Ebola fear factor

[debih]

We now learn that NHS 111 is being told to screen for Ebola. So, anyone ringing in with a fever, high temperature, etc., is to be processed as possible Ebola. It's autumn going on winter, we get colds, flu, FCOL! On the one hand we are ineffectively testing people at some ports, on the other we are scaring the life out of people on 111.

Thank god I didn't ring in - I'd be in quarantine by now!

High temperature, sweating but unable to get warm, vomiting, fainting, unable to stay awake!

And I know of at least five people who have had the same thing (and I only came into contact with 3 of them).

However, it has now passed and, apart from feeling a little washed out, I am fine. Fortunately it does not look like I need to be kept away from the human race.

[Kaz]

Exactly Debih, and as flu season progresses how on earth are people on the end of a phone supposed to make a judgement call on this?

[KateLMead]

Gus and I. Have had our flu jabs "important that all those who are able have them" Am I correct when I write that more people die of flu related problems than have died to date of Ebola. Your symptoms sounded very similar to mine Debih I have never been so I'll. terrible!!! Diahorea,Violent sickness, temperature, aching, went on for around three days, have had very little appetite since. Hope you are really on the mend. Imagine if we had been flying back from Holiday when that nutter shouted he had Ebola

[Suff]

Hard to get that statistic Kate. The answer seems to be yes and no. It is calculated against the background deaths every winter in the flu "zone" as they call it. It seems that flu like deaths can be as high as 10,000 more than normal background deaths in ONE winter, or can be 0 above the normal level of deaths.

So, yes, it's likely that annually flu kills tens of thousands of people, the world over, every year. Sobering thought...

[Kaz]

Yes and often flu does not go down as cause of death, rather the complications So it is hard to say, but flu does cause many deaths each year

[Suff]

Here's another thing in the fear factor. I'm reading this Reuters article.

They say WHO states that we could be seeing 5,000 to 10,000 infections per week by December. Sounds dramatic, so I tried to find out where those figures come from...

Checking the article and the ebola wiki page I can see where they are coming from. Month on month for the last 3 months, the number of cases have roughly doubled. As have the cases per day, month on month.

So with an average of 65 cases per day in August and an average of 133 cases per day in September, we would expect to see an average of 266 cases per day in October, leading to a doubling of cases by November to around 16,000.

However, if the article is right and the final figure given is from yesterday, then the average new cases, per day, for the first 13 days in November is..... 110!

In fact to reach that mythical 16,000 cases by November 1st, we will need to see an average of 369 new cases per day. Starting today.

I'll be watching this, as usual, but it does look, from a very cautious point of view, that we have peaked. Hopefully people are now so scared for their lives that they simply won't interact with others until this thing is over. If they don't, then it's going to stop.

Of course I could be wrong and things could flare up. However Nigeria still sits on the same number of cases that it did a month ago. Ditto Senegal. Numbering 20 and 1 respectively. So it seems feasible that we could finally be seeing a slow down in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone...

For once I'm being positive. However I see no way that the WHO story of 5,000 a week can be hit by December. Unless things spiral totally out of control and we're putting troops in there to see that this does not happen... Right??

[Workingman]

The WHO is playing fast and loose with its differentiated figures for Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia by taking the linear figures on the graph and mutiplying by 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 respectively. Keep dong that a few times and the the curve becomes a vertical line.

The figures from Save the Children estimate that there are 5 new victims every hour, rising to 10. That puts the weekly rise at about 1,700 per week or a total of about about 14,000 by November the 1st. Still high, still scary, but manageable if the will is there,

The problem I have with the WHO figures is that they go well past the "fear factor" and lead to a position where there is no hope, sort of - "It is so widespread I am going to catch it, so why bother trying to avoid it, I'm done for."

[Suff]

Save the Children figures are also lala land. The current infection rate is somewhere between 800 and 950 people per week.

The more interesting figure I did not post was the deaths. We now have 3 solid months of high volume figures. Deaths, as a percentage of the infected, are falling by 2% every month and have been for the last 3 months consecutively. It's down to 48%. This, for Ebola, tends to be the beginning of the end. Survivors start to arrive at this state because the virus has mutated to a form which is less virulent (but still totally lethal to nearly 50% of the infected).

Fear is good. But blind panic is not. As you say, fear of consequences v no hope at all is likely to drive figures up.

I notice that they are not talking about the survival rate of the health workers imported back into the western world. From what I see, currently, the survival rate for them is around 75%.

[Kaz]

The BBC have just interviewed an African who was one of the first through the screening yesterday - he was told that the screening was voluntary, so could have just walked straight through, although he chose to be screened

[KateLMead]

He was a doctor at that Kaz! Unbelievable! I truly believe the mentality of those who govern and makes decisions in cases like
those regarding health checks at airports, not only for Ebola but also for AIDS.. T.B. Hepatitis and other communicable diseases need brain transplants. We are already paying the price for neglecting to carry out medical checks on the above that have spiralled. Costing lives and the NHS a fortune. Now we are back footing on Ebola checks. No checks for TB etc on
Immigrants coming over from France. "Welcome" mat firmly in place costs phenomenal.