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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
The great Ebola lie — Outbreak hyped for funding & media attention
2014-12-25
A taste:
[NYPost] But the media weren’t asking skeptical questions. The next day, reporting on a separate WHO conference, a New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
 headline blared: “New Ebola Cases May Soon Reach 10,000 a Week, Officials Predict.”

The “soon” in that warning from the WHO’s Bruce Aylward was “by the first week in December.”

Well, the WHO has now reported cases for that period. Total: 529. It was no fluke; the average over the last three weeks was 440.

The global health bureaucrats certainly won’t admit that their own numbers show that the epidemic peaked before the WHO had even begun to act.

They’ve gotten away with it time and again. With AIDS, SARS, avian flu, swine flu and two past Ebola hysterias.

And they’ll keep repeating this Chicken Little game as long as the media keep falling for it and the politicians keep rewarding it with billions of dollars.

Michael Fumento is a journalist and attorney who regularly contributes to Forbes and the French science journal Inference.

Death toll in Ebola outbreak rises to 7,588 - WHO

[Ynet] The global corpse count from Ebola has risen to 7,588 out of 19,497 confirmed cases recorded in the year-old epidemic raging in West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

The virus is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone, especially in the north and west, with 315 new confirmed cases reported in the former British colony in the week before December 21, it said. These included 115 cases in the capital Freetown.

"The neighbouring district of Port Loko experienced a surge in new cases, reporting 92 confirmed cases compared with 56 the previous week," the WHO said.
Posted by:trailing wife

#11  Experience is a hard teacher, but she doesn't kill all her pupils.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-12-25 19:49  

#10  Once the people realized that the government wasn't lying to them this time, they worked out home-brew quarantine systems that seem to work pretty well.

Good to know, James. Thanks.
Posted by: trailing wife   2014-12-25 14:28  

#9  "the infected population have no interest in controlling it."

From what I hear that is not the case in Liberia, which seems to be having some success in controlling the problem. Once the people realized that the government wasn't lying to them this time, they worked out home-brew quarantine systems that seem to work pretty well.
Posted by: James   2014-12-25 13:24  

#8  The reported cases in Sierra Leone were on an exponential ramp until the first week in December. Since then, reported numbers have dropped off dramatically, indicating a peak. Question is, do the numbers indicate that the situation is coming under control, or has the reporting system broken down due to the epidemic? Time will tell.
Posted by: KBK   2014-12-25 12:46  

#7  Honestly, I think both sides are right: this outbreak is out of control AND its been hyped for funds. Part of the hype is the "we can control it, given the resources". They can't, because the infected population have no interest in controlling it.

And we HAVE been extremely lucky not to see another outbreak.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2014-12-25 12:45  

#6  I'm surprised it hasn't happened already. Off with this head!
Posted by: Raj   2014-12-25 10:30  

#5  Fat Bob, you are proving deserving of the permanent ban-hammer.
Posted by: Glenmore   2014-12-25 09:45  

#4  Jeebus, d00d now you need to be finding your grip.
Posted by: Shipman   2014-12-25 08:10  

#3  Reminds me of the old story The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Posted by: BrerRabbit   2014-12-25 05:52  

#2  I think it is youwho are dumber than a rock.


First of all Becausethe mpoint of the article is the figureshave been grossly exagerated. Is that right? Yes. It was also the case with AIDS (they wereextrapolating hubdreds of millions deaths), aavian flu (in Frnace they wee expcting cngestions at the morgues) and so on.


Second: The Sanish nurse you pobably have heard about had at a stage where she wassupposed to be contagious going in the streets, went at the beauty parlor to have her legs shaved and also to a public doctor where she dutifully waited in the waiting romm and the doctor (she didn't warn he) checked her. None fell ill. Agreed the nurse was still not at the "spitting blood stage but she was contagious.
Posted by: JFM   2014-12-25 02:37  

#1  The author of this piece is dumber than a box of rocks. This epidemic is still out of control. All it would take is one case poorly recognized in Bombay, Johannesburg, or Rio for it to blow up into a modern plague.
Posted by: rammer   2014-12-25 01:10  

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