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The following were "status" posts on the Facebook account of my
real-world alter-ego, Jose G. Perez.
The first is from Sunday the 26th. The second from today, Wednesday the
29th.
What moved me to send them to this list were posts here comparing the
impact of an Ebola pandemic to the plague.
The plague may have set European civilization back decades or centuries,
but I think an Ebola pandemic would have qualitatively different
results. Today there can be no talk of "European" civilization, but only
of human civilization. And I think anything on the scale of the plague,
or even within an order of magnitude or so, will not mean a setback to
current human civilization, but its collapse.
The current population density of the urban areas of industrialized
nations and those countries' ratio of food consumers to food producers
cannot be sustained in he face of Ebola or another pandemic
EBOLA: THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ISN'T REPORTING
THE REAL REASON IT IS TIME TO TOTALLY FREAK OUT
That reason is, quite simply, that 11 weeks after the World Health
Organization said there was an international public health emergency,
the epidemic is growing worse, spreading geographically with the virus
infecting increasing numbers of people.
And our politicians in the United States are not rallying people to
support an all-out fight against Ebola. Instead they are whipping up a
hysteria with an eye to the November congressional and gubernatorial
elections.
But if an all-out push isn't made to stop Ebola RIGHT NOW these may be
our last mid-term elections. The human race will survive an Ebola
pandemic, but I can't imagine how modern civilization could. Nor, if it
allows such a catastrophe, why it should.
On the African epidemic, the attention is all on the total number of
cases, now more than 10,000, and of deaths, which had almost reached
5,000 as of the last report.
But the most important figure to look at is the number of *new* cases
being reported.
The World Health Organization's "Ebola Response Roadmap Situation Report
1," says that as of August 25, there has been 3,052 cases, but nearly
half, 1,355 had been reported over the previous 21 days, for an average
of 452 a week.
Four weeks later, the number of cases had doubled and of deaths nearly
so, but so had the number of new infections in the previous three weeks.
And the most recent weekly report, number 8, gave a figure for new cases
in the previous seven days of 976, the highest weekly number yet.
That is a rate of increase in NEW cases of 14% a week. And although
almost all of the increase was in the first four reports, the number of
new cases keeps going up, and the areas affected by the epidemic in the
three countries keeps growing. In Sierra Leone, for the first time every
one of the country's 14 districts had new cases in the latest report
week. Liberia had the highest number of new cases in four weeks.
Much, much more needs to be done. We have not yet taken the first step
in turning the tide, which is REDUCING the number of new cases each week
and reducing the number of outbreaks.
Yet attention in the U.S. is narcissistically focused on the couple of
cases here, while politicians pretend that the United States can be
isolated from the epidemic through demagogic quarantines that health
experts say are unnecessary and only make things worse by punishing
brave doctors and nurses who go to the front lines to fight the epidemic
where it needs to be fought: in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
If the numbers from the World Health Organization don't freak you out,
the response of the American political class should.
* * *
LATEST REPORT SUGGESTS NEW EBOLA CASES
HAVE INCREASED TO 1,000 OR MORE A WEEK
The latest "Ebola response roadmap situation report" has come in from
the World Health Organization, and the news only keep getting worse.
As of the the October 22 report, there had been 9,911 cases; there are
now 13,676 reported, an increase of almost 40% in one week.
Not to worry, WHO's scribblers assure us:
"The marked increase in the cumulative total number of cases compared
with the situation report of 22 October results from a more
comprehensive assessment of patient databases. The additional 3 792
cases have occurred throughout the epidemic period, not only since 22
October."
In other words, the epidemic didn't get that much worse, it had been
much worse all along, but the institution in charge of the fight against
it is just now figuring it out.
Great. Very reassuring indeed.
But there is even worse news in the details of the main chart, the one
in the "Countries with Widespread and Intense Transmission" section.
According to this chart, there have been 2,966 NEW Ebola cases over the
past 21 days. That's an average of 989/week. The previous report, dated
October 22 offered a one-week total of 976, not the customary three-week
total. But the three week averages for the Oct 1, Oct. 8 and Oct 15
reports were 933, 933 and 939.
If you do the math, you will see the figure for the last week in the
October 15 report --which would be the earliest week in the current
three week count-- had to have been between 947 and 955 cases. The Oct.
22 report had 976 cases. Add 955 to 976, subtract from the 2966 cases of
the three week total in the October 29 report and you get 1034 cases for
the most recent week.
You might think, well perhaps weeks 1 and 2 of the three week period
were under-counted to begin with, and the numbers for those two earlier
weeks are now higher than even the most recent week. But if so, then the
current week's numbers will also be higher in a week or two.
So it really doesn't matter. We are now at 1000 new cases/week in the
three affected countries in western sub-Saharan Africa, or as close to
as makes no difference. And, anyways, the importance of a "round figure"
liker 1000 cases a week simply reflects the natural decimalist
prejudices of a ten-fingered species.
Yet the virus has no fingers, only victims. And the numbers climb
higher, week after week.
But worse than those raw numbers are the multiple outbreaks in the
region, and especially the new ones. The WHO October 29 update says "All
districts in Liberia and Sierra Leone have now reported at least one
case of EVD [Ebola virus disease] since the start of the outbreak." That
is a first that confirms the epidemic is still spreading, is still out
of control.
And there has also now been a case in neighboring Mali. A 2-year-old
child is dead. Because she had been cared for by many without the strict
precautions required in the case of Ebola infection, it is feared she
will be the index case in a new cluster, or perhaps major outbreak.
Each step in the spread of the disease, whether a new village, district,
urban area or country, is a step closer to an uncontrollable pandemic.
Every week that there is an increase in the number of new infections
pushes humanity closer to the precipice of our civilization's collapse.
And so be it. A civilization so racist and barbaric as go be unwilling
to stop the holocaust now unfolding in Africa does not deserve to
survive, even if it could.
So, what are we DOING about it, in the United States, the country
politicians never tire of telling us is the greatest country in the
world, a shining city on a hill, the last, best hope for humanity?
In New Jersey, a woman --a nurse-- who showed tremendous courage in
volunteering to to fight Ebola on the front lines in Africa, was ordered
jailed in a tent upon returning to her country and even after that
humiliation relented, and was allowed to continue to her home, she was
promptly slapped with a police-state diktat not to venture outside those
four walls ... or else!
That'll teach her not to make us worry about the Ebola epidemic by her
going out to actually fight it.
From high school classes a lifetime ago, lines from a poem come back to
me and mix with the holocaust I see unfolding:
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends:
Not with a bang, but the braying of jackass politicians.
They tell us to look upon the shining city on a hill, but I only see
flames from a funeral pyre.
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