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Ebola Devastates West Africa: Revenues Down; Markets Not Functioning; Projects Canceled; GDP Plunges 4%
In all of its infinite wisdom, the "market", which stopped reacting to newsflow or discounting the future some time after the Fed officially announced it would centrally-plan it indefinitely, decided that just like the trade war against Russia is irrelevant only to find itself a week ago with Europe staring at the abyss of a triple-dip recession, so it decided that the worst Ebola outbreak in history is a non-event, even though it has put virtually all of western Africa on indefinite lockdown, and as Reuters reports, is "causing enormous damage to West African economies and draining budgetary resources." In fact the damage from Ebola to Africa is already so acute, it is expected that economic growth in the region will plunge by up to 4 percent as foreign businessmen leave and projects are canceled, according to the African Development Bank president said.
"Revenues are down, foreign exchange levels are down, markets are not functioning, airlines are not coming in, projects are being canceled, business people have left - that is very, very damaging," African Development Bank (AfDB) chief Donald Kaberuka said in an interview late on Tuesday.
"The numbers I have had vary from one percent to four percent of GDP. That is a lot in a country with a GDP of US$6 billion," Kaberuka said, when asked to quantify the impact.
That's ok, surely the Central Bank of Nigeria will just print some "growth" to offset the 4% GDP plunge. Oh wait, wrong continent for such moronic drivel. Here businesses actually have to, well, "business" in order to generate cash flow and to grow, and where printing prosperity and wealth out of thin air is still a novel concept.
And while all the world's central banks can push the CTRL-P button and mask the simple fact that global trade is crumbling around the world, which despite the happy all time high stock market facade, is getting dragged down ever deeper into currency and trade wars...
... sooner or later the reality that globalization is rapidly unwinding will finally come to the surface. And while the sudden stop of the German economy in the aftermath of the Russian sanctions may not be the stick the breaks the camel's back, said stick may be, appropriately enough, in the continent much more preferred by camels.
Here is what else is going on:
As transport companies suspend services, cutting off the region, governments and economists have warned that the worst outbreak of the hemorrhagic Ebola fever on record could crush the fragile economic gains made in Sierra Leone and Liberia following a decade of civil war in the 1990s.
Air France, the French network of Air France-KLM said on Wednesday it has suspended its flights to Sierra Leone following advice from the French government. France did not recommend suspending flights to Nigeria and Guinea.
Liberia has already said that it would have to lower its 2014 growth forecast, without giving a new one.
Sierra Leone Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources Abdul Ignosis Koroma also told Reuters that the government would miss its target of exporting $200 million in diamonds this year because of the Ebola outbreak, versus $186 million last year.
"There is no way the government can reach this amount since the districts where diamonds are mined are not Ebola-free, especially the main diamondiferous region Kono," Koroma said. Miners, he added, are too afraid to go to alluvial diamonds pits in the country's Ebola-striken east.
But while nobody cares about the cataclysm the locals find themselves in because clearly, they are "out of sight", one firm that will be furious is De Beers: "Diamond trade had also been stopped by tough border controls to curb the spread of the virus." Which means the world's billionaires will have to spend more on bling, and we can't have that.
Actually we jest: nobody cares about Africa - it is on its own.
The AfDB this week donated $60 million toward essential supplies to help train medical workers and purchase supplies to fight the outbreak, which has already killed more than 1,400 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Sadly Africa needs hundreds of millions more, money which it doesn't have... money which represents several minutes of the Fed's daily market manipulating POMO liquidity injection.
And since it won't get it, the epidemic could soon lead to an all out economic depression in west Africa: "Kaberuka described the health care systems of the affected countries as "overloaded". He said he hoped the donation would stop money being diverted away from other programs such as the education and agriculture, thereby reducing the long-term damage from the outbreak."
"We need to begin now to plan what could happen next when Ebola is beaten," he said.
