Sometimes quality is a more important concern than quantity. Also, this is something which has the potential to spread to other parts of an already troubled region, troubles which are unknown in the United States, such as armed insurgencies. Also, Ebola is contagious as hell and painful as hell.

Also, maybe it is just hype to you because suffering in Africa is not your idea of news. Don't worry, if this is the case, and I don't whether it is with you, but if it is, you are not alone and there is a whole rank and file of bigots who think the same thing that you can go be callous with in fellowship.

Subtweeting Octavious.... Lol

Also, if this didn't get attention (not necessarily media attention, but attention of organizations like Doctors Without Borders or whatever others), it would undoubtedly turn out to be much worse.

I pray it doesn't reach Nigeria. They have affliction enough. Or to Senegal, lest it scare or threaten my friends there.

I believe Nigeria has closed off all flights from Sierra Leone.. I think that's what I heard on the radio anyway. I don't have access to my normal news sources here. Either way one country has shut down incoming flights from another to try to create a firewall. You don't just do that for no reason or because of hype

That statistical analysis is missing the spread rate which is the most important factor. At what point does the disease reach "critical mass" where it begins spreading beyond our ability to contain it.

Closing off flights from Sierra Leone may help but plenty of other nations have it.

The only specialist in hemorrhagic fever in Sierra Leone just died from it (another reason why post-secondary education should be free). Plus Ebola has to be most of the excruciating and terrifying ways to die.

This isn't media hype. Disease, not war, is what will wipe out the human race.

Your analysis, I think, does not do justice to the situation. The US is much wealthier and has much better healthcare infrastructure. This makes the overall societal toll much less for a given illness/death. The total % of resources devoted to caring for someone ill in West Africa, as well as the impact to their community, is much more likely to be significantly higher. Also, the flu disproportionately affects the elderly, whereas ebola is pretty indiscriminate. By no means am I saying it's OK that elderly people die in America, but it does not threaten the stability of the country, unlike the ebola outbreak in West Africa.

As other have mentioned. This outbreak has the additional potential to very quickly spread, not only to other places in Africa, but to other parts of the world, which would be very bad indeed.

"I pray it doesn't reach Nigeria."

It already did.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/07/29/nigeria-isolates-hospital-in-lagos-as-obama-briefed-on-ebola-outbreak/

"The only specialist in hemorrhagic fever in Sierra Leone just died from it (another reason why post-secondary education should be free)."

+1

Ah damn, I'd heard he caught it, but not that he'd already died from it. That makes the situation significantly worse.

Good point jmo. I completely left off the contagious element... Which is the most important part. I saw the 690 deaths and tried to put this in perspective with a similar population and the stat by itself was underwhelming.

I was thinking it would have spread faster there. I had no idea the population of that 15 country area was so high.

the fact its crossed 3 national borders is noteworthy enough.

Why? The borders there are not the same standard as modern countries

I don't even know what that means.

It is troubling that the finance ministry official was allowed to board a flight to go to Nigeria after exhibiting symptoms of the disease. Hopefully Liberia's new measures prevent such things from occurring again.

bo, I was commenting on Santa's concern about the virus crossing three local national borders being noteworthy. To me this would be expected.

Although now re-reading, his comment about being noteworthy was more respective to the spread vs the ability of containing.

Can the mods not do anything about Thucy's relentless stalking? Where is this new era that so many were sacrificed to establish?

I am interested though, Thucy, in how the local Jamaicans reacted to your message on gay equality? No doubt you have taken the opportunity to raise the issue in a country that so needs it raising, and won't have hidden behind arguments such as politeness as the rest of us might.

As far as ebola goes there is no reason to be at all concerned at the moment.

"As far as ebola goes there is no reason to be at all concerned at the moment."

Unless you live in Sierra Leone...

I would bet that you wouldn't have made that same statement if a similar disease broke out in say Iowa or Wales.

And that, I guess, was Thucy's point, i.e. some people are apparently incapable or unwilling to have some compassion for their fellow humans in Africa.

Still even with Thucy's point, the main concern for West Africa should be AIDS where average of 24,000 deaths/month with the same population vs 100/death/month for Ebola. They are both contagious.

