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The early symptoms are the same as a common cold and the time people become contagious varies. The point is you can't really detect it at a border, you have to fence in the outbreak completely and in the countries that suffered the initial cases that is very difficult.

I agree that it's got to be incredibly difficult to detect at a border. I think what worries me the most is that, as you say, the initial symptoms are similar to the common cold. When Ebola arrives in the UK (as it surely will) catching a cold over the coming winter is probably something that many people will shit themselves about.

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Why's that then, mate? No more Public Services for you?

A controversial line I'll bring to the table: Mother Nature has generally decided, throughout history, when to make a cull. Whether that be the Black Death, Cancer or Ebola.

I was gonna elaborate on that but don't know if I can.

I'd pigeon-hole myself as 'Middle', politically.

She's a cruel Mistress is Mother Nature.

Once you have hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people on the move, all ability to track, trace and contain is lost. This disease has an incubation period of 21 days, so potentially a carrier can pretty much cover the world in that time by any powered transport.

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I think they said on the news yesterday that the 3 countries who have Ebola in Africa don't have any direct flights to London, the passengers will come via other countries instead. People might hold a passport from one of the affected countries but thy can say they haven't been there for years.

I think if they have the money to travel they will see the UK with our health care as the best option for treatment. How many of those forms at Heathrow are going to be filled in honestly? Desperate times make desperate measures.

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It's actually very difficult to transmit Ebola; there has to be a direct exchange of bodily fluids (a kiss, sneezing in someone's face, etc.); just walking past someone- or even brushing against them- is unlikely to result in transmission. Even sharing the recycled air of an aeroplane is not massively risky (though sitting next to them probably wouldn't be great). All bar one case to have been treated in the west have been related to medical or missionary work and have been controlled at source. Add to this the fact that this is overwhelmingly affecting poor West Africans who will never, ever, ever travel on a plane and you have a relatively low risk to the population here, when all factors are taken into consideration. If you take the basic model of risk, Severity x Likelihood = Risk, then while the severity is fairly high, the likelihood is low so the risk is relatively low. I would certainly argue that if you applied this model to one of the Asian flu strains of recent years, the enhanced global mobility of people in Korea, China, etc. would make them a higher risk to the general populous

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I think they said on the news yesterday that the 3 countries who have Ebola in Africa don't have any direct flights to London, the passengers will come via other countries instead. People might hold a passport from one of the affected countries but thy can say they haven't been there for years.

I think if they have the money to travel they will see the UK with our health care as the best option for treatment. How many of those forms at Heathrow are going to be filled in honestly? Desperate times make desperate measures.

People can, technically, travel to the UK from West Africa via countries like Belgium and Holland, apparently.

Think chipdawg has spoken an awful lot of sense, though.

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I think if they have the money to travel they will see the UK with our health care as the best option for treatment. How many of those forms at Heathrow are going to be filled in honestly? Desperate times make desperate measures.

Screening at Airports has been dismissed as an effective way to stop viral infections entering the country by people high up in health organisations who know what they are talking about. I'm sure it's just a measure put in place to try and comfort the general public that a barrier is being put up even though that barrier can be easily avoided if you are in the incubation period of Ebola and showing no symptoms.

You've made a good point about the questionnaire...1) you may not be aware that you have come into contact with someone with Ebola so you won't disclose it. 2) you may know you HAVE come into contact with someone with Ebola but you may choose not to answer honestly because you may be fearful of the action the authority's may take. People will fill in forms dishonestly if the think they can get away with it.

Chipdawg is correct, the transmission of Ebola is quite difficult compared with other viral illnesses. I did hear an interesting theory on TV the other night from a viral expert who believes that Ebola will evolve in future to have a lower mortality rate (5%) but be much easier to pass on to others.

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Whats the mortality rate for flu?

Spanish influenza killed between 10-20%, but obviously that's a worst case scenario. Bird flu varieties have had a mortality rate around 1-2%. Ebola currently has a mortality rate around 50% but Ebola has infected approximately 9000 people in about 6 months which considering how densely populated places like Freetown are, indicates that it's not especially virulent. Over here, for example, Ebola would spread even less quickly because of increased practical and social cleanliness and improved medical care. Given levels of medical care and malnutrition in west Africa, I don't think it's unreasonable to hypothesise that a virulent influenza with low immunity in the general population would have killed more in the that population group over the same period of time
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