Sure, but let's get there first, and also let's hope that the epidemic, which shows zero signs of abating, doesn't lead to another slashing of GDP other places: places which the general ice-bucket challenge-obsessed public actually does care about. Because printing antibodies is not one of the Fed's "shotgun approach" specialties.
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And this is just the beginning...
Nature's victory over human continues unabated.
Whats the ticker of the biotech stock that is going to make the cure?? That should be up another 32000% this year.
you really have no idea how bad this chit could get here.....WTF do you think will be bagging groceries...who will be bringing food in.....no ERs in hospitals will open.......and on and on
You assume that there will be groceries to be bagged.
You assume that there will be groceries to be bagged.
More than half of the food in the US comes from outside the country. This could be more of a reality than one expects.
We can grow in America enough corn to keep the world fat and diabetic forever. Americans will just have to do without their imported darjeeling tea and forbidden rice.
4% hell. They will be lucky if it's only 40%. West Africa won't be much on its own.
Ya'll can fight over my share of the Ebola-bananas.
Oranges come from Africa too. I’ve purchased them from Kroger. African oranges are dryer than U.S. oranges.
More importantly, COCOA BEANS come from the Ivory Coast. Think chocolate. How can their GDP be so low when candy has been through the freakin' roof?
Not in paper or plastic.
That and defense stocks.
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals - TKMR
Canadian company with the only possible cure.
Currently in trials but ahead of everyone else.
Do your own DD.
Mapp is the company whose product has been used in humans - ZMapp is the product:
"ZMappTM is the result of a collaboration between Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc. and LeafBio (San Diego, CA), Defyrus Inc. (Toronto, Canada), the U.S. government and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)."
Ebola explained in one picture, by WB7 :
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-02/ebolanomics
Good time for a hostile take over.
FED or CTCC could buy the whole African Continent one piece at a time for less than a $1 Trillion USD.
Then you start the process of phasing the Chinese Leases or Rights out.
Just look at how people in a chinese subway react when somebody looks sick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQmBs1B85sE&sns=em
AND IT'S OFFICIAL!!! THIS IS THE EBOLA THEME SONG!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUhVaUPLjVA&sns=em
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_WOR22-SnY
Bullish. Everything there will be much more valuable once everyone there is dead.
When the dead and dying number in the 10's of thousands, not even Hollywood could script this horror.
Its gonna suck...
Flight personel just got the right to refuse to board on planes to Africa if they don't want to while holding full pay.
This came after airlines tried to force the personel to continue flying on africa.
Common sense of ordinary people is finally getting some traction.
Ummm, you sure about this?
That's ok, surely the Central Bank of Nigeria will just print some "growth" to offset the 4% GDP plunge. Oh wait, wrong continent for such moronic drivel. Here businesses actually have to, well, "business" in order to generate cash flow and to grow, and where printing prosperity and wealth out of thin air is still a novel concept.
Forgot about the Zim dollar that fast?
I was thinking the same thing.
Right. Nigeria could debase its currency like anyone else could. But I think even the most money-printingest of countries would be more concerned with solving an epidemic heath crisis than printing more money, which doesn't do any good anyway if everyone is dying.
Not to worry,
US bio-war professionals have been keeping a close eye on developments,
from the very beginning of the outbreak,
and even before it started.
The research program, occurring in Sierra Leone, the Republic of Guinea, and Liberia—said to be the epicenter of the 2014 Ebola outbreak—has the announced purpose, among others, of detecting the future use of fever-viruses as bioweapons.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-are-us-biological-warfare-researchers-...
It's mutated. The WHO has to know. That's why the evacuation from the Sierra Leone lab an how one of the epidemiologists got it without coming in direct contact with infected patients.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ebola-outbreak-scientists-sequence-virus-genome...
The continent's immune system is rejecting AFRICOM.
BBC reporting the start of the Nigerian school year delayed by two weeks. Teachers will use the time attending lessons from 'health workers' in how to spot Ebola stricken pupils.
