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posted by martyb on Saturday November 10 2018, @04:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the shtf-scenario-4a dept.

The Washington Post is reporting that the Center for Disease Control's director is warning that the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak may not be containable. The ongoing conflicts in the region might ensure that the disease becomes entrenched instead of coming under control. If it becomes endemic to the province then it will become impossible to trace contacts, stop transmission chains, and contain the outbreak. Apparently 60% to 80% of the newly-confirmed cases have no known epidemiological link to prior cases, indicating loss of control and fewer options for prevention or treatment. High level political attention is becoming needed at this point for there to be a solution.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday November 11 2018, @05:59AM (3 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 11 2018, @05:59AM (#760585) Journal

    Please explain how a nuke is going to wipe out a virus.

    I'm not going to defend nuking innocent people here, but the key phrase is "contain the outbreak" which is a far weaker thing than wiping out Ebola. Second, kill the carriers and anyone they could spread the disease to, then that would indeed contain the outbreak.

    To the AC who apparently thinks that nuking a bunch of innocent people is a viable solution to disease containment - what happens when the disease appears again? As Runaway noted, containing one outbreak is a far cry from eliminating the disease. So the next time Ebola appears, there will be instant mass panic. Not because Ebola is a fearsome disease, but because there are trigger-happy goons with nukes who have already shown they'll use them. So instead of an outbreak which can be contained with normal, humane methods, we would start with the worst scenario, uncontrolled, massive immigration of infected populations to the rest of Africa. How many nukes will it take then to "contain the outbreak"? Hint: a lot more than one.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 11 2018, @06:30AM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 11 2018, @06:30AM (#760592) Journal

    I may not have the ebola life cycle straight in my mind - but doesn't it propagate in other simians? So, basically, we would have to wipe out all the simians in Africa, along with all the humans - AND whatever else the virus is able to infect. In other words, a true scorched earth, to get the last virus. Except, as you note, so long as a couple of infected humans remain, the disease is portable. Half a dozen refugees escape to Australia, another dozen to Asia, half a dozen more to Europe. And, of course, the US will take in another dozen. To destroy the virus, you have to burn Africa to the ground, all at one go, before any refugees take flight. No more trees, birds, large or small mammals, snakes, or anything.

    In short, that legendary nuclear winter would follow soon after. The earth itself would be uninhabitable, most likely.

    And then, irony of ironies, if we had any people in space, they eventually come back to find - THE EBOLA SURVIVED SOMEHOW!!

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 11 2018, @01:48PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 11 2018, @01:48PM (#760635) Journal

      I may not have the ebola life cycle straight in my mind - but doesn't it propagate in other simians? So, basically, we would have to wipe out all the simians in Africa, along with all the humans - AND whatever else the virus is able to infect.

      If you were trying to eliminate the disease completely via nukes, sure. But Ebola is not endemic to humans, thus, there is a far lower threshold to containing an outbreak of Ebola (at least for the first time, until the target population figures out that nukes might be used in the future) than there is to eradicate it in the wild.

      Except, as you note, so long as a couple of infected humans remain, the disease is portable.

      They'd still need to survive long enough to spread it to others. I think it's possible to make that extremely unlikely with liberal application of nukes.

      To destroy the virus, you have to burn Africa to the ground, all at one go, before any refugees take flight. No more trees, birds, large or small mammals, snakes, or anything.

      Just the parts that Ebola has shown up at. Maybe a third to half a billion people. Of course, we could just develop an easy to produce vaccine that would render the whole thing a minor health issue, but what would be the fun in that?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday November 12 2018, @06:26PM

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday November 12 2018, @06:26PM (#760995) Journal

      Dunno if anyone else replied, but not only simians. Bats, also. [cdc.gov]

      And for anyone looking for why Ebola is so hard to fight, it isn't the virus. Frontline [pbs.org] took a look at the Sierra Leone outbreak in 2014. (Which they also think they traced back to a patient zero and a bat.) Basically, it took the virus migrating to the United States for affirmative and direct international action to be taken.

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