new Ebola cases in Zaire

[Soderlund J Marcus]

Chad Irby (cirby at magicnet.net) wrote:
: Vampire Junction <vampires at freenet.ufl.edu> wrote:
: > Actually, the labs were located in Reston, Virginia, NOT Washington
: Ummm... Reston, VA is about 15 miles from downtown Washington, D.C.

I posted a very similiar "reply" just before 'Vampire Junction', and did 
that to point out that the originial journalist wrote that the primate 
center was *in* Washington (and did not even bother to write Washington,DC)
instead of in the burbs. I am certainly very aware how close Reston is to 
the DC diamond -- I live in Virginia burbs myself, in Fairfax Co. (That 
is, while I'm not attending university). Just to point out bad 
journalism, including the other blatant mistake, which was the reference 
to the movie "Outbreak" which, while drawing upon an *Ebola-like* virus, 
is *not* directly based on the Virginia incident -- that would be Richard 
Preston's "The Hot Zone". Furthermore, if you came from the DC area, 
you'd know about the pride people take in where exactly they live, and if 
Reston,VA is said to be *in* Washington, that *is* a stupid mistake. Why 
not just write "...in Reston, VA." or, if you'd like to stress the 
proximity of the capital, "...in the Washington, DC area.".

: -- in disease vestor terms, that's a blink of an eye.

No, no, no. *That* is the point. If an outbreak were to happen *in* DC, 
the consequences could easily be more catastrophic if the situation got 
out of hand. Reston isn't exactly a tightly packed metropolitan area.

:  Zaire is having cases spread over hundreds of miles of wilderness.

If "cases" refer to host animals (not human), you might be correct, 
although "has had" might be a better choice of words. Possibly infected 
villagers who have fled the city, might flee for hundreds of miles, but I 
wouldn't think so -- a high fever, dizziness, nausea, weakness and other 
symptoms will soon stop you from running. However, your prediction might 
turn out to become true before long.

: If a high-transmissivity (i.e., airborne on the order of the flu) version
: of Ebola shows up...

It already has. In Reston. But no humans were apparently affected in any 
way, although antibodies were found in their blood. So Ebola Reston 
should be (at least for now) ineffective in humans.
But fear not for Ebola. Other emerging diseases that we haven't found yet 
could prove to be more fatal and/or virulent. And then there are the BW 
genetical engineers and terrorists... (See for example the recent CW 
terrorist attack in a Japanese subway system [I don't know what was used, 
but dozens of dead and a thousand injured would seem to suggest tabun, 
sarin or soman]). IMHO we should stop worrying so much (but not stop 
worrying) about Ebola & Co. and focus on the "emerging threat" of BCW 
terrorism, much easier and covert to accomplish than an Oklahoma bomb.
And "the other case", the World Trade Center bombing was also performed 
by fucked up, poorly funded, icompetent terrorists. 400 kg of sarin 
introduced into the ventilation systems would inflict casualties within 3 
minutes, and kill all 20'000 people in the WTC in less than 5 minutes, 
unavoidably and silently. And if you don't like to smuggle the stuff into 
the States (which, by the way, shouldn't be too hard), you can always dig 
up some from our very own stores, including the nerve gas dumped a few 
hundred miles off the Florida coast into the sea. (Already a fantastic 
example of "eco-terrorism" -- let's all shout a hooray for Uncle Sam).