A very cautious move considering their reported confidence they contained their cases. I am guessing their numbers are way up on the reported stats.
Are the sacked / striking doctors back at work yet?
It would be nice if the referenced paper had actually been published. However, neither the referenced source (http://www.sciencemag.org/) nor http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Goba%20A%5Bauth%5D has anything newer by Dr. Goba than the paper which demonstrated that ebola has existed (undetected) in West Africa for years.
ibtimes... 'nuf said.
Can't rule out that someone studying ebola got caught stupid. It certainly has been catching a lot of hospital workers, as we now know.
Doesn't mean much in the big picture.
The beginning of the "it's not Ebola" virus with a 90% kill rate
It's Lupus ....
.... with a 55% kill rate.
You mean "I Can't Believe It's Not Ebola"?
Wait til it mutates and jumps into the air...World War Z...
Even worse! What if there's a shortage of diamonds?
How will we get laid at newyear?
Liquor?
Drugs?
<Completely tasteless joke>
Dude, she's getting a roofie.
</Dell guy's creepy voice>
</completely tasteless joke>
Have a "don't have ebola" hat on?
De Beers has massive stores of diamonds, the scarcity of diamonds is artificial. Also, there are artificial diamonds that are flawless, or can be coloured as desired.
Don't worry, the DeBeers cartel has a 100 year stockpile of diamonds, held off the market to keep prices up.
It already mutated.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ebola-outbreak-scientists-sequence-virus-genome...
They should ask Ebola patients if they would like to participate in the ice bucket challenge to raise some money for ALS and to show that Ebola is nothing to worry about.
the disease is spreading more than it should because the diagnostic test kits have quality issues.
short of a vaccine ready to manufacture and distribute, a precautionary solution to contain the spread of ebola is to quarantine anyone suspected of coming into contact with ebola-infected patients for at least 21 days.
shit is gettin' real...
FREETOWN, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A British nurse infected with Ebola may have caught the deadly virus after playing with a one-year-old boy whose mother had died in a treatment centre but who himself had initially tested negative for the disease, a medical colleague said.
William Pooley, 29, the first Briton to contract the virus, was flown back to Britain from Sierra Leone at the weekend and is receiving the experimental drug ZMapp in a London hospital in an attempt to save his life.
Close to 1,500 people have so far died across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in the worst epidemic in the disease's 38-year history. Symptoms of the highly-contagious virus include vomiting and bleeding from the eyes and ears.
During his time as a volunteer at a clinic in remote eastern Sierra Leone, Pooley developed a bond with a baby boy named Sellu Borbor thought to have caught the virus from his mother's breast milk, according to his supervisor Finda Josephine Sellu.
Like other health workers, Pooley initially took precautions handling the infant since his mother was diagnosed with the virus and later died. But he played with him freely after the baby tested negative for the disease, she said.
"Pooley and some other nurses fell in love with the boy and would play with him in their free time," Sellu told Reuters.
Borbor was tested again after he developed a fever and tested positive for Ebola the second time around. He died on August 24 -- the same day that Pooley was diagnosed.
http://www.trust.org/item/20140827185520-do4rx/?
This report doesn't mention the initial testing methodology. This is important. Most rapid screening is specific but not but not very sensitive. Our flu screen only catches about 60% of cases but is vastly cheaper than PCR so it is utilized first. If negative, we reflex to PCR which can detect a few copies/ml. I am assuming they are using the cheaper method, possibly an ELISA, which is giving people false security.
Considering this little boy was not showing symptoms when the nurses were playing with him and I assume they were not sharing vast amounts of bodily fluids, this kind of places the CDC and the WHOs statement of transmission into question.
