Like Squeezing A Handful Of Jello

 

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — The World Health Organization says the transmission of Ebola remains "intense" and widespread in Sierra Leone, even as some improvements are being seen in the two other countries worst hit by the crisis.
Nearly 200 new cases were confirmed in Sierra Leone's capital in a recent one-week period.
The WHO report released late Wednesday indicated that Sierra Leone had the lowest percentage of Ebola patients who had been isolated — only 13 percent.

FTR, that means Sierra Leone's containment is going backwards.

Go, Team Fidel!

Nov 19 (Reuters) - A Cuban doctor treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone has tested positive for the disease and was being sent to Geneva for treatment, officials said, the first Cuban known to have contracted the potentially deadly hemorrhagic fever.The doctor, identified by Cuba's official website Cubadebate on Tuesday as Felix Baez, is one of 165 Cuban doctors and nurses treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. They have been there since early October.

So, for the record, that means it took Cuba exactly twice as long to spread Ebola to their people in Africa as it did for us in Dallas in a "first-world" healthcare setting.

One can only wonder how many of these before the ardor for spreading the People's Glorious Medical Socialism will cool.

But at this rate, inside a year, 5-10% of their medical contingent will have been infected.

 

Economic Options And Future Contingencies

Riffing off of Fabbersmith's thoughts, courtesy of WRSA
Suppose you wanted to set up your own (machine shop, ham shack, gunsmithy, etc.), out of sight and so on, what would you do?

My reply turned into a post-length stream of consciousness:

The gutted RV idea is genius.
FWIW, Hollyweird productions are essentially a caravan of bobtail trucks, and multiple departments are precisely the makerspace set-up you're envisioning, with full construction shops and machine shops set up to go anywhere on location. A boxvan and occasional cash work as a handyman/jack-of-all-trades is all the cover anyone needs. That also explains a towed genny.

As for range/no range, don't overlook the ability to trench and drop in box or pipe culvert in suitable sizes and lengths, and bury the whole thing literally underground. They're designed to hold up interstates, so all you have to add is the line end and the target end. How much is between the two is a question of desire, plus available funds and space.
The makerspace could be handled the same way, directly adjacent, provided you aren't in a flood plain and don't have a high water table.

Couple either or both to solar, wind, or microhydro power supply as available, and you can hide the entire thing in plain sight on a few acres of anywhere. You now have a quiet, invisible year-around 55-degree giant root cellar you could light with LEDs, heat minimally with radiant electric etc., and ventilate with simple push and pull fans. Hydropowered would be completely unseen, wind or solar-powered minimally noted.

That's grid-free; obviously tying into the grid with an outbuilding subpanel, and/or a couple of carbon-fueled gensets for surge capacity is always an option.

If one is willing to make haste slowly, the whole thing could be built inside and under a temporary pole barn during construction, and once things are set in and covered over, the building removed and returned to pasture, corral, or scrub. >Poof!< All gone, except for a discreet entrance and an alternate exit.

Over time, a full-on mini-cluster is possible, with nothing visible from outside or above but perhaps some solar panels and such.

I'd also give some serious thought to the Disneyland approach to privacy, over time:
trenching around a property line, berming up the removed soil inside the trench line, and planting it in something not likely to be climbed through (e.g thorny berries, or wild cactus out west) solves basic privacy problems and adds a measure of sight and noise security for day-to-day activities, and the potential for additional food supply. It can also be used to canalize visitors, both expected and unexpected.
Whether one elects to burrow into or emplace structures within such a berm for other considerations is entirely a personal decision, but a few seasons after it's emplaced, it grows into being part of the landscape, exactly like French hedgerows. In flat lands it gives the property owner additional elevation for observation, while denying it to ground level viewers outside, and provides a line to plant trees for a windbreak, which can provide wood fuel and food, all of which looks completely pastoral, agricultural, and innocuous.

All of the above can also provide a modest (or more) hobby farm operation, which can pay for itself and provide additional explanatory cover. The number of suburban and urban farmer's markets grow annually, which gives one a reason for transient pass-through of personnel, daily visitors, and weekly trips to market and such.

One property, time and forethought, plus a lot of sweat equity, and you've re-created the infrastructure sufficient to feed you, shelter you, and form the nucleus of a local auxiliary economy for yourself and any number of good, thoughtful, rational contingency reasons. That's true both now and in any number of possible future societies, good and ill.

There's a reason that the guys who signed the Declaration of Independence and the majority of those who tagged along were all merchants, tradesmen, and professional men: money is the mother's milk of every other worthwhile human endeavor, from art to charity to politics to war. Income = possibilities. The more streams that feed it, the bigger the ocean of one's options. That's just as true right now as it was in 1770 or any other time in history, and may become important again rather urgently.

Custer Lives

The Minnesota National Guard's 34th Infantry Division headquarters and soldiers from 11 other states will deploy this spring to support U.S. Ebola response operations in West Africa, officials announced Sunday.
In all, about 2,100 soldiers from the National Guard and Army Reserve are expected to deploy to Liberia and Senegal to relieve troops who deployed to the region in September and October as part of Operation Bring Ebola Home.

If you live in Minnesota, or any of the 11 other states whose troops are being tapped for this clown show, be sure and write Sen. Al Franken, and tell him how much you can't wait for Johnny to come marching home - with Ebola.

      And here's Johnny's C-in-C. Now you know why we're doing this.

        "Happy Belated Veteran's Day, troops! I'll be on the golf course."

Still An @$$Clown

CNN screenshot of interview with CDC Director Frieden, who apparently just won't go away.

Some people don't get that the best thing they could do is shut up, and quietly hide in their offices for 5 to 10 years, if not quietly retire to BFEgypt.

Usually, if you weren't clear on the concept, the president appointing a political hack to get the spotlight off of you, then keeping that guy in more seclusion than US nuclear weapons information, is normally a pretty good clue to STFU and slither away.

But hubris is a tough disease to beat, and CDC Director Tom Frieden still has a raging case, as noted in this CNN exclusive interview with him:

(CNN) -- In an exclusive interview with CNN, Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reflected on the lowest moments -- and the surprises -- that occurred when Thomas Eric Duncan became the first person to unexpectedly arrive in the United States with Ebola.

Duncan has been the only person in the United States to die of the disease, and two nurses who cared for him became infected with the virus. The CDC was roundly criticized for its handling of the crisis, and some Republican lawmakers called for Frieden's resignation.

Frieden's lowest moment: when the first nurse, Nina Pham, was diagnosed with Ebola.

"We learned that the situation wasn't going to be as simple or as controlled as we thought it would be, and we immediately intensified our response to address the situation in Dallas," he said.

He said his biggest surprise was the difficulty of Duncan's care.

 

"I think we didn't recognize how hard it would be to care for someone with Ebola who was desperately ill in the U.S., and how much hands-on nursing care there would be, and we didn't expect two nurses to get infected," Frieden said. 

Gotcha Tommy. You only misunderstood the disease itself, how to treat it, and how to prevent its spread. Say, by the by, what's the NAME of your agency again...?

During Duncan's hospitalization, Frieden repeatedly said in press conferences that any hospital in the United States should be able to treat Ebola.

CNN asked Frieden if he regretted those statements, considering that at Texas Presbyterian Hospital, Duncan died and two nurses became infected, but the other nine U.S. Ebola patients, who were treated at hospitals that were specially designated to treat the disease, all lived. In those cases no workers became infected.

