Virologist Says Ebola Will Kill 5 Million

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Sometimes, only sometimes, I hope it reaches US soil so all those assholes who say shit like "why are we helping them? that's their problem hur dur har har har!" would start shitting themselves.

[stromboli]

Sometimes, only sometimes, I hope it reaches US soil so all those assholes who say shit like "why are we helping them? that's their problem hur dur har har har!" would start shitting themselves.

And I have a feeling the same people- especially the John Hagees and Pat Robertsons- will make sure and not be anywhere near when that occurs. Benny Hin will be on indefinite hiatus.

[GrinningYMIR]

I have no idea if he's right or wrong, but this is a very chilling thought.  I thought Sierra Leone was already under quarantine.  I also don't think an effective quarantine of any country is possible.

The only way to contain a nation, even a small one, is to a) have advanced warning of outbreak, b) block all routes from country, c) sink every ship, destroy every plan to prevent it from traveling. Everyone that flees from the country would have to die just to have the chance of keeping it in, no chance if it's in a big one

It's not impossible, but it's not easy, and it's unethical to the extreme

[The Skeletal Atheist]

The only way to contain a nation, even a small one, is to a) have advanced warning of outbreak, b) block all routes from country, c) sink every ship, destroy every plan to prevent it from traveling. Everyone that flees from the country would have to die just to have the chance of keeping it in, no chance if it's in a big one

It's not impossible, but it's not easy, and it's unethical to the extreme

Depending on how extreme this is we may have to take extreme measures. That gets into an area with more international travelers and we're pretty fucked.

[GrinningYMIR]

Like I said, Quarantine would evolve to armed Quarantine, where entire regions are shut off and Kill orders are sent on everything and anything that goes in or out, just to keep it all in. Even planes and people that had traveled to the area pre outbreak would more than likely be at risk, at the very least, major cities with international ports and airways would be shut down until it was determined whether or not it was infected

[Shiranu]

Let's hope Texas is their destination.

Can we build a bubble around Austin to San Marcos, since we are more European in culture than even the liberal American states?

[stromboli]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXsPqUFsArM

[Mister Agenda]

So if you are a Liberian Christian who will get prayed for no doubt, how would you reconcile the deaths of relatives and friends, or the survival of people who aren't Christian? This is why religion is idiocy.

Otoh, African real estate may become available at a bargian price in the near future......

At the rate the African population is increasing, losing 5 million won't slow 'em down much. There will probably be around 750 million more people living on that continent by 2040.

[stromboli]

Yeah, by all means keep pumping out those kids. The dark side of that is bigger populations living in impoverished or economically fragile societies are also the perfect target for pandemics, without strong immunization and a strong health care system, viruses have a natural hunting ground. Given an airborne vector, goodbye population. If Ebola has gone airborne, good luck stopping it. I don't personally see an upside to it. And since Ebola was discovered, this was an accident waiting to happen.

[Munch]

The sad fact but one that is very much a time bomb with humanity is given how much human beings populate the planet, things like tidal waves, earthquakes tornado's, volcano's, storms, drought and disease, it will always target people, because of how many there are.
People die of natural disasters because they are there, and unless the human species was in the region of something like the Bengal tigers numbers, its unlikely for it to avoid being killed by nature.

[stromboli]

The sad fact but one that is very much a time bomb with humanity is given how much human beings populate the planet, things like tidal waves, earthquakes tornado's, volcano's, storms, drought and disease, it will always target people, because of how many there are.
People die of natural disasters because they are there, and unless the human species was in the region of something like the Bengal tigers numbers, its unlikely for it to avoid being killed by nature.

No question. Population increase is definitely a huge factor in any pandemic or as mentioned, any natural disaster. The irony is that, prior to the Renaissance, the earth's population was mostly static between high birth rates and high death rates. The microscope and other discoveries changed all that. Progress made us healthier and longer lived, and conversely gave us the situation that led to massive plague, influenza and Smallpox pandemics. You can also thank the ideology that encourages creating more children and simultaneously not providing modern sanitation and medicine to combat it.

[Munch]

It often makes me wonder how long human beings can last against nature before nature wins. We have the mind to overcoming what nature throws at us, but nature tries to adapt to get past it, like disease does with mutating. Also given the resources humans use up (I'm not a hippie but its obvious how far this goes) from the natural world, when something important runs out and can't be simulated, what then?

200 years ago, things like insulin had not yet been discovered, so anyone diagnosed with it would be dead within a short time of it happening. As a diabetic, I wouldn't be alive today if not for them discovering how to simulate insulin, so by natures own law I should be dead already, but here I am 33 years older and now questioning if its right for so many people to exist? O.o

Yeah I feel kinda shameless in that regard.

[Mermaid]

The Red Queen Effect. Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.

There is always an evolutionary arms race between parasite and host. The earth being a host and us being the parasite in this example. One gets ahead, then the other. The earth will prevail, and unless there is a seriously large and relatively sudden change in environmental conditions, so will we. Until we don't.

I doubt a virus is what will wipe out mankind.

[PopeyesPappy]

I doubt a virus is what will wipe out mankind.

Wipe us out? Probably not. Send us back to the stone age? Possibly. Kill a bunch (tens or even hundreds of millions) of people and destroy the world economy. Failing some miracle advance in medicine probably if we haven't already done it to ourselves first.

Plus let's not forget about bacteria, zombie fungus, asteroids and comets, alien invasions, gamma ray bursts, and the possible meta stability of the universe as well as virus... Lots of bullets out there. One of them might have our race if not our whole planet on it.

[Mermaid]

Oh man, I forgot about the zombie fungus.