Miffed;-)
i just finished watching contagion for the first time right before that post.
i'm not a miffed microbiologist, so your word is more qualified than mine on the subject matter ;-)
although, i'm starting to wonder how many more false negatives are still out there infecting the people around them.
lagos is still a big unknown after sawyer came into town infecting people. and now the schools are closed until october (they were supposed to begin the coming week).
the other day, india flew back home over 100 of their people from countries with ebola outbreaks.
the other day, india flew back home over 100 of their people from countries with ebola outbreaks.
Now that was fukin' brilliant!
Good catch, Miffed.
Reality intrudes. So much for the theory that children don't get Ebola. One of the early Marburg cases was a ten year old Danish boy.
The first documented case in this current outbreak is thought to have been a toddler who then infected other family members.
Er, MM, it looks like a PCR test just got a lot cheaper and more readily available: http://www.odt.co.nz/campus/university-otago/313904/potential-life-saver... This looks like it could be a testing revolution for quite a number of diseases. Apparently, all you have to do is choose the primers. Back when I was doing PCRs I was something of a nut when it came to primer design and always looked into whether the primers used in particular papers were the best possible. Quite often they weren't. I had a lot of fun designing primer pairs. Good primers often made a tremendous difference.
The testing methodology should have been mentioned. IMHO, PCR is the way to go if at all possible. It appears it just became a lot more feasible.
I'm trying to correct a double posting. Looks like this may be the best I can do.
We have to send money. The dictators, er, presidents for life, need some traveling money
There are bad people in the world. You can imagine how easily a vial of Ebola can be acquired on the black market at this time. This crap is coming home. The Ebola is bad but when a healthcare system becomes overwelhmed it can be devastating to advanced nations. Ebola is definitely big news. I realize that now.
On the bright side property in Africa will be a lot cheaper. Hey this seems to be good for banksters. Imagine that.
Monsanto through one of its subsidaries is coming up with a vaccine soon.
Ebola hysteria fire sale
And while supplies last, get a free commemorative H1N 1, 2 and 3 ampoule trilogy in your choice of chicken or swine scented bag decorated with images of dead bees!
Along with two professional escort ladies (to tuck you in) from Senegal!
"We've got a drug,
we're going to try it out on you ..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=678shOI0wdg
[Intro]
Why are you such a stupid a-hole? Would you really like to know?
Well, pay your fee, remove your clothes, and Yvette will show you how.
You went to school where you were taught to fear and to obey,
be cheerful, fit in, or someone might think you're weird.
Life can be perfect. People can be trusted.
Someday, I wll fall in love; a nice quiet home of my very own.
Free from all the pain. Happy and having fun all the time.
It never happened, did it?
[Verse 1]
We got a drug
We're gonna try it out on you
Won't make you die
It'll getcha just a little bit sick
[Chorus]
Got a head cold
Got a chest cold
And it's three days old
(Goin' on forever)
Make you hazy
Make you lazy
Drive you crazy
For days and days and days and days and days
And years
[Verse 2]
Barely got the time now
To stay on the job
Double up the dosage in your water supply
Make you even sicker 'til you're slippin' away
Getting all depressed
It's getting all your friends
You can't get it up
For nothing that'll rock the boat
[Bridge]
The government flu
The government flu
The government flu
[Verse 3]
Slip it abroad
Keep a-slowin' down the USSR
But meanwhile
We'll keep an eye
On what it's doin' to you
[Chorus 2]
Got a head cold
Got a chest cold
And it's three days old
(Goin' on forever)
Make you hazy
Make you lazy
Drive you crazy
For days and days and days and days and days
And days and days and days and days and days
And days and days and days and days and days
And years
[Outro]
The government flu
The government flu
The government flu
Flew
Through
You
.
feel free to share these ^^ (y) >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idOyb3kMseI
"You're a well paid scientist
You only talk in facts
You know you're always right
'Cause you know how to prove it
Step by step
A PhD to show you're smart
With textbook formulas
But you're used up
Just like a factory hand
[Chorus:]
Something is wrong here
You won't find it on a shelf
You're well paid
You're well trained
You're tied to a rack
Company cocktails - gotta go
Say the right thing
Don't fidget, jockey for position
Be polite
In the pyramid you hate
Sip that scotch
Get that raise
This ain't no party at all
[Chorus]
Cringe and tense up
Grind your teeth
And wipe your sweaty palms
Close your windows driving past
The low life company bar
They're making fun of you
Ahhh Even you
You've gotta punch the clock
Too scared to punch your boss
When will you crack ?
