Despite this meme, and the posted Comments policy
on the right sidebar, today's post was brought to you
by the letters "M", "O", "R", and "N", and the IQ "40".
[I was saving this post for tomorrow, but I finished my appointed rounds early, and maybe I'll take tomorrow off, and just leave this up instead.- A.]
Generally, I appreciate Comments to posts I make. Otherwise I'd just sit in the den and mumble to myself. Good ones add to the discussion, on the theory that None Of Us Is Smarter Than All Of Us, editorial accountability, etc.
On the other side of the scale is the boot camp wisdom delivered by one of my drill instructors:
Truer words have never been uttered.
There's also the 24K gold assessment by Mssrs. Dunning, and Kruger, regarding the regrettable human failing where the less people actually understand about something, the smarter they think they are on that topic.
I tell you plainly, all I know about Ebola is what I've read.
Which is everything I can get my hands on.
Other people read one blog post, can't grasp the basics of even that, and conclude they must therefore be the Smartest Guy In The Room.
Which brings us directly to today's example of That Guy:
Anonymous said...We tried, patiently, to explain where the wheels went off his tricycle.350,000,000 people live in the U.S.
We have, perhaps, 15 beds available to treat Ebola patients safely. As many as 50% of whom would live and survive the infection. 75% if you're really lucky.
So your best odds in an Ebola outbreak if you become infected, are a 1 in 35,000,000 chance of survival.
I'm to sure [sic] how you did the math there, but it's very very suspect.
There are 350,000,000 people in the U.S., give or take.
There are 15 staffed BL-IV beds.
15 people will get those beds.
Everyone else will get Jack, and Shit.
(That would be 349,999,985 people, if you're keeping a tally, who will be told "Best wishes" along with such sage medical advice as "Wash your hands" and "Cover your cough".)
Once you get into a BL-IV bed, historically you have a 50-75% chance of survival.
Let's split the difference and call it 66%.
66% of 15 is 10. (But it could range from 7-12, historically.)
You thus have 10 chances out of 350,000,000, which reduces to a 1 in 35,000,000 chance of getting into one of those beds, and surviving.
This is called fractions.
It's generally covered for most people in third or fourth grade.
Unprotected and untreated, 80-90% of Ebola victims die.
Horribly.
"Surviving" for the other 10-20% isn't anything to write home about either.
Read up on [post-]Ebola Virus Syndrome.
Short answer, don't get infected.
Stock up, and bunker in.
Because if you get it, and you're Case #16 or higher, you're not going to be treated, just farmed out to a death center, where you will die, and then incinerated.
Being dead already, you won't mind that last part.
QED
One might think that such a painstaking explanation might have soothed the confusion in the mind of such a mentally challenged chowder-head, but no. He had yet to spread his wings to full peacock-fan proportions.
Anonymous said...That, gentle readers, is bag-of-hammers breathtaking stupidity of such epic proportions as to raise a blister on boot leather.Aesop,
So the bush people in subsaharan Africa somehow manage a fifty percent survival rate, but if it makes it to the US we're looking at a survival rate of essentially zero. If everyone in the US is infected, only ten people will remain on the continent.
That sound about right to you?
15 people will get those beds.
Everyone else will get Jack, and Shit.
I have a magical formula that will double the number of those beds. Roll more into the isolation rooms.
There are also things called tents...marvelous inventions.
Good grief.
And can you also squat and shit out double the number of trained personnel to care for them? Doctors, nurses, ancillary staff, lab techs, clean up crew, everyone? And also shit out twice the supplies necessary to care for them? Another eight tons worth of exposure suits alone, just for 15 more patients? Not to mention medicines, IV fluids, tubing, bedding and linen, and so on?
No...? Can't do that?
Did you figure they were going to treat themselves?
Or that the isolation room magically cures people?
So much for that great idea.
Bush people in sub-Saharan Africa infected with the virus manage a 10-20% survival rate, not 50%. So will we, with similar levels of medical treatment options for the other 349+M people.
So if it infected everyone, only 280,000,000-315,000,000 people here would die outright.
The rest of the survivors, all 35,000,000-70,000,000 or so, would only have [post-]Ebola Virus Syndrome, which side affects include eventual blindness, along with perpetual headaches, joint pain, and a host of other debilitating problems.
And they'll have 280,000,000+ corpses to dispose of.
But highway traffic will be lighter, so there's that.
Ebola will also probably become endemic to wildlife species on this continent as well, so we could look forward to additional regular outbreaks, forever, without having to wait for another batch to get imported from Africa.
You're going to fix that with tents?
Genius, pal. Call the Pentagon, and tell 'em you've cracked the whole problem, all by yourself, because all we needed to do was pitch more tents all along.
I've only posted somewhere in the neighborhood of 200+ blog posts on this problem in the last 6 years.
You've skimmed one, and hurt yourself trying to digest it.
Stop thinking now, before you sprain your head.
That was really the most embarrassingly stupid pair of posts anyone has ever put up here, in the history of this blog.
No, really.
Walk tall.
And please, keep your thoughts to yourself.
Entertaining as it will be to people for days afterwards, I really don't like kicking the retarded kids; it just looks bad.
Now we come to a conundrum: Duelling Anonymous @$$tards.
Because the wonders of Blogger, and the similar low double-digit IQs involved make it hard to tell if we now have two retards, or one, posting twice.
Anonymous said...@$$tard #1: Reading comprehension for everyone but you is still a thing.If you look at the population charts of countries hit by ebola in Africa, ebola was barely a blip.
So asserting the odds of living on if the US is struck by the virus are 1 in 35,000,000 just undermines your own credibility.
