This one is going to be more gruesome than the last forecast:
Yet another set of ominous projections about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa was released Tuesday, in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that gave worst- and best-case estimates for Liberia and Sierra Leone based on computer modeling.
In the worst-case scenario, Liberia and Sierra Leone could have 21,000 cases of Ebola by Sept. 30 and 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the disease keeps following its current trajectory, without effective methods to contain it. These figures take into account the fact that many cases go undetected, and estimate that there are actually 2.5 times as many as reported.
The report does not include figures for Guinea because case counts there have gone up and down in ways that cannot be reliably modeled.
In the best-case model — which assumes that the dead are buried safely and that 70 percent of patients are treated in settings that reduce the risk of transmission — the epidemic in both countries would be “almost ended” by Jan. 20, the report said. It showed the proportion of patients now in such settings as about 18 percent in Liberia and 40 percent in Sierra Leone.
One of the terrifying things is that many people think that what happens in Africa, stays in Africa; that Africans are somehow subhuman, and what happens there does not concern them. Ebola? That’s an African disease. Like HIV/AIDS. It’s admirable that we’re sending help now, but the time to have clamped down on the spread has long since passed. Just wonder at how much money we wasted after an event that killed approximately 3,000 Americans, compared to the help we could have given to bolster African nations’ health care systems, in an event that could conceivably kill millions of Americans, and billions of people around the globe. Thanks for all those threat assessments over the years, gentlemen. Unless it profits the defense industry, it just doesn’t matter. Brilliant.
CDC chief Dr. Tom Frieden said yesterday, “A surge now can break the back of the epidemic, but delay is extremely costly.” Isn’t that exactly what the warmongers are telling us about why we need to bomb the shit of Syria yesterday? And today. And for as many tomorrows as they can talk us into? “Nip it . Nip it the bud.”
A crisis for humanity and of course Rethugs side with disease. House Republicans are the 233 horsemen of the apocalypse.