When will you crack ?
When will you crack ?
When will you OPEN YOUR EYES ?
OPEN YOUR EYES !
OPEN YOUR EYES !
OPEN YOUR EYES !
Pull up to your sterile home
You're drained
Bite the heads off of your kids
Chew them well, they taste like you
Just slam the door
Assigned here cause your company owns the land
All your colleagues live here too
Private guards in golf carts
Keep you safe at home?
[Chorus]
When will you crack ?
When will you crack ?
When will you crack ?
When will you crack ?
The dark shattered underbelly
Of the American dream
Avoid it like the plague
It stares you from the bathroom mirror
DROWN ! "
Why does this feel so on purpose
Because you lack a fundamental grounding in biology? Just guessing.
I thought biology was 'the birds & the bees', and a few earth worms thrown in.
I know you jest. But in all seriousness we are all going to become biologists now. Like it or not, nature is trying to murder us. There is no weapon to counter this except understanding exactly how nature kills things.
How nature kills things was a subtext of my Masters Thesis. Death is a fascinating subject, and being devoured all the more so.
My avatar is calmly watching all of you deal with nature coming to murder you.
I thought the whole purpose of getting a degree was so that I would never have to read another scholarly paper from other disciplines ever again, and I could confine my literary sado masochism to the mental masturbation of BIS and JIE authors...
Fortunately Al Gore came along and invented the internet and Steve Jobs invented the smart phone... so now I can download and read 30 papers a day without ever getting out of bed or dressed, much less hauling my ass to a library and wading though the stacks...
I certainly don't miss marching 5 miles a day uphill to school each day through the mud in my bare feet, and then marching 5 miles a day uphill back home. Progress!
Respect to anyone who had to type their papers on an IBM Selectric back in the dark ages, that must have really been hell.
Cougar- marry me? :)
Remember when everyone here was saying how ebola is DEFINITELY coming to America?
Lol. When people are living in houses and apartments and not eating fruit bats all the livelong day, it's kinda hard to contract an illness like ebola.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Get back to us in a month on that.
I hope you don't have to eat crow, but five doctors I know, are worried
about ebola,stateside.
At least they know of what they speak, so if they are concerned, so am I.
Went to see the primary care provider today for a followup. Walking down the hall in the facility, I noticed several offices had signs in the window:
"NOTICE if you are feverish and/or experiencing flu-like symptoms, let the receptionist know IMMEDIATELY"
At least some of the healthcare professionals here in NorCal are taking this seriously.
Lots of butt sex and needle sharing in Manhattan. Time will tell.
Where did you see those Banksters?
The CDC and WHO certainly want you to think that.
4% - this is what they are telling us? That means a 10 - 20% contraction AT least based on the lies they're feeding us..
Agreed. Maybe 50%.
Scarcity of the pharmaceutical needed to cure Ebola victims will lead to
major profit for the biotech companies that control the drugs. Don't think for a second that the US ARMY Bioterrorism Class 4 Lab in Sierra Leone did not have the antidote before they released weaponized Ebola. The BIG Pharmaceutical company that has the drugs for sale
is in North America and not Africa as the US Army planned. This Ebola
outbreak was a planned release and this is the begining of the mass cull of world populations. When Ebola hits North America the stock in the BIG Pharmaceutical company will be more than a passing interest to Government Sachs and Wall Street, as well as the FED.
Anything that boosts GDP in the USA catches the attention of the Central Banksters and their crony corporatists.
