Ebola 4

So - more people are getting scared about it.  Including the BBC; which  to my amazement has this as their top headline right now: Ebola crisis: Liberia 'faces huge surge' says WHO.  Not the #1 Most Read article on the Washington Post right now; New Royal Baby!!

The BBC goes on to say "Ebola is spreading exponentially in Liberia, with thousands of new cases expected in the next three weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) says."

I'm still not quite buying the "exponentially"; but yes, this sounds more serious.  As SquashPractice pointed out in a comment on the previous post here, Wikipedia Ebola page now does have the graph I've been looking for (new deaths and new cases / day); and it does have an "up curve", which, yes, is more scary - there are two unrelated phenomena which could account for that, without meaning Ebola is actually becoming more aggressive.  Which is not to say it's not; you understand.

The two factors; A) The reporting of new cases has possibly/likely increased dramatically in the past weeks. B) The disease is expanding- think of an ever increasing circle as it moves into the population. There will be many more infections on the circumference of the larger circle.   That's to be expected; and to me is not any more threatening than previously.

It was always expected the cases would expand, and accelerate; no mutations required.

So; bad, but not OMG we're all going to die.  The "thousands of new cases", however, do mean the risk to spread to distant cities will go up rapidly in the near future.  Keep paying attention.

So, now the bad Ebola news.  What they're not telling us.

One factor, reported in Wikipedia and nowhere else at all, so far as I can tell; the small, unrelated outbreak in the DR Congo?  Is less small; and not unrelated.

"On 20 August, several people, including four health care workers, were reported to have died of Ebola-like symptoms in the remote northern Équateur province, a province that lies about 750 miles north of the capital Kinshasa.[102] By 21 August, 13 people were reported to have died with similar symptoms."   So - at least 20 dead in DR Congo, including 4 health workers, not the 13 the WHO reports.

And: "Blood samples were sent for testing and on 24 August it was reported that the samples were positive for Ebola; one tested positive for the Sudan ebolavirus, which is a different species of ebolavirus than the one responsible for the West African outbreak; the other tested positive for a mixture of the Sudanese and Zaire species, the species that is responsible for the present outbreak in West Africa.[104][105]"

Italics mine.  Ok, that's scary, from the evolutionary standpoint.  2 virus strains are mixing (I don't use the word "species" here, I don't think it's correct.)  That means- lots more chances to evolve, now.

And one more; this is my own guess, unsupported by any official statements; I think the WHO knows, and is not telling- that the Ebola virus has already mutated to become more transmissible.

Take a look at the photos in the BBC article.  The health workers are wearing isolation outfits designed to prevent breathing in contaminants.  Which, they tell us officially, does not happen.

And also from that article: "Transmission of the virus in Liberia was "already intense", and taxis being used to transport infected patients appeared to be "a hot source of potential virus transmission", the WHO said."

Taxis?  Also - not a big source of "direct contact with body fluids".  But; if the virus can now survive in dried sweat or sneeze droplets?  That would do it; and I do think - it has already happened.

Keep paying attention.