The only new poll this week was from Essential Research, and it recorded next to no change from its established pattern, which means next to no change to the BludgerTrack poll aggregate. What change there is has caused Labor recover the slightest possible lead on the two-party preferred aggregate, but the seat total and its distribution between the states is entirely unchanged on last week. One point worth noting is the ongoing slide of Palmer United, which can be timed almost exactly to its Senators taking their seats at the start of July, and which has now brought it to its lowest ebb since the election. Essential Research also furnished us with a new seat of leadership ratings this week, the effect of which has been to moderate the upward lurch on Tony Abbott’s net approval rating caused by the recent Morgan phone poll. The overall trend for Abbott remains upward, but Bill Shorten’s rating has also been tracking upwards lightly, albeit more gently. As I explain in Crikey today, this improvement appears to have been driven by men rather than women.
BB
200 deaths is not a very small number. It’s a large number of deaths.
GG – A totally aside question.
Are StG the most useless bank when it comes to home loans and settlements or do worse exist?
Everything
If we can send our big brave Aussie pilots and SAS to bomb the hell out of some rag heads, I do not see why we cannot send some of these big brave pilots and soldiers to save lives in West Africa.
I see no difference except that the risk from ebola is ten times more severe than the risk from ISIS.
Now how about this for obvious logistics. We send our out airforce planes as medivacs. They could fly to the nearest treatment centre (eg Germany) or if the plane’s range is long enough they can come straight home. Now surely we could install a plastic “safe room” in a Hercules, complete with oxygen etc. Frankly if we do not how the hell will we cope with biowarfare should it ever happen. Transporting infectious people safely should be a core part of our military training.
[Bushfire Bill
….
200 out of 4000 is a pretty small percentage, or hadn’t you noticed?]
You think a 5% death rate among health workers is an acceptable rate?
YIKES!!! I don’t think you know much about healthcare if that is the case! What do you think the healthcare case fatality rate is for treating HIV, by the way?
….or TB?
E
[You think a 5% death rate among health workers is an acceptable rate?]
Dio said that out of the 4000 people that have died are 200 health workers. Where did you get the 5% among health workers?
Evidently the ADF don’t have the resources or training to help manage ebola.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-08/kamradt-scott-why-australia-cant-send-troops/5798538
The problem at the moment is that Australia has been unable to reach agreement with any country to send people to for Ebola treatment. The government would be forced to either abandon the people or bring them here regardless of the risks.
Player
The main risk is top medical personnel and this risk is VERY High. Those MSF guys are my heroes.
However for our actual soldiers the risk would be much lower. I imagine if we sent soldiers they would be doing deliveries and perhaps guarding borders or quarantine lines. They would not be coming into contact with infected people. We would keep them living separately etc
[HMAS Cerberus naval base given all clear after bomb squad inspection]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-16/victorian-naval-base-in-lockdown2c-person-arrested/5818942
Much ado about nothing.
Yes good point. Its 5% of deaths are health workers, not 5% of health workers are dying. Having said that, Id be surprised if there were more than a few thousand healthcare workers working in the Ebola sphere at the moment.
So far, the death rate among health workers is 57% (232/404).
I can’t see how many health workers are involved in the outbreak so I can’t work out the rate of infection.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2014/10/15/ebola-has-already-killed-more-than-200-doctors-nurses-and-other-healthcare-workers/
DisplayName@150
It is indeed an interesting question. I’d have to say that if we sent people to help fight Ebola, the likelihood of a death there is probably higher than from the fight with IS.
But … that’s not really the point, is it? If the world doesn’t manage to control Ebola, it will be at least partly because people like us refused to help – and then the number of Australian deaths from Ebola will be much higher than the number of Australian death from the fight with IS.
ET
[Having said that, Id be surprised if there were more than a few thousand healthcare workers working in the Ebola sphere at the moment.]
Educated guesswork warning.
There are about 10,000 patients so far. I’d guess there is about one doctor/nurse for about every 10 patients, so there probably are about 1000 health workers.
If 400 doctors/nurses have caught Ebola so far, that’s about 40%.
[Not the point.
One patient in US with Ebola and 2 nurses who followed the guidelines were infected.]
The point is that these nurses were using obsolete and unsafe infection control methods. They had inadequate garmenting – no neck covering, no leggings,only single layers of gloves etc. – and worked at the duirection of doctors who had no idea what they were doing.
With proper infection control the rate of illness among health workers should be a lot lower, if not close to zero.
Presumably if we can bomb Iraqis, we can learn how to look after our medical personnel.
Read the NYT aeticle. It deals with all this. It’s a four day course for MsF, then a few weeks’ supervised work. They use a “buddy system” where both robing and disrobing is strictly choreographed by a specialists supervisor.
P1
[How does the personal-risk:public-risk ratio of the fight with IS compare to the that of the fight with Ebola?]
The irony is that both interventions are likely lead to an increase in Australian fatalities at home (one by raising the risk of terrorism and the other by bringing Ebola to Australian hospitals).