"the pharmaceutical needed to cure Ebola victims"
There really is no such thing. Anything you hear about cures and vaccines is delusion or echo-chamber wishful thinking.
Kinda like everything else you mentioned.
Possible cure for Ebola (and many other infectious diseases) discovered in 1991.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMlXd9hLpcY
Up yours egoBOY. Go trip out on someone that thinks you are intelligent. You know nothing about everything.
^^We need to reinstitute the math test.^^
The headline:
"... GDP Plunges 4%"
The story:
"it is expected that economic growth in the region will plunge by up to 4 percent as foreign businessmen leave and projects are canceled, according to the African Development Bank president said."
A little precision would be nice.
Or -- how about a little reality; that's just what they are willing to ascribe to missed opportunities. What about dead or sick or terrified people not showing up to work? Or inner cities devolving into chaos? Or traditional exports dropping to zero due to cordon?
Lot's of down-side risk yet to explore.
i am sure someone here could give a rundown of movies, videos or other media that predated the current "worst than anyone is willing to admit even at ground zero" nonpandemic ebola incident. it could very well be a legitimate natural outbreak of a new ebola strain emanating from the birthplace of man to cull the world of excess labor, a naturally occuring response to post industrial society. labor must be useful or will be culled by naturally occurring envirnmental antibodies.
So you follow the "God is coming, and man is she pissed" school of thought? Not arguing, just say'n
Someone on ZH introduced me to Pandemic II.
That evil game is all I need to visualize what is currently happening in slow motion.
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals - TKMR
Canadian company with the only possible cure.
Currently in trials but ahead of everyone else.
Do your own DD.
Voted 1/5 for the ludicrous suggestion that more taxpayer dollars be wasted on African strongmen and thugs in the form of 'aid':
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9121361/why-aid-fails/
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-interview-with-afric...
http://www.slate.com/articles/video/conversations_with_slate/2013/05/dam...
I believe that there is a high probability that the virus will come to Europe soon.
I stipulate that a number of middle-class inhabitants of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea may decide to escape to Europe. Since air travel has become very difficult, some of them might chose to go to Lybia to embark to Italy, and from here to another European country (it is very easy to escape from Italian reception centers, which are anyway overcrowded). In Lybia there is a civil war, but I believe that migrants paying for their trip are still welcomed.
From West Africa to Lybia through Mali and Niger/Algeria there are about 4000 Km. For a person able to buy a decent travel, in 10-12 days it can be done. If the traveller got Ebola before leaving, there are chances s/he develops the illness when under a tent on Lybian shores, or during the travel, when s/he is very close to other people on the boat. Ebola incubation time is between 2 to 21 days. S/he will probably infect 30-40 people over 200-300 on the boat.
Maybe this is just an unfounded rant, but better to be prepared!
No I think you hit the nail right on the head. I commented something similar about a week ago. You seem to have described the mechanism for what is certainly inevitable.
Packs of roving dogs are eating the ebola corpses in Liberia http://www.liberianobserver.com/news/terrified-residents-flee-dogs-eat-e...
I do not know if ebola can jump to canines, I would suspect so.
WOW.
This human > dog > human route is dubious. However if a dog bites someone there could be trouble.
The real trouble is the lack of sanitation overall. Infected bodies laying around -- dogs or not -- is a disaster.
Reston probably did not come from the Philippines. One theory is that monkeys were mixed with others from Indonesia, where the fever is known to exist, and pigs are thought to be hosts. Curiouser and curiouser.
Flutrackers thread about dogs & Ebola:
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=226956
A CDC study is referenced and the study suggests that dogs
can be infected by Ebola virus and that the putative infection is asymptomatic.
If it is asymptomatic then it might not spread either. Or maybe only in a limited way (ie via bites)
These things are complicated. But yes it could also be really bad to have dogs involved.
