[Rushy]

Stop changing your god-damned mind just to disagree with me.

Do you even remember your own argument? Your argument was that billions of dollars on Ebola is a waste because it doesn't do anything. I don't think Ebola will be a problem because of the money, not in spite of it.

Nothing will come of Ebola because WHO and other organizations help contain it. No one wins by sitting back and saying "we would be better off giving the midwest rubber boots."

[markjo]

Except Ebola isn't on a par with any of these diseases. You just quoted it. Malaria kills more children in 3 days than this disease has in this outbreak.

How many people do you suppose have to die before finding a cure for ebola becomes cost effective?

[Thork]

Except Ebola isn't on a par with any of these diseases. You just quoted it. Malaria kills more children in 3 days than this disease has in this outbreak.

How many people do you suppose have to die before finding a cure for ebola becomes cost effective?

It never will be. Its a niche tropical disease. Losing less than a thousand people a year on average is not worth $1bn. More people are killed on bicycles in Europe. Spend the money on cycle lanes. So many better ways to save lives. This is just political posturing by people with way too much power.

[Rama Set]

Except Ebola isn't on a par with any of these diseases. You just quoted it. Malaria kills more children in 3 days than this disease has in this outbreak.

How many people do you suppose have to die before finding a cure for ebola becomes cost effective?

It never will be. Its a niche tropical disease. Losing less than a thousand people a year on average is not worth $1bn. More people are killed on bicycles in Europe. Spend the money on cycle lanes. So many better ways to save lives. This is just political posturing by people with way too much power.

The more generations we give Ebola the greater chance we give it to mutate and became airborne. It has already happened with a strain affecting only monkeys. If you are not scared by the idea of airborne Ebola, you are retarted.

[Thork]

Except Ebola isn't on a par with any of these diseases. You just quoted it. Malaria kills more children in 3 days than this disease has in this outbreak.

How many people do you suppose have to die before finding a cure for ebola becomes cost effective?

It never will be. Its a niche tropical disease. Losing less than a thousand people a year on average is not worth $1bn. More people are killed on bicycles in Europe. Spend the money on cycle lanes. So many better ways to save lives. This is just political posturing by people with way too much power.

The more generations we give Ebola the greater chance we give it to mutate and became airborne. It has already happened with a strain affecting only monkeys. If you are not scared by the idea of airborne Ebola, you are retarted.

It has had all of the generations since the beginning of mankind to go airborne. It hasn't. If you think a new disease is going to spring up that wipes out mankind at the precise time you happen to be on earth you are either terrible at probability or suffering under the delusion that the earth was created for you and you get to see the end of it.

[Shane]

Now if you faith cough on a plane they escort you from the plane  in hazmat suits. This is ridiculous http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/13/united-arab-emirates-flight-quarantined-logan-after-sick-passengers-reported/X5DSbXfckXH9Q0PcGMsq4M/story.html 

[Rama Set]

Except Ebola isn't on a par with any of these diseases. You just quoted it. Malaria kills more children in 3 days than this disease has in this outbreak.

How many people do you suppose have to die before finding a cure for ebola becomes cost effective?

It never will be. Its a niche tropical disease. Losing less than a thousand people a year on average is not worth $1bn. More people are killed on bicycles in Europe. Spend the money on cycle lanes. So many better ways to save lives. This is just political posturing by people with way too much power.

The more generations we give Ebola the greater chance we give it to mutate and became airborne. It has already happened with a strain affecting only monkeys. If you are not scared by the idea of airborne Ebola, you are retarted.

It has had all of the generations since the beginning of mankind to go airborne. It hasn't. If you think a new disease is going to spring up that wipes out mankind at the precise time you happen to be on earth you are either terrible at probability or suffering under the delusion that the earth was created for you and you get to see the end of it.

Terrible just terrible. Ebola, if it has existed for eons would not have had as many hosts to reproduce in as it would in a virulent outbreak. You could probably increase the rate of reproduction by 100%s if not 1000%s of percent, by giving it an uncontrolled outbreak. This would exponentially increase the odds of it mutating in to an airborne strain. It would be worth 1B dollars once every few years to prevent this.

