The introduction to a February 1, 2020 post:
....I've mentioned that one of my doctors has a tropical medicine sub-specialty. His verdict:
Coronavirus is virulent, but not that virulent. It's deadly but not that deadly.[*]
His advice? Stay away from areas with active Ebola and Marburg, in fact all the hemorrhagic fevers; don't smoke, lose five or ten pounds.
He tells everyone to lose 5 or 10 pounds.
He doesn't seem all that impressed with Wuhan coronavirus.
He was right. If the idiot authorities had been a little less concerned about cloth masks (vs. a virus? They knew how small a virus is, right?) and the six foot social distancing (remember the "it's spread by droplets" pitch? Total B.S. It was airborne).
If they had been less concerned with the theatrical aspects and more concerned with, oh I don't know, not discharging 80-year-old patients from hospitals into nursing homes, or, letting healthy people go outside where fresh air and sunshine with its anti-viral and vitamin D producing effects could get to work we would have saved millions who died. (although 2020 was the "year without flu", all . So maybe they would have died but their death certificates would have said influenza.
Rant over. From United Press International, May 15:
The Democratic Republic of Congo declared an Ebola outbreak on Friday as 65 people have died from the disease in the country's eastern region.
There have been about 246 cases reported, many of them in the Ituri province's small mining towns of Mongbwalu and Rwampara. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Friday that it is meeting with DRC, Ugandan and South Sudanese leaders to prepare a response to the outbreak.
Uganda and South Sudan border the Ituri province.
Africa CDC said that the DRC's national research laboratory has detected Ebola in 13 of 20 samples it has tested.
There have been 16 prior Ebola outbreaks in the DRC since 1976 when it first identified the virus within its borders. Vaccines are available for the Zaire strain. Africa CDC said that early testing indicates the current strain is not the Zaire strain.
"Africa CDC stands in solidarity with the government and people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as they respond to this outbreak," Dr. Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, said in a statement. "Given the high population movement between affected areas and neighboring countries, rapid regional coordination is essential."
The mining towns where the outbreak is centered experience a lot of inbound and outbound traffic, raising concerns about the disease spreading further.
Ebola is a severe illness with a high fatality rate in humans, reaching as high as 90% in some cases, the World Health Organization says....
Hantavirus, schmantavirus, the hemorrhagic diseases are the ones that scare me.
And regarding covid, yes the public health and medical peeps knew at the time what they should have done but didn't do.
If interested see November 2023's:
Lockdowns: The Epidemiologist and Public Health Giant Who Knew What Would Happen