"Packs of roving dogs are eating the ebola corpses in Liberia
http://www.liberianobserver.com/news/terrified-residents-flee-dogs-eat-e..."
I have read about this before ... The four canines of the apocalypse
All human ecosystem damage would be greatly reduce if the population was reduced by 50%. The eco fascists are starting to smile.
Btw, Knuckles, sorry to hear that you died.
With the Passing of Willis Knuckles, Jr., is Liberia’s Capital Relocation in Limbo? Mon, 08/25/2014 - 17:50 admin Knuckles was Instrumental in Planning and Organizing the Relocation Exercise By: William Q. Harmon The dream of relocating Liberia’s political capital from Monrovia to Zekepa in Nimba County seems to be facing bleak future now as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has said that the man she depended on to make this dream a reality is now dead.The President did not, however, disclose the fate of the project following the demise of the ‘crafter,’ Willis DeFrancis Knuckles.
Next stop for western Africa: the Stone Age.
Don't be dramatic. Nothing worse than the Iron Age certainly. Probably my personal favourite and not to put too fine a point on it, after the crash of the global economy we're all headed there anyway. West Africa getting there first might suddenly have a competitive advantage.
Every summer there is a steam power revival in the Shenandoah Valley. Tractors, and engines of all sorts. High maintenance but tons of power. My grandfather owned one. Looking better all the time.
Wait...there still was good cold beer in the iron age right? C'mon, you're scaring me.
Beer during the iron age was rather chunky. Men would strain it through their beards.
Everybody better get prayed up !!!!
The time is coming when you will need more food and drink than you have.
Thoughts on selling fake antidotes to Africans? It’s not like they’ll be able to use whatever money they have.
Bitcoin to avoid touching them.
Let's not.
They get "Hope" - I get their "Change"......
You will reap what you sow
Dog meat, the new bush meat.
Really, Dogs eating ebola corpses? Least apitizing thing I have heard today.
http://www.liberianobserver.com/news/terrified-residents-flee-dogs-eat-ebola-corpses
Cats helped spread the black death in Europe. They would eat infected rats and carry the rat fleas indoors to expose their owners. Pets are real cute, until they off you.
As noted elsewhere, India is receiving potential ebola victims. The odds are pretty high that this disease will get loose in their country and will spread like wildfire given their hygene practices and population density.
I read the CDC site and am I mistaken or do they not say, definitively, that Ebola isn't airborne? Sure looks like it is to this guesser.
Interesting to note previous plagues and how they changed societies. For those that lived...
I think they are going to let Sierra Leone die. I don't know if I should call it genocide or what, but it is horrific if they are doing what I think they are...
Abandon them and let ebola rage...
This disease has been around for a long time. Some researchers think it's been here longer than humans.
From what I have read, in the villages, mortality rarely exceeds 50% even if they get no help from the outside. A poorly understood, herd immunity prevails. A pathogen, no matter how aggressive, rarely kills more than half its prospective hosts. Conservation, from the bug's perspective.
Now as to what will happen in the cities..., I'd rather not dwell on that.
I don't know if it is a matter of "let" anymore. There is nothing they can do.
Think about that and then ask yourself where this stops.
Unless we close borders, it doesn't stop. At least not until it infects every human it can reach and either kills them or they become immune, without new hosts then yeah it stops. For a little while.
Cougar, what happens if you "beat' the infection? Are you more susceptible to beating future re-infections?
Unfortunately for Africa, the virus will only be half the problem. When supply chains and markets break down, people are going to have double jepardy. On the one hand they may die from ebola, and on the other from complete civil breakdown with loss of food and water. Relief won't be coming either because nobody is going to want to go anywhere near that place. Don't think it can't happen here either, especially with the mental midgets we have running the show.
These are all really important points. That, and the complete breakdown in healthcare and sanitation systems means people will then become exposed to the usual pathogens that before were always there but managed.
So you escape ebola, but then die of dysentary.