@ oscar

Thucy's point is as crass and ridiculous as he is. As ag rightly points out even in the country most heavily impacted Ebola is a relatively small cause of death. On a global scale it is totally insignificant.

Well Octavious given that your own countries government has just declared Ebola a grave threat to Britain, I would find it ironic indeed if your own willful blindness to the rest of the world ended up endangering your own life, though no less tragic and needless for its irony.

As to homophobia in Jamaica, I am blessed in that my host is an open minded man and tends to agree with or at least respect my position. If your suggestion is that to be consistent in my beliefs I am obligated to engage every Jamaican person I pass in the village on the issue of gay rights, then you really don't listen to what I profess. What good would it do me or gay people to get myself lynched by fruitlessly implying that I myself am gay in the world's most homophobic country?

But, I have tried to subvert it in a more constructive way. Homophobia is, at root, made possible by sexism and traditionalism, and so when I have been around large groups of Jamaicans at social affairs I have made a point to confound their expectations of me as a young man, that is, I've made it clear for instance that I'm not in Jamaica to fuck Jamaican women, much to the men's puzzlement, and I've made it clear similarly that trading a white woman for a local woman (who is standing right there) is not my idea of good matchmaking, among other things.

Gays are hated on the basis of gender binary, that is, patriarchy, expressed through the medium of conservative Christianity. Being gay is so horrific to them because it is a man becoming like a woman, it is a deviation from the patriarchal family structure of dominant man, submissive woman, and dependent family members.

So if a foreigner comes in and shows that in real life you don't have to, as a young single man, be obsessed with conquering a woman and monopolizing her to create a family which I also possess, well, then it may do a tiny bit to undermine the basis of this homophobia. But I'm under no illusions; it is exorbitantly difficult to influence a culture as an outsider. Still on the other hand, this has not stopped foreign influence from being a major driver of change in everyone's culture worldwide and throughout history.

This is of course because no one is an island unto themselves, neither Jamaica nor Britain, and if Chikungunya can spread here, Ebola can spread to you. I wish you luck on your island.

@Octo

"Thucy's point is as crass and ridiculous as he is. As ag rightly points out even in the country most heavily impacted Ebola is a relatively small cause of death. On a global scale it is totally insignificant."

You seem to determine the impact of the Ebola outbreak completely based off the number of deaths it has caused. That's silly and to be honest rather ignorant IMO.

The more significant issue is the number of potential deaths the outbreak might cause when handled inappropriately or not at all. Due to the high contagiousness of the disease and counterproductive superstitions of ill-informed local people it has potentially a huge death toll.

What you seem to consider an overreaction, or a hype even, is in fact an entirely appropriate response to mobilize action locally and abroad to help contain the disease before all those potential deaths actually occur. As the outbreak indeed seems to be getting somewhat under control now this response seems to have been rather effective so far.

Ah, so you make your stand by leading by example, which in practice means carrying on as normal and hoping that progressive behaviour is absorbed through osmosis? I take my hat off to your genius. We'll make a Conservative out of you yet!

Whilst it would bring me some comfort to learn my ironic death brought you some amusement, I fear it is unlikely. A good rule of thumb is that if the existence of a thing will not change your behaviour one iota, then it's not worth worrying about. I would be interested to know what impact Ebola will have on your life over the next week?

@ oscar

You misunderstand. I am not criticising governments or health agencies. I am entirely happy with the reaction of our elected officials and experts. It is because of them that I can rightly be completely unconcerned. If I thought they were making a hash of it I may indeed become concerned and it could well be a problem worthy of my attention. But they are not, so I am at ease.

@Octo

Ah okay. That makes sense then. There's still the minor issue of (democratic) governments tending to, at least in theory, not care about something unless their citizens care about it, but yeah, the threat of you potentially caring if they screw up should be sufficient for you to feel good about yourself in this matter. You are a true altruist. That much is obvious.

@oscar

I take it you are currently taking medical training and will be flying out to ground zero to join the ranks fighting Ebola, then?

The world is not short of problems and I fight those battles where I feel I can make the biggest impact and which are important to me. The difference I can make to Ebola is essentially zero, nor do I believe it is a major problem, nor does it have any personal significance. It is essentially Thucy's issue of the day which will be talked about for hours on this site with nothing actually done about it. If the illusion that you're doing something is that important to you, by all means go for it. Forgive me if I do not join in .