The problem with such absurd assertions about the sky falling and world ending is...the next time people take them less seriously. And the next even less.
Until they stop worrying and become cavalier.
Your information, though largely correct (like: isolation precautions in medical facilities leave a lot to be desired, and ebola is very very very bad), is filled with half truths and hyperbole that push it into the land of the absurd.
Nota bene that at no time did we assert that "the odds of living on if the US is struck by the virus are 1 in 35,000,000". (Scroll up, if you doubt this.)
We said, and in carefully italicized language (Common Core grads, do not dive for a translator; italicized means we did this, it doesn't mean we spoke in the language of the Popes and Caesars.), that
"if it infected everyone, only 280,000,000-315,000,000 people here would die outright."For those, like Anonymous here, who are manifestly too stupid to comprehend basic English grammar, logic, and rhetoric, I cannot help you. That wisdom represents the Trivium, considered by the ancients to be 3/7ths of a proper education, and a lack of which I cannot remedy in mere blog posts. I urge you to return to the grade school that passed you on to middle school, punch the teachers who failed you in the face, and demand an immediate refund.
And alas for Anonymous #1, I'm not too very troubled that my credibility with demonstrated morons is undermined. I write for reasonably intelligent people, and leave the rest to the tender embraces of Mother Nature and Darwinian selection.
Since I made therefore no such absurd assertions, half truths, nor hyperbole, your pejorative-laden gainsaying is an entirely gratuitous, worthless, unsupported, and putrescent load of horseshit.
Had you any substantiation, you might have attempted to illustrate your point, but as you have nothing like, it's merely the carping of the ignorant demonstrating their mental defects.
Thanks for playing, and we have some lovely parting gifts for you.
Now we return to another contribution certainly from the original Anonymous, who not only sticks up for his rank ignorance, but doubles down on it.
Anonymous said...You're going to fix that with tents?
It isn't a panacea, but it will offer more than your asserted 15 total beds in the entire CONUS capable of handling ebola patients.
Genius, pal. Call the Pentagon, and tell 'em you've cracked the whole problem, all by yourself, because all we needed to do was pitch more tents all along.
They already know. People have been handling deadly chemicals in airtight tents and hazmat suits for decades, on a regular basis (sometimes 12 hour shifts....unlike Africa they have access to cooling suits).
Anyway, done here.
I won't post again, don't worry.
Worry? You misunderstand me.
My sides hurt.
Look, Dipshiticus Maximus, the problem isn't the lack of beds, you ignorant simpleton fuckwit.
They sell beds online by the gross.
What makes BL-IV beds special isn't how many of them there are, it's how many of them come with an attached building with the capacity to provide negative airflow, BL-IV filtration and flawless virucidal handling of every cubic centimeter of atmosphere inside without contaminating the entire surrounding countryside with deadly pathogens for which there is no cure; and incineration of the metric fucktons of BL-IV waste products, from gloves to mattresses; and airlock decontamination of the practitioners; and having metric fucktons of all those supplies already on hand right effing now, oh, and like I wasn't absolutely clear on the concept, having enough goddam practitioners - doctors, nurses, techs, and ancillary staff, who take years of learning and months of BL-IV specific training to be able to competently and safely care for patients in such a hazardous and alien practice environment without spreading the disease, like the amateurs did in a Dallas ICU.
So if you really think just popping up a few tents fixes that, you're really too stupid to waste any further discussion on, and you probably need the following diagram in a big way.
 |
| All part of the service, moron. |
But even someone stupid enough to try another bite at that apple can serve as a negative example for those less stupid, so for their sake, we'll finish driving this home.
Because, Gentle Readers, they already use tents now. In Africa. Because "Ebola Treatment Center" is another misnomer, whereby TPTB have been lying to you, me, and most especially, thousands of doomed Africans with Ebola.
Because they don't do much of any "treatment" in Africa. They do "palliative care".
The centers should be called "Ebola Hospice Centers". They wipe fevered foreheads, they offer a cup of cool water, and they mop up Ebola-laden diarrhea and vomitus, until the virus kills its usual 75-90% tally.
The survivors, they send home. Or draft to work in the Ebola Treatment Centers, since
a) they're now immune, and
b) no-effing-body else wants anything to do with them, and their families are probably all dead already; and
c) everybody's working for free anyways, so it doesn't cost them anything.
Curiously, health care workers over here have this quaint notion that they should be paid for their labors, so that's not going to work here. Until everybody with a license to practice has left skidmarks in the parking lot. (Like by Day Two.)
Call me crazy, but it seems to me getting taken care of by the dumbshits stupid enough to contract Ebola to begin with, and trusting them not to spread it, is like taking your effed up car back to the guys who effed it up the first time, and then expecting they'll get it right the second time, i'n'it??
And, when the outbreak is over, they burn the tent and the whole treatment center to the ground.
With napalm.
Just to be sure.
And with only 15 actual (not "asserted", shit-for-brains; I posted the documentation, so maybe try reading for comprehension, just for the novelty) BL-IV beds available here, for actual treatment, which gets us to 50-75% chance of recovery instead of 10-20%, if they get you in early enough, everyone else infected is going to get the same African palliative care model, and die at exactly the same 80% slate-wiping genocidal rate as in Africa. There's your potential millions of deaths, because we saw how good the amateur Ebola care models worked in Dallas, five years ago.
(And trust me, by three cases outside of BL-IV, the staffs everywhere are going home, and they won't be back until long after this is over. Or they'll die, stupidly, listening to the same official happygas horsesh*t that infected the two nurses in Dallas. And in the course of that dying, spread the outbreak even farther.)
