"GSK is one of several companies trying to fast-track a vaccine to prevent the spread of Ebola in West Africa.But Dr Ripley Ballou, head of GSK's Ebola vaccine research, said full data on its safety and efficacy would not be ready until late 2015."
7 billion people on earth,lets say that 60% could get the infection.67=4.2 billion people ,60% die from the infection 46=2.5 billion people .7 billion-2.5=4.5 billion people.this is my best guess! sloppy math
"Every hospital has the equipment they need," said Mark Ross, regional manager of the Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania. "Ebola is just one of a host of serious infectious diseases hospitals must be prepared to identify and safely treat each and every day."
But union officials representing nurses, other hospital personnel, and paramedics cautioned that this kind of overconfidence has already threatened lives.
Stop thinking at Ebola as a US problem. Ebola is a world problem. And if it grows, as it is growing exponentially, it will touch most of the population, killing half. I learned from this site to evaluate exponential curves. My understanding is that Ebola overall is growing with a doubling rate of something between 35 and 45 days. Here I read strange, much lower numbers. I only can think those are due to smaller samples. If a person gets infected and infects several others, this will cause the doubling rate to spike. But you only should calculate the doubling rate for situations big enough to be statistically big enough. As you see the curves it tend to flatten out, this I think is because the number of people grows and the local conditions become less and less important.
So with a doubling rate of 35 to 45 days, it has a growth rate between 1.6% and 2% PER DAY. This is Scary! If you are not scared you have not understood exponential growth. Sure, at some point the situation will become rough, flight bans will be in place. Probably it will be too late. Once a Major city has been hit by Ebola in a continent I don't see how the continent can be saved without massive program of vaccination which we do not have.
So, Chris, no, I think fear, and alarm is the correct response.
What this website could do would be to gather the latest data on how many cases every day. Calculate every day the exponential trend line. And on the base of that we can try to guess when the travel ban will be in place. When a train ban will be in place. And so on. You don't want to be stuck on the wrong side of the fence at that point.
[quote=mammamia]Stop thinking at Ebola as a US problem. Ebola is a world problem. And if it grows, as it is growing exponentially, it will touch most of the population, killing half. I learned from this site to evaluate exponential curves. My understanding is that Ebola overall is growing with a doubling rate of something between 35 and 45 days. Here I read strange, much lower numbers. I only can think those are due to smaller samples. If a person gets infected and infects several others, this will cause the doubling rate to spike. But you only should calculate the doubling rate for situations big enough to be statistically big enough. As you see the curves it tend to flatten out, this I think is because the number of people grows and the local conditions become less and less important.
So with a doubling rate of 35 to 45 days, it has a growth rate between 1.6% and 2% PER DAY. This is Scary! If you are not scared you have not understood exponential growth. Sure, at some point the situation will become rough, flight bans will be in place. Probably it will be too late. Once a Major city has been hit by Ebola in a continent I don't see how the continent can be saved without massive program of vaccination which we do not have.
So, Chris, no, I think fear, and alarm is the correct response.
What this website could do would be to gather the latest data on how many cases every day. Calculate every day the exponential trend line. And on the base of that we can try to guess when the travel ban will be in place. When a train ban will be in place. And so on. You don't want to be stuck on the wrong side of the fence at that point.
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To understand exponential function is NOT to understand it's application in the real world. Please bear with me as I retrace the exponential example.
First, lets take the baseball stadium example of exponential function. Remember that "theoretical" drop of water doubles? The stretch here is to understand that while one can comprehend a "magic eye dropper" full of water, dropping a doubling of water drops into your hand, the example breaks down once you reach gallons and gallons of water that need to be brought in to create the "next doubling." Meaning, with the example of Fenway park, the first stretch of imagination is that the park is water tight. Not impossible to get it that way but highly unlikely. But, for the sake of my example, lets say one could make this happen. OK now, fast forward to where the stadium is exactly half full. Lets even ignore where that amount of water came from. At the next doubling, the stadium would be full, and there you are, handcuffed to the top row seat… where you would drown if you couldn't free yourself. Isn't that the example? The question is, how much time would it take or rather how much time would you have to free yourself before the stadium was full? Mathematically, you would have 49 minutes as the example is given.
Mathematically is it correct? Absolutely! In reality though, to produce even the amount of water needed to fill the park half full, would take a long time to deliver that water.
The same holds true for Ebola. As Chris has pointed out, behaviors would change that would skew the "doubling rate." This is where math bumps up into the real world. Don't get me wrong, will the devastation be awful? Of course. If Ebola was going to be the pandemic that everyone fears, there have been enough outbreaks already in the past to have caused world destruction. There are many, many factors as to why it didn't happen and won't happen now.
The problem now is the MSM and the polarization of the U.S.political landscape. I haven't decided if Ebola is a "Wag the Dog" event yet or not. To be sure, once the mid-term elections have taken place, Ebola will drift back into obscurity.
FWIW - C.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26974-fighting-the-last-war-will-the-war-on-terror-be-the-template-for-the-ebola-crisis
This is an article worth pondering. After 9-11 the "War on Terror" changed our lives for the worse, to keep us safe of course. What will the "War on Ebola" run by our government do to change our lives, to keep us safe of course. Now that we have an Ebola Czar whose most comfortable and experienced in government and politics will information on the disease and its progression be shared with us or be suppressed for our safety and our peace of mind? Is no news good news? Not to worry, I am sure there is a new reality show to watch this fall.
BTW, I know there is no evidence that any herbal medication can be used effectively to treat Ebola, but it might be good to remember that Echinacea is known to act as an immune system modulator. This MAY be helpful in reducing the damage caused by the "cytokine storm."
Since March 2014, West Africa has experienced the largest outbreak of Ebola in history, with multiple countries affected.
In response to the outbreak, CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center to coordinate technical assistance and control activities with other U.S. government agencies, the World Health Organization, and other domestic and international partners. CDC also deployed teams of public health experts to West Africa. Widespread transmission of Ebola in West Africa has been controlled, although additional cases may continue to occur sporadically. However, because of ongoing surveillance and strengthened response capacities, the affected countries now have the experience and tools to rapidly identify any additional cases and to limit transmission.I'm common rail come from sensor