The Future of Cruising Post-Outbreak

[barnakiel]

The good news is that in most cases the patient dies before getting there.

I can easily imagine some nations (e.g. Kiwis or Aussies) simply banning any incoming traffic, boat or no boat.

So make sure your food and water supplies last you there and BACK.

Cheers,
b.

[Delancey]

Coast Guard sector issues new Ebola protocol - SFGate

States granting quarantine powers-http://www.boston.com/health/2014/10...GNN/story.html

[wellin]

Mvbmm
Ñ

Sent from my SCH-I415 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by biker6977

You do realize that it has entered the US don't you? Eric Duncan in TX brought it from liberia- they are now "observing" the people he came into contact with. As of yet I don't believe anyone else has it.

Yes, I know and a few being observed with mild symptoms but might not be ebola. Duncans direct contact were finally quarentined but who knows who they contacted. It apparently takes 21 days to show symptoms, so we don't know yet if it was contained.

[barnakiel]

You guys do not read the news? Why not? News are good for you!

In Madrid, a Spanish nurse is down with ebola. She was at large for full 21 days ... That's the nurse who took care of those Spanish missionaries pulled out of Africa with ebola in their systems. They both died.

In Spain, we LOVE to hug and kiss and tap everybody. Also strangers!

How many people have actually contracted ebola in Spain then? And where are they now?

No love & no hugs,
b.

[barnakiel]

And do not forget chikungunya in the Caribbean.

Less publicised by the WHO (guess why buhahahaha) but already well beyond 0.5 million people sick. That's pretty much in a population of 40 million, huh?

Mosquito Virus*That Walloped Caribbean*Spreads in U.S.* - Businessweek

Be very, very warned of chikungunya. We were not.

b.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

You guys do not read the news? Why not? News are good for you!

In Madrid, a Spanish nurse is down with ebola. She was at large for full 21 days ... That's the nurse who took care of those Spanish missionaries pulled out of Africa with ebola in their systems. They both died.

In Spain, we LOVE to hug and kiss and tap everybody. Also strangers!

How many people have actually contracted ebola in Spain then? And where are they now?

No love & no hugs,
b.

I guess we will only really know in another 2-3 weeksif she infected other people,CF thread below for those that read

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...in-134209.html

[Delancey]

Here comes one now.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by colemj

I'm not sure why arriving by boat would require being quarantined, while arriving by airplane or auto or train would not. In fact, I would suspect it would be easier to determine if passengers are infected if they had spent several days/weeks between countries instead of several hours.

Mark

Your legally obliged to place yourself under Quarantine upon entering a country's territorial waters.. that's why one fly's the 'Q' at the yardarm..
In Vanuatu I was required to anchor in the Quarantine Zone till I had been visited by an official who cleared me health and provisions on board wise..
Its a possibility they may bring back the old routine.. no big deal.. used to have to go through similar going from the UK to France.. (when we were still an independent Nation..).. get to Cherbourg and anchor out then the skipper went in to clear and report on things..

[s/v Beth]

Originally Posted by Delancey

newt, do I have it correctly that you are a physician?

Why yes, and I just got a "update" on Ebola last Saturday by a PHD in the field. Compared to what the current hype is, it was both calming and alarming.
Calming: the virus is large and disinfection is pretty routine.
Alarming: the mechanism is very aggressive and it mutates often. I do believe that every society will feel of it's impact. Quarantines may be just the beginning. Areas where this becomes endemic may become uninhabitable. No doubt about it, this is different. Since it attacks mRNA, many different animals may be infected.
I don't want to say much more without my notes in front of me. But it was sobering.

[Delancey]

Is that why Madrid has gotten a court order to euthanize the nurse's dog and have it's body incinerated? Zoonosis?

Ebola escapes Europe's defenses; pet dog must die

Also, I understand from the LA Times article that unlike previous outbreaks, the current one has already occurred in multiple stages of human to human transmission, and that mutations are more likely to occur the more stages of transmission and the greater number of infected. Is that correct?

P.S. Thanks for sharing, scary stuff!

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by atoll

I guess we will only really know in another 2-3 weeksif she infected other people,CF thread below for those that read

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...in-134209.html

So it is.

b.

[Delancey]

Found this bit from Reuters. Basically gets at what inspired the OP and I think explains some of what newt was getting at.