So you either get the lotto-unlikely 1 BL-IV bed out of 15; or you get Ebola, and probably (80% or worse) die; or you bunker in someplace until it's over, which wee point I may have been a bit shy about pounding across in the last five or six posts since the beginning of the month. Or maybe some Anonymous jackhole commenters have cement-heads, and sh*t for brains.
I could give you good odds on which is likelier.
And now, I'm going to hand it over to frequent commenter Nick, just in time for him to climb up the ropes, and come down with an Atomic Elbow smash on our Fucktard Of the Day.
Take it home, Nick:
In Africa, they don't have 3 million people counting on truck drivers to deliver tomorrow's groceries. Or 9 million. They don't have a large percentage who would die without daily or weekly meds, which aren't stocked locally, and can't be stockpiled by individuals. Their supply chain looks completely different.
They don't riot if their favorite sports team wins, let alone if the stores are closed for a week.
Since you sound like you work for the CDC, the patronizing attitude that the people need to be kept from panicking annoys the HELL out of those of us with better than room temperature IQ and the motivation to take care of ourselves. I suggest reading your own CDC guidelines on Business Continuity and Pandemic Flu. Ask yourself the same questions they ask, like, can your business survive with only 50 of people coming to work? Then ask if modern western society can survive if only 50% of people go to work.
Having been thru civil collapse (Rodney King riots in LA), terror attack (I was 8 miles from ground zero on 9-11), and a variety of natural disasters (Rita, Ike, Harvey)- the thread that holds our society together is thin and strained.
Airline pilots for some airlines can rightly be fired for lying to passengers about the severity of any issue. This is the way it should be. Treat people as adults. Don't lie to me. The pushback when your lies are exposed, and the CDC DID NOT COVER ITSELF WITH GLORY IN 2014, will be worse than the truth.
nick
Also, nit picking over one idea (where the reservoir is) is a great but tired tactic to distract from the bigger issue. If this gets here, we are not prepared and people will die. Let them panic! What do you expect them to do? Run out and stock up on food? Close the border? Quarantine arriving flights??? HOW IS ANY OF THAT A BAD THING?
How, indeed?
Ebola in Sh*tholia is a blip because when you're already at a Turd World nothing Stone Age status of civilization, an epidemic can't put much of a dent in things.
It's a wee bit different in the First World, in a delicately-balanced, high-trust society intensely dependent on everything working all the time.
So where does that leave us?
The odds point to this arriving here.
We've all but thrown the gates open and rolled out a red carpet for Ebola this time.
In 2014, we were two BL-IV patients away from being West Africa.
Two.
Idiots, get that through your thick skull.
The smart people have already grasped the significance of that fact.
If Duncan had infected two more people, it would have gotten out loose in the wild.
We had no vaccine at all then.
And we have nowhere near enough now; perhaps a few tens of thousands of doses.
I've seen nothing anywhere that indicates they can ramp that up to hundreds of millions (let alone billions) of doses in even the next year. They've been vaccinating like crazy in DRC, and it's still doubling reliably, blowing right past all those mythical "containment rings" of vaccinated people, and has now spread to a second poverty-stricken Turd World Sh*thole.
Color me shocked. It's within a short bus ride of two or three megapolii, with international airports in each.
Which means it could be anywhere in 24 hours from yesterday.
And once it hits 16 cases here, they're going to be cared for by the Amateur Hour Follies, at a hospital untrained, unstaffed, unequipped, and unprepared for it. Maybe one near you. They're not going to just roll bunk beds into the paltry few BL-IV wards.
Or, mirabile dictu, it might flame out in Africa.
To this day, no one in authority, anywhere, can explain why it burned out in West Africa after only 2 years, because they never met any of their posted goals for contact tracing, containment, number of facilities, safe burials, or anything else. Not one.
I wouldn't bet the farm on that square this time around either, thanks anyways.
But if it does get here, a la a 2019 version of Duncan, you won't know for two weeks, when someone shows up at your local ER, with blood shooting out of all orifices.
It'll be a wee bit late to "make a plan" then.
No doubt Anonymous Simpleton will be trying to pitch a tent, and telling you everything's gonna be okay. And the morons at CDC will be telling you, yet again, "We can handle this! We're ready for it! First World health care! Magic beans!"
Best Wishes with that plan.
I hope my readers will understand if I choose to approach things with a bit more realistic viewpoint.
But thanks, Anonymous Simpleton(s) for providing the usual Comedy Relief.
52 comments:
Thank you for doing the work that the CDC is supposed to be doing, that is, informing us in words that most morons can understand.
Hunker down and die in place.
There. That is what is going to happen to us when this poop storm comes here. And anyone who thinks the CDC and the chief Obungler didn't screw the pooch in 2014 probably voted for Shrillery or Bernie anyways.
Well, at least, after it hits us, the Democrats will have an assured 280 million votes.
Keep up the good work. I swear I could almost see the veins in your forehead popping out.
I think you're saying that in some of the comments, Magliozzi's Observation on the Dunning-Kruger effect is also valid: Two people who each know almost nothing about a given subject when discussing the subject collectively know even less.
Brussels might be high on the places of First Lucky City Outside of Africa, since they have been bringing Africa home with them:
Africans rampage through the streets of Brussels waving Congolese flags and shouting "On est chez nous!" [This is our house/home/land!]
pic.twitter.com/My6dgNje3n
Thanks for staying on top of a dismal subject, and for putting up with idiots who know more than those with actual knowledge.
I'm not going to say this doesn't scare hell out of me, but given my location, along with several other items that I can do zero about, I'm going to hang in where I'm at, for better or worse. It isn't the best place to be if Ebola does arrive, but it's never been the greatest place in the case of most ugly scenarios.