 

"Clearly there are things that we wish we'd done differently," he said. "The bottom line is that Ebola is hard to treat, and when the first patient ever with Ebola came to the United States, we thought the guidelines would protect the health care workers. When two health care workers became infected, we recognized the guidelines didn't work. So we changed them."

Riiiiiiiiiiight. The only thing you do, as an agency with no coercive power, is to promote standards and guidelines for all 5000 hospitals in the US on anything that could be a public health concern. Particularly a virus with no known cure and an 80% mortality rate. So the only thing you had to contribute on Ebola, you totally fucked up nine ways from Sunday, and had to completely backtrack on and revamp, because you'd never noticed the work done for decades by groups like Doctors Without Borders in dealing with this very disease much better under far more primitive conditions. Great job, Tommy!

He added that one thing his agency would have done differently would have been to tell nurse Amber Vinson not to board an airplane from Cleveland to Dallas. Vinson had taken care of Duncan and had reported a temperature of 99.5 degrees, but was told she could fly, because the CDC's threshold at that time for Ebola was 100.4 degrees. Vinson later was diagnosed with Ebola.

Because when your main goal is the public's inviolable health and safety, what better bureaucratic approach than to throw all caution to the winds, and stick lockstep with inappropriate and clueless guidelines, right?

CNN also asked if he considered leaving his post when several Republican lawmakers called for his resignation.

"I'm really just focused on stopping Ebola. I'm working around the clock to do that, and I will continue to do that, as long as Ebola is spreading, as long as I have the opportunity to do that," he said.

Based on your performance in this crisis so far, you "working around the clock" on it is pretty much every American's worst nightmare. Consider other opportunities, and update your resume. There's got to be a town somewhere in North Dakota or the Yukon that needs a good dog and cat vet where the locals may not associate you with the CDC gig right off the bat. Think hard on this, will ya?

"I wish I had know then what we know now," he added. "But that's not how the world works. We live life forwards and we understand it backwards. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, there are always things we would do differently."

Like wishing the president had hired someone who wasn't a flaming head-up-the-ass hemorrhoid to supervise the CDC, no doubt. Or, simply playing calliope music as the background music whenever you make an interview appearance. Like this time.

And now, some appropriate exit music for you...

Mali 3 Weeks Behind Ebola Outbreak; Try To Look Shocked

From AP News, via Yahoo! and ABC:

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — It all started with a sick nurse, whose positive test for Ebola came only after her death. In a busy clinic that treats Mali's elite as well as wounded U.N. peacekeepers, what patient transmitted the virus?

Soon hospital officials were taking a second look at the case of a 70-year-old man who died after being brought to the capital late at night from Guinea suffering from kidney failure. A friend who visited him later died under suspicious circumstances, too.

It wasn't renal disease, they then realized. The 70-year-old man had Ebola and all three of the relatives who brought him to the clinic that night had all since been admitted to an Ebola treatment center back home in Guinea.

On Friday, Malian health authorities went to disinfect the mosque where the 70-year-old's body was prepared for burial — nearly three weeks ago. Already some are criticizing the Malian government for being too slow to react when health authorities had announced his death as a suspected Ebola case earlier in the week.
"It's been 18 days since the Guinean man sick with Ebola died here. It's just too late," said Koumou Keita, his face full of worry.
For nearly a year, Mali had been spared the virus now blamed for killing more than 5,000 people across West Africa despite the fact the country shared a porous land border with Guinea, the country where the epidemic first erupted.
Now there are least three confirmed Ebola deaths, and two others suspected deaths in Mali's capital, Bamako. Residents here who have seen the horrific death tolls from Ebola in neighboring Guinea now fear the worst.
"I feel uneasy because I have the impression that our authorities are not giving us the whole truth," said Ibrahim Traore, who works at a supermarket in the capital. "There are a lot of things not being said about how the Ebola virus came to Bamako."
Health officials now must try to track down not only family and friends who visited the 70-year-old man at his hospital bed, but also the scores of people who prepared his body for burial and attended his funeral. Teams of investigators are also headed to the border community where authorities believe the Patient Zero in the Bamako cluster — the 70-year-old man — first fell ill.

"The future of Ebola in Mali will depend on the quality of the surveillance of these contacts. If they are rigorously followed, and any subsequent cases are quickly identified and isolated, the battle will be won. But if there are failures in the process, it will lead to further contamination and further problems," said Ibrahima-Soce Fall, Mali's WHO representative.

Among those placed under quarantine are about 20 members of the U.N. peacekeeping force who were treated for battlefield wounds at the Bamako hospital where the dead nurse had worked. The peacekeepers are based in the north of the country, where they are trying to stabilize a vast region where jihadists ruled until a French-led war in 2013.

In recent years Mali already has suffered a separatist rebel insurgency, a coup that overthrew its longtime leader and a war against jihadists. Now Ebola threatens to be another source of misery if it is not contained.

"Ebola could cause many deaths here in Mali, said Aminata Samake, who works at a bank in the capital. "We have a tradition of living closely together that could contribute to a huge contamination. Take the example of public transport — you find people crammed into a bus, one on top of the other. Large families share the same plates, even the same glasses for tea."

No worries, right? We'll just go disinfect the site where the infected imam was washed  three weeks ago , and try and find the 96 357 over 400 and climbing contacts, who've now potentially spread Ebola to 4000 other people in a capitol teeming with 2,000,000 people living in each others' laps, along with the 20 UN peacekeepers from other countries' military forces, and that should be just fine.

I mean, it's not like someone infected took the subway across town, got a sub sandwich, and went bowling, right?

And now, the Reuters version:

(Reuters) - The United Nations mission in Mali has canceled plans to renew a contract with a private clinic providing care to its peacekeepers after a case of Ebola was missed and spread from there.This second Ebola alarm in Mali, coming just as it seemed to have contained its first case last month, raised doubts about the country's ability to protect itself from the epidemic that is ravaging three other states in West Africa. More than 5,000 people have died, almost all in Liberia, Sierra Leone and in Guinea, which shares an 800 km (500 mile) border with Mali.
The U.N. mission in Mali, whose peacekeepers are helping to protect the nation against Islamist rebels, reversed on Saturday a decision taken earlier in the week to renew the contract with the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako to care for sick or injured troops.
A U.N spokesman said the decision was taken "due to prevailing circumstances" but gave no further details.
It followed the death in the clinic in late October of an elderly imam, or Muslim religious leader, from Guinea. The sick man was never tested, but his case directly led to a chain of confirmed deaths from Ebola, including a 25-year-old nurse who treated him and a woman who washed his dead body.
The clinic, one of Bamako's best known and used by expatriates and the country's elite, denies any wrongdoing. It says it followed all its procedures for treating Ebola and that the imam never showed any signs of the fever.
On Tuesday last week, Mali's health minister declared there were no more confirmed cases in the country after it appeared to have successfully contained its first Ebola case of an infant girl who died last month.
But by nightfall the same day, the 25-year-old nurse from the clinic had died of the disease and authorities are now trying to trace over 400 potential fresh contacts.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has ordered an enquiry.
Ibrahima Fall, World Health Organisation representative in Mali, said the Pasteur Clinic - which has no connection to the Paris-based Institut Pasteur - made "a terrible mistake" by not alerting authorities to the case of the sick Guinean imam, who would have been showing Ebola-like symptoms.
He said it was WHO officials tracing reported deaths in Guinea who had discovered this case in Mali.
Mali's Ebola response leader, Samba Sow, said the clinic did not tell him of a second suspected Ebola case once he got there. "It is something we would like to have known," he said.
Aid workers and diplomats in Bamako cite delays and obstacles in setting up Sow's Ebola-response team and poor communication within government over the latest case.

