Wednesday - September 10, 2014

Going Asymptotic

Asymptotic growth is the next level of steepness in a mathematical function that has already surpassed exponential growth. The smallest increase on one side of the equation yields huge, nearly infinite results on the other. Since actual infinity can never be reached, the slope of the graph approaches 0 or undefined, depending on whether the function goes “over” or “up”.

This is a catastrophe, and it’s about to explode into a continental calamity. Better close the gates right the heck now, before it’s too too too late.

Yesterday’s News: World Health Organization: Ebola Has Killed 2,288, Nearly Half in Past 21 Days

[ That’s a 50% increase in fatalities in 3 weeks, roughly 55 new deaths per day. ]

Liberia is bracing for an upsurge in Ebola cases, following a grim World Health Organization assessment on Tuesday that the worst is yet to come in the fight against the killer virus.

While the WHO predicted an “exponential increase” in infections across West Africa, it warned that Liberia, which has reaped the lion’s share of misery with half of all fatalities, could initially only hope to slow contagion, not stop it.

The UN’s health arm upped the Ebola death toll Tuesday in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria to 2,288 out of 4,269 cases, noting nearly half of all infections had occurred in the past 21 days.

The WHO also evacuated its second infected medical expert, a doctor had been working at an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone.

Emory University Hospital in Georgia on Tuesday admitted an American who had contracted Ebola in West Africa, but the hospital has declined to confirm it was the WHO employee.

Ebola, transmitted through bodily fluids, leads to haemorrhagic fever and—in over half of cases—death. There is no specific treatment regime and no licensed vaccine.

The fresh WHO figures underscore Ebola’s asymmetric spread, as it rips through densely populated communities with decrepit public health facilities.

And, sad as it is, it is quite literally yesterday’s news.

This is today’s news:

Ebola death toll rises to at least 2,296, WHO says

The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak in history has jumped by almost 200 in a single day to at least 2,296 and is already likely to be higher than that, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

The WHO said it had recorded 4,293 cases in five West African countries as of Sept. 6, a day after its previous update.

But it still did not have new figures for Liberia, the worst-affected country, suggesting the true toll is already much higher. The WHO has said it expects thousands of new cases in Liberia in the next three weeks.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Tuesday she expects the Ebola crisis gripping her country to worsen in the coming weeks as health workers struggle with inadequate supplies, a lack of outside support and a population in fear.

“It remains a very grave situation,” she told an audience at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, via Skype from Liberia’s capital Monrovia. “It is taking a long time to respond effectively .... We expect it to accelerate for at least another two or three weeks before we can look forward to a decline.”

Liberia’s defense minister told the United Nations Security Council that Ebola posed a mortal threat to the country.

According to the Oxford prediction, these countries are at risk of animal-to-human transmission of Ebola by virtue of their geography: Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Togo, United Republic of Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar and Malawi.

No, the numbers don’t line up because the reports keep getting updated. But the death toll is rising, and growing at a growing rate. That’s what exponential growth means. And asymptotic growth comes right after that. It’s really only a matter of semantics.

55 a day became 200 a day in just over 3 weeks. And that’s with no report from Liberia. How many tomorrow? 400? And 500 by Friday? 1000 a day by Monday? 10,000 by next week?

There isn’t really anything that can be done. That magic vaccine is just in the test phase. It’s not like there are tens of thousands of gallons of it sitting around, which is what you’d need to inoculate a population of ten million people. Maybe there are a couple cups full in all the world.

Eventually there won’t be any more people in Western Africa to get infected. They’ll all be dead, recovering, or naturally immune. And this plague will burn itself out. But first it will infect Central Africa, then Southern Africa. Millions are going to die. And nothing can be done. That’s the horrible truth.

In the meantime, I don’t want anybody coming into my country from anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Period. Shut the gates, cancel the flights, turn the ships around. Set up a bunch of tents out on Plum Island, or in Area 54 out in the desert. You’ve been in Africa in the past month, then it’s into the tent with you. Period. You’ve been in Western Africa, and it’s into the tent wearing a space suit. Period. We’ll feed you and assign you a doctor, and if you’re still alive in 30 days you can leave.

We need to institute radical quarantine, and we need to do it 100% and we need to do it right the heck now.

Period.

Aren’t you ever so glad that Bush and Obama got the borders secured?

Posted by Drew458     on 09/10/2014 at 01:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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