@Octo

Like I said previously: "Ah okay. That make sense then."

And no, I can't say that I can, have or will do anything substantial to alleviate this Ebola outbreak either, nor do I have any illusions to the contrary.

As for the Ebola outbreak as a conversational topic on this site... I've seen worse topics. If you rather talk about koolaid drunks then there is a thread for that as well. You have no obligation to read or post in this thread for which, in case you hadn't noticed, the subject is Ebola and as such it's rather silly for you to criticize in this thread that anyone, including Thucy, is venting their opinions about it. What's next for you? Are you by any chance planning to visit a museum and complaint about how its visitors seem preoccupied with art?

If you believe that concern and discussion are material acts in themselves, then you have a somewhat primitive view of what constitutes human behavior - as if ideas have never shaped history. This isn't the issue of the day any more than climate change, non-proliferation, homophobia, sexism, greed, or questions of identity are the issues of the day, which is to say, they all are.

We get it, how dare we burden you, and your important personal affairs tending to your accounts and your reputation in the United Kingdom, with questions concerning global health, global peace, global justice. What trifles they are, after all. Such lofty ideals.

Don't forget that the United Kingdom is a province of the loftiest kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, and no one through any protestations of self-righteous apathy can successfully renounce their citizenship. The tax will be collected whether you can afford to pay it or not, so you'd best do what you can now to save up, lest you find yourself on the wrong side of natural law.

What I find interesting about you is that you seem to expend, at minimum, a significant fraction of your moral, intellectual, and rhetorical resources and energies on these supposedly irrelevant global issues as I do, all in the name of insisting you shouldn't have to. How else did you end up opening a thread on a topic you supposedly don't care about?

Or is your interest more toward being petty and confounding myself and others like me who do care? Because if that is the object of the concern you demonstrably display here, rather than the issues themselves, I say your personal affairs need some re-prioritizing.

Of course, "tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner," and I assume that there is a perfectly human explanation for this apparently contradictory, or worse, apparently mean-spirited behavior, but since you have so far not shared such an explanation with us, we are left to wonder.

I have been the object of critique and ridicule on this website for being willing to provide personal background and shed some light on my personal motivations for my lifestyle and ideas, but I do not regret sharing it, because I know that for cooler heads who also happen to disagree, it humanizes me in a way even my words about the brotherhood of humanity cannot.

And when I wished your country luck with Ebola, I was sincere, just as I wish all the world luck against the upcoming global plague, whenever it strikes us - for it is a when, and not an if.

@Thucy

"How else did you end up opening a thread on a topic you supposedly don't care about?"

Who are you addressing? I was the one who began the thread -- and the intention was to understand the scope of the problem. You of all people should understand that 'popular' opinion of an issue is not always accurate.

The purpose of the thread was because I cared to see some perspective.

As an individual, if I'm to make a difference somehow, someway in the world, I'd like to make as much of an impact with my limited means as possible. With the world full of problems, each person is responsible to pursue this. It's fully reasonable to assess and compare disasters.

Even if the intent is not to improve the victims well-being, there is still great value of individuals to protect their family. Family is the primary responsibility of society; and then it extends outward as far as means allow.

oh, and I liked this paragraph of yours:

"Don't forget that the United Kingdom is a province of the loftiest kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, and no one through any protestations of self-righteous apathy can successfully renounce their citizenship. The tax will be collected whether you can afford to pay it or not, so you'd best do what you can now to save up, lest you find yourself on the wrong side of natural law. "

I was addressing my perennial companion Octavious of course

It's amazing. Anyone would think that it was me that attacked Thucy's character instead of good old Thucy starting things by using an Eboloa outbreak to make reference to what he thinks is my world view. I came to this thread to answer ag's legitimate question regarding media hype. Everything else has been defending the attacks on my character that followed. Is Ebola a poor topic of conversation? No, which is why I was here giving my opinion on it as requested by the OP. Saying the comments by those who "care" will ultimately be meaningless to any anti-Ebola goal is not a criticism of the thread itself.