Government cluelessness?
Medical stupidity?
Delays and obstacles in response?
Poor communication?

This would be understandable, if we hadn't seen the exact same chain of official stupidity in Monrovia, Freetown, Conkary, Geneva, Madrid, and Washington D.C., as well as in NYC and Dallas.

It's clinically significant that Ebola manifestly causes profound dementia, verbal psychosis, and severe retardation in those responsible for dealing with outbreaks.

Mali Hits It Outta The Park: 42 Ebola Cases Overnight!

Remain calm! ALL IS WELL!!!

h/t to commenter mike 18xx

So much for 4 cases: Mali is sitting on 42 Ebola cases, all essentially the downstream result of washing the Ebola-laden corpse of a dead grand imam in capitol Bamako (Pop. 2M). And actually, more "While they were whistling past the graveyard" rather than "overnight" strictly speaking. You can now cancel Christmas there, as the contacts of 42 people, versus 4, and now at one to three weeks downstream, means any hope for getting ahead of this in that country is weeks away, if they ever even can get ahead of it.

If they fail, Mali has 16M people, in essentially the same situation as the first three affected nations, except they have no outside aid, no outside reserves available to deploy, and oh, BTW, they're still engaged with an active rebel insurgency.

If you get in a balloon, and take binoculars, you might be able to still see how far beyond "F***ED" Mali is.

And lest we forget, no one is screening passengers from Mali, and there are no flight restrictions or international quarantines on travelers from there as of yet, here or in any other country in the world (except for Mauritania, to the west, and Uzbekistan).

Mali government report pdf en Francais

Mali SitRep en Englais:

 

"If you pointy-headed idjits wasn't fondling Ebola-infected dead people, ya wouldn't all be crapping your guts out, now wouldja?"

 

 

UPDATE: Hey, look, someone at the CDC was working on the weekend:

 Nov 16 (Reuters) - The United States will begin enhanced screening for travelers whose trips started in the African nation of Mali, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security said on Sunday.

The CDC recommended adding Mali to the list of countries whose travelers undergo heightened screening because there had been a number of confirmed cases of Ebola there in recent days, the agencies said in a statement. Travelers from Mali will face the same screening as those from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Another Boom Week In Ebolaville

1000 New Cases; Liberian Deaths March Backwards

No Signs Of Life In Villages Near Capitol Of Sierra Leone

FREETOWN (BBC) --- I briefly visited Sierra Leone, one of the three most affected countries along with Liberia and Guinea, this week.
I flew by helicopter over one of the worst affected areas, the district of Port Loko just north of the coastal capital Freetown.
Other journalists who have been in this district, but on the ground, have reported finding abandoned villages with dead or dying Ebola patients in them, the healthy having fled in fear or in search of food.
So I looked carefully out of the helicopter window.
Even from this height it is usually possible to see signs of normal life.
Typical ones are smoke from cooking fires and colorful daily laundry draped over bushes to dry.
But in a large number of villages there were no signs of life.  

I've just received a message from the headmaster of a school in the Liberian capital Monrovia.
The immediate area around his school hasn't been hit by Ebola, but with businesses and government offices closed to try to contain the spread, many people haven't been able to work.
As the headmaster put it "no job no money" and parents in his area have found it impossible to feed their children properly.
"Our teachers are all healthy", he said, in that understated way of Liberians who have had more than their share of war and disasters over the years.
"Except they are in dying need of food."

As Ebola continues to rampage throughout Sierra Leone, Liberia is undergoing a notional drop in cases, except they still seem to be unable to get their information to the UN on time.

(Reuters) MONROVIA - Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Thursday she would not seek an extension to a state of emergency imposed in August over Ebola, which has hit the country harder than any other this year.The decision effectively ends the state of emergency that officially expired earlier this month, though Sirleaf said a night curfew remains in force. The emergency had allowed authorities to restrict movement in areas hard hit by the virus.

So with "only" 300 new cases in the last week (more than they had in the entire country in late July) Liberia figures they may as well just let people go anywhere they want. You figure out whether this is because Ebola is going away, or whether it's because they recognize that Ebola is everywhere, and their "state of emergency" did nothing to prevent that.
Miraculously, as their Ebola cases increase, Liberia's Ebola deaths decrease day after day.
Presumably, at the rate their going, they can erase their way to being Ebola-free by New Year's, except for all those troublesome bodies.

Given the imminent famine and starvation complications, it seems pretty evident that both nations are willing to lie about the epidemic in order to try and secure food shipments and trade.

I would therefore have to call the ongoing numbers reported by the UN increasingly fanciful week after week, and suggest they pull the other leg, as it has bells on it.

And in less than a few days, Mali went from "almost" Ebola-free, to being amidst a blossoming outbreak, as an infected grand imam was taken to Mali's capitol of Bamako, died there of Ebola, and infected a doctor and nurse, as well as most of his own family, and now potentially nearly 300 mourners, including those who (yet again) washed his Ebola-ridden corpse in obedience to funeral ritual.

People Determined To Commit Suicide Are Going To Succeed: Example # 5001 and counting.

The Guinea-Mali Connection

 

As noted by commentor Ex-Dissident, WHO is doing a great job of detailing the Ebola outbreak proceeding unhindered in Guinea (shortly after the horses leave the barn and gallop down the road) now regularly being transmitted to Mali, helped by adherence to beliefs in both witchcraft, and Mohammed.

Mali: Case 1

Highlights: The child’s history begins with the death of her father, of unidentified causes, on 3 October.The father was a Red Cross worker who also provided care at a private medical clinic owned by his father (the paternal grandfather of the index case). The paternal grandfather was a retired health care worker.
While working at the private medical clinic, the child’s father had contact with a farmer from another village who died, of undiagnosed causes, on 12 September.
Ebola bodycount: 1

The farmer sought treatment accompanied by his two daughters. Both daughters died, of undiagnosed causes, in Beyla on 23 September, one at dawn and the other in the evening. Ebola bodycount: 3 

The child’s father fell ill sometime during the third week of September. Fellow residents and neighbours in Beyla believed he was the victim of a bad-luck “curse” following an argument with the village chief. Witchcraft, and not Ebola, was suspected.
Shunned by the community, and on the advice of his own father (the paternal grandfather of the index case and the head of the family), the father returned to his native village of Sokodougou, in the sub-prefecture of Moussadou – a trip of more than 70 kilometres. He died there on 3 October.

         Ebola bodycount: 4

This pattern of returning to a native village to grow old or die is commonly seen in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and many other countries around the world. Such frequent travels by symptomatic Ebola patients, often via public transportation and over long distances, unquestionably create multiple opportunities for high-risk exposures – en route and also when the patient reaches his home and is greeted by family and friends.
Meanwhile in Beyla, the paternal grandfather and family head lost his wife to an unknown disease on 8 October. He then allowed health officials to undertake contact tracing of 16 family members who had been in close contact with his deceased son (the father of the index case in Mali).

