Friday, October 31, 2014

Ebola Growth Rate



New cases per day, October 2014 (WHO numbers via Wikipedia)
Oct. 5= 135
Oct. 7= 149
Oct. 12= 137
Oct. 17= 138
Oct.19= 136
Oct. 24= 196
Oct. 27=239

(With the usual caveat that those are based purely on the "official" numbers, which are probably only 1/3 of the actual numbers, which means we could be getting 700 new cases/day, right now.)

So, tell me...anybody...what Imaginary Ebola Medical Strike Force is ANYONE going to conjure, and with what magic wand waving and incantations, that can deal with 239 to 700 new cases PER DAY, and increasing daily at a similar rate. Nota bene that it was 239/day four days ago, so it's probably 250-750 cases/day today.

If the key to solving the US Ebola problem is by solving it in West Africa, we should all kill ourselves now, because that's never, ever going to happen until this thing has killed somewhere between millions and hundreds of millions of Africans.

Wrap your head around that, as our troops work on creating the equivalent of 24 additional treatment beds/day (1700 beds ./. by 10 weeks work to early December, call it 70 days).
And tell me again why it was ever anything but a futile PR gesture, and a reckless risk of American troops lives on a hopeless mission.

(And BTW, if you're any of those troops' commanders above the rank of colonel, you're a gutless careerist sonofabitch who cares more about his pension than about protecting America or taking care of your troops - every goddamn last one of you, all the way to the 4 service chiefs and the JCS, for not resigning your star(s) if necessary and speaking out on this publicly long before now. Walk tall, you spineless wonders.
The writing is on the wall: Mene mene tekel uparsin.)

Anything we do in West Africa is one of two things: PR pablum, or a holding action, trying desperately to keep an orderly failure and retreat from turning into a full-blown rout.

And that includes all the do-gooder volunteers for every organization there now.
On a humanitarian scale, their individual work is selfless and commendable.
But from a practical standpoint based on results, they're simply pissing on a forest fire, and there aren't enough resources in the world available to make a dent in the problem, and never can or will be. We missed that opportunity somewhere around last May.

So spare me any more delusional rants about how quarantines of returning workers will adversely affect what happens there to any notable degree.
The obvious question is, How could you even tell?

29 comments:

Icepick said...

OT: the CDC is changing its story again.

New CDC confusion over Ebola as it deletes warning that virus can spread through coughs and sneezes from its website

Cate said...

I don't know how any intelligent person can look at those numbers and think we can stop it, when we, the United States, can barely manage to treat *one patient at a time.* People go about their business thinking this will just end in Africa, and all you have to do is look at those numbers and know the impossibility of stopping it. It's insanity. The utter denial rampant among the average American population right now is mind-boggling. I'm trying to keep things as normal as possible for my kids right now, but my husband and I know what's lurking and are preparing accordingly. It's astounding that most people think everything is just a-ok.

Yojimbo said...

AESOP

Is the US sending combat troops, or medical personnel?

If they are sending combat troops to construct the 1700 beds, then this jibes with my belief that these troops are sent as a beachhead for permanent military installations in West Africa.

Aesop said...

@Icepick:
DailyMail story is already non-operative.
The supposedly "missing" poster is right back where it's supposed to be.
I'd sooner suspect site maintenance than shenanigans, so DM probably just jumped the gun and assumed the worst.

Droplet transmission has been known and acknowledged by the CDC for years before now.

We already know how good the government is at running medical websites.

Aesop said...

@Yojimbo
If you want to tell the Seabees that they aren't "combat" troops, do it from the Internet.
In-person is liable to get one an appointment with their dental care provider.

And sorry, but the idea of "permanent military installations" in a country with a rampant Ebola outbreak on the verge of going pandemic there is simply black helicopter delusions from the fringe sites. Please, ignore them.

If someone can't recognize that putting in a concrete slab and flush toilets, or air-conditioned sealed buildings in malaria-mosquito infested jungle is normal position improvements for a support mission, they need to take some Tylenol and lie down.
Colonels and generals don't like to crap in smelly blue portajohns in the tropics, dig?

