An international effort is underway to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda that is believed by local authorities to have caused more than 130 deaths, with the United States triggering a public health law to limit entry from the affected region.
Ebola’s scary as hell. Ever since reading the Hot Zone I’ve been a bit paranoid about it, the book covered a bunch of ebolas history in a semi fictional way – semi-fictional in that it slaps a bit of a narrative/first person perspective around detailed journal notes, eye witness accounts, doctor reports etc. The detailed descriptions of what Ebola does to people were straight up horrifying. Like “Oh, this is what inspired zombie movies” horrifying.
The symptoms they note in the news seem downplayed, significantly. Like one of the cases described how the virus eats away at the tissue just beneath the skin, resulting in mask-like faces with little to no expressions (zombie face). How the viral load will accumulate in the stomach, leaving people short of breath/bloated, prior to essentially erupting out in bouts of projectile vomiting. Like one of the first cases of one of the strains, the guy made it to the hospital before coating the waiting room floor with bloody virus puke – they got him on a gurney, but he kept projectile vomiting, infecting the unprepared medical team.
And its persistent, laying dormant for absurd amounts of time. Like it gets on a surface, and it’ll just wait for years for a new victim to come along. Hell, even saying it’s just ‘transferred by fluids’ is a bit misleading, with Ebola being one of the reasons medical response teams developed those negative pressure puffy suits with multiple layers of protection to try and stop ANY particle of a virus from touching skin. The book even infers a nightmare scenario, where the virus could go airborne… with some likely instances of such amongst lab animals in isolated flare ups.
I mean, shit, its also in a war zone currently. Imagine how absolutely devastating a bunch of drones with Ebola-infected spray cans would be. Spray a bunch of door knobs… or enemy soldiers… with the state of international laws / norms, bio warfare is on the table for sure.
Ebola’s scary as hell. Ever since reading the Hot Zone I’ve been a bit paranoid about it, the book covered a bunch of ebolas history in a semi fictional way – semi-fictional in that it slaps a bit of a narrative/first person perspective around detailed journal notes, eye witness accounts, doctor reports etc. The detailed descriptions of what Ebola does to people were straight up horrifying. Like “Oh, this is what inspired zombie movies” horrifying.
The symptoms they note in the news seem downplayed, significantly. Like one of the cases described how the virus eats away at the tissue just beneath the skin, resulting in mask-like faces with little to no expressions (zombie face). How the viral load will accumulate in the stomach, leaving people short of breath/bloated, prior to essentially erupting out in bouts of projectile vomiting. Like one of the first cases of one of the strains, the guy made it to the hospital before coating the waiting room floor with bloody virus puke – they got him on a gurney, but he kept projectile vomiting, infecting the unprepared medical team.
And its persistent, laying dormant for absurd amounts of time. Like it gets on a surface, and it’ll just wait for years for a new victim to come along. Hell, even saying it’s just ‘transferred by fluids’ is a bit misleading, with Ebola being one of the reasons medical response teams developed those negative pressure puffy suits with multiple layers of protection to try and stop ANY particle of a virus from touching skin. The book even infers a nightmare scenario, where the virus could go airborne… with some likely instances of such amongst lab animals in isolated flare ups.
I mean, shit, its also in a war zone currently. Imagine how absolutely devastating a bunch of drones with Ebola-infected spray cans would be. Spray a bunch of door knobs… or enemy soldiers… with the state of international laws / norms, bio warfare is on the table for sure.