         Ebola bodycount: 5

On the following day (9 October), two of his other sons were admitted to hospital. The hospital referred them to a MSF-run Ebola transit centre in Macenta.
The first son died the same day en route to Macenta. On 10 October, samples from both sons tested positive for Ebola, strongly suggesting that other family members had also died from Ebola virus disease.
On 16 October, the paternal grandfather travelled to Macenta, seeking treatment for what he told medical staff was “rheumatoid arthritis”. As part of a thorough medical examination, he was tested for Ebola. Positive results were received from the laboratory on 17 October. The paternal grandfather died at an Ebola treatment centre in Gueckedou on 20 October.

         Ebola bodycount: 8; 3 diagnosed

Following news of the death of relatives in Guinea, the child’s grand aunt or “Grandma” (the second wife of the maternal grandfather) travelled to Beyla, Guinea, to offer her condolences to her relatives. The “Grandma” resides in Kayes, Mali.
She left Guinea to return to Mali on 19 October, taking the 2-year-old index case and her 5-year-old sister with her. A maternal uncle, the mother’s brother, also accompanied them. The index case was showing haemorrhagic symptoms in Guinea when the three began their extensive travels.
The mother is alive and is in regular telephone contact with the Mali team. She has to remain in the village where her husband was buried for 40 days for the official mourning, before she can leave. Her three-month-old baby is with her in Guinea. Both are under observation and, to date, neither has shown any symptoms.
The family group travelled via public transportation, taking at least one bus and 3 taxi rides as they journeyed more than 1200 kilometres through Mali. The buses made frequent stops for fuel or to let passengers on. The four spent 2 hours in the capital, Bamako, visiting relatives in a household with 25 people.
On 19–20 October, they travelled overnight in one bus from Bamako to Kayes. Between Bamako and Kayes, only two persons left the bus at Niamiga village. Persistent tracking eventually located both at their final destinations, in Dakar, Senegal and Paris, France.
Once in Kayes, the Grandma and index case consulted two traditional healers. The second healer took them to a retired nurse, who was alarmed by the child’s high temperature, which was above 40° C. When he learned they had recently travelled in Guinea, he suspected Ebola and advised them to seek treatment at a hospital.
The child was admitted to the hospital in Kayes on 21 October and diagnosed with Ebola following receipt of positive laboratory results on 23 October. She was hospitalized and treated in isolation, with infection prevention and control equipment and procedures in place. She died on 24 October.

         Ebola bodycount 9: 4 actually diagnosed, only 1 in Mali.

Mali :Case 2

Highlights: Mali’s Ministry of Health has confirmed the country’s second fatal case of Ebola virus disease. The case occurred in a nurse who worked at a privately-run clinic in the capital city, Bamako. The nurse, who was showing Ebola-like symptoms, was isolated on the evening of 10 November following suspicions of Ebola infection in a patient from Guinea who was treated at the clinic in late October. These suspicions were raised by an alert from health authorities in Guinea. The nurse died during the night of 11 November.

          Ebola bodycount: 1

According to the preliminary investigation, a 70-year-old male resident of Kourémalé village, in the Siguiri prefecture of Guinea, had onset of symptoms from an undiagnosed disease on 17 October. On 18 October, he was admitted to a private clinic in the mining town of Siguiri.
The town, which is located along Guinea’s 800 km border with Mali, was an intense focus of Ebola virus transmission from early July to mid-August.
As his condition did not improve, he was transferred to another clinic located just across the border in Mali. On 25 October, he travelled by car, together with 4 family members to seek treatment at the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako.
He was suffering from acute kidney failure, a complication often seen in late-stage Ebola virus disease. Multiple laboratory tests were performed, but not for Ebola.
He was treated at the Pasteur Clinic from 25 October until his death, from kidney failure, on 27 October. In addition, a friend who visited him at the clinic also died abruptly from an undiagnosed disease. Both are considered probable Ebola cases. For both, no samples are available for testing.
The nurse, whose fatal Ebola infection was confirmed on 11 November, worked at the Pasteur Clinic.

         Ebola bodycount: 3; only 1 confirmed.

Because of his religious status as a Grand Imam, his body was transported to a mosque in Bamako for a ritual washing ceremony. The body was then returned to the native village of Kourémalé for formal funeral and burial ceremonies. Although these events are still under investigation, WHO staff assume that many mourners attended the ceremonies.  

In that same village, the deceased patient’s first wife died of an undiagnosed disease on 6 November. His brother and his second wife are currently being managed at an Ebola treatment centre in Gueckedou, Guinea. All 3 accompanied the patient during the car trip to Bamako.

         Ebola bodycount 6; 1 confirmed, 2 suspected.

On 10 November, his daughter died from an undiagnosed disease. The family declined offers of a safe burial.
On 11 November, the man’s son, who is currently at the Ebola treatment center in Gueckedou, tested positive for Ebola at the European Union’s mobile biosafety level 3 laboratory there. He was the fourth family member in the car trip to Bamako. Confirmation of his infection further increases the likelihood that deaths in other family members were caused by Ebola.

         Ebola bodycount 8; 2 confirmed, 2 suspected, only 1 in Mali (So far.)

To date, 28 health care workers who had contact with the deceased patient at the Pasteur Clinic have been identified and are being placed under observation. A second team, deployed in the field, is tracing contacts in the community, including at the Bamako mosque.

Grand Total:
17 Ebola deaths
6 confirmed
2 suspected
2 in Mali

This is why this disease isn't "under control", likely never will be there, and why the "official numbers" from every country concerned are thoroughly and totally a dumptruck full of bullshi  rose fertilizer.

And as long as people "decline" safe burial practices, refuse contact tracing, play with dead bodies, and take 700-mile bus trips all around the effing bush there, Ebola is going to keep cropping up until they get a raging outbreak in Bamako, rapidly overwhelming their primitive facilities, and Mali too is then gloriously aflame with the outbreak, if in fact this latest set of imports haven't accomplished that already.

And just for S and G:
Total number of countries with any flight restrictions on travelers from Mali: zero.
Total number of countries doing even kabuki BS temperature "screening" on travelers from Mali: zero.
Total number of persons arriving in France, the US, and everywhere else from Mali daily: ???

This is going to end well, for them and everyone else.
Blame Islam, and witchcraft.

 

Pentagon To Send 1000+ More Troops To Ebolaville, Committment Now 18+ Months

{h/t to WRSA for the story link}

Now that mid-terms are history, the Pentagon has let slip that we're sending another 1000 troops, and the six eight ten week commitment is being increased to at least 18 months, rotating in new groups every 6 months, through spring of 2016.

(BOHICA Liberia) --- The Pentagon said Friday it has designated five military bases inside the U.S. and two in Europe as quarantine areas for troops returning from the Ebola-response mission in West Africa.

Servicemembers will be isolated for 21 days at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, Texas; and Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia to check for symptoms of the deadly virus, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said. Army garrisons in Baumholder, Germany, and Vicenza, Italy, will also be quarantine sites.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the three-week quarantines late last month for troops who spend time on the ground as part of the military’s Operation United Assistance, which is supporting U.S. humanitarian aid efforts in hard-hit East Africa countries where nearly 5,000 have died.

Kirby said the quarantine sites have facilities that can offer twice daily medical checks for the returning troops and were named as the military fine-tunes its response to the virus, which began in September.

Plans finalized Friday allow quarantine exemptions for servicemembers who travel through Africa briefly and have limited contact with people there, such as staff traveling with senior officials who are only there for a day or two, according to The Associated Press.

Under the new plans, civilians in the fight against Ebola will now be able to get medical treatment on military bases and free treatment from hospitals in the United States, Kirby said.

