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| Africa Subsaharan |
| CDC: Ebola Worst-Case Scenario Has More Than 500,000 Cases |
| 2014-09-20 |
| [Bloomberg] The Ebola outbreak in West Africa could spread to hundreds of thousands more people by the end of January, according to an estimate under development by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that puts one worst-case scenario at 550,000 or more infections. The report, scheduled to be released next week, was described by two people familiar with its contents, who asked to remain anonymous because it isn't yet public. The projection, which vastly outstrips previous estimates, is under review by researchers and may change. It assumes no additional aid or intervention by governments and relief agencies, which are mobilizing to contain the Ebola outbreak before it spirals further out of control in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. "CDC is working on a dynamic modeling tool that allows for recalculations of projected Ebola cases over time," Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an e-mail. "CDC expects to release this interactive tool and a description of its use soon." |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #12 it shouldn't be too bad outside of west Africa, because if even one case turns up there, hundreds of people will respond to suppress transmission and trace contacts. in west Africa though, there is no one left to respond. so it will spread until the proportion of the population immune to ebola is about the reciprocal of the retransmission rate, which is two. so two-thirds of the people will get this and half of those will become immune before it is done. this sort of exponential phenomena is what did in fukashima. once it got too hot, there was no way to stop it. and in my opinion, Liberia is already too hot. some of these other countries are pretty hot but it is still too close to call. |
| Posted by: rammer 2014-09-20 21:55 |
| #11 Why would they suspend communication? To suppress the 'panic'. What ed is indirectly referring to is to suppress or steal an election they stand to lose heavily in. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-09-20 18:26 |
| #10 Are we heading towards a 1917 pandemic? The big question for me is, will this spread outside of tropical Africa where all ebola transmission to date has ocurred? There seems to be an assumption it won't. Maybe the Haj will give us the answer. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2014-09-20 17:56 |
| #9 Suspension of travel and communication. Why would they suspend communication? There's no disease that can be transmitted by cell phone, and people working from home on their laptops -- or playing Candy Crush -- aren't as likely to run amok in the streets. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-09-20 17:54 |
| #8 ed, that's not funny. I do believe that Tom Clancy had something to say about this, a couple of times. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2014-09-20 13:10 |
| #7 I'm expecting a breakout in the US before the November elections. Oh, say, New Orleans or maybe Miami. Suspension of travel and communication. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2014-09-20 12:36 |
| #6 Are we heading towards a 1917 pandemic? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-09-20 11:47 |
| #5 Until we know what stops the epidemic, any number is little more than guesswork. Exactly. The actual worst-case scenario is, most of humanity will be wiped out. Perhaps the CDC has arbitrarily plucked a scary-sounding number out of thin air, because the reality sounds too incredible? |
| Posted by: RandomJD 2014-09-20 10:04 |
| #4 I love that clip! "It's the only way to be sure!" |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2014-09-20 08:29 |
| #3 What she said. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-09-20 07:56 |
| #2 It's a scale problem. The epidemic is growing faster than the resources to combat it. And that's only going to get worse, I'm afraid. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2014-09-20 04:18 |
| #1 Until we know what stops the epidemic, any number is little more than guesswork. Not clear from the article but 550,000 is by the end of January. Just 4 months away. And it keeps doubling from there. Pick a number and add a few zeros. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2014-09-20 01:20 |