Dio
So it’s quite high, but that still leaves the question of whether Australian healthcare workers sent over there will match the “average” healthcare worker – in terms of things like training, conditions, support (while they’re there), etc.
Would we expect similar statistics with the people we sent to help?
Diogenes@165
If we do not control this outbreak, Ebola will be here whether we bring it back ourselves or not.
Dio @ 165
Well sure, but we’re talking globally.
Diog’s argument seems to be that some medical personnel will die, so we may as well just let ebola rip through Africa. This is the “They’re only darkies” argument. Sure, it’s serious, but not serious enough for us to pull our weight. We only want the easy jobs, like bombing pill boxes from 20,000 feet.
Does Diog not realize that if this insouciance takes hold, ebola will become a much more major health scare world wide than it is now, probably right here in Australia as well as everywhere else? It will put the Zombie Jihadis to shame for its danger to us.
BB:
I find it quite reassuring that non-medical people have such trust in us medicos!
Can I tell you that I went to a meeting today with people who are included in the national teleconferences of Infectious Diseases specialists dealing with the Australian response (I am not in those meetings but I know people who are).
We don’t really know whether or not we need negative ventilation rooms (probably not, but its not absolutely clear).
We don’t really know how to take off the PPE. We SUSPECT the nurses in the US contracted Ebola taking off their PPE using the correct method from last week, but these guidelines are being changed on a DAILY basis.
So you could follow the letter of the law today, and have the experts tell you tomorrow that you did it wrong and should have done something else instead.
If you think we have this sorted, you are sorely mistaken! We WILL get it sorted after a few hundred, or thousand, or tens of thousands have been infected in hospitals around the world (a quasi trial if you like), but we don’t know just now.
DN
[So it’s quite high, but that still leaves the question of whether Australian healthcare workers sent over there will match the “average” healthcare worker – in terms of things like training, conditions, support (while they’re there), etc.
Would we expect similar statistics with the people we sent to help?]
You’d hope it was a whole lot lower, but I couldn’t really guess what the risk was.
They might catch Ebola from someone when they get out of their suits after finishing work, depending on the prevalence.
Diogenes@156
What a bizarre article. We have to send civilians to fight Ebola since our precious military resources are better utilized bombing Iraq.
What kind of world are we living in?
We isolate for 21 days….right?
What do you think of this:
“According to the World Health Organization, men who have recovered from Ebola can still transmit the virus through semen for up to seven weeks after their recovery.”
http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2014/10/ebola_on_a_plane_transmission.html
So the last question is, do we know what the risk is globally? Some are suggesting a worldwide epidemic grown out of control. Is that possible?
Australia’s health care sector is very well trained. Indeed I work with at least one commercial cleaning company who have better infection control procedures than seem to have been normal in Dallas. These include double gloving etc. All the nurses in handling cytotoxic chemicals follow strict safety rules which are similar.
DN
[So the last question is, do we know what the risk is globally? Some are suggesting a worldwide epidemic grown out of control. Is that possible?]
Ebola isn’t contagious enough to do that. It’s not that hard to contain it.
P One
The ADF can manage a malaria outbreak though!!
[If you think we have this sorted, you are sorely mistaken! We WILL get it sorted after a few hundred, or thousand, or tens of thousands have been infected in hospitals around the world (a quasi trial if you like), but we don’t know just now.]
That’s crap. We know how to protect medical staff against Ebola. We just don’t DO it, so far, that’s all. The urgency hasn’t been in the task yet. The job of the CDC is to see that infection control done properly, everywhere.
The multinational effort to respond to ebola in west Africa is desperately short of personnel. This is a problem which Australia could alleviate in a big way.
Our six fighter jets and two hundred special forces troops have a negligible impact on the military operations in Iraq.
Highly trained, well-equipped personnel from Australia could help contain the ebola outbreak. The risks are manageable, and nobody would be forced to go. The government could ask military and medical people to volunteer for the mission. The fact that the government is sending nobody reflects their assessment that there is no public relations benefit to them from caring for west Africans.
It is much more sensational make an inconsequential military contribution to a futile war. It projects an image of strength and decisiveness.
Everything
I gather that the 21 days is right 95% of the time.
Isolation on return is obvious but this should not be too hard for the army. Once the brave boysies come home they can go off on training bivouac for three weeks.
We hire a nice motel/hotel for the medical guys and they get resort living for three weeks – they bloody well deserve it.
So the problem is the lack of facilities/expertise/support *in* Africa?
If we’re sending people in, what is to stop us sending the equipment and support with them necessary to have them treated on site? Why are western facilities necessary?
[DisplayName
Posted Thursday, October 16, 2014 at 9:49 pm | PERMALINK
So the last question is, do we know what the risk is globally? Some are suggesting a worldwide epidemic grown out of control. Is that possible?]
I know a very prominent Public Health expert (appears on TV etc etc) who said that HIV was an overblown risk and it wouldn’t cause much of a problem globally at all.
That view changed over the last quarter century!
So, the best time to ask an expert about these things is in hindsight, not in the middle of it!
Spot on, Nick.
What ARE we doing in Iraq?