Defense Department personnel returning to Germany from Ebola-related missions in West Africa will first be screened upon touching down at Ramstein Airbase, according to the Army’s 21^st Theater Sustainment Command.
Anyone showing symptoms that could potentially be related to Ebola, to include a fever equal to or greater than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, will be transferred to a secure facility at nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for additional testing, the 21^st TSC stated.
Otherwise, troops not showing symptoms will spend the 21-day controlled monitoring period at one of four barracks-style buildings on Smith Barracks in Baumholder.
Use of Smith Barracks, however, is contingent upon host nation approval, the command said in a news release.
“The U.S. government is coordinating these measures with host nation officials,” the 21^st TSC stated in a release.

More than 1,900 Defense Department personnel are deployed to Africa, with the majority in Liberia and small contingent in Senegal, and that number could climb to 4,000.

The military’s newly built Monrovia Medical Unit in Liberia was set to open Saturday and will care for doctors and other health care workers fighting the dangerous disease. The U.S. hopes the 25-bed facility will encourage and reassure medical assistance.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey has said the military mission will probably last 18 months, and feature six-month rotations for military personnel.

The epidemic is the largest outbreak in history and cases have appeared in the United States for the first time. The World Health Organization released new figures Friday showing the number of Ebola cases climbed to 13,268 with 4,960 reported deaths.

The military also announced Friday that it will add another 30 personnel to its rapid-response team created last month to help U.S. civilian health care providers in the event of more domestic Ebola cases. They begin training in Texas on Nov. 17 and will soon join the existing 30-person team, Kirby said.

So the commitment grows and grows, and we've now volunt-told two allies that we'll be using them as Ebola tampons to protect ourselves, and the troops, after 6 weeks' work, are about to open the first teeny weenie 25-bed facility, with only 17 100-bed facilities to go, and no staff available to man any of them.

And the Invisible Ebola Strike Force now entering into its third week of a 7-day training rotation, will soon be augmented by a second untrained, wholly invisible Ebola Strike Force.

And the troops who thought they might be done once they cobble together some Ebola Treatment Centers just found out via Stars And Stripes that they'll now be living in Ebolaville until April, when another batch of 4000 unlucky bastards handpicked professionals will draw the short straw for half a year in Biowar Hell.

"Well that's great! That's just fucking great, man! Now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now, man! That's it. Game over, man. Game over!"



If anyone was wondering, the phone number for your congresshole is:
(202) 225-3121
Your two senators may be reached at
(202) 224-3121

Both of those are the respective US Capitol Switchboard numbers, who can direct you to your duly elected public servants.
Give them an earful, particularly if your own kid(s) are serving in the military.
A polite phone call to the minions letting them know how livid you are goes a lot farther than just venting, BTW. Of course, if you happen to tie the switchboards up with calls, that sends a message too.

Ebola Strike Force On Alert

Whoops.
It looks like all that happygas about Ebola being over in Mali was just the media idiots stepping on their tackle again:

BAMAKO Mali (NYTimes) Mali, which was just coming to the end of 21-day quarantines for 108 people linked to its first Ebola case, now has a second, the government announced Tuesday. The new case, in the capital, Bamako, was not linked to the first case, a 2-year-old girl from Guinea who died in the northwestern town of Kayes on Oct. 24, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization said. The W.H.O. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have known for at least 24 hours that a new cluster of possible Ebola cases existed in Mali, but did not announce it because they were waiting for laboratory confirmation of at least one case. Information Minister Mahamadou Camara said Tuesday evening on Twitter that a case had been confirmed and that a clinic in Bamako had been quarantined.

The quarantine on the first cases still had 5 more days, when up crops an entirely unrelated cluster, starting with this first confirmed case. And without a known Index Patient, health officials there will have to scramble to try and figure out who snuck the latest dose of disease into Mali's wide-open borders with two different Ebola-inflicted countries (both Guinea and Liberia share extensive borders with Mali.

World's Biggest Putz

 

And in NYFC, where that title truly means something!

So, Doctor Doofus is released, and in a manner worthy of jackholes everywhere, completely avoids any personal responsibility for his own jackassery in spreading chaos and panic to the entire Big Apple, and putting nearly 400 fellow New Yorkers on Ebola monitoring protocols for three weeks:

 “My early detection, reporting and now recovery from Ebola speaks to the effectiveness of the protocols that are in place for health staff returning from West Africa.”

No doubt Doctor Dickhead would have been detected, reported, treated, and recovered even earlier if only he hadn't
a) ignored his original symptoms for two days
b) trotted his stupid ass all over the Five Boroughs for two days, thus
c) exposing 357 or so other people to a deadly pathogen because of
d) his reckless disregard for public health and safety, and
e) his total failure to inform the police and health authorities, who
f) only learned of his infectious travels hither and yon after
g) querying his financial and subway pass records because he
h) never bothered to inform those authorities of his contacts.

Thanks a lot FUCKHEAD, you're a credit to people everywhere with shit for brains, and hopefully the NY Medical Board has a spine and some balls, and will be revoking your license to practice medicine for the next decade or so, until you come to Jesus, 'fess up, apologize, and spend some thoughtful time digging ditches, you selfish bastard. Hopefully the D.A. will look into criminal charges, and the 357 people inconvenienced by your antics will be helping themselves to every cent of your income for the rest of your life for the mental anguish suffered as a direct consequence of your failure to use any shred of professional judgment or common human sense. 

Walk tall, you embarrassment to your profession, and all humanity, and here's hoping the first fifty people you exposed meet you and kick you in the crotch, hard and repeatedly, while bystanders point and laugh, as a proper down payment on what you so richly deserve.

Apparently this is one of those instances where M.D. stands for

MONUMENTAL DUMBASS.

 

Now go to Home Depot, buy a crowbar, and see about popping your head out of your ass before you hurt yourself.

239 And Counting

Resolved, That two Battalions of Marines be raised, consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or inlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required: that they be inlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of."

The above records of the Continental Congress document two things: the establishment of the most notorious band of life-takers and heart-breakers in recorded history, and proof that the clerk of said institution was the sort of man admired later by Mark Twain, who said "Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination."

Though the birthday had been celebrated far earlier unofficially, by 1921, the salty old 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, Lt. General John A. Lejeune, sent out official birthday greetings as early as 1921:

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of the Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name Marine. In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our Corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

I therefore know as certainly as the sun rises, that from the International Date Line westward since midnight there, those words, and the accompanying celebratory gatherings have today been occurring on island bases, ships at sea, over 100 embassies and consulates, and every other place the government of these United States has seen it good and necessary to dispatch any so much as two Marines.

For some bare few recent years, sister services have attempted to appropriate similar feelings of institutional pride. While we wish them each and all well on their special days, we note that in the Navy's case, it was because of the CNO tiring of having to reply to queries about such celebrations that "The Navy has no Balls", and that in any event, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

So to the hundreds of thousands of Marines on active duty today around the world, and to their millions of predecessors going back to before this nation even was such, three words say it all:

"Semper fidelis, Marines!"

 

 

Ebola Update 11/10

The latest WHO numbers are up on Wiki: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are now "officially" reporting 20, 35, and 60+ (respectively) new cases/day over the last 8 days.
So call it 100+ new victims, daily, or more every week than the worldwide total in the beginning of July - when this brushfire was already totally out of control.

