Ha! Steggie stake tartar. Yum.

Jan

I do not think you are off base, just low probability. If some spatter from the vomitus were to strike the eyes or lips of the woman walking by*, then she could be infected. (Apparently one of the dire things about ebola is that it only takes a small number of organisms to infect someone.) The first link I sent showed the number of other people who would likely be infected by one person. For measles, it was 18; for ebola it was 2 (approx the same as Hep C). Conventional waste treatment is sufficient to inactivate it in sewage. (It can last a long time on counters or in blood - and it seems resistant to freezing or refrigeration...pity, that.)

I wonder if one of the differences between monkey transmission and human transmission is that monkeys groom themselves with their tongues. This would mean that if the splatter got anywhere on their coats they might be infected.

I found your article on the Zaire strain in monkeys - and the theory you reported for that transmission. I also found a couple of mentions that ebola can be transmitted from pigs to monkeys without direct contact, but that article reported that droplets or fomites were also candidates for the cause of transmission and that airborne transmission had not been isolated.

Jan
*This is one of the reasons you are told never to even open a can of food that is swollen: the tiny bit of botulism that flicks off the gas-laden lid as you open it and lands on your lips can be enough to kill you when you lick your lips reflexively. Isn't biology wonderful...!

Yeah, if I'm not stomped or whipped down from a tail out of hell. And Fighting off the whole scavenging hood while my kill rots takes the pleasure out of the whole thing. Stegosaur is more like picking on my own size. Excuse me. They've turned on the Alabama game on at my Jurassic Park paddock.

The important thing is not to end up with a broken-off steggie spike stuck in your leg as paleontologists have found with one allosaur fossil discovery. But to answer your question--

http://www.chow.com/recipes/10983-classi...

I read about monkeys in a lab setting and the Zaire strain. apparently the infected monkeys were were across the room from other monkeys who were deliberately infected. They said they weren't sure but they think what might have happened was cleaning the initially infected monkeys cages by spraying them down created an aerosol with the virus that the other monkeys aspirated or went into their eyes. Makes watching the video and that woman walking by kind of whoa. It is not just a matter of the guy wearing gloves to clean up infected vomit with a power washer. The power washer is probably worse in some ways. Am I off-base?

One of the things that is not being mentioned is that this ebola outbreak is a GREAT way of testing our bioterrorist/deathplague response system. We have an organism that is very scary and which is therefore being treated as if it were more hazardous than it really is and we are seeing if our hospitals and public health systems can cope with 'ebola'. This may actually save us all when a really bad deathplague (natural or artificial) breaks out and dances its dance of Kali around the world.

Jan

Thank you for that question. I did a little more looking around: the CDC says not (but does not even refer to the rumor that some strains might become airborne). I found a nice write up in Scientific American, though:
"Here is what it would take for it to become a real airborne risk: First off, a substantial amount of Ebola virus would need to start replicating in cells that reside in the throat, the bronchial tubes and possibly in the lungs. Second, the airborne method would have to be so much more efficient than the current extremely efficient means of transmission that it would overcome any genetic costs to the virus stemming from the mutation itself. Substantial natural hurdles make it unlikely that either event will occur.

Currently, Ebola typically gains entry into the body through breaks in the skin, the watery fluid around the eye or the moist tissues of the nose or mouth. Then it infects various cells of the immune system, which it tricks into making more copies of itself. The end result: a massive attack on the blood vessels, not the respiratory system.

Even viruses that are well adapted to attacking the respiratory system often have a hard time getting transmitted through the airways. Consider the experience so far with avian flu, which is easily transmitted through the air in birds but hasn’t yet mutated to become easily spreadable in that fashion among people."

That was an interesting piece of research to do. Thanks again.

Jan

what about some of the claims I have read that suggest certain strains are airborne ?

Ebola is a poor choice for a bioterrorism weapon. What you want for that is a bug that is contagious _before_ the symptoms appear (and preferably has a long asymptomatic lag time). You would also want a disease that was more easily transmitted, such as the pneumonic version of the Plague. For a bioterrorist disease you do not even necessarily want a high fatality rate.

Jan

Do you saute it? With mushrooms and a bit of sherry?

Jan

Thank you, sfdi. Here is a chart that shows how contagious ebola is in comparison to some other known diseases:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/10/183696-c...

The mortality rate of ebola varies widely, from 20% to 90% but the WHO is giving it a rating of 50%. (I think it will be under 30% in the US, even before specific therapies are established.) This ebola outbreak has undergone many mutations and is less deadly than the prior occurrences.

Still - this was not a particularly bright thing to do. If the clip had been of him cleaning it up, wearing gloves, there would be no outcry.

Jan

But an Argentinosaurs will last you a really long time compared to a stegosaur.

Why is there Ebola-laced vomit outside, in a parking lot? Perhaps their assumptions are wrong.

Hmmm....Texas wanted secession didn't they? Maybe its time to sever the knot and let em go...and close the new international border along the Texas state lines....

OK...before you get yer panties in a wad...that was just an attempt at some dry humor...

Well, I don't really believe in zombies. I believe I really like to eat stegosaurs though.

Suppose we're not dealing with a dedicated political operator?

Suppose instead we're dealing with a megalomaniac or ideologue bent on mass murder?

That's not to say Ebola need be as effective as this real-life Floyd Ferris might suppose, nor as effective as was portrayed in motion-picture projects like "Outbreak." It is to say someone is playing, or trying to play, some nasty, deadly games.

In this we must recognize the differences between reality and imagination.

I don't think even the most dedicated political operator in the world would start a epidemic using a bug with an African morbidity of 80 percent.
I must point out that the phrase "African Morbidity" is not intended as a politically incorrect remark, but to differentiate between the quality of hospitals and climatic conditions.

Nah! Just stupid.

This is a perpetuation of a stupid, unknowing fear based in a lack of knowledge. America, except in some areas of Florida and Louisiana does not have a supportive climate like central western Africa, read that as warm, moist and dark.
Ebola is a fragile bug, only seconds of direct sunlight kills it.. It is spread by direct physical contact with fresh bodily fluids, blood and sexual contact.
What the video shows is a case of stupid is as stupid does. To be at real risk the guy with the hose would have had to have had an open cut that contacted the vomitus emeritus.

Stephen Kings The Stand jumps out. There were several others which i can't think of right off hand

What the.......

Why not pass out free samples while they're at it?

I'm a zombie movie fan of countless flicks of which there are two classes of causation: 1. supernatural hell is too full and 2. a virus infection.
The scene above reminds me of being in the first five minutes of a class two. Some jerk does something stupid and there is a spill that spreads the germs.

Could it be an act of terrorism?