|
Current Events Help understand the world by talking about things happening in it |
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
03-18-2006, 11:05 PM | #46 | |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
|
Quote:
The French end up being as close to good guys as you can get in the AIDS story, being the first to successfully isolate and identify the virus. Ebola is probably higher risk than H5N1, unless the Avian flu gets better at crossing the species barrier. That eola shit is really a lot scarier, even given that the infectious process tends to burn itself out rather quickly once it's identified and infection control procedures are followed to the letter. At least Ebola isn't airborne.
__________________
wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis |
|
03-19-2006, 12:39 AM | #47 |
-◊|≡·∙■·∙≡|◊-
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Parts unknown.
Posts: 4,081
|
Ebola while horrifically contagious is easy to contain since the incubation period is so short. Its those looooooooong incubation period diseases that are cause for concern.
I have to confess that I haven't really kept up with this thread except to note that H5N1 is pretty much going to spread itself everywhere. How "incurable" is it and how "fatal" is it. I have trouble comparing it to the 1918 epidemic since, back then, some - maybe even a lot - regarded epidemics in certain areas to be "nature's housecleaning." I'm not sure the conditions which allowed that to happen exist anymore.
__________________
♠ ♥ ♣ ♦ |
03-19-2006, 08:44 AM | #48 | |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
|
Quote:
__________________
The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
|
03-19-2006, 12:23 PM | #49 | |
Pump my ride!
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Deep countryside of Surrey , England
Posts: 1,890
|
Quote:
__________________
Always sufficient hills - never sufficient gears |
|
03-20-2006, 01:34 PM | #50 | |
Read? I only know how to write.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
|
Quote:
Unfortunately, the level defined for Africa has not yet reach equilibrium AND is much higher than compared to more educated nations. With even the George Jr administration now banning condom distribution in Africa as a condition for assistance, this has only increases what should be the leveling point. The point being that those details must be understood before a reporter can accurately report. Too many English majors don't have sufficient grasp of logic to accurately report on AIDs - or on H5N1. Their inability to grasp the details results in hype. |
|
03-20-2006, 02:51 PM | #51 |
Pump my ride!
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Deep countryside of Surrey , England
Posts: 1,890
|
I take your point TW, but there is the question: is AIDS directly comparable to a fatal air-borne/spread virus?
True we don't have air-borne H5N1 yet, but that is the scenario that frightens most. Under those circumstances it's hard to see how the exponential curve would mirror that of AIDs both in volume and in timescale, the difference being that a disease that can be curtailed by the direct influence that the educated individual can self-impose on their hygiene and living habits is different from that where the virus will not permit itself to be discriminated against in such a way. I can see that imposed incubation would have the ability to flatten the curve over time, but set against that is the immediate and rapid increase in damage and spread that would result from an air-borne virus. The way we live our normal lives is counter-active to containment. Humans mix too much both nationally and internationally. The curve would certainly flatten on three counts: as a result of the number of fatalities reducing the pool of susceptible hosts, upon the introduction and dissemination of a workable vaccination, and through incubation where this was viable/possible - but all this would take time. If the virus turns into something both instantly transmittable and at the same time is extremely aggressive, it looks to me that the ride would be a very ugly one for some considerable time. But once again I admit, this is worse case scenario. More than happy therefore to have the above interpretation and resultant concerns grounded... (maybe I shouldn't have read Stephen King's 'The Stand')
__________________
Always sufficient hills - never sufficient gears |
03-21-2006, 12:51 AM | #52 |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
|
Even if airborne, there's not a really good comparison ... AIDS kills over a span of years, H5N1 over a matter of days or weeks.
A paper from the New England Journal of Medicine on H5N1 that's actually fairly readable.
__________________
wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis |
03-21-2006, 06:57 AM | #53 | |
Slattern of the Swail
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 15,654
|
Quote:
Somewhere in this meaty thread someone did mention that Rumsfeld owns major stock in Tamiflu? He is like the Cigarette-Smoking Man in the X-files series--going to profit from the demise of civilization. anyway--I'm not too terribly worried about the birdflu. I'm more worried about driving in this snow we are getting right now. |
|
03-21-2006, 08:26 AM | #54 | |
Read? I only know how to write.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
|
Quote:
Little details that some reporters never quite understood during AIDs predictions are that disease, like most things in nature, follow exponential curves. Diseases would be exponential whether transmission is airborne or other. To deviate from those exponential trends would require other outside influences. For example, a miracle drug would sharply change that curve. But the naive, instead, jump to linear assumptions. |
|
03-21-2006, 01:35 PM | #55 |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
|
I, for one, will be forsaking sex with poultry for the duration of this emergency.
__________________
wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis |
03-21-2006, 03:17 PM | #56 | |
Read? I only know how to write.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
|
Quote:
|
|
03-21-2006, 03:28 PM | #57 | |
Slattern of the Swail
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 15,654
|
Quote:
|
|
03-24-2006, 12:53 AM | #58 | |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
|
Quote:
H5N1 is killed by cooking, anyway.
__________________
wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis |
|
03-24-2006, 07:04 AM | #59 | |
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
|
Quote:
__________________
Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama |
|
03-24-2006, 12:10 PM | #60 | |
Read? I only know how to write.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
|
Quote:
|
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
|
|