The only thing we know from that is that people aren't going to the Ebola treatment centers, which isn't at all the same thing as saying that people aren't spreading the disease. The chickens there seem to have realized that the centers don't "treat" anything, they merely remove one from their family and friends to die alone, and they seem to be averse to that mode of government-run healthcare.
Which explains why the disease is exploding in Sierra Leone now, and will be shortly in Liberia (if it isn't already) in 10-21 days. As the number of native inhabitants in either country who can count (in a way the phrase is used in Western civilization) is something around 35%, whether we'll know beforehand is anyone's guess.

FYI, subtracting the known dead and presumed survivors from the current case count, and looking at the available bed count, leads to the inescapable conclusion that there are at least 4000-5000 known EVD victims still walking around in those three societies every day.
This is not a recipe for any sort of optimism.

---

NYTimes confirms that Dr. Doofus will be released shortly, Ebola-free, with no further US cases active at the moment.

---

In a Romper Room update, MiMi Crybaby and her sidekick Mangina plan to flee their former home precincts, because apparently they've been mentally scarred for life by the unconscionable response of the local Maine rural denizens to having someone with the professional ethics of the spiritual love child of Bill Clinton and Typhoid Mary living amongst them. Reportedly, certain suggestions and anonymous messages have made continued residence there a less-than-pleasant thing to contemplate. Boo frickin' hoo.

This decision tree was apparently not helped by the local college of nursing throwing Mangina out on his ass in the meantime. Perhaps he can find a better career fit in either the retail clerical or custodial/janitorial fields of occupational endeavor. (One suspects UT-Arlington will probably start quietly excising Mimi's graduate bio splash pages rather circumspectly in future days as well. "We train bigger jackholes" is probably not a good recruiting strategy in Texas, or anywhere else.)

Best of luck to those two, as any place they land will probably not take to them any better, from Georgetown D.C. to Timbuktu. But here's hoping Mangina gets a vasectomy before they manage to breed any more selfish little whiny bastards. Even the CDC is oversubscribed in that respect.

---

And now, the media have taken to reporting the end of quarantines a week in advance:

(Reuters) - Mali is preparing to release 108 people from Ebola quarantine in a tentative step toward declaring it has contained an outbreak.Mali became the sixth West African country to report a case of Ebola when a 2-year-old girl died last month, leading to an urgent search for anyone who may have been infected during her 1,200-km bus trip from Guinea to the Malian town of Kayes.
The Malian Ministry of Health is expected to confirm later on Monday that 29 people who may have had contact with her during a two-hour stopover in Bamako, along with 12 people in Kayes, can be released from a 21-day quarantine on Tuesday.
A further 67 contacts, including three relatives who traveled with her and 33 healthcare workers, are due to be given the all clear on Saturday.

While we're happy if Mali manages to stop Ebola faster than potato chips, at just one, this news story now leads to the inescapable conclusion about this whole story phenomenon, exactly as noted before hereabouts:

The Seven stages of Ebola Reporting:

1. What Ebola?
2. EBOLA! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
3. Don't Worry, the Government has TOP. MEN. on the case.
4. The TOP. MEN. Are Idiots! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
5. Ebola is killing everyone handy in droves, but they're mostly "just Africans".
6. Continued Ebola Stories upset the editorial bias and the entrenched bureaucracy.
7. What Ebola?

Don't worry though. Just like with future terrorism incidents, our first line of defense is the crack minions of vigilance at the TSA.

Duncan v2.0? Ha!
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?(tm)

Home Water Storage

This is not exhaustive, obviously, but it's a handy overview. The full range of options are as unlimited as your own imagination and inventiveness, provide you think about all the aspects regarding weight, bulk, safety, accessibility, and cleanliness of the supply.
From bottom-end to top, some choices to get you thinking:

G.I. 1-quart plastic canteen.
Water for 6 hours or so. $5-10.

GI 5-gallon plastic water jug.
Water for 5 days for 1 person. $35-50.

Aqua-tainer 7 gallon water jug.
Water for a week for 1. About $20.

Water Bob 100-gallon bathtub water storage bag.
Water for 3 months. $30.

Food grade 55-gallon water barrel.
Water for 2 months or so. $75-ish. (Shop around. You can do better than this. Also, some opportunistic jackholes are asking $175 and more for the same thing. If you're willing to pay over 2 times market price, go to the tattoo parlor and have "SUCKER" emblazoned on your forehead.)

IBC 330-gallon caged palletized water tank.
Water for nearly a year for 1. Over $500 new, plus shipping.
Used ones can be had; make sure they were used for water, and not something like vinegar, or some toxic chemical. This is why IMHO, new is your friend unless you're a careful customer. Also nota bene the filled weight is nearly a ton. This mixes with stick-built upper floors in apartments rather poorly, especially in seismically active areas, but it will help you meet the downstairs neighbors. And their insurance adjuster.
OTOH, if you mount one on 3/4-5/4 plywood set on top of two levels of cinder blocks in a ground level garage or other concrete slab, the drain spigot will be handily elevated to fill smaller jugs and buckets. If you mount one or several in series at elevation, and plumb them to the home system, you can create low water pressure to supply whatever.

 

Above-ground pool.
Various sizes. This one holds 425 gallons, and goes for $57 @ Wal-Mart.

You could get an 18' diameter x 52" tall metal-walled monster that holds 7700 gallons (a year's drinking water for 20 people) for a bit over $900.
Even bigger models are available. BTW, the best time to buy is now, with retailers and manufacturers sitting on last summer's leftovers, and sales prices in full effect.
Notes: if you can put it up inside a garage and put the cars outside, it's secure, and on a stable and accessible surface spot. You'd want to cover it, still be best off by purifying/filtering the water before drinking or cooking, and want to sandbag or build some diverters in case of leakage or failure. But you could cook and drink for years, and have enough left over to wash a set of clothes in a bucket once a week, and then use the after-wash to occasionally flush a plumbed toilet, even in a multi-level condo with garage in the 'burbs. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to leave it set up perpetually, but in a pinch, with between a couple of hours to a day, you could fill it up while the muni taps are still running. Think about that.

There are obviously even larger storage options, including in-ground pools and water tanks. As you approach that point, and get into the means to fill/recharge them manually or naturally, you're getting more into water sources than water storage.

Which I'll visit another time.

Ebola Odds and Ends

Israel has apparently opted for quiet common sense, and just said no to Ebolaville:

Israel secretly bans citizens of Ebola-stricken West Africa from visiting country

In extremely irregular move, Foreign Ministry sends classified telegram instructing Israeli missions not to issue visas for citizens of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea; missions warned to keep instructions secret.

Pity that President Obola isn't as bright as Bibi.


And now the first military false alarm let them practice all the procedures:

CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - A pilot with the 437th Airlift Wing who flew a mission to West Africa on Oct. 23 and began experiencing "flu-like symptoms" this week has been downgraded from being "low risk" to "no risk," according to MUSC. "In consultation with DHEC, CDC and the Department of Defense, it has been confirmed the patient had no contact with anyone in Liberia, and based on this information, he has been determined to have no risk for Ebola. The patient will be removed from Ebola precautions, and no quarantine will be required," MUSC spokesman Tony Ciuffo said.

The serviceman, who lives off-base, began experiencing the symptoms on Wednesday, and was transported to MUSC Friday morning after Joint Base Charleston coordinated with the state's Department of Health and Environmental Control to exercise "the appropriate protocols and an abundance of caution," according to Staff Sgt. Anthony Hyatt.

