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[Loud Whispers]

Also, apparently some idiot decided to pull the equivalent of shouting 'fire!' in a theatre while on a plane from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic, except with ebola. No word on whether the guy was also drunk.

"I have ebola, you're all screwed." After sneezing.

were you being ironic?  the flu kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Not swine or bird flu which is the one the media panics about.

[ChairmanPoo]

Not swine or bird flu which is the one the media panics about.

Swine flu did kill thousands of people, you know. Less than regular flu, true, but it's peculiarities were that it was out-of-season and that proportionally the rates of death among people outside risk groups were higher than usual.

Ebola is as exaggerated as those were. As far as the western world is concerned, I think that, outside healthcare workers, it's not particularly worrying.

[Sergarr]

Not swine or bird flu which is the one the media panics about.

Swine flu did kill thousands of people, you know. Less than regular flu, true, but it's peculiarities were that it was out-of-season and that proportionally the rates of death among people outside risk groups were higher than usual.

Ebola is as exaggerated as those were. As far as the western world is concerned, I think that, outside healthcare workers, it's not particularly worrying.

70% death rate and the fact you need biohazard level 4 suits to even work with Ebola is not worrying?

Add in the fact it's very high mutation speed. Combine that with the epidemic in Africa.

You know, the epidemic which is still going on as we speak, killing hundreds of people every. single. day.

[Darvi]

If it was literally "hundreds per day", we would have way more than the, what, four thousand dead that we have now? Way to exagerate.

[Sergarr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa

" the WHO believes that this substantially understates the magnitude of the outbreak[6] with possibly 2.5 times as many cases as have been reported.[7]"

So, it's actually 10 000 dead, and rising.

[Dutchling]

according to who?

[scrdest]

according to who?

Yes. THE WHO.

[Darvi]

according to who?

Yes. THE WHO.

YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! (¬■_■)

[ChairmanPoo]

Not swine or bird flu which is the one the media panics about.

Swine flu did kill thousands of people, you know. Less than regular flu, true, but it's peculiarities were that it was out-of-season and that proportionally the rates of death among people outside risk groups were higher than usual.

Ebola is as exaggerated as those were. As far as the western world is concerned, I think that, outside healthcare workers, it's not particularly worrying.

70% death rate and the fact you need biohazard level 4 suits to even work with Ebola is not worrying?

Add in the fact it's very high mutation speed. Combine that with the epidemic in Africa.

You know, the epidemic which is still going on as we speak, killing hundreds of people every. single. day.

Sure.  Biohazard protection is in order because when you work with ebola, you're by definition exposed to ebola. This is a good reason to worry if you're forced to work with ebola patients without proper protection. The pandemic in Africa is a human drama, but not a reason to be scared shitless here. I kind of wonder why you're so scared of Ebola when in the same time frame the swine flu (which you consider silly scaremongering) killed about three times as people.

[Levi]

I kind of wonder why you're so scared of Ebola when in the same time frame the swine flu (which you consider silly scaremongering) killed about three times as people.

So far.  Ebola hasn't run its course yet (and we aren't sure it will).   And swine flu mostly killed the old and the young didn't it?  Ebola seems to do a pretty good job of killing anybody.

I think there is plenty of reason to be paranoid.

[Sergarr]

Not swine or bird flu which is the one the media panics about.

Swine flu did kill thousands of people, you know. Less than regular flu, true, but it's peculiarities were that it was out-of-season and that proportionally the rates of death among people outside risk groups were higher than usual.

Ebola is as exaggerated as those were. As far as the western world is concerned, I think that, outside healthcare workers, it's not particularly worrying.

70% death rate and the fact you need biohazard level 4 suits to even work with Ebola is not worrying?

Add in the fact it's very high mutation speed. Combine that with the epidemic in Africa.

You know, the epidemic which is still going on as we speak, killing hundreds of people every. single. day.

Sure.  Biohazard protection is in order because when you work with ebola, you're by definition exposed to ebola. This is a good reason to worry if you're forced to work with ebola patients without proper protection. The pandemic in Africa is a human drama, but not a reason to be scared shitless here. I kind of wonder why you're so scared of Ebola when in the same time frame the swine flu (which you consider silly scaremongering) killed about three times as people.

Because Ebola looks like a biological weapon of localized mass destruction to me.

[RedKing]

I think the larger danger may be society itself. People get panicky when they don't understand something, and there's a LOT of lack of understanding about Ebola, both in West Africa and in the rest of the world.

That can lead to overreaction and measures that could be as damaging as the disease itself. Closed borders, quarantine zones, popular resistance to being relocated to said quarantine zones, etc.

Just look at how many people in Dallas have kinda lost their shit over one case. They can't PAY anybody to come clean the house where he lived. People are pulling their kids out of school. People are avoiding the hospital he was admitted to. Hell, people are avoiding the whole section of town where he lived.

Now imagine that you have a dozen or so Ebola patients pop up in Dallas. What then, an armed quarantine zone around the entire city? A travel ban to Texas? Mexico building a wall to keep Americans out?

[smjjames]

Not swine or bird flu which is the one the media panics about.

Swine flu did kill thousands of people, you know. Less than regular flu, true, but it's peculiarities were that it was out-of-season and that proportionally the rates of death among people outside risk groups were higher than usual.

Ebola is as exaggerated as those were. As far as the western world is concerned, I think that, outside healthcare workers, it's not particularly worrying.

70% death rate and the fact you need biohazard level 4 suits to even work with Ebola is not worrying?

Add in the fact it's very high mutation speed. Combine that with the epidemic in Africa.

You know, the epidemic which is still going on as we speak, killing hundreds of people every. single. day.

Sure.  Biohazard protection is in order because when you work with ebola, you're by definition exposed to ebola. This is a good reason to worry if you're forced to work with ebola patients without proper protection. The pandemic in Africa is a human drama, but not a reason to be scared shitless here. I kind of wonder why you're so scared of Ebola when in the same time frame the swine flu (which you consider silly scaremongering) killed about three times as people.

Isn't flu the one with the high mutation rate, not ebola?

[Frumple]

@RK: ... that last one wouldn't make the whole thing worth it, but it would be a disturbingly close facsimile thereof. An ironybomb that concentrated isn't worth lives, but... it's close to it.

[RedKing]

Moreover, the National Guard or Army setting up camps (probably administered by FEMA and/or CDC) and relocating people into it would probably fulfill every gun-toting militia nut's dystopian fantasy, and trigger an armed backlash.

And not entirely without reason. If you're healthy, but you're being told that because you live in a city/town with someone suspected of Ebola, you have to go to the camp too....there's a lot of people who are going to try and flee/fight their way out of that, even without the feverish conspiracy dreams.