You'll know we're moving in long-term if they first napalm the entire country.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the CDC poster is back thank goodness. I was on the verge of having steam coming out of my ears.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/infections-spread-by-air-or-droplets.pdf

And since my Dad's days in Vietnam they've definitely improved things if they're putting in flush toilets and air conditioning! In Da Nang in '67 the Marines were still digging their own latrines and using fans.. nice to hear of this sort of progress! Our troops deserve it!

But maybe people don't know about this sort of progress, and who aren't up on current military procedures (like me - my Dad was, but passed away 2 years ago, and military latrine improvements never came up as a topic of conversation), they get all conspiracy theory prone. I don't think they're about to put in permanent bases in a hot zone, I don't think anyone is quite THAT insane.

These numbers, by the way.. nice reality slap. Better than this second cup of coffee I'm working on. Luckily my Dad made sure I was preparedness minded, so we're already in the sticks. :)

Ex-Dissident said...

This will probably sound like tin foil conspiracy crazy stuff, but I think it is probable that much of what Obola does is sowing confusion and chaos into the world. The part about confusion and chaos is hard to argue with because it is reality, and we can argue over his motivation for such things; whether it is due to malice or incompetence. If you consider that these are the products of malice, than why?

I guess this brings me to tin-foil crazy theories. It is also hard to argue that, whenever possible he backs to worst jihadists out there. This show of bombing ISIS was complete BS. When we destroyed the Iraqi army in a matter of days during Desert Storm 1, I find it very hard to believe that it was so difficult to make ISIS disappear into the background.

So where am I going with all this? Suppose Obama is a Muslim that dreams of a caliphate, and suppose he works towards establishing it.

Regardless of crazy theories, he has been very effective at weakening the Great Satan. Much more than anyone else.

Aesop said...

On a personal level, I have no doubt he wishes to destroy the United States as we know it.
He's spent 6 years proving that.

I just don't think he's any more competent at that than at anything else he's ever done.
He is a lifetime 90 IQ Affirmative Action legacy, in everything he's ever done.

The difference is that for the last 6 years, he's been the baby allowed to swing the hammer.
Hilarity ensues.

The last time I saw this was on Gilligan's Island, when the chimpanzee got ahold of a case of hand grenades.

It was funnier the first time.

Anonymous said...

"If they are sending combat troops to construct the 1700 beds, then this jibes with my belief that these troops are sent as a beachhead for permanent military installations in West Africa."

- No; they have been placed there to see that they are infected and rendered unfit for deployment elsewhere. And to bring "it" back home with them.

"This will probably sound like tin foil conspiracy crazy stuff, but I think it is probable that much of what Obola does is sowing confusion and chaos into the world."

- It may seem that way, but the ulterior goal is dissipation of American power.

"This show of bombing ISIS was complete BS."

Meanwhile, Putin's buddy Assad is nice & safe over in Syria after having let all the ISIS fucks out of prison to start the whole mess in the first place (where they were promptly armed by Mssrs. John McCain & the US as faux "opposition", then immediately showed their true colors once kitted). Funny, that. Fast-forward a year, and The Great Satan is blowing up $2 hovels with $5 million laser-guided ordinance to provide the jihadis with recruitment propaganda.

Dissipation, dissipation, dissipation.

I figure the next Russian offensive against Ukraine will commence next spring as the world is dealing with the Ebola shitstorm.

" just don't think he's any more competent at that than at anything else he's ever done."

He doesn't not have to be smart, since he has not done one single thing his entire life on his own initiative.

He's an errand-boy.

Capitalist Eric said...

If you're located in SoCal, maybe we should talk. No doubt you're given my e mail as part of administrative features. Let me know...

Anonymous said...

From UpNorth

''Canada won’t issue visas to residents of countries battling Ebola ...The federal government signalled it would stop issuing visas in the worker, student or visitor class and will not issue any pending permanent residency visas for people from those countries either ...Any applications already in the system will also not be processed at this time''

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canada-wont-issue-visas-to-residents-of-countries-battling-ebola/article21409277/

regards and tks

S

KC said...

Looking at the Who numbers for Oct 27, total it shows 13703 and for Oct 24 12008. So from the 24th to the 27th there are 1695 new cases so isn't the daily rate 565 a day for those 3 days not 239. Am I doing something wrong?

Wake Up! said...