@Beans
No veins popping; I was smiling when I wrote most of that.
I just refuse to suffer such utter fools gladly.
But exactly as predicted by Dunning and Kruger, the skills an incompetent person lacks to arrive at a correct answer are the exact skills you need to recognize a right answer. IOW, morons are so deficient that they don't even know they're morons, which is half of what makes them morons.
Donald Rumsfeld would call those "unknown unknowns".
Dilbert would call them his co-workers, and particularly his boss.
That was pure Gold Brother...LMAO...
If your not thinking about being scared shitless your name is probably anonymous. I know the rest of US consider this scenario to a greater degree of concern.
Again, Oh Aesop, LOGISTICS. You have nailed it, again. Logistics, with the majority of folks saying "May you worship at the altar of the Patron Saint of Fertility! I ain't coming in!" although, they MIGHT say it in only 6 words...
Logistics, with the clued in saying, "Nope! You will not walk up my driveway! If you try, the crows will eat your cadaver where you fall!" And, meaning it for 6 + weeks.
Logistics, with you and me and our family/friends requiring meds regularly (you sound like you are in my demographic, and, on my side of that coin, anticoagulation keeps my stents open! I'm very much in favor!)
And, as you have mentioned, timing. Not one moment too late!
The problem that I have is that no matter what facts one presents the people I talk to (all post secondary grads) they give me the ho-hum we have heard it all before and nothing happened. Then of course, in comes a hurricane warning and all jump and run. That is after they empty all of the local stores of everything. They then expect that the police, fire, ambulance, health care, utilities and all essential county services will stay in place. For the most part they do as these people have a sense of duty. As long as their families can stay safe they will do their duty as best they can.
My friends and neighbor all go off to hotels in the nearest major city with all of it services intact. Something of a holiday, hurricane parties away from home. What I have said with no penetration to grey matter is that as you travel the evacuation routes there is no place for you to stop and stay. Maybe get gas if they are not out or deliberately closed to outsiders and use the johns and stock up on garbage but that is it. You are not wanted and this is only a hurricane. Wait until you represent a mortal danger; everything will be closed and people with guns will be on the roofs to keep the looters and everyone away. Believe me they will take the breakers out of the electrical panels so no one even with a generator will be able to get things up and running.
You are going to have to do it in place if you have no hole in rural to climb into and pull it in after you. My neighbors will not get a gun from me as they have no guns to loan me and I will not protect them as they will unable to protect me. They will have no storage foods so they will get none from me it will be every one for themselves and that is not necessary but is what will happen.
Maybe this time it will burn itself out again and I pray that it does but I know that as long as the sun rises, one time it will come with all of the fury that it can deliver.
TENTS! Yes!
No. What anon fails to realize is that medical tents are not a solution. To anything. Medical tents are a sign.
A sign of what?
A sign that you’re in deep shit. If you see medical tents, it means you’ve most likely run out of civilization, and you aren’t getting a refill of it in the near future.
Ok when your outta gloves, its a sure sign that shit is only going south. After reading the last article, i love this fucking quote.
“We don’t really have an isolation ward,” the Bwera Hospital’s administrator, Pedson Buthalha, told The Associated Press. “It’s just a tent. To be honest, we can’t accommodate more than five people.”
Plan accordingly
Skipperdaddy
Aesop, the solution is quite simple. Find a way to conflate Ebola with global warming.
That way, about 1/2 the population of the US will suddenly recognize that Ebola is a major cause of global warming. They will immediately begin having marches, rallies, sit-ins, protest meetings all to eliminate global Ebola.
If people are too stupid to recognize the obvious danger that Ebola by itself represents, then we can use the same people that firmly believe in global warming to expand their fervor and rage to Ebola with incidentally, FAR more accurate data and evidence.
Outside of strategic stockpiles managed by .mil and some by .gov (medical in particular) there just aren't "piles of stuff" anywhere anymore. Counting inventory as a taxable asset, the cult of "lean" manufacturing, six sigma, and Just In Time delivery has taken every ounce of slack out of the system.
Ditto with people. There aren't stockpiles of PEOPLE. There aren't enough nurses and related technical staff NOW, let alone when 50% don't come in. Nor are there extra truck drivers standing idle. Nor cops, mechanics, linemen, nuke operators, or any other category outside of baristas and waitresses. We may have a surfeit of lawyers, but all they're good for is greasing the skids... In fact anyone with a usable skill is already working if they want to (unless they don't want to move where the work is).
Calling out the Army National Guard or mobilizing the Reserve isn't going to help either, because those are generally productive people in their own communities and now they're short that guy. Net loss. And if USAMRID shows up with bubble domes and Drs, they activated those reserves and pulled those Docs out of their communities.
Bringing home all of our overseas deployed would add some people, but that would be a MASSIVE effort, in the middle of a national disaster. Unlikely to happen. (and as soon as they hit CONUS, I'm betting most would head home, one way or another with whatever assets they could carry, because if we ever find ourselves in that situation, the Shit well and truly has Hit The Fan.)
We just don't have any excess capacity anymore.
Which means, you need to build up your own capacity. Capability too. Get the knowledge and skills while you still can. Remember the pdf I posted earlier? They are PLANNING to stop EMS service. They are PLANNING to fort up in the hospitals. They won't be treating your minor injuries, and maybe not your majors either. I heard specific cases of this during Harvey- EMS was directed that certain areas just wouldn't get a response. In that case it was temporary. Eventually medical strike teams were going in to address those areas. With ebola or flu? After a while people will be begging for a midwife or anyone who even OWNS a textbook on their ailment to help them.
