Friday, December 12, 2014

When Hyperbole Isn't Enough



In past, I have rhetorically used the phrase "cancel Christmas" to describe things when/if the Ebola situation gets bad. Now, Sierra Leone has done exactly that:
(AU News) SIERRA LEONE is banning public Christmas celebrations as the spiralling caseload of Ebola infections continues to spread alarm. Soldiers are to be deployed throughout the festive period to force people venturing onto the streets back indoors, the government’s Ebola response unit announced on Friday.
Palo Conteh, head of the department, told reporters in the capital Freetown there would be “no Christmas and New Year celebrations this year”.

13 comments:

Ex-Dissident said...

Obola cancelled our Christmas too.

geoffb said...

"Medical Mystery: Why Did Ebola Pop Up In A Remote Mining District?"No mystery, no popping, just ignored until it couldn't be any longer.

""So they were actually carrying people who had died of Ebola to the morgue and passing the pregnancy ward, for example," she says. "And by the time we left there were already pregnant women dying."

Also among the dead: hospital workers. And it was likely that there were a lot more infected people in the community. But it was hard to say for sure. Michael N'Dolie is an expert on disease surveillance with the World Health Organization. When he arrived in Kono — just a few days before Romeril — he found that the teams who check reports of suspected Ebola patients had no cars or trucks.

"They only have motorbikes," he says. "In fact as I'm talking to you, it's still a challenge. We still do not have one vehicle for them."

Even when the team members do manage to reach homes of sick people, they can't then take the individual to the hospital on a motorbike. So they lose precious days trying to organize ambulance rides.
[...]
But what about all the money the international community has been pouring into Sierra Leone? How is it possible that there still aren't enough vehicles, or cups? One reason, says Romeril, is that the hot spots keep shifting from one part of the country to another.

"The resources have been diverted to areas that seemed much more needy at the moment, and then another area gets neglected," she explains"

Aesop said...

I'm guessing that funneling relief money straight into government officials' Swiss numbered accounts has some wee impact on things too.

geoffb said...

Lots of money now sloshing around and one does need a good "sudden" retirement plan in place.

Do I need the sarc> tag?

Anonymous said...

""So they were actually carrying people who had died of Ebola to the morgue and passing the pregnancy ward, for example,"

A strict reading of this sentence would mean it has gone airborne, at least in that region.

I'm hoping that the pregnant women were really infected by CONTACT with the same staff that was carrying ebola victims. Otherwise, OMFG.


nick

geoffb said...

I'm picturing that something from the body gets smeared/dropped/transferred on a floor-wall-door to the ward and then to the hands/feet-shoes/clothes of a doctor/nurse/aide and then to the pregnant woman.

Anonymous said...

I hope so.


nick

Bezzle said...

Fucking dumb assholes: Guinea-Bissau re-opens its border; instantly gets Ebola.

Aesop said...

Thx mike. GMTA.
Found your comment just after I fired up the box, and just after I'd read the original story.
It's blogged.

Skip Towne said...

Can't cancel Christmas, obola is the gift that keeps on giving.

geoffb said...

Sierra Leone "official" figures,

262 deaths, 476 cases added in the 7 days from 12/4 to 12/11

Aesop said...

Which recent behavior there suggests needs to be multiplied by 4X-6X to get a glimpse on how it really is.

I think for much of Sierra Leone, making it to 2015 alive and unifected will be Christmas enough.

Anonymous said...

..........Nice..^_^v............