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Ben Hale was quoted in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on the ebola epidemic:
Ebola, the scorecard
The virus is winning as the world plays catch up, reports an epidemiologist
September 28, 2014
By Tara C. Smith
It’s nine months into the biggest Ebola outbreak in history, and the situation is going from bad to worse. The outbreak simmered slowly in West Africa from December, when the first case was retrospectively documented, through March, when it was first recognized by international authorities. Now, terms like “exponential spread” are being thrown around.
Already, the number of cases (about 5,800 as of Sept. 22) and deaths (2,800) has dwarfed the numbers from every reported Ebola outbreak in history. And the case count is doubling every three weeks. Here’s where we stand:
On the ground
Even experienced disaster responders have been shocked at how bad Ebola has gotten. Jackson Naimah, a Doctors Without Borders worker in Monrovia, Liberia, described the situation in his home country, noting that patients are literally dying at the front door of his clinic because it lacks beds, personnel and supplies:
“One day this week, I sat outside the treatment center eating my lunch. I saw a boy approach the gate. A week ago his father died from Ebola. I could see that his mouth was red with blood. We had no space for him. When he turned away to walk into town, I thought to myself that this boy is going to take a taxi, and he is going to go home to his family, and he will infect them.”
When health care workers aren’t available, or when patients are too fearful to take loved ones to a clinic, it falls to those closest to the ill to nurse them. This has wiped out entire families. As Benjamin Hale wrote in Slate, the virus is “prey[ing] on care and love, piggybacking on the deepest, most distinctly human virtues,” turning caregivers into victims as it passes among siblings and parents, from one generation to the next. Read more …
