<p>Oohhhh I’m a junior member now</p>
<p>“But people take up to 21 days to begin to exhibit symptoms. Given the difficulty of making and storing the drug, and the vagaries of exposure–it takes bodily fluids, after all–it has to be extremely difficult to decide who to give it to.”</p>
<p>I am curious how much bodily fluid people have to be exposed to. I’ve heard people say, “C’mon, how many times in your life have you been exposed to feces or vomit, if you aren’t a health care worker?” I can say none, besides my own and my kids. And dogs. But it is also saliva and sweat.</p>
<p>Walking around the grocery store yesterday, I saw people taking samples from the food bar, using the same ladles. Double dipping when taking samples of cheese, touching a few other chips when they grabbed a sample. Putting food back after looking at the label, holding onto the grocery cart without wiping it first, checking the ripeness of fruit. It’s actually kind of gross if you think about it much. If you were ill and had a slight bit of saliva or sweat on your hands (likely), you could get that all over the store before you left.</p>
<p>So does anybody know, how much does it take to infect someone else? A microscopic bit? A huge amount? Does the virus die immediately after it is not on the individual, or does it stay there?</p>
<p>@busdriver11 You can get infected by a tiny bit. Example is getting pricked by a needle that is contaminated. However, the virus cannot survive outside the host, it doesn’t die “immediately”, but fairly quickly. </p>
<p>Don’t get sneezed on. That would be bad.</p>
<p>Thanks, @guineagirl96. That is interesting information. Good to know it does not last long outside the host.</p>
<p>I was just thinking how disgusting grocery shopping really can be. Ugh, I bought some blueberries at the farmers market, and the girl who handed me the box had just finished picking her nose. I thought she wasn’t going to touch them, but then she handled them, putting more into the box. Though I washed them like crazy, I ended up being too grossed out to eat many, so my dogs got to enjoy them. For them, the more buggers, the better.</p>
<p>@scholarme yes and no. You have to have a cut or have to breathe it in for a sneeze to infect you (it can be spread by droplets which is NOT airborne transmission).</p>
<p>And not to be gross, but let us remember that people with Ebola bleed from every orifice, and vomit blood also. 
So if the spray hits your skin, will you be infected? That may depend on whether you have a break in your skin. Or if it goes in your eyes.</p>
<p>I find it striking that it often spreads by families preparing bodies for burial. That is a lot less direct than being stuck with a needle. I wonder if Ebola is carried in sweat and saliva? I seem to recall that HIV is not…</p>
<p>@Consolation yes, possibly if you’re not wearing the correct protection, but it’d need to get in your eyes or a break in the skin. The families preparing bodies for burial do so very soon after death when the bodies are covered in vomit and blood, without protective gear. This is how they are infected.</p>
<p>In breaking news: Ann Coulter opines that “Ebola Doc’s condition downgraded to idiotic”</p>
<p>Speaking of idiotic…</p>
<p>Ann Coulter is a vicious individual. It astonishes and saddens me that she is able to attract sufficient followers to make a living.</p>
<p>That comment makes me sick. I hope the doctor and his family don’t hear about it.</p>
<p>We all have microscopic cuts on our skin. Just take a look at your nails/cuticles, and you might be even able to see some. That’s the route Ebola virus can take to get inside a human body. It is also not true that all Ebola patients bleed and ooze bloody fluids out of every orifice and from the skin surface. Some don’t, but their bodily fluids are still infectious. </p>
<p>Re: TB. There is active TB and latent TB; a high percenatge of the world’s population is infected with it, but as the poster noted, it is isually latent. Wo depending on how TB is counted, the rates can be different. Additionally, the individuals who get really ill and die are usually the ones with a concurrent infection, most often HIV, but their deaths are usually classified as caused by HIV, not TB. </p>
<p>Most people even in the “Western” world don’t seem to get infection control as far as I can tell. I see people all the time wandering around with open wounds, blood etc on sports fields, in gyms and so forth. It’s as if they have never heard of even basic blood borne pathogens, ebola completely aside. People also don’t seem to get the concept of dispersing infection from one surface to another either. I see guys sneeze or blow their nose into a towel then use the same towel to wipe gym equipment (I know, gross!). This is at a gym where people are of a social status and education level that you’d think they would know better.</p>
<p>Saintfan… It is hot and muggy here, but I think I will go for a run outside instead hopping on the gym treadmill. :)</p>
<p>Drinking and driving kills more people than any disease in the US right now. </p>
<p>Being fat is a current epidemic.</p>
<p>Our freedom is in declining health in proportion to the loss of common sense and historical knowledge.</p>
<p>Ebola - 2 Americans have it. 2!!!</p>
<p>We are sheep with rings in our noses being led wherever our political leaders and media masters care to lead us. </p>
<p>Don’t look at the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression, don’t look at the catastrophe and genocide in Iraq since the president declared it secure and stable, don’t look at illegal immigration, massive national debt, national credit downgrades, the devastated black communities, the lack of healthcare even with Obamacare, don’t look at nuns fighting the govt to not be forced to pay for abortion drugs and services against their religion, don’t look at the millions that had their health insurance cancelled when Obamacare kicked in or the millions more that are soon to come and don’t look at rising crime, rising poverty and the shrinking middle class.</p>
<p>Be good little sheep and let’s focus on Ebola in Africa and the “2” Americans who went there and got sick while trying to help people. Look at that and be afraid. </p>
<p>Only Darth Vader and people like him love to stoke fear like that.</p>
<p>Yep - next thing you know all those Honduran kids at the border will be giving us all ebola. In fact I bet it was planned that way. 8-} </p>
<p>I could see how everyone on this thread could be viewed as correct in how they view this situation. </p>
<p>The major distinction I see is the underlying issue that some trust what the government says and does way more than others. </p>
<p>If people are trusting the govt, they got something worse than Ebola. Both sides are a mess and nobody’s doing the right thing.</p>
<p>@Madaboutx
</p>
<p>I think you are missing the geopolitical implications of this ebola epidemic. No, I’m not afraid of contracting ebola any more than I fear my particular airplane will be hijacked by Al Qaeda and deliberately crashed into a landmark bldg.</p>
<p>The global migration of isolated ebola victims has the potential to upset the int’l enonomy the way “only 4” airplanes on 9/11/2001 did. It will especially devastate the airline industry. </p>
<p>The reason that this ZMapp drug even existed is because the US Military funded the research as it saw the potential for ebola to be used in biological terrorism. It would take a lot less time & coordination for a crazy terrorist group to exploit ebola, than it took them to train 4 pilots how to fly (but not land) an airplane. All they would need is a few willing martyrs (there seems to be no shortage of undersexed volunteers counting on 72 virgins-- ‘Underwear bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is from Nigeria) to deliberately get infected and then board an airplane to London, Frankfurt, Paris, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong… 
</p>
<p>Granted, I haven’t been following this media circus all that closely, but everything I’ve seen by any politician or political org that has any credibility has said that this is really not a huge deal (it’s not). It’s the media trying to stoke fear and there’s an easy way to fix that- turn off the TV. Voila! </p>