The Ebola News Digest

[Godwit]

kim yi dionne ‏@dadakim 3h
US sends 3,000 troops, Cuba sends 461 doctors.
http://m.aljazeera.com/story/201492692422678186 … #Ebola


Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 2h
@dadakim #US also sends 100 @CDC workers, @theOFDA DART team, 25 physicians, 25 members of our Nat'l Public Health Comm. Corp...


Geoffrey York ‏@geoffreyyork 2h
Monrovia's international airport, with 11000-foot runway, will need strengthening and reconfiguring for #Ebola relief flights, US troops say


Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 2h
Update on #US #EbolaResponse http://www.usaid.gov/ebola/fy14/fs07 List of grps accepting donations: http://www.interaction.org @MackayIM @Crof #Ebola


Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 1h
Canadian MD on #Ebola frontlines "Are we there yet? Not even close. Can we get there? Absolutely." #EbolaResponse
http://bit.ly/1u3Ofbw

Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria now Global #Ebolaresponse: So many private orgs, foundations, nations, international groups, NGO's rising to mobilization challenge. #Ebola


Matt Jones ‏@moved2monrovia 2h
Norway to give #Ghana $1m for #Ebola preparedness:
http://www.modernghana.com/news/571313/1/ghana-to-receive-1m-ebola-money-from-norway.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterf eed …

Geoffrey York ‏@geoffreyyork 2h
US troops at ground-breaking today for construction of 25-bed #Ebola clinic near Monrovia airport

[naegling62]

Finally some good news.

[Godwit]

Finally some good news.

More examples --


Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 2h
#China #EbolaResponse $32.54M, 59-member lab team, med supplies, 115 medical experts to W. Africa. #Ebola
http://english.cntv.cn/2014/09/19/AR...08079664.shtml …

Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 2h
#UK & #Japan #EbolaResponse #Ebola Commit Additional $8.3M & $1.5M to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea
http://www.mofa.gov.lr/public2/2press.php?news_id=1245&related=7&pg=sp#sthash.6WL J8J5q.uxfs …


Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 2h
#UK #EbolaResponse: Team military & humanitarian staff, £100M, 40 engineers & med experts, staff for ETU beds #Ebola
http://bit.ly/1voGvjO

Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 3h
#Canada #EbolaResponse $1.3M + $30M 4 tx, prevention,health ed,humanitarian, $2.5M med equip, experimental vax
http://www.cbc.ca/1.2777478 #Ebola

Rachel Graham ‏@rachels_aria 2h
#Russia #EbolaResponse $1M aid, $6-10M to @WHO, team scientists & lab, PPE equip, diag. kits, testing vax,
http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/750215 #ebola

[The Watcher]

A professor in U.S. is telling Liberians that the Defense Department
‘manufactured’ Ebola




http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m...bola-outbreak/

[Godwit]

A professor in U.S. is telling Liberians that the Defense Department
‘manufactured’ Ebola

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m...bola-outbreak/

From the article --

His claims represent a pervasive, pernicious and crippling problem facing the fight against Ebola: misinformation. Across Liberia and Sierra Leone, where the CDC fears Ebola could eventually infect 1.4 million people, there is such distrust of the medical community that some don’t even think Ebola exists.

Some in West Africa, reported the Economist, “fear that the government wants to sell the blood of Ebola patients, or that it will remove patients’ limbs for ritual purposes. Others think health workers will inject them with Ebola; or that the ubiquitous chlorine disinfectant spray will give them the disease; or simply the virus is an invention to help the government bring in donations.”

Broderick’s article played on those fears — and attempted to substantiate them. By drawing from conspiracy-obsessed American sources — one of which said the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were planned by the American elite — its author took rumors circulating in the United States and injected them squarely into the most Ebola-ravaged place on Earth.