Not so much gloom and doom end of the world. More kinda like the pernicious and persistent problem that the world is just going to have to learn to live with, including cruisers.

(Reuters) - West Africa's Ebola epidemic is the largest the world has ever seen, but infectious disease experts are almost as fearful of a long-term legacy in humans as they are about the deaths it is causing right now.

While the current outbreak is vast and out of control, even pessimistic forecasts suggest it will eventually recede.

But if the virus continues to transmit from person to person for a year or more, the risk is that Ebola will become endemic in humans and constitute an ever-present threat to people in the region and the rest of the world.

"The big question here for me is, will this virus become endemic -- meaning it's being transmitted at low levels (in humans all the time)?" said Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of the scientists who identified the Ebola virus almost 40 years ago.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and an expert in infectious diseases, said all the signs are that this Ebola outbreak will run for many months yet, increasing the risk that West Africans could become a reservoir for the virus's spread to other parts of the continent and the rest of the world.

"The concern is that if it keeps going, it will turn from an epidemic disease, which is terrible, to becoming endemic in humans, which means would no longer require an overspill from animals to cause an outbreak," he told reporters at a briefing.

"Then it would also increase the possibility of spread beyond the region."

The West Africa Ebola epidemic has killed more than 2,800 people since it began in Guinea earlier this year, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has said up to 20,000 people could be affected before it is brought under control.

The virus, which can have a human mortality rate of up to 90 percent, is thought to be carried by bats or other wild animals and crosses into humans through contact with blood, meat or other infected fluids.

BAD HOSTS

Farrar said that if Ebola were to become endemic, it would almost inevitably simultaneously become less virulent.

This would mean that while the risk of wide regional and even global spread was far higher, the disease would be likely to kill a smaller proportion of the people it infected.

Ebola infection is caused by a virus whose raison d'etre is to survive for as long as possible so that it can replicate and multiply, Piot explained.

Because so many humans are killed so quickly, they are in fact a very ineffective "host" for the Ebola virus. A mortality rate of up to 90 percent may be frightening, but at least it means the outbreaks eventually kill themselves off.

"We (humans) are a very bad host from the virus' point of view," said Piot. "A host that's killed by a virus in a week or so is absolutely useless.

"So in all other outbreaks it eventually just disappeared from the human host and retreated into animals."

If it were to adapt to humans, perhaps becoming less deadly and allowing them to survive and become better hosts, the virus could settle and pool into a human reservoir.

"The time you really start to worry is when mortality rate drops -- because that suggests the probability that the disease is adapting to humans and risks becoming endemic," said Farrar.

A panel of more than 60 World Health Organization (WHO) experts conducted an analysis of the first nine months of the West Africa outbreak and calculated its case fatality rate at between 69 and 73 percent, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

But epidemiologists have cautioned that data collection is understandably lagging behind as the disease wreaks havoc in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - suggesting current case numbers and death rates are likely to be underestimates.

[Travelnik]

Originally Posted by zeehag

....
oh yes, and dont eat poop. ....

ROFLMAO!

I guess this would put a new twist on the old saying, "Eat sh!t and die!"

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Southern Star

Delancey, while travel restrictions from certain countries may occur over time, it is highly unlikely that these restrictions would apply to all countries at all times. The economic impact upon business/trade as well as tourism make it a virtual impossibility. Places like the caribbean could not survive as tourism would come to an end if all travellers were forced into quarantine upon arrival.

Brad

Have you never been to Washington DC? This is going to be used as a money grab by the CDC, the TSA, name your three letter agencies. They will say they need more money to fight infectious diseases and then they will heap all sorts of additional bureaucracy on top of it. Our "partner" countries will line up with their hands out for our tax dollars.

No doubt we will be faced with an additional layer of scanning to include some micro dermal sweat tests, or saliva tests, or something of that nature. The machine will be produced by some company that happens to have have a senator as the whole or partial owner and will be deemed a "great advance" until such time it is found to be defective. Of course this requires replacement and more money, etc. etc.

I would not be surprised if we see a NEW 3 letter agency created to fill some perceived gap (which is really just bureaucracy) for testing at the border.. maybe the Border Infectious Control Agency (BIC).

I do not see this being limited to at risk countries because, for obvious reasons, the CDC is now saying that ebola will be a persistent threat.