[Thork]

It would be worth 1B dollars once every few years to prevent this.

The common cold could just as easily mutate to become deadly. Maybe we should spend billions irradiating that too?

Its not going to go airborne. It infects only a few hundred victims a year on average. Stop trying to whoop up fake causes for other people's tax money to be spend on. If you want to raise money for charity (ie optional) to irradicate ebola, knock yourself out. Forced taxation is unfair as it doesn't just effect the stupid and those with no grasp of scale, probability and common sense.

[Lord Dave]

It would be worth 1B dollars once every few years to prevent this.

The common cold could just as easily mutate to become deadly. Maybe we should spend billions irradiating that too?

Its not going to go airborne. It infects only a few hundred victims a year on average. Stop trying to whoop up fake causes for other people's tax money to be spend on. If you want to raise money for charity (ie optional) to irradicate ebola, knock yourself out. Forced taxation is unfair as it doesn't just effect the stupid and those with no grasp of scale, probability and common sense.

What about insect borne?  A mosquito or flea infestation could spread it, right?

[Thork]

It would be worth 1B dollars once every few years to prevent this.

The common cold could just as easily mutate to become deadly. Maybe we should spend billions irradiating that too?

Its not going to go airborne. It infects only a few hundred victims a year on average. Stop trying to whoop up fake causes for other people's tax money to be spend on. If you want to raise money for charity (ie optional) to irradicate ebola, knock yourself out. Forced taxation is unfair as it doesn't just effect the stupid and those with no grasp of scale, probability and common sense.

What about insect borne?  A mosquito or flea infestation could spread it, right?

Spread it where? The Sahara desert stops malaria from reaching Europe. Besides the climatic conditions for malaria spreading mosquitos aren't conducive to a global pandemic. There is a reason you don't get malaria in Europe. Its not hot and wet enough. Same for most of the US. Ebola wouldn't reach us that way either.

[markjo]

It infects only a few hundred victims a year on average.

From 1976 to 1012, there were a total of 25 ebola outbreaks that infected 2397 people, or an average of 95.88 infections per outbreak.  So far, this current outbreak has infected 8399 people, or more than 3.5 times more than all previous outbreaks combined.  I think that it's safe to say that this isn't an average year for ebola.

[Thork]

It infects only a few hundred victims a year on average.

From 1976 to 1012, there were a total of 25 ebola outbreaks that infected 2397 people, or an average of 95.88 infections per outbreak.  So far, this current outbreak has infected 8399 people, or more than 3.5 times more than all previous outbreaks combined.  I think that it's safe to say that this isn't an average year for ebola.

No, it is probably a combination of weather conditions, political factors such as civil war, famine and degradation of civic amenities, and economic factors such as people having to resort to eating bats this year rather than buying better meat.

But if a disease has 100 or so cases a year and spikes to 8000 one year, that's just still within the law of averages. Its a busy year for ebola. But an outbreak of 8000 isn't something that seems incredibly abnormal. Its still a small number. If it infected 2 million people, that would be different, but I just can't see it doing that. Nothing has changed so dramatically to suggest this. And pandemic? What a billion people? C'mon, that's just silly.

It is a disease that remains localised.

8000 people is an infected village here and there. Not a global threat.

[juner]

...that's just still within the law of averages.

ITT: Thork displays his statistical prowess, or lack thereof.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

It's a global threat, in the same way that a dino-killer meteor is a threat. Just not one we need to be getting into a flap about.

Yes, we need to control it, yes, we (as a species, not 'The West') need to improve hygiene and medical facilities in Africa to prevent this happening again, but it's still less dangerous than a host of other diseases which we don't treat with the same paranoia

[Fortuna]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/world/africa/ebola-epidemic-who-west-africa.html?referrer=

The World Health Organization reported sobering new figures Tuesday about the Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa, saying the mortality rate had risen to 70 percent and that the number of new cases could reach 10,000 per week by December.

[DuckDodgers]

It's hard to compare ebola to other diseases in the attention that it gets when it has a ridiculously high mortality rate and a pretty low timeline from symptoms showing to morality.  It's a disease that can't be allowed the risk of getting out of control.