Or hey, maybe it'll die out on its own. But how are you worse off if you have food, water, medicine, and skills?
nick
Geez, you post is gonna leave a mark on the Anons
Like the ref to the Trivium, and look forward to your commentary on the Quadrivium
Ignorance is treatable .... stooped isn't
I despair for the species
[HT: Road to Perdition, as the Aurora muscle escorts Hanks]
From that same article:
"At least two nurses at Bwera Hospital might have been exposed as they offered first aid to the infected family. They and some other contacts have since been quarantined in their homes. WHO says at least 98 such people have been identified in Uganda since the outbreak crossed the nearby border.
The nurses came in contact with victim one's vomit. They should be doomed. Burial transport and diggers? Doomed.
"As for upgrading the makeshift isolation ward in the hospital garden, she said “it is not economical. It is not cost-effective” to build permanent structures."
--not when you are going to use the cleansing power of fire........
nick
Now imagine a hurricane throwing all those Ebola stricken bodies around along with all those animals that have feasted on the corpse being carrier's for the virus... Think I would be looking for a new AO...
Nick you are welcome in my AO anytime you have a good head on your shoulders...
FWIW, I recently discovered that 2 bags of flour, a bag of sugar, a package of salt and one liter bottle of oil, with some yeast packets fit nicely in a 5 gallon bucket. Total cost is under $20 and the most expensive thing is the bucket and lid. The hardest thing is getting the lid snapped on. just sayin. With a little more effort to actually adjust the ratios for your bread recipe and repackaging, and you could probably fit more. But hey, a case of beer or bread for a week or more? Which might be a better choice during the coming unpleasantness?
nick
(tortilla mix is available in 5, 10, and 20# bags, just add water and oil. Again, just sayin' lotta people live on tortillas and whatever else they can scrounge.)
added-- and tortillas take a lot less time, effort, and energy to cook than risen bread...
nick
Thanks Lineman, I'm here for the duration I think. Any movement with young kids is essentially a medevac and I'd like to avoid that. If the Bayou City becomes untenable, I'll give a shoutout...
nick
Well, Aesop, it looks to me that God is really pissed. Floods, no sun spots, pig plague, now a chicken disease. But those are trivial. It appears to me that Ebola is or probably is the end. I and my husband are in our 83rd year. We have a 60 Y.o. son. I can put us in quarantine but I am so concerned about what comes after. There will be no utilities, no communication, all those depend on people. Who will tell us when it is "all clear"? And what will that mean? Who will we be left with? Will there be others who quarantined? How will we know that they are not survivors who will be just as contagious as the originally infected? How can you live with the dead heaped around you? I cannot find a bright spot in survival. I would be delighted to be the one you point to that takes the whole thing too seriously. You have done far more that your share in trying to warn us. Thank you. Now try to convince me it is worth surviving. Julia in Texas (only a couple of hundred miles from San Antonio)
Aesop, Thank You.
If Ebola does hit here, and hit bad; I hope the caregivers will offer people an option.
You are likely to die, and die in excruciating pain and agony. If you survive, you will have gone through Hell and be crippled and living a miserable existence. If your religion and beliefs allow you suicide, I hope the doctors will offer a method to do it. Something like 500% of the lethal dosage of fentanyl, then bag and tag you.
My biggest fear remains that Ebola finds a reservoir species in the US, so after the first widespread epidemic, every two to five years we get another epidemic, just like West Nile Virus, Dengu Fever, and a dozen other formerly rate diseases.
You really must spend less of your time explaining simple mathmatics to morons that will never get it.
Comment on another Ebola chasing site
"You are right to be concerned. I have a friend who works in a hospital here in the Austin, TX area. She called the other day telling me I should avoid going to any hospital in the area unless absolutely necessary. She explained there are currently two patients being evaluated for Ebola in Austin."
linked on Doug Ross and organicprepper dot com.
Hey Nick! Well said, but man, ya gotta stop living in such dangerous places!
Ned thanks for the info. My son just move to Austin this year, on my mind these last couple of days is how to convince him to bug out to HQ.
I have not finished reading this post, and I have to stop and state, fore the record, this may be the most brilliant response/post/body of literature I read in 2019. Now I will continue to read . . .
Stuff follows me around!
or flipping the switch, bad stuff happens everywhere and anywhere.
Rodney King was when I started buying more guns. Nothing like watching fires from your front door and having the smoke blow in to make you think you need more guns and ammo.
Y2K bought more tools, a gennie, and tubs of food, which became my earthquake kit. Despite living in Cali for over a decade, all the earthquakes I experienced there were small.
I was working on the road in NYC on 9/11 (technically in Jersey at the Meadowlands) and at the mercy of events. I did max cash advance my cards at the ATM when I watched the towers fall, and we bought a week of groceries on the way back to the hotel, but thankfully we were able to make our way home after a couple of days.
I moved to the Gulf Coast in time for Katrina, Rita, later Ike, and recently Harvey. I've got an extensive "hurricane kit."
Ebola in Dallas convinced me I might need to extend my timeline a bit. It also led me to up my game on medical preps, when I realized no one in their right mind would be going to the ebola hospital if they could avoid it. Telemedicine for the consult and local materials for treatment, as long as possible. After that, books and ditch medicine. (many thanks to Aesop along those lines)
Thanks to prepping, Rita, Ike, Harvey all went right by us without even really disturbing us. Our lives (other than being home from work and school) continued as normal (with a lot of extra cleaning involved.) In fact in all three we were able to provide help and information to others.
