Some Ebola experts worry virus may spread more easily than assumed

&quot;I really don&#x27;t have any more confidence because the CDC has been saying &quot;it will be fine&quot; than I did when the Japanese officials said Fukushima would be fine.&quot;<p>As someone who has a small bit of background understanding of Ebola (that is, I read The Hot Zone, and then some follow-up texts related to it) and as someone who has an appreciation for the role that air travel would play in a pandemic, the lack of a proper travel quarantine procedure out of the affected west african countries is <i>stupefying</i>.<p>It is beyond all understanding that there is not a 21 day monitoring&#x2F;quarantine period enforced for air travel out of these three affected countries.<p>EDIT: I have created this change.org petition which suggests what are, in my opinion, common sense travel guidelines that would avert a possible pandemic:<p><a href="https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-and-u-s-senate-and-u-s-house-of-representatives-institute-quarantine-procedures-for-travel-out-of-countries-with-ebola-outbreaks" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.change.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;barack-obama-and-u-s-senate-and-u-s...</a>

It never ceases to amaze me how much humanity clings to the feeling that they understand something, even when history tells us that surprises are far more common than predictability. It seems to me that planning for Ebola (or a battle, or climate change, or the economy, or anything vaguely important) wouldn&#x27;t be something along the lines of &quot;Ok, we know what&#x27;s going on, no need to freak out or to spend any extra effort&quot; but &quot;Wow, these things go sideways <i>all the time,</i> let&#x27;s assume our models are limited, in ways we don&#x27;t even know yet, and throw everything we have at it; even then we will probably be lucky if we dodge a disaster.&quot;<p>I really don&#x27;t have any more confidence because the CDC has been saying &quot;it will be fine&quot; than I did when the Japanese officials said Fukushima would be fine.<p>Enough optimism for the morning...

Prof. Peter Piot - scientist who discovered Ebola in 1976 had to say the following on Ebola becoming a pandemic [0]<p><pre><code> There will certainly be Ebola patients from Africa who come to us in the hopes of receiving treatment. And they might even infect a few people here who may then die. But an outbreak in Europe or North America would quickly be brought under control. I am more worried about the many people from India who work in trade or industry in west Africa. It would only take one of them to become infected, travel to India to visit relatives during the virus&#x27;s incubation period, and then, once he becomes sick, go to a public hospital there. Doctors and nurses in India, too, often don&#x27;t wear protective gloves. They would immediately become infected and spread the virus. </code></pre> [0] <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outbreak" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;2014&#x2F;oct&#x2F;04&#x2F;ebola-zaire-pet...</a>

It&#x27;s wise to prepare. Panicking and being prepared are two very different though overlapping behaviors. The part that &#x27;bugs&#x27; (<i>sorry</i>) me the most lately is when someone claims certainty about Ebola&#x27;s chances of spreading. It&#x27;s un-scientific to speak with literal, absolute certainty in most contexts. The early guest on The Colbert Report last Thursday, for instance, was resolute in saying the chance of Ebola spreading in the United States is &quot;zero.&quot; Attempting to balance against a flip-side of sensationalism is an inadequate excuse. Sure, memories of The Hot Zone panic are alive and well. That came and went. Too many factors are at play though. Anyone who states proof of &quot;zero&quot; seems to only play a fool or propagandist (<i>unless the topic is mathematics</i>).<p>Ebola is probably high on a list of threats in the form of plausible terrorism. I&#x27;ll be glad to be wrong. There&#x27;s no shortage of it to procure. It presumably can&#x27;t be detected easily. It can survive numerous transatlantic mailings for cultivation. It has about a week delay in symptoms. Short bursts of it in dense populations where people eat&#x2F;interact would cause huge catastrophe in panic alone. That&#x27;s one factor. Hopefully, an increased response will thwart its growth altogether and we can again see it as &quot;zero.&quot;

The CDC&#x27;s communication to the public about Ebola has been extremely one-sided: they seem to only care about reducing the likelihood of panic, to the point where they spread lies and falsehoods that will eventually cause panic! As the article says, the audacity of saying &quot;At this point there is zero risk of transmission on the flight&quot; is astounding. Expressing such confidence in something that is clearly unknowable (or worse, false) is dangerous.<p>There&#x27;s no need to panic unless the authorities <i>continue</i> to downplay the seriousness of the disease, and <i>continue</i> to show their incompetence in handling contagious diseases.

It&#x27;s been known for a while:<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2672.2010.04778.x/full" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;onlinelibrary.wiley.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1111&#x2F;j.1365-2672.2010....</a>

There are at least 2 locations in Africa where Ebola has been detected but (so far) adequately contained.<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/06/354054915/firestone-did-what-governments-have-not-stopped-ebola-in-its-tracks" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;goatsandsoda&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;06&#x2F;354054915&#x2F;f...</a><p><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2014/1006/Nigeria-contains-Ebola-and-US-officials-want-to-know-more" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.csmonitor.com&#x2F;World&#x2F;Africa&#x2F;2014&#x2F;1006&#x2F;Nigeria-cont...</a><p>So, while caution is always a good idea, there seems to be some practical evidence that supports the current sense of how easily (or not) ebola spreads.<p>edit: spelling

At a minimum, we should quarantine travelers from that region when they arrive. We should require them wear a tracking device to be sure they are staying in place. It would be expensive but worth it if it catches a few infected people.<p>As a result of the spanish nurse&#x27;s infection, I think health care workers need to be quarantined too just in case the protections don&#x27;t work as we expected.<p>BTW, did you read the article about the Canadian experimental medicine that is available but not being shipped because the US exclusive distributor doesn&#x27;t yet know how to handle the distribution. It is scary that a company that stands to make a huge profit, if the disease spreads to a first world country, is holding back the distribution of a cure.

<i>&quot;Those monkeys were dying in a pattern that was certainly suggestive of coughing and sneezing — some sort of aerosol movement,&quot; Bailey said. &quot;They were dying and spreading it so quickly from cage to cage. We finally came to the conclusion that the best action was to euthanize them all.&quot;</i><p>The money line. Caged primates spreading ebola. They would have been physically proscribed from direct contact.

Please... Why can&#x27;t someone call this for what it is... The CDC&#x27;s response is highly based on political concerns.

Isn&#x27;t it obvious that it spreads through air, if it causes coughing and sneezing? How could the virus have evolved to cause coughing and sneezing? Although, using this mechanism, the virus could just spread to other surfaces and liquids through air, but not directly (for some odd reason). Of course, it&#x27;s possible that having another virus at the same time might enable this mechanism too.