There are many things that I care about. There are many things that inspire even cynical old me. But they are not people saying how awful something and then congratulating themselves on how caring they must be to think so. What inspires me are people willing to make long term commitments that make a real difference to people's lives.

On could imagine the husband whose wife developes a long term illness and who sees the life he imagined living shattered. The man who refuses to let this bring him down, refuses to entertain a notion of going off on his own, and instead works his arse off to make the life he does have with his wife the best it can possibly be.

One could imagine the family man who falls victim to the disease of alcoholism. But he refuses to let it defeat him, and drag his family down with him, and instead fights it... and defeats it... and pulls himself back to the position where he can by a great father and husband.

One could imagine the local man who sees many problems with his community and enters local politics to try and make them right. Who gets countless attacks from those against him, has his name and reputation dragged through the mud, but refuses to give in because he is fighting for his community and he'll be damned if anyone stops him.

It is people like that who have my respect. It is people like that who I celebrate and hold a great deal of admiration for.

There used to be a lot of such people round here. Not so many now.

I hope you can go back and see that it was not an attack on your character, in fact I even implied I should like to know your true character better.

Anyway, I'd like to pursue the point - and this question is not leading, I mean simply to get an answer: you said you came here to answer a question about media hype. Do you then consider the question of whether the media is afflicted with the disease of sensationalism as more important than the question of an actual disease threatening a vulnerable region?

I invite you to answer sincerely, I am not trying to paint you into a corner.

As to your examples of people you respect, I'm glad you have that respect; I share it. But why not extend the respect from "local" men to all men? From a man who lives for his family to a man who lives for his people?

The people you described are not doing anything nefarious or short-sighted if their efforts are in the vein of service to all, and not to service to they and theirs. If I fall seriously ill, I know my family will take care of me, and as they should, because if not them, then my friends. If not my friends, then the society at large (ostensibly).

And so addressing needs close to home is not just respectable, it is noble. But if your capacities and blessings exceed the needs of those close to you? What then? Cultivate new and greater so-called needs? Or address the needs of those further away? Why do you seem not to be able to make this last step? Is it so radical, so naive-sounding, that you cannot accept on face-value that everyone deserves a basic level of respect, whoever and wherever they are?

This is no platitude. It extends to the here and now. I am trying to show you even as I disagree that I still respect you, and I see myself in you. I of course also respect myself - I would be a sick man indeed if I did not.

And so because I respect the citizens of countries in West Africa, I am as concerned with the spread of disease there as I would be with the introduction of such a disease to my childhood neighborhood. Or at least I should be. Would you not agree?

Your response to this is that you can do nothing for then in West Africa, and that you feel yourself more useful where you are. This is a perfectly reasonable thing. But, there are two things not to forget, or else this stance becomes unreasonable: first, being relatively impotent to help is no excuse for failing to use your limited power, however impotent it is. And second, even if your resources are truly and literally exhausted and you have nothing to spare for a concern such as Ebola - not a suggestion, not a cent, not a tear, not a mere moment - then fine, if this is really true. But it cannot in this case be true: you have already heard of it, already spared some thoughts and some moments. So make something of those moments, then. Don't use the moments to dismiss and distance the problem. Use them to help; and if you cannot find a way to help with your words, to at least sympathize.

You may say such words are empty, but I say this world could do with some more sympathy, even just words of sympathy. How many words of sympathy are we likely to hear on the streets of Jerusalem? Oh what just a few trifling words of sympathy would do for a land like Israel and Palestine! Alas, the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot spare them. I suppose they haven't the time.

"There are many things that I care about. "

Like the beer tax.

Your self-justification is a bunch of rot. You've even criticized Nigee for participating in local politics so don't give me this crap that you respect people who participate in local politics.

By the way I know the first two, but was fasces involved in local politics? Lmao his name was "fasces" and he used to brag about being so lazy he would even rise from his bed to drink water all day. Was it maniac or something?

We should all congratulate Thucy for using so much text (639 words) to say so little.

639 words is nothing. Obiwan Obiwan wrote a 10 page tome that said nothing like last week.

Thucy should shave his pubes out of respect and moral support for West Africa. It would be a very convincing symbolic gesture seeing as how he keeps referring to West Africa a "vulnerable region".