Thanks to expanding my medical knowledge and preps, lots of skinned knees got bandaided, some old folks had their bleeding controlled, at least two vehicle accident victims were comfortable while waiting for EMS, and a variety of bumps and bruises were treated with icepacks. I'm thankful that the more heavy duty stuff in my bags never got a workout.
I am constantly amazed at the lack of readiness in most of the people I meet. And this is despite all the effort .gov has been putting into response lately. What with active shooter response, the idea of 'immediate responders' gaining traction, Stop the Bleed, and changes in EMS and LEO to allow Tactical EMS and Rescue Task Forces to deploy, you'd think more people would be getting ready.
Well, I can only hope more ears will hear, and hands take up the task, because every prepped person is one more who won't be competing for resources, and one I don't have to worry about.
nick
Finished. Absolutely brilliant post.
Julia in Texas (unknown at 5:00 pm)-- I'm not by nature an optimist, nor do I have a "sunny" disposition, but I'm gonna fight tooth and nail to survive. I've got kids and a wife to motivate me, but beyond that, I don't want to die because of other people's stupidity. I resigned myself to the idea that MY stupidity would probably kill me, years ago :-) but I'm not letting the dummies do it.
As long as there is life there is possibility. Once you close that door, all possibility ends, the wave collapses and your state is fixed.... (pop science, maybe just cr@p talk)
The worst case will be more horrible than we can probably imagine, with much of what you fear coming true. But maybe it won't. Maybe by the time it burns out, things will be different. What will rise from the ashes will be worth seeing, shaping, living.
Maybe we'll get lucky again, but if we do, your preps won't be for nought. You'll have resources to share or donate, you'll have food security no matter what happens with inflation and the currency. The preps work even if the specific disaster doesn't come. You may feel like you are nearer your end than your beginning, and you are probably tired, etc, but - maybe the scrawny refugee kid only lives because he finds you and your care and stockpile. Maybe you feed the neighborhood after the next tornado. Maybe it all gets donated to the women's shelter after you pass, but ALL of those things are good things.
You never know the effect you might have on someone else's life, never give up.
nick
Jeez I leave for a week, come back and boy howdy have the morons been infesting the site. Kudos to Nick and others for chiming in with good stuff.
Being prepared is just good sense - but as we all can see from the room-temp IQ level comments, sense is in alarmingly short supply (unless you are as cynical as I am, in which case biases are confirmed).
Being able to hold the fort against the horde and tend to Kith and Kin is something we should all plan and train for.
Boat Guy
One thing I have yet to see mentioned on any of these threads (I admit that I haven't read every single comment) is how the inevitable imposition of martial law will make the whole situation far, far worse.
I don't think that will happen or if it does, only in the beginning. They clearly have been thinking about it on the CDC and hospital side, both from a "secure the vital facilities" and from a "seize all that medicine for us" point of view.
Would you stand your post in the middle of a crowd of infected people? For how long?
The guys are only human and there may be places where they try a quarantine, but outside of using gunships, how would you quarantine Atlanta? Chicago (which is an international sea port btw)? Both at the same time? We don't have enough men at arms to ring more than a city or two is my SWAG... and the more we bring home, the more we'll lose to desertion if it's really that bad. If it's not that bad, what will be the infection rates in the units? One guy shows symptoms and the whole batt needs to be confined, and who watches them?
Any city with a ring road I guess you could stop traffic and declare the road a no man's land/free fire zone. I wonder how long NG units would shoot at citizens?
BTW, it occurs to me that if they announce the sudden return of all troops in South Korea, or Germany, or Europe, that might be a pretty good sign it's time to head for the hills.
nick
...and they've found refugees from the Ebola ridden part of the Congo in Mexico.
Yeah. It's time to completely close that border.
I don't read these Ebola posts to get warm & fuzzy feelings. I come here to get Aesop's professional opinion, backed up by his research & experience, worst case that it may be.
If this Ebola outbreak turns out to be less than this worst case (this time)...great, good planning exercise for all of us. There will be more scary epidemics.
But as was pointed out in the discussion of logistics, we in the US live in a complex system, and complex systems fail in a complex manner.
I am waiting til the case count hits 4,000 which I think Aesop predicted for August, but I think the Uganda cases and the comment above about 2 being monitored in Austin, TX throw a bunch of new variables on the table.
Keep going Aesop, certainly myself and I expect, "we", are not here for sugar coating.
matt
Wife works at a small semi-rural clinic and we've already established the threshold for when she doesn't show up for work any more and we go into lockdown mode at home base in the sticks. Interestingly word around the campfire is that the clinic owners/organization has picked close to the same criteria. Their view was that we're absolutely not even remotely equipped or trained to deal with something like Ebola nor do we have an interest in doing so. In light of that, if ebola gets loose we're locking the doors until it's over.
Realistically if we get a pandemic of Ebola...or anything else similar to it....
the odds of survival once you become infected will rest almost entirely on
YOUR immune system and what drugs and interventions YOU can make use of. This is
because the ugly reality is that shortly after said pandemic starts rolling along
the modern western healthcare system is going to grind to a screeching halt. It
will do so because there simply won't be enough trained providers willing to risk
life and limb. It's a shitty enough job as it is without the risk of catching something fatal. Throw that extra tidbit in and nurses, techs and most everyone else will decide toot sweet that an early retirement or a sudden career change is
suddenly a good idea. I know after 40+ years taking care of idiots in the ER the wife and I have seen enough to know that the system has trouble handling the load when there is a spike in the number of people with the common cold. Throw in anything serious and it collapses. When it does we will be announcing our sudden
decision to retire. I have little doubts we will be alone in that choice. I'd rather live a while scratching out a meager living in the garden than bleeding out at the console of a scanner.