Question to anyone with a decent knowledge of Virology:
If Ebola jumps to Dogs (whether they become asymptomatic or not) would this have an effect on mutation rates of the disease?
I have no idea- not my field, and I don't trust any of the shit the MSM is bound to spout out about it in coming days.
I would dare say that is a good question and yet to be determine. I'm sure miffed & cougar might want to jump in and correct me, but the Reston epidemic killed only monkeys and they were asymptomatic. If it can jump species (which it appears it can) and mutate there is a good chance we are all fucked.
Hard to say. I would guess "not much".
First of all, it's not mutation rates as such. Mutation is random and usually not adaptive. Most mutations are actually "fatal" to the virus. How virus learn new tricks (as I call them) is in combination with other virus or with bacteria containing viral pieces. These are all successful players (let's not call them "organisms") that have lots of tricks to share about how to become a nuisance.
For example, bird flu. There are influenza that infect birds only, not humans. If you keep poultry or ducks you know about them because they cost you money. The keeper can catch the flu from his birds, but the flu isn't able to take advantage of the human system, and fails. However there are other things already in the human that can take advantage of humans, and if the bird flu virus can play around with these other guys it might pick up a protein or something that can enable it to make the jump into one human, and the guy comes down with the flu. For someone living in the US midwest with a few chickens the chances of such an event are very low, essentially zero. But in Asia there are millions of people (in varying degrees of health) living in close proximity with billions of animals (in varying degrees of sanitation) and handling them every day including butchering them (you get the idea). Perfect environment for bird flu to have a lot of contact with humans and their own viral loads (and similar things).
But that is only half the challenge. Once it jumps bird > human it makes that person sick, it then needs to learn how to jump human > human, an entire other set of challenges. But again, millions of people billions of animals etc etc...
This is why avian flu, swine flu, etc always seem to erupt in Asia first then make their way elsewhere. It is also why CDC and WHO are always going on about "human to human" transmission of these exotic influenza and always worrying about that.
To your question, I don't know that there is anything special about canines in this regard. Swine are enough similar to humans that we need to be careful around them. Dogs, I don't think so. I don't think that would be a very effective route. Of course we are not like birds either, but we keep so many birds and we interact with them so continuously that a bird > human jump though seemingly just as difficult well it can happen simply by statistical chance.
That was a long-winded way of saying I don't expect the dog vector to amount to much in the short term
But let me add one important thing;
Ebola was limited to the countryside for a long time. Now it is in the cities. There are no fruit bats and other wild hosts to support a latent (hidden) ebola reservoir in the city ... but what if ebola now finds a way into city animals like dogs and rats? Even if those animals show no symbtoms at all and cannot easily spread the disease to humans, the virus is suddenly all over the city. It can then move between cities via shipping, pets and strays (in the case of dogs). you can't get rid of it, and then one day up jumps the devil (as my granny used to say) and ebola turns up in a human. No reason for it, never visited the countryside, didn't have a sick relative. Just a big mystery ... unless it was in the dogs the entire time and like avian flu or swine flu just waiting the the correct random alignment of vectors to jump back onto the world stage.
I don't know how likely such a scenario is. But I can tell you there is a risk of it. Ebola getting into the cities is a game changer. We just don't know what to expect now. Even setting aside mutations rates the chance of finding something "interesting" in the viral sense is suddenly off the charts.
This is only the start. I don't know where it ends. But I can think of a few scenarios really easily and many of them are unbelievably bleak.
Thanks for your grounded comments. Miffeds too!
The mortality rate doesn't seeming to be dropping, while transmission rate seems to be increasing. This latest Ebola isn't following the normal path of virus adaptations. Scary.
Might be from the HC provided in the african countries or the lack of proper reporting. Dunno. Though it adds fuel to the bio-engineered stories. Would they be that stupid?
Imagine the Spanish flu with 3x the lethality and perhaps easier transmissions. Wow.
Only thing we can do is watch and wait.