The patient recently returned from a three hour stay in Liberia during which time he did not leave the plane, according to Mark Plowden, Communications Director for DHEC. The hospital activated their Ebola protocols after it was contacted Thursday night by DHEC.

"Late yesterday evening, we got a patient who required an Ebola medical screening," MUSC spokesperson Heather Woolwine said.

MUSC brought the patient to the hospital using what they call an "isolation pod" to keep the risk of spreading any possible infection between the patient and attending medical staff to a minimum.

Note that what the military did not do was immediately begin issuing a bunch of carefully parsed statements trying to convince anyone this could not possibly be Ebola, and that the USAF officer involved did not wet his pants, scrape poo out of his diaper, begin flinging it about the area, and call his congressman over all these outrageous violations of his civil rights, unlike certain jackassical alleged nursing professionals who are employed by the CDC.

There may be a lesson or twelve there.

Not all government employees are unredeemed jackholes, and surprising no one, that would the ones who draw their paychecks from the military active duty budget.

And lastly, 40 days (funny how that number keeps cropping up with regard to contagious outbreaks) after Thomas Duncan was admitted with the first domestic Ebola case, the TX Department of State health Services has tweeted:

It's official. This evening's final monitoring check is done. No symptoms. We are happy to close this Ebola chapter with Dallas tonight.

According to Doc Grouch, the current patient census for THP-Dallas, a 968-bed hospital, is running in the single digits, which is to say they're going to financially crash and burn long before they have a chance to be sued out of existence. So thank heavens one unemployed Liberian box-tosser will only cost Dallas a multi-million dollar medical center. But it's a good thing he was able to get $500K worth of free medical care, courtesy of the fine taxpayers of the state of TX, after contributing the sort of thing to the American experience that in sane countries would result in air strikes.

This is from one patient.
So tell me again how this Ebola thing is "no big deal", or just some sort of tinfoil-propeller hat ruse.

Banana Republic Government 101

In case you were paying close attention, you may have noticed that Sierra Leone suddenly removed 500 dead people from their country's tally Sunday. (Did those 500 people not die? Were they resurrected? Undead? Zombified? The mind boggles.) Now, another lesson on why things in West Africa are worse than you can imagine, and worse than we can know.
When the news is bad, they simply arrest the messenger:

FREETOWN (NYT) -- In what reporters in Sierra Leone denounced as an abuse of the government’s emergency powers to deal with the spread of Ebola, one of the country’s most prominent broadcast journalists was detained this week after he devoted a segment of his popular radio program to a critical discussion of President Ernest Bai Koroma’s handling of the outbreak.

The radio host, David Tam-Baryoh, was arrested on Monday following a broadcast of his weekly program “Monologue” on the independent station Citizen FM. Listeners in Freetown told the Committee to Protect Journalists that Saturday’s episode was interrupted after Mr. Tam-Baryoh interviewed an opposition spokesman who criticized the president’s response to the Ebola crisis and his supposed interest in seeking a third term in office.

According to Umaru Fofana, who reports for the BBC and the Freetown news site Politico, a senior police official said that Mr. Tam-Baryoh was arrested as a result of “an executive order signed by his excellency the president.” The same officer said that the detention would last “until it pleases his excellency” to release the reporter.

Mohamed Massaquoi, a local newspaper editor who is the president of the Sierra Leone Reporters Union, denounced the arrest as an abuse of the president’s powers. In an interview with Daniel Finnan of Radio France International, he said, “We are under health emergency, we are not under public emergency.”

If you are going to arrest journalists simply because of saying the facts,” he added, “then it’s a shame to the government, it’s a shame to the people of Sierra Leone.”

 

The arrest was front-page news in Sierra Leone. Ms. Sylvia Blyden, a former close adviser to the president who resigned last month, has also criticized the health ministry, saying it underreported cases of Ebola.

Water, Redux

This topic is here, since it's a thing people are concerned about, not just for a pandemic, but in general, since I did a general post way back when.
But for another whack at it, read on.

First off, you need a water source. Canteen, jug, well, cistern, pond, lake/river/stream, stored rainwater, snowmelt, whatever.

Second, you need a minimum of a gallon/person/day, just for drinking and cooking for survival. With heavy work (like filling sandbags) in hot weather that can climb to 3-5 gallons/person/day. A co-worker did a reserve activation to Iraq when the range was live in both directions, and part of that was acclimating in a camp in Saudi Arabia/Kuwait (I forget which, doesn't matter). The point was, in 120-degree weather, he described drinking so much water daily to keep up with physiological requirements his throat hurt from all the swallowing. He was a Navy corpsman, and what he really wanted to do was to stick two large-bore IVs in his elbows and hang saline bags wide open, as opposed to waking up at 3 AM feeling like a dry sponge, and pounding out cramps in his thigh muscles from electrolyte losses. Water is a big deal, and a gallon a day is just a guideline. Adjust as necessary.

Third, at some point, having enough to wash your hands and face, shower all over occasionally, and wash clothes is going to become not just a convenience, but a health issue. Mentally make some plans there too.

Once you've figured out where you'll get it, you need to make it clean.

Some options to consider:

A. Solar distillation
In a survival situation, you can always try a solar still:

It works, but.
In a desert survival situation, dig them at night. Doing so in the daytime will cost you more in sweat than you'll get back in drinking water. And you'll need more than one, because they don't get you much. You'd also want to make provision to recycle your urine output, and let the sun turn it back into just water. (Hey, it worked for the astronauts.)
But where this technique is better suited is purpose-built fixed solar stills.

That assumes you have the raw materials to make one. Or ten.
Wooden box, angled glass top, water pan inside, and drain tube to a 5 gallon bottle. Just remember that the germs you're filtering out now live inside the beginning pan. Clean it with a bleach solution from time to time. But if you had germ-filled water in abundance, and even a moderately sunny day, a few of those would keep you in water indefinitely, and you could build as many as you needed for your family/tribe.

B. SODIS
SODIS stands for solar disinfection. Simply put: load up a clear 1-liter water bottle. Put it in the sun all day. Tomorrow, it's drinkable.

You'll need two days worth of bottles, minimum. (one to drink from today, and one to be sunning for tomorrow's consumption). And sunny days, and warm weather. This won't work in Alaska in winter. For about 80% of the earth's surface, on sunny days, it will. But it requires the ability to leave your water out all day (6 hours minimum kills most everything) unattended. It's become the norm in most of the third world where clean drinking water doesn't exist. It's one of those tree-hugging Peace Corps ideas that works, as long as the sun and plastic bottles hold out.

Nota bene that a 1-liter, maybe 2-, is about the most this will work for. Larger thicknesses mitigate the sun's UV (which is what kills the nasties) too much to work 100%, and you'll get sick. It also doesn't work with tinted/colored bottles, for the same reason.

 

C. Chemical disinfection

1) Clorox or generic bleach (sodium hypochlorite) is fine. What you want is standard 6.025% plain-jane, unscented, no additives or other foofery, household bleach. 2 drops quart/8 drops per gallon (get an eyedropper!) for clear water, double that for cloudy water, and/or when it's cold (say below 50F) outside. Put it in, swirl/slosh it around, wait 30 minutes, and you have drinking water.

But household bleach has a shelf life. For 6 months, it's fine. But it loses 20% effectiveness after a year. (So add 20% more bleach if you're using a year-old jug). At five years, it's not bleach; it's just water. (Really nasty undrinkable water, BTW.) But the important point is, it isn't bleach either.