[Thork]

...that's just still within the law of averages.

ITT: Thork displays his statistical prowess, or lack thereof.

No, its just a detailed explanation is beyond the level of education I can expect to find of people casually roaming the forum and having their say.

Some populations of organisms are chaotic. Forumla : population next year = population this year * rate * (1 – population)

If the growth rate is 3.57 <  k  < 4.0, then the population of an organism will boom and bust chaotically. But it won't boom to million times as much. there is a limit.

you can read here. Tons more on the internet.
http://www.pspwp.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/starting-points/simulations-chaos/pop-growth.html

I first came across this a few years ago when trying to write chaos limits into a computer program that calculated football odds against results. An academic exercise because I am a geek. I wanted to see how chaotic the score line could be (odds of an upset) and then calculate safe bets based on a chaotic football formula.

Anyhoo, my research took me to chaos theory and examples on animal populations. Some kind of lemming, mole thing has a population that obeys no laws. The animal's growth rate is in the region of 3.57 to 4 and it sends the graphs crazy. It had been a mystery why this animal was at reasonable numbers for so long and every 20 years of so there was an infestation of hundreds of times the little bastards causing mass devastation to crops. They couldn't link it to the weather, predators or anything else. It was simply down to maths and chaos theory.

When I wrote "within the laws of averages" I meant would sit happily in a population cycle if the growth rate was 3.57-4, but frankly it would have made no sense and I get pretty tired of looking for links to explain stuff when I know I'm mostly just being trolled by someone who knows f'all about maths and won't bother their arse to read up on anything I offer to further their knowledge and make the post worthwhile. In this case Markjo.

Soooo, 8000 infections isn't an eyebrow raiser. I don't expect to see millions even if we don't do a damn thing about it. Infections will fall because of the growth rate of this organism. Many diseases are chaotic, that's why you get outbreaks. the disease works best like that. Doesn't kill everything, but can try to reach new locations over time by boom efforts. won't ever be a pandemic though.

[Saddam Hussein]

When you say "average," are you referring to the "median average," the "mean average," or the "mode average"?  I ask because those are all totally real mathematical terms and people totally refer to the median or the mode when they say "average."  So it's an important distinction to make.

[Thork]

I meant within the bounds of a biurification graph. The 'average' will be based on the background population level for that organism.

Mmmm, how to explain this.

Lets take ebola as an example. Its deadly, it kills about half its hosts. It doesn't want a stable population growth. If it does that it will infect everyone eventually. Those who survive have antebodies, many pass those to their children during pregnancy and  breast feeding and those who survive have children genetically predisposed to beating it.

Eventually it will have infected everyone and have no place to go. those who had it have antebodies and kill it, those who are new are the types who survive it anyway. It wants to kill. A postulating corpse it the best way for it to spread.

It wants to boom bust. Infect a small area, but once that area is saturated it wants a boom to infect new areas where it can continue in smaller numbers until that area is no longer of use. Then boom again.

A growth rate within a biurification graph from 3.57 (its going to be higher for a virus) to 4 is going to ensure it always stays in those boundaries. Over 4 it could go below and extinct itself. But there is also an upper limit because it must stay below 4 and so can't boom hard enough to infect the world in one go. IE, no pandemic.



so some examples.
Spanish influenza came out of nowhere (unlike ebola). Stable population growth, infected and killed millions, but disappeared. Why, everyone got it, all those left were immune. It disappeared. Extinct.

Black death (plague). Still exists but has a higher base level of population. remains relatively stable but can almost disappear and sometime boom in a massive way. (largely quelled now by modern medicine and hygiene).

Ebola. Small background population, is booming right now. Is as big as is likely to get. A pandemic will only ever be a new disease. Not an existing one.

I don't think I can explain it better. If you are interested, follow the breadcrumbs and research chaos theory in populations of organisms.

[markjo]

It wants to boom bust. Infect a small area, but once that area is saturated it wants a boom to infect new areas where it can continue in smaller numbers until that area is no longer of use. Then boom again.

Going boom in a sparsely populated rural area is one thing, but what happens when it goes boom in a densely populated urban area?