Ebola Outbreak

[york away to this!]

do they still do stoning, or has that been banned for being just a bit too nasty?

 

[Wio Gumflapdinand]

Not in terms of Ebola, possibly in terms of being beheaded.

And sharks.

And terrorists

And ebola infected terrorist sharks

 

[andyhinch]

And sharks.

And terrorists

And ebola infected terrorist sharks

Has anyone mentioned ebola infected alien terrorist sharks yet, we know thier out there, frightening when you think about it.

 

[tommybooth]

Are we signing him in the Jan window?

 

[BlueHammer85]

And sharks.

And terrorists

And ebola infected terrorist sharks

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

A more learned colleague of mine with knowledge in the scientific has advised that as a disease becomes more widespread and contagious it becomes less potent for some reason...don't ask me...I have not got a scooby

Because it's already killed the more susceptible. Like a lot of this stuff (Spanish flu, bubonic plague) it stops killing because it has no one left to kill.

I don't think it's to do with our susceptibility, it's natural selection.

A virus that kills off its host in an hour won't have much chance to spread and infect others.
A virus that kills off its host in a week will have a much better chance of being passed to other hosts.

As such, the more potent and malicious viruses/bacteria slowly become more scarce and the less potent become more abundant. Whereas a complex species like ourselves would take millions of years to produce noticeable differences in a population, virus/bacteria have comparatively short generation spans and so speciation/mutation occurs much faster.

The longer Ebola is perpetuated for, the more benign it must become if it wants to spread effectively.

 

[bobmcfc]

Booked a holiday for January a couple of months back to go to Sharm, should I be worried?

Not in terms of Ebola, possibly in terms of being beheaded.

You are alright in Sharm as the security is very high. Checkpoints, barriers, all hotels have metal scanners and resort security carry handguns. I'd be more worried of being mithered to death by the street sellers and dying from the raging shits you'll get from the dodgy food

 

[mammutly]

A more learned colleague of mine with knowledge in the scientific has advised that as a disease becomes more widespread and contagious it becomes less potent for some reason...don't ask me...I have not got a scooby

Because it's already killed the more susceptible. Like a lot of this stuff (Spanish flu, bubonic plague) it stops killing because it has no one left to kill.

I don't think it's to do with our susceptibility, it's natural selection.

A virus that kills off its host in an hour won't have much chance to spread and infect others.
A virus that kills off its host in a week will have a much better chance of being passed to other hosts.

As such, the more potent and malicious viruses/bacteria slowly become more scarce and the less potent become more abundant. Whereas a complex species like ourselves would take millions of years to produce noticeable differences in a population, virus/bacteria have comparatively short generation spans and so speciation/mutation occurs much faster.

The longer Ebola is perpetuated for, the more benign it must become if it wants to spread effectively.

You're right to a point. But a virus can be lethal and inclusively fit.

One thing I am sure of is that the Government response to a potential pandemic is already in full swing. The screening at airports is pointless in terms of biological infection control, but it does provide a very visible rationale for the forced quarantine of potentially infected people.

The biggest risk from Ebola in western Europe at the moment is social and economic. It would only take a handful of cases in a few counties like France and England for these secondary effects to kick in. We nearly saw it happen with swine flu a couple of years ago,

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

Because it's already killed the more susceptible. Like a lot of this stuff (Spanish flu, bubonic plague) it stops killing because it has no one left to kill.

I don't think it's to do with our susceptibility, it's natural selection.

A virus that kills off its host in an hour won't have much chance to spread and infect others.
A virus that kills off its host in a week will have a much better chance of being passed to other hosts.

As such, the more potent and malicious viruses/bacteria slowly become more scarce and the less potent become more abundant. Whereas a complex species like ourselves would take millions of years to produce noticeable differences in a population, virus/bacteria have comparatively short generation spans and so speciation/mutation occurs much faster.

The longer Ebola is perpetuated for, the more benign it must become if it wants to spread effectively.

You're right to a point. But a virus can be lethal and inclusively fit.

One thing I am sure of is that the Government response to a potential pandemic is already in full swing. The screening at airports is pointless in terms of biological infection control, but it does provide a very visible rationale for the forced quarantine of potentially infected people.

The biggest risk from Ebola in western Europe at the moment is social and economic. It would only take a handful of cases in a few counties like France and England for these secondary effects to kick in. We nearly saw it happen with swine flu a couple of years ago,

It can indeed, which is why Spanish Flu and the like were such a nightmare, they found that happy medium of infectivity and lethality.

I don't think Ebola is quite in the middle ground, mortality rate is too high and infecting relies on people being symptomatic.

Which is why I think it has to move in that direction of becoming less deadly and better at moving, but if it does we could be in a spot of bother. I'm not a virologist though, so wouldn't claim to know how likely that is. I just play a lot of Pandemic.

 

[nobody can eat fifty eggs]

Don't know if it's been mentioned on here but the ebola virus can live on in a survivors sperm months after being treated for the virus.