@Anon 8:49P
There are a few wee problems w/martial law:
1) Military gear isn't designed for soggy blood-borne pathogens.
Fallout and chemical agents, yes.
Bloody gloppy vomit and diarrhea, not so much.
2) the .MIL has even less training with actual Ebola-style hazmat gear than the civvy world does.
3) 200M+ of us have guns too, and in a shootout, they're going to have to mow down a lot of civilians. Which violates most of their ROE, and goes against their training. And we're generally better shots, and more invested in the outcome, than the military is, and a higher ration of combat-vet badasses than the military, by default. Ask anyone who served there and still in the military how they liked Afghanistan for the last 18 years, how they'd like to do it at 20 times the scale and no safe zones, then get back to me.
4) Out entire current military couldn't take and hold an area bigger than MA or MD, on its best day.
5) On US soil, the .MIL has no rear areas, and no secure lines of supply. They'd be hard-pressed to defend their own bases and whatever ad hoc cantonments they'd be in. Short answer, martial law here, because civilization broke down, means they're every bit as screwed as everyone else, and the people they'd be pointing guns at would be their own family and relatives. My unit 30 years ago had people from damned near every state, and we were no exception.
6) A caveat of military command is "Never issue an order you know won't be obeyed."
Martial law in the US due to a pandemic risks a total meltdown of command & control, and TPTB, esp. the ones with stars, know that in their bones.
The guy who ordered US troops to fire on US citizens might as well kill himself on the spot, and spare the eventual war crimes tribunal and hanging that would await him. It wouldn't be a Bonus Army or Kent State riot, it'd be seen as the Boston Massacre, Lexington & Concord, and Fort Sumter, all at once.
Once your troops are shooting at your people, what are you defending? Your country has ceased to exist.
The U.S. would dissolve in about an hour after the first shots unless they executed that whole command down to privates and up to colonels, on live TV.
And anyone in a uniform would be a target, forever, everywhere.
If we ever had a country again, they'd be hunted to the ends of the earth like Nazis after 1946.
Ain't nobody in the Pentagon got time for that.
There'd be a military coup first, with largely the same outcome, and their first move would be to tell the rest of the world they had control of the nukes, and to back the eff off, and leave us be.
And then wonder how to un-slug that tar baby.
Like I said, ain't no one in the Pentagon got time for any of that.
As has been said, we have less slack in the system and a lot further to fall than nations in Africa. But wait, there's more! These ignorant savages dying from Ebola are a lot tougher than we are. Disease was the main reason Westerners stayed on the coast, going into the interior of Africa was deadly. Ebola here would be like smallpox was.
1) Above : "They will immediately begin having marches, rallies, sit-ins, protest meetings all to eliminate global Ebola."
They have marches about and all that shit over everything that they don't like. Marching against ebola would be just as effective. (Yeah, I know it was tongue in cheek.)
2) Logistics:
I have medical logistic issues too, so I practice ordering my 90 day supplies at the sweet spot for a few extra. It ain't hoarding. It's prudence.
Modern supply chain (I was heavy into the APICS trip sometime back.) management is involved in JIT. Inventory costs are actually higher than most people realize, and every bit of inefficiency that can be squeezed out is worth doing. Therefore there is at most 3 days worth of food in the stores under normal conditions, or 2 hours in a run. Civilization is 3 meals away from chaos - or 2 hours if things get ugly.
3) "Rodney King was when I started buying more guns. Nothing like watching fires from your front door and having the smoke blow in to make you think you need more guns and ammo."
I was in the Southern DPRK for both mass expressions of discontent by the good folks in parts of L.A. Yes, it is strange to stand 50 ft above the ground (highest hangar at McDonnell Douglas) and see columns of smoke rising for 360 deg. We were moving out for WA State as the Greater Los Angeles County Inter-ethnic May Festival of 1992 was in full swing.
4) Throughout history social change has come on the wings of plague: Rome, the Mongol Empire, the Black Death in Europe, etc. No reason to believe any it would be any different today.
5) How long would hunker down time last? In the event of systemic collapse how long before the ebola threat dropped due to the infected dying off?
6) Some years back I saw an article comparing how the people of Russia and the U.S.A. would fare in the event of systemic collapse. They came out looking a lot better than we did.
7) I post under anonymous but I sign it.
_revjen45
Masterful prose Aesop. You comments and posts always remind me of the biting sarcasm of many of my Commander's when delivering UCMJ punishment back in the good old days. I learned after a fashion to speak likewise when pointing out the obvious poor decision making of my privates, NCOs and junior officers, however I never, ever was able to approach your mastery. Simply brilliant.
That post gave me some very good laughs. If you haven't been in the military I suggest you have a future as a drill instructor with your demonstrated eloquence.
"One thing I have yet to see mentioned on any of these threads (I admit that I haven't read every single comment) is how the inevitable imposition of martial law will make the whole situation far, far worse."
"There are a few wee problems w/martial law:"
Martial Law might work in one location, once.
If the PTB acted very quickly, they could isolate an infected city, and prevent the spread, and yes, shoot people trying to break the blockade.
But thats only going to work if you have enough men to man the blockade, and convince the residents inside that help is coming.
But they almost certainly wont act quickly, the disease will breach before containment walls are in place, and those inside will know help isn't coming and shoot their way out.
Think about it, you're CO of Cheyenne Mountain, a dozen US cities are in total collapse, order is breaking down everywhere else.
You're ordered to deploy to Denver and maintain order.
Do you go to a hot zone to die of Ebola, or do you move the families inside, seal the door, and wait?
And that'll play out across every military base.
That post gave me some very good laughs. If you haven't been in the military I suggest you have a future as a drill instructor with your demonstrated eloquence.
