Ebola Easing In Liberia

[Zippyjuan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/p...ng-in-liberia/

Aylward said the recent decline in new cases “is real” and is confirmed not only by the scores of empty beds in many clinics, but also by a decrease in laboratory confirmed cases and in burials. As recently as a week ago, local officials expressed alarm that the virus was spreading exponentially. But Aylward said it appears that strategies such as tracing and monitoring those who had come into contact with Ebola patients, the adoption of safe burial practices and an aggressive public awareness campaign were working.

The important takeaway, he said, is that the “classic Ebola control strategies can work at scale.”

WHO officials also released new numbers about spread of the disease globally. The health organization has confirmed 13,703 confirmed cases so far, up from 9,936 on Oct. 19.

For many weeks now, a truism of the Ebola epidemic is that it moves on virus time while the world moves on bureaucratic time. Now there’s a twist on that phenomenon: The virus is shifting locations, fading in some places while flaring in others, and that is challenging global health officials to find a way to be more nimble in their response.

More at link.

[Anti Federalist]

“Hard to know what’s really going on,” said Joshua Michaud, associate director for Global Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Maybe it’s only people looking for good news in an ongoing crisis, maybe reporting is worse than ever and we just don’t have good understanding, maybe people are staying away from the treatment units and cases aren’t being counted, or maybe community behaviors actually have changed in the face of the mounting toll to the point where transmission has been reduced.”

[Zippyjuan]

The number of dead bodies is down as well.

[Anti Federalist]

The number of dead bodies is down as well.

Thank God for that.

[FindLiberty]

Numbers of cases / dead body count dropping = very good news!

[tangent4ronpaul]

confirmed 13,703 confirmed cases so far, up from 9,936 on Oct. 19.

ummm... so 11 days ago there were just under 10,000 cases total and in the last 11 days there are an additional ~4,000 cases

That's not my definition of "easing"... That's my definition of out of control wildfire.

Clearly my NewSpeak dictionary is out of date.

-t

[luctor-et-emergo]

Well clearly there isn't really good verifiably information but it appears as if it's not getting worse... Maybe we can pick that as a conclusion ?

// I don't know about those numbers. I'd guess it's not a real accurate number. A near 50% increase in cases over 2 weeks would certainly be a complete out of control situation.

[Zippyjuan]

ummm... so 11 days ago there were just under 10,000 cases total and in the last 11 days there are an additional ~4,000 cases

That's not my definition of "easing"... That's my definition of out of control wildfire.

Clearly my NewSpeak dictionary is out of date.

-t

Actually it was the data which was out of date;
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29822303

The latest WHO figure of 13,703 cases is a significant leap on its previous situation report on Saturday, which showed cases rising above 10,000 for the first time - to 10,141.

But Dr Aylward, the WHO's assistant director general, said that this increase was due to data being updated with old cases, rather than new cases being reported.

[CaptUSA]

This is pretty standard for Ebola. It tends to run itself out pretty quickly, although this is the longest one yet.

But, when it pops up again, watch out. Each outbreak is a little different, but the virus seems to be getting stronger with each one.