Going on joy rides over the desert dropping the odd bomb. Sitting in hangers playing cards waiting for the planes to return. Cooling our heels in barracks because the Iraqis won’t let the SAS in.
It is a stunt. It has always been a stunt. Every headline has been wrong, exaggerated deliberately or the product of vivid imaginations.
Where we CAN make a difference, we do nothing. Where we can’t we’re gung ho. It’s a very large con trick.
E
[So, the best time to ask an expert about these things is in hindsight, not in the middle of it!]
*wince*
Nicholas
[ Our six fighter jets and two hundred special forces troops have a negligible impact on the military operations in Iraq. ]
But they have a significant impact in public opinion polls back here in Australia.
If the same troops were in in West Africa, the opposite would be true.
But guess which one our PM is more interested in?
Dio
I think you are overconfident. Clearly Ebola is extremely infectious once people are really ill ie vomiting etc. However if we limit the number of health workers then it is containable.
However we need to have very strict quarantine rules.
Now i believe in Australia we have the resources and social capital to cope well. I am not sure about the USA.
Take a look at some of the whacky US sites and I think operating any sort of quarantine will be very very hard.
@181
That should be “facilities in western countries”.
I doubt there would be a worldwide epidemic – from what has been said it just can’t ‘take off’ in the conditions in most of the developed world, but it could well become endemic in the poor parts of the world, and that would result in consistent low numbers of infections in the West.
The various experts seem to think creating an effective vaccine for Ebola should be fairly straightforward – I guess based on the fact that people do recover from infection, even if it is only 30-50% of people, so human immune systems are able to clear the virus eventually. And, of course, all a vaccination program needs to do is reduce the infection rate below 1 per infected person to be able to control the disease. I guess we’ll see how that goes.
dtt
[Clearly Ebola is extremely infectious once people are really ill ie vomiting etc.]
That’s true but it’s pretty obvious when they are that sick so you can put them in quarantine.
The really dangerous diseases spread by aerosols and are contagious before symptoms develop.
ET
I know of a prominent CSIRO scientist who said that CFCs were not a risk until they discovered the ozone hole. He went on the be the CSIRO lead guy on CFC control. i was the junior public servant taking notes at meetings. What annoyed me was that as a junior public servant i could read the scientific literature and know there was a problem, but this guy was in denial.
Jackol@188
I’m struggling to grasp this. This argument seems to be predicated on the assumption that the number of poor Africans who are going to die from Ebola is of little or no consequence to us in the rich West.
I must have misunderstood. Surely no-one could be that insensitive?
Dio
Yes and no. Provided you have a functioning health care and police system ebola may be less of a concern than SARS or Spanish Flu because you can isolate when infectious.
However if law and order breaks down and you cannot enforce isolation you have a problem. Also if your health care is inadequate people will care for their own loved ones and the disease starts its exponential infection phase. Once a person is clearly sick Ebola seems to be extremely infectious – more than flu.
YIKES!!!!
Thank god we don’t have the Canberra Press Corps checking everything we have ever said!
Re DTT @180: so the quoted 21 day waiting period for the all-clear for Ebola infection is the 95% confidence level. So if the incubation period is roughly normally disributed, you’d need to double that to get the confidence level to about 99.5%.
One thing Australia could do is improve our dismal level of preparedness for managing people in our own hospitals.
[SERIOUS questions are being asked about Australia’s ability to fight an Ebola outbreak as the United Nations warns the world has just 60 days to control the epidemic.
Australia has only five isolation pods for transporting Ebola victims, some small regional hospitals don’t have the protective clothing needed to cope with a case and the government has not briefed health leaders on our preparedness.
Health officials are today reviewing national guidelines for managing Ebola after the US Centres for Disease Control announced it was revewing its protocals after two nurses in the United States were infected while treating Ebola patients.]
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/health/ebola-health-authorities-scramble-to-get-equipment-to-fight-it-as-un-warns-we-have-60-days-to-beat-it/story-fni0diad-1227093088290
Player One –
I was responding to this above:
Earlier in the discussion I put my 2c in that I think the Australian government should be putting together an official mission to put people (volunteers) on the ground, so I would prefer it if you didn’t jump to conclusions.
I think of course that the world will be saved from Ebola by the arrival of a vaccine. Once health care workers are vaccinated as well as cleaning staff etc we will be able to provide good care to all the sick even in Africa. This will stop the infection. Eventually we will have a situation such that if you go to africa you get an ebola vaccine just as you now have cholera or typhoid.
Cholera vaccine is crap unfortunately!
Jackol
[ Earlier in the discussion I put my 2c in that I think the Australian government should be putting together an official mission to put people (volunteers) on the ground, so I would prefer it if you didn’t jump to conclusions. ]
Good. But I don’t think I’m the only one jumping to conclusions here …
[ The various experts seem to think creating an effective vaccine for Ebola should be fairly straightforward ]
Ebola has been around for more than a decade, I believe. If it was that easy to create a vaccine we would have one already.
It could take months or even years to create an effective vaccine, and in that time hundreds of thousands of Africans will probably die.
dtt
Definitely. It’s all contingent on being able to have excellent public health measures.