A former FDA Official an MD stated that chances of Ebola breaking out in a US city near you on a larger scale is quite plausible. He also stated that mandatory quarantine for the affected and those even being suspected of infected is completely plausible. So the government can't / won't close the borders but will lock up it's own citizens. I'm more worried about being rounded up and sent to a FEMA camp then I am about catching Ebola. Of course once in the camp you're going to get it anyway.Look Up HR-645 if you don't believe they exist.

GamegetterII said...

There is no logical reason to keep our troops in the Ebola "hot zone".
There's not a damn thing they can do to contain Ebola at this point-other than napalm strikes on every city,town,village and mud hut in the 3 countries.
Or-use troops to completely seal the borders of the 3 countries so no one gets in and no one gets out-razor wire isn't all that expensive-and wire cutters to cut the razor wire are not common household tools in the region.

It's taking 8 or 9 weeks to build a total of 700 beds-there's going to be more new cases every day than the total number of beds available-even if every NATO country sent their version of the Seabees,and the petrodollar rich countries in the middle east funded the operation.

It's way past time for all our troops to pack their shit and fly out of the hot zone. We can not stop the outbreak-no way, no how.

Even the Canadians are smart enough-and don't give a flying fuck about denying visas,and denying entry to anyone from,or has traveled to the infected countries-it's time our "leaders" did the same.

GamegetterII said...

Correction-1700 beds-not 700

Able said...

Is there any word (other than the single reported 'number of students from Guinea quarantined for testing' after flying into Russia – so even they aren't acting like anyone had a brain and stopping flights) of Russian, Chinese or Indian responses/exposed/quarantined/infected?

I believe China has 20,000 plus citizens working in West Africa, so if none of them have run back home I'll …. we'll I'd rather put money on the chances the CDC has a vague clue what they're doing rather than take the odds on that one.

I notice that Russia just coincidentally seems to have three/four 'new' vaccines available for trial. That couldn't have something to do with their four nice Ebola research centres could it? Any word on their effectiveness yet?

Africa seems/is effectively a write-off (West at least so far, the rest … to come?) but the absolute nightmare scenario is it getting to China or India, no?

Aesop said...

@KC
Supposedly, Liberia was just "catching up" their numbers the day they dumped 1600 additional cases into the mix.

As those were likely not all "new" cases those three days, by comparing all new numbers to the base count on Oct. 1, I corrected that info dump by spreading them along the entire month.

On paper there was a huge spike; by doing this across the month (the way the cases likely cropped up in reality) I get what's probably a much more accurate view of the daily trend. Which is still ever upwards, and nearly double at the end of the month what it was at the beginning of the month.

And noting that only those cases who
a) went for treatment
b) got tested
c) got results of the test
get added to the official number.
People who can't get in because there aren't any treatment beds don't get tested, go home and die, infecting their neighbors and family, thus the estimation that reality is three times as bad as official tallies.
(And they lie, and they can't count, etc.)
Welcome to African math.

Aesop said...

@Able
The absolute nightmare scenario is Ebola getting into megalopolii like Cairo, Mumbai, Delhi, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Shanghai (Egypt/India/China/Indonesia) where you have multi-millions in slums packed in like sardines, and African levels of available health care for most of them (i.e. none).
5-10 cases in any one of those cities becomes a nuclear bomb of Ebola cases in days, and in a month it has the serious potential to be in every city with an airport.

Anonymous said...

you guys are all assuming governments in developed areas aren't going to change course if ebola starts flaring up in europe, e. asia or the states. As in one cluster of cases that isn't a health care worker or recent arrival from the hot zone. Governmental response will go from blase to draconian overnight.

State governments are already starting to test their powers to order up quarantines as things now stand. If there is such a cluster expect the existing travel conduits from w. africa to be shut down at the state level even if the U.S. government is obtuse about the issue.

Sub-saharan africa was a basket case before this ebola outbreak (180 million nigerians with a 4 or 5% populatin growth rate - like that was going to last.) Birth rates may actually go up there but death rates may go up much faster - in other words, a deepening of an already unimaginable abyss of human suffering....

My takeaway from this unfolding circumstance is that our world wide civilization has no realistic response or resilience in the face of a really hot virus (Spanish Flue like contagiousness and that high or higher lethality) - I just don't think Ebola is it unless you are one of the poor souls in W. Africa.

By far the most likely scenario is that this epidemic mostly burns itself out in W. Africa as all the vulnerable populations that are touched by it either adapt or perish. But it will become endemic over there and will be just another in an already biblical list of horrors.