If you want a fresh batch, mix your own. Get Pool Shock. read the label, and make sure you're getting the mixture that contains only sodium hypochlorite. Nothing else.

Then do the math to make yourself a fresh batch of 6% by mixing that amount in the proper proportion of water. Now you've got a new bleach batch. (It's basic chemistry. Look it up yourself, and get it right. If you can't figure out how, you shouldn't be playing with it.)

Ready or home-made, light and heat speeds its decay. Store it in a cool, dark place in a lightproof bottle. If you're mixing your own, do it in small batches, and write the mix date on the bottle. If in doubt, pitch it out, and mix a fresh batch. And date it.

Bleach, and Pool Shock, are both corrosive. Store them in original containers, away from other items. Pool Shock will corrode metal containers left nearby or in contact. So storing

a bag of it in a heavy plastic tote, all by itself, in a brick or concrete bin inside, all by itself, would be a lot smarter that putting it in a metal locker in the sun with a loot of other things.

Ignore this at your own peril.

2) Potassium permagnate (KMnO4) is another chemical that will work, and is recommended in truly splendid survival manuals like Lofty Wiseman's SAS Survival Handbook. (The book is the real deal, and you should get a copy.) It's stocked as a water filtration chemical at places like Lowe's. In weak doses, it'll purify water. Stronger solutions can be used to clean wounds. And it can also be used as an expedient survival firestarter in combination with glycerin (a fact known to both arsonists, and arson detectives). It requires careful storage, and due diligence in handling and use.

3) Iodine crystals

If you aren't allergic to iodine (or shellfish, which usually indicates an iodine allergy),

The Polar Pure water disinfection solution is the best $20 you'll ever spend. Inside the bottle are iodine crystals. You pour water (clean, dirty, doesn't matter) into the Polar Pure. This makes an iodine solution. You pour that into the appropriate 1-quart/liter-sized container, wait the specified time, and presto!, the water is chemically disinfected. Germs are dead. The crystals stay inside the mix bottle; only enough iodine leaches into the water to do what you need each time. You can use the thing for 2000 times, 500 gallons worth, over 1 1/2 years for one gallon/person/day. Simple, bomb-proof, effective. The bottle is the size of a Tylenol bottle. The crystals sit there just fine, with a shelf life of functionally indefinitely.

 

D) Mechanical filtration

Using either a small, portable filter, like the Katadyn Pocket Microfilter

or any similar ones, you simply pump the dodgy water through an extremely fine (0.2 micron, for the Katadyn one) ceramic filter; crap in, pure H2O out. Check filter size, and usable life. I'm partial to the Katadyn because 0.2 microns gets everything, bacteria, viruses, and cysts like giardia, and also because it lasts for 50,000 liters/13,000 gallons. If it gets clogged, you unscrew the filter element, wash it off in clean water, and scrub it with the provided brush, and it's back in action. It's pricier than others, but it works, and lasts a lot longer. When you get quality gear, buy once, cry once is the rule. Filters like this are great because if there's water, albeit non-potable, you only need to carry the filter to make more; it takes a couple of minutes to fill a water bottle/canteen.

Smaller, less robust/long-lasting solution also work, all the way down to Lifestraw type of filters.

For more permanent installations, something like one of the Berkey Water Filters below is

 

the way to go. Depending on the size, they work with between 2 and up to 8 filter elements, and will do 2.5-6 gallons at a go. Pour dirty water in the top tank, it percolates to the clean holding tank at the bottom. Avoid their plastic models (they have issues); the stainless ones are just the thing for a home or base camp set up.

Both the Katadyn and Berkey line filter elements are replaceable, so getting spare elements is like having a spare tire or two for the car - gets you back in action for less than the price of an entire second car.

There are other brands as well, or you can home-make some from a food-grade bucket and ceramic filter elements, and they all do the same sort of job.

 

E) UV inactivation

The same thing SODIS uses the sun for, you can use UV light for. You can get fancy dedicated home set-ups (better know what you're doing, and know a water treatment UV expert to set you up). For smaller quantities on the go, there's nothing handier than the Steri-Pen UV water purifier.

 

Stick it in a liter/quart of water, turn it on, wait 90 seconds, and the critters you're worried about have been sterilized. Which means that they can't reproduce in you, so you don't get Traveler's Curse, AKA the Tijuana Two-Step (because you've got two steps to get to the commode). A set of lithium batteries will do 100 liters (25 gallons). You can replace the batteries, and use the bulb for 3000 liters (750 gallons). They sell other models, with more or fewer doodads and accessories, but they all work the same way. This is the same thing that SODIS does with sunlight, but in a minute and a half instead of 6 hours, and the sun is free, whereas the Steri-Pen goes for $40-80 bucks, and works at night, in a cave underground, as long as your batteries hold out and you don't break it.

 

F) Boiling

Q.: How do nuns make holy water?

A.: They boil the hell out of it.

Q.: How do you make drinking water out of dirty water?

A.: The same recipe.

The same thing works to kill the critters in any questionable water.

I mention it last, because it's time and fuel intensive. But it works every time.

Water in pot, pot on heat source, boil water, let cool, pour back and forth to replace dissolved O2 so it doesn't taste flat, drink. You've now passed Day One of Home Economics, and are smarter than all doctors before Louis Pasteur's Germ Theory became well-accepted.

Needs: a cooking pot, sufficient fuel/heat, and time. It takes longer at altitude than it does at sea level. Science is involved. Feel free to read up on that if so inclined.

 

The above methods are arranged from easiest/cheapest, to spendiest/most-resource intensive. Some are better for portability, some shine because they require noting much but waiting.

 

Of the above, solar distillation will remove some chemical contamination. (You'd want to read up on that before you stake your life on it.) The other methods will not.

Solar distillation and mechanical filtration will remove things like fallout particles. The other methods will not. And if you don't have a Geiger counter to check afterwards, you probably shouldn't be trying that anyway.

 

THINGS THAT DON'T WORK, AND WILL KILL YOU

 

1) Cousin Jed's homemade water filter:

 

What this WON'T do is remove the microscopic contaminating material reliably, because over time, that stuff builds up, the charcoal gets saturated, and there's no way to tell when it will fail/has failed, until everyone gets sick. Including you. Perhaps the very first time you use it if you were sloppy in constructing it. Then everyone dies from bacteriological contamination, and dehydration from bad water, and the resulting vomiting and diarrhea. Bad juju for you. Don't be that guy.

 

There is a silver lining though:

You can make one of these to strain murky water through, and clarify it substantially, which reduces the effort for UV, mechanical filtration, and chemical sterilization considerably.

So

a) yes, make one, but

b) remember that what comes out is still colonized with bacteria and smaller things, and your eyes can't see that small, so remember that the output is still contaminated.

Run your cruddy/murky/smelly water through that, and then use one of the other primary methods on the clarified but still non-potable output.

 

2) Brita et al tabletop filters

Those are strictly to make nasty tap water taste and smell better. They do not remove any of the critters that will harm you.

Silver lining:

But they can help get the chemical aftertaste out of purified water:

 

That's because some of the proper methods, esp. chemical, will leave some after-taste. This goes away with time, if you have the place to store clean water while that dissipates, without letting new contaminants in. Or you can run your chemically treated water through a taste filter once enough time has passed for the chemicals to have first killed the harmful stuff. 

 

A prudent course would be to be able/prepared to do more than one of the above methods, if not all of them; at least a couple/three.

 

Another time, we'll talk about sources and storage.