Ebola

[Perry]

Thoughts? It bothers me that the nurse in Dallas contracted it, but it seems encouraging that Nigeria was able to stop it from spreading.

[HH8]

No worries, I always pump water on trail
Less germs in isolated country must be part of why hiking is so good for your health

[phydeux]

Not really worried about it. If someone does come down with it in Southern California, then I might pay attention until that person/persons are cured of it.

Remember, its only transmitted by direct contact with body fluids, so the virus can't live outside of its 'host' for very long. Its not as easily transmitted as the flu which you can get from someone sneezing or breathing on you (the 'flu' vireuses are longer lived and more robust outside of the body for sohrt periods of time). The infected doctor in New York had it for a few days and went out-on-the-town and didn't infect anyone else. Likewise, the Liberian man who died from it lived in an apartment for four days with symptoms and none of the others living there have come down with the disease (excpet the two nurses that treated him). And the symptoms show up faster than AIDS (21 days vs many years for AIDS, another viral disease) so its easier to control the spread.

[Perry]

Thank you both for the replies. The lack of replies was kind of strange, since it seemed like an important issue that was becoming relevant to our daily life in the near future. I did keep in mind that hardly anybody reads or posts in this section of the message board.

The fact that both nurses recovered easily is very encouraging. It appears it's mostly only contagious in the final stage with severe symptoms. It seems like the only way it would become a serious problem here in the U.S. is if a massive amount of people were entering our country and overwhelming the hospitals and CDC, but an occasional traveler here and there does not appear to be much of an issue. If it mutated to a longer incubation period that seems like it could spread through a few individuals, but I'm not a virus expert. The experts do think it's highly unlikely that it would mutate to become fully airborne like the flu or cold.