Its like the cyber-punk authors say - the future is already here, its just not evenly distributed.

Aesop said...

People in Africa just drive through the bush, and skip the roadblocks. It's effing jungle, they can just walk around.

And they aren't all going to obligingly stay and die in place.

We can slow it down some, but it's going to eat the continent, and once it hits the bigger cities like Cairo (7.7M), Alexandria (4M), Kinshasa (7.8M), etc., it's going everywhere in the world absent a complete planetary shutdown.

Best wishes with that.

We can't even keep one dipshit inside her effing farmhouse.

Gail said...

I think those are new cases reported. Some reports probably get backlogged and then come in all in a bunch. Of course there are probably lots more cases that are never reported.

Anonymous said...

India is the one I really worry about.

Of the 1 billion people in the world who don't have toilets, India accounts for 600 million of those people.

Over 70% of rural Indians do their business outdoors, and not in pit latrines or anything like that, but just right on the ground.

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21607837-fixing-dreadful-sanitation-india-requires-not-just-building-lavatories-also-changing

Percy said...

Let her go. Good to know that each of us here is free to kill who knows how many of the rest of us without more convincing evidence of risk than was presented here.

Hope she in fact is free of the disease. There will be others,though. And they have this precedent.

Thanks, Judge! Hope you're feeling well and stay that way.

Anonymous said...

Treatment of the infected does not stop the spread of the disease. Doctors and nurses have proven to be better at spreading ebola than stopping ebola. The two options for stopping ebola are effective quarantine of the infected or effective vaccination of the uninfected.
The CDC and WHO have failed so far.

Anonymous said...

Whether we plan on moving in long term or not, the napalm is already a fait accompli.
Deaths, and then burials; not enough health care workers by several orders of magnitude... comes the horseman, bringing Vaseline and gasoline... napalm.
Grandpa reads a lot... thanks Aesop for your efforts to bring the truth to the masses.
But napalm is coming, sure as the sun rises... it does the job, and leaves no radioactive residue... s f

Anonymous said...

Love the blog, it's nice to get a different perspective on the ebola issue than the MSM provides.

I stumbled on this today: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_EBOLA_HOW_BAD_CAN_IT_GET?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-01-10-25-24

They claim a worst case scenario of 130 cases in the US by 31 December. No word on what happens after that. The whole exponential growth thing never seems to get mentioned. Are they saying they can stop the spread at 130 cases? How?

The article says "However, as best we can tell right now, it is quite possible that every major city will see at least a handful of cases."

Um, isn't this BIG SCARY NEWS?? Yet I only found this link through Drudge Report. 130 cases X exponential growth + no way to treat it safely beyond a dozen or so BL4 beds = a lot more than 130 cases in a few more months.

Right? Am I missing something? When will we get real coverage in the MSM? My guess is when people start dying in the streets of US cities...then they'll be saying "As we've been telling you for months now," and act like they've been on the story the whole time.

Aesop, you should be ready to get more bandwidth, because if this progresses as you suggest, you'll be getting a lot more traffic. I suspect you've been getting more every week for the past few months.

Anyway, thanks for the blog. I know it takes a lot of time to post regularly. At least you can say "I told you so!"

GamegetterII said...

@Wake Up-

" I'm more worried about being rounded up and sent to a FEMA camp then I am about catching Ebola. Of course once in the camp you're going to get it anyway.Look Up HR-645 if you don't believe they exist. "


H.R. 645 (111th): National Emergency Centers Establishment Act

Introduced:
Jan 22, 2009 (111th Congress, 2009–2010)
Status:
Died (Referred to Committee) in a previous session of Congress
See Instead:

S. 3476 (same title)
Referred to Committee — Jun 10, 2010

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr645





Senate bill is same-died,as in this was never enacted.

Aesop said...

Here's a better look at the problem:
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2014/11/attention-future-camp-residents.html

Read the linked Forbes story within, it covers the whole thing pretty well.

Aesop said...

@ Anonymous 7:47
I covered the AP story here:

http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/ap-welcome-to-reality-heads.html

I covered I Told You So here:
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/itoldyousoitoldyousoitoldyouso.html

And yeah, my site hits have gone ballistic.
Glad you enjoyed, and thanks for reading.