Well, I wrote about two paragraphs and five minutes and that triggered a long, long long response.
So I'd say I launched an asymmetrical weapon.
The numerous 'tard references seemed a little gratuitous.
I mean, a couple of "you're a moron"s here and there have their place, but this was a level on par with Idiocracy.
But apparently that hits the right spot for the readership here.
1) you didn't use enough "s"s in "asymmetrical".
2) I suggest you Google the phrase "zone and sweep".
It's an artillery tactic with which I have some personal familiarity.
3) Everything you posted was the entire plot of Idiocracy.
All I did was re-assert the primacy of reason and common sense here.
But like Ebola, some people have immunity.
4)Your little tard-bombs are proof of the Internet adage that it takes a barrel of ink to fisk one moronic thought, oxymoronic as such a thing is.
But as proof that the entire shoe store fits, you still seem to have resisted having the stupid beaten out of you quite nicely.
So clearly "cement-head" hit center of mass.
Walk tall.
When the Dipshit Tribe crowns a king, you'll probably make it to the Final Four.
Now, back under your bridge.
The order to restore order in Denver would probably go out to the 4th Infantry Division and the Colorado National Guard at Ft Carson, CO. And the response would likely be as you have suggested. The base would probably hunker down and be closed off to all but dependents of active duty soldiers stationed there, and perhaps a few high up politicos.
Something that occurs to me is that like any city, a military base is dependant on food and other supplies being trucked in regularly. Even if they have their own power generation and water, one wonders just how long a base with many thousands of soldiers and dependents could hold out without regular supplies going in.
Even if the trucks were running, where are those supplies coming from? Who's loading them? If the army is forted up, then who's providing security for the food convoys?
If it's at that point, you've got what you've got and you ain't gonna get no more...
The only advantage the bases have is access by air assets. As long as the fuel bunkers hold out anyway. But I'm willing to be the brass wouldn't want to import the disease from other bases either.
There must be a crapton of MREs in a warehouse somewhere. Anyone know if they're moving stocks to bases? THAT would be a pretty good indicator to head for the hills.
nick
Tom S here -
Question concerning Ebola becoming endemic in wildlife populations:
1. Is there any specific/reliable research/writing on that subject?
Specifically: a) Can it be carried by mammals only or can fish, reptiles, bird etc. carry it?
b) Are there species that cannot be infected (I was once told by a veterinarian that members of the rodent family are immune to and non-carriers of Rabies)?
c) Are there preparation methods that render it non-infectious? I remember reading something years ago about the jump from animals to humans possibly facilitated by consuming "poorly prepared/undercooked bushmeat" leading me to think thorough cooking (as in very well-done) might make it ok to consume. Is that a valid inference?
If/when this does come "home" those who survive or remain uninfected will have to, inevitably, rely on game for protein.
Asking for my children.
@TomS
We don't know where ebola comes from. We assume it's carried by a wild animal or animals in a none fatal capacity.
But
Post Ebola Syndrome could mean we are the host species, like smallpox.
Survivors carry a dormant Ebola virus, possibly walled off in a cyst, or just not on a kill rampage for some reason.
And then the cyst pops, or the virus just goes bezerk and starts reproduction.
Similar to latent TB.
Or the carrier remains immune, but periodically throws off virii to others.
As far as we are aware, it only infects humans, I think?
Cross species infection is suspected, but it's a shot in the dark best guess, no real proof.
Don't eat infected meat.
Proper preparation will kill it, but it's a needless risk.
It's not so much the cooking, but how do you butcher it? In Hazmat gear? Knives, saws and Hazmat gear don't play together, hell how do you hunt it?
Shoot a deer, follow it's trail of infections blood through the forest, tearing your hazmat gear as you go.
Tom S replying
"Don't eat infected meat."
That is the essence of the question. Doubtful we'll see a label reading, "USDA certified Ebola free," so how do we know? Sooner or later wild game (by that I mean from outside the compound be it feral domesticated or otherwise) will become a necessity. Info dissemination will return to B.C. levels almost immediately. All the knowledge that we will have is what we take with us in the retreat. Just trying to squeeze a bit more out before the door slams.
What you're saying is, "nobody knows." O.k., depth of collective ignorance is knowledge in itself. Thanks.
Tom S again - and after this I will leave it alone.
The sum total of all of this is that humanity will die back to the level of those possibly few thousands that have natural immunity, out of 7 billion. It may take decades, maybe centuries, but that is the inevitability that is baked into this scenario because once it starts unravelling technology will not be able to keep up, much less get ahead. A true "12 Monkeys" type event, but no SciFi b.s. Human knowledge will essentially die back to paleo levels because any contact is almost certain death; humanity will be set back 20 - 30 millennia. This makes worst case Climate Change look like comic relief.
"That is the essence of the question. Doubtful we'll see a label reading, "USDA certified Ebola free," so how do we know? Sooner or later wild game (by that I mean from outside the compound be it feral domesticated or otherwise) will become a necessity."
I doubt its the cooking, its the "preparation" phase or the butchery phase,
I have 5 small cuts on my hands, that I can see, right now, and I'm a desk worker.
If I shot a deer, and start chopping it up, I'm going to get blood on my hand, and if that blood is infected, its going to get in that cut and kill me.
Cooking it enough to kill the virus is pretty easy.
Getting to that phase isnt.
People's brains break in a very specific way when they're too close to the leaky dam or the volcano or what have you. Level of worry/fear directly coorelates with proximity to danger until it reaches a certain distance and then it does a complete 180. Didn't think it happened with pandemics until I read the comments on your previous 200+ posts on the subject. Fascinating stuff.
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