The devastation in those nations suffering from the virus might disagree with you on this
Canada and Australia following North Korea’s lead on Ebola
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
The devastation in those nations suffering from the virus might disagree with you on this
Well, certainly the nations suffering from the virus are the absolute height of scientific acumen.
Their circumstance is reality right now.
Considering that there is not curative treatment that is commonplace in the market and the effects are remarkably lethal, questioning the science of those nations is not terribly relevant
Considering that there is not curative treatment that is commonplace in the market and the effects are remarkably lethal, questioning the science of those nations is not terribly relevant
Does that mean we should follow their methods of trying to contain ebola, like washing the dead by hand, exiling the relatives of the diseased from the village (which causes them to go to other villages) and, for all I know, propitiating the gods?
Or should we follow the protocols established by medical expertise?
Would you be satisfied with a 21-day quarantine for anybody who has possibly been exposed?
The medical expertise is feeling it's way through this right now. Stick with what is known and respect the severity of the consequences.
The events in West Africa underscore certain things that we do know, namely the disease is highly infectious, easily transmittable and very lethal.
I say err on the side of caution until such time that more is known.
I'm OK with the 21 days, provided it is not in our country. Prove you are risk free then maybe we will let you in.
So, 40-day quarantine? That was the original timeframe, it's where the word "quarantine" comes from.
I mean, if we're going to ignore medical science and go with the practices of people who thought disease was caused by evil spirits or the imbalance of the four bodily humours, might as well go whole hog.
Why 21 days?
On the contrary, I am wholly recognizing that the medical science does not know about ebola.
As far as the practices are concerned, this is where the med science indicates the methods on which the virus can be passed from (living) person to person.
I chuckle when I think that all of the folks that go on about how there is no need for travel bans, quarantines, etc would be the first in line to run as fast as their legs can carry them away from an individual or environment that has ebola infected persons
Says who? Answer: the same medical scientists you don't trust when they tell you ebola is non-communicable when the alleged victim is non-symptomatic.
If you don't trust medical science on the latter, why trust it on the former?
what's to trust...this disease in our type of population/culture has never been studied, they are wet behind the ears.
In fact in Africa in general it hasn't been studied much within the last decade. 30 years ago, this was predicted and we have handled it better than predicted because medically we are more sophisticated now than they could have known a quarter of a century ago when the book was written
Ebola out breaks used to be handled quite differently then than now. They would place all ebola victims into a hut, burn the hut and disappear into the jungle until it went to ground. It was a highly effective way of containing the disease and stopping further communication.
So while you can say medical science is quite sophisticated, it isn't when we don't know what we are dealing with. And we still don't. You can place all of your hope and trust in science but the reality is we can only draw conclusions from what we know and in a year when we know more those conclusions may well change. Thus it is best to err on the side of caution with a disease which we know to be highly communicable and deadly.
And if not quarentined, how would they know that a sudden fever is the symptoms and not just the flu?
We know that people can't transmit virus if it was never there in the first place. There was never any confirmation that she was infected, no clinical signs, no positive diagnostic tests, including some very sensitive PCR tests that can detect as little as 10 viral RNA copies per reaction. The PCR test uses 41 reactions, each one multiplying any viral RNA present. To put that in perspective, a patient who dies with confirmed Ebola disease by antigen detection will produce on the order of 100,000,000 viral copies in a ml of blood. Those who survive ebola are producing 100,000 copies per ml of blood during the infection. Further, we know that fever onset occurs before a person is infective. She had no confirmed fever, just one elevated reading with an inaccurate IR thermometer after being held in a security room in an airport for many hours. That is not a clinical definition of fever.
No symptoms, and no positive diagnosis after multiple tests. The risk of such a case spreading ebola is negligible. If you calculated the risk to the population, based on the limits of detection of the tests, it would be the same risk for myself infecting people here in PEI, and I've never been to any place where ebola is endemic, or any place where ebola has been documented.
Absolutely she is 100% right, the quarantine imposed on her was political, and not backed by anything other than politicians pandering to mob rule. Which is the $hittiest of the $hitty methods one could use to justify removing liberties with.
At least by people who think there haven't been any significant medical advances since 1938.
But it's interesting how nobody has answered my question.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the medical practitioners back in 1938 had the height of knowledge and technology at the time.
Too bad it wasn't up to snuff for Mary and those she impacted