[Godwit]

What can we say about Ebola? (without starting a panic or making everyone mad)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...-everyone-mad/

[Godwit]

Ian M Mackay, PhD ‏@MackayIM 1m
The Control Gap. A way 2 look at whether control has been lost during an outbreak? #Ebola
http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/the-control-gap.html …

[Blacknarwhal]

Hat tip to the other board on this one:

fair use for non commercial purposes claimed, blah blah, in perpetuity throughout the universe

Sierra Leone announces indefinite citizen lockdown: two million people forced into endless quarantine as food prices skyrocket

High-density population areas of Sierra Leone have just been locked down in the largest pandemic quarantine in history, and it's already causing a collapse of the food delivery infrastructure. The local government says forced isolation orders will remain in effect until Ebola is eradicated. This essentially means that millions of people are now under a state of military quarantine until they either become immune to Ebola or die from it.

"President Ernest Bai Koroma put Port Loko, Bombali, and Moyamba districts under isolation with immediate effect, allowing only people delivering essential services to enter and circulate within these areas," reports Associated Press. [1] "The restrictions will remain in place until the chain of transmission is broken, officials said."

AP goes on to report:

Sierra Leone on Thursday took the dramatic step of sealing off districts where more than 1 million people live as it and other West African countries struggle to control the Ebola outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives.

The food delivery infrastructure of Sierra Leone has now collapsed

The problem with quarantines is that they restrict the movement of goods and services (i.e. food, medicine, etc.) at the same time they restrict the movement of an infectious virus.

Predictably, the enforcement of quarantines across Sierra Leone have caused a collapse in that nation's food delivery infrastructure. This, of course, is causing food prices to skyrocket:

"...food prices have soared, some markets have shut and the delivery of goods has slowed," reports AP.

It's classic supply and demand, of course, and it's a universal phenomenon. That means it will also happen in the United States, Europe, Canada or anywhere else a quarantine is put into effect.

Six harsh lessons in the reality of food shortages and quarantines

By observing the reality of what is unfolding in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, we are learning several extremely valuable lessons:

Lesson #1: The preppers have always been right

If you aren't stockpiling food supplies for your own home, community or church, you're crazy. Food shortages happen almost immediately in any quarantine scenario. The preppers have been right about this all along, of course.

Lesson #2: Quarantines halt food delivery logistics

Food deliveries require the ability of both people and transportation vehicles to move freely across a region or nation. When that freedom to remove is restricted, food deliveries cease. This, of course, results in almost immediate food shortages.

Lesson #3: If you are caught in a quarantine zone, you will not be allowed to escape, even if the pandemic gets far worse

The entire purpose of a quarantine zone is to "halt the chain of transmission" of the disease. For this reason, even healthy, non-infected people will be forced to remain in the quarantine zone indefinitely. Remember the movie "Escape from New York" with Kurt Russell? Governments will shoot those trying to escape.

Lesson #4: If food is not brought in from outside the quarantine, those inside the boundaries will starve to death

All the food deliveries into a quarantine zone are completely dependent on the government, and the government has a horrible track record of responding to any catastrophe with adequate supplies. Those who are trapped inside the quarantine zone are now at the mercy of incompetent government, and many may face starvation.

Lesson #5: Quarantines are announced without advanced warning

There is zero warning that a quarantine is going to be announced in your city or neighborhood. They are announced and enforced with a sense of military immediacy for precisely the reason that they don't want people escaping and spreading the disease! Thus, you have no chance to bug out before the lockdown goes into effect.

Lesson #6: Your plan to "bug out" to a rural location is suddenly useless

Many Americans currently live in cities while maintaining bug out plans that will relocate themselves and their families to rural locations. These plans are useful in certain situations where warnings can be detected in advance, but they are useless in a sudden military quarantine. If you are caught inside the quarantine boundaries when the lockdown is announced, you're already too late.

For this reason alone, actually living at your bug out location is a superior strategy if you have the funds to move away from the city (and leave behind the higher wages the cities offer).

[azaziah]

Good grief: "...under a state of military quarantine until they either become immune to Ebola or die from it."

umm... immunity? Asymptomatic carrier, maybe. But immune?

[Summerthyme]

We really don't have any evidence of "asymtomatic carriers" in humans. Immunity is presumed, but not guaranteed, especially given how quickly this virus has been mutating during this outbreak.

No sense in making this any worse than it already is.

Summerthyme