Honestly, I wonder why air and ship travel to the places in Africa where Ebola is out of control, have not been subject to limitations and bans.

I guess we've been depending on peoples common sense not to smear the bodily fluids of Ebola inflected over themselves... :hmmm: We've also been relying on them to wash their hands and conduct basic hygiene. :hmmm:

Not sure if closing boarders would actually do any good. Especially for the countries that are suffering from Ebola outbreaks. Their economy would suffer, needed supplies would stall, people will panic and the virus would still spread.

What happened in Dallas is certainly a wake-up call. But I'd bet ya dollars to donuts next time someone from Africa complains of having a fever. They will not be simply told "take two of these and call me in the morning". IMO I think the response to his illness was the problem not so much that he was allowed to travel.

Not for much longer I suspect.

The flight path of the Dallas Ebola victim. The authorities seem confident that he was still in the pre-infectious stage of the disease during all this travelling.

I certainly hope so.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...8_77954787.jpg

We'll know soon enough, Ebola is not the most intelligent of virii, it's a fast burner, and people are usually only infectious when they start displaying symptoms. It's not airbourne, and can be destroyed very easily through heating and cleaning fluids that are common in the west. So if he has spread it, it will be easy to contain providing people don't panic and they follow instructions.

In Africa, of course, it's a different story, cleaning fluids and disinfectants are scarce, burial practices involve contact with bodily fluids, and so it's not really a surprise that the outbreak has spread so dramatically. Unfortunately I expect it will continue to do so for some time, just as polio is rife in Syria at the moment.

Now, if this was something like Marburg or the 1918 flu outbreak then I'd be bricking it, but thankfully it isn't.

I see no reason why no bans should be placed on flights by people whose travels are not in any way "vital". The man in the US - was described as tourist. Sorry, but vacancy in that area? Business managers could evade on video conferences. And so on.

Hell, in some Asian countries like Japan and Korea people are educated to wear masks in public when having something harmless like a flu.

If it becomes worse, one will need to do so anyway. Just that one will have done it too late then.

With the shift in climate regions and tropical conditions spreading to the North, these issues will become a growing concern.

Scientists of the Robert-Koch-Institut showed already 2013 animations of how a virus pandemic woudl spread via mass traffic, mainly by air, if taking several Western cities as a starting point. Problem is that the virus reaches areas far away much faster and earlier, than regions that are close to the place of first infection, a virus reaches from Frankfurt to London faster than it reaches to another region inside Germany, for example.

So traffic control is an inevitable measure when needing to fight a pandemic, especially air traffic.

The US government has ordered, all of a sudden, 150,000 units of biohazard protection gear for staff and personnel.

The risk with Ebola is that it could m utate, and could adapt better to human physiology, making it more infectous. the good news is that it is so lethal that it burns out quite fast. On the ground it kills the population of possible hosts faster than these hosts could reach out and carry it to new populations of hosts.

If only there would not be long distance travelling via airliners, and highspeed trains, and the individual car traffic in the developed world on well established roadnetworks making it easy to cover long distances in short time.

Due to the simulations by the Robert Koch Institut, it is safe to say that restricting air traffic should not be considered as a later measurement, but as one of the earliest options to go with.

There are animation videos of the study available on the web, for various American and European cities.

Well, for anyone who is getting a bit spooked by all this news, I've got some light diversionary reading I can recommend. :)


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_p1IO2se12V...600/stand2.jpg

:haha: :up:

I guess then that people who exit their house once in a month and use advanced water filtering are about as well protected from a mass epidemic as it gets.

p.s. I have calculated that to keep a yearly supply for a 5 man fammily in the form of army MRE type stuff (in Russia) it would cost onself around 120145 rubles 83 kopecs per month, not something I could afford with my pocket money :*( .

Could be a tad dull, but it sounds like it would work. Other than the possible risk of a vitamin D deficiency from being out of the sun for so long.

But there are ways around that. You don't even have to stand around a sunlamp anymore. :sunny: I'd take the loss of D over the threat of E anyday.

http://img1.cookinglight.timeinc.net...itamin_d-m.jpg

National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200
http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB500.pdf

Let the conspiracy theories BEGIN!

Somewhat ironic since the widespread belief in certain Western Africa countries that the disease itself is a made up conspiracy to tax them and control their movements is helping contribute to it's spread.

An unchecked Ebola pandemic is what will happen if all the crackpots get people to believe them - because you can bet on the crackpots, or the more vociferous of them, claiming sooner or later that Ebola does not exist and is really a government plot to poison you with an ostensible vaccine or remedy.

I think one of the better conspiracies is the one that relates the region's mineral wealth to the current ebola outbreak and the well known international efforts to weapon is ebola.

Which is quite amusing since I think US us the only nation that was openly developing a cure for it (ie it was working with ebola).

Ok this took me two minutes to dream up.
Though not even hinted at or mentioned as a means to lower global population, Ebola was 'discovered' shortly after NSSM 200 and the World Population Plan of Action were written. Ebola I suppose could be looked upon as a relatively quick killer (humane), also as a natural cause of death instead of man made 'showers'. It does appear to burn out on its own, unless new hosts are provided (Dallas, Belgium). And if the will to do so is there, it can be isolated and treated easily. Thats my conspiracy theory :woot: