Let’s see. Here are the World Health Organization’s numbers for the number of new cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone since the beginning of the year:
| Week ending | New cases |
| Jan 11 | 525 |
| Jan 18 | 438 |
| JJan 25 | 368 |
| Feb 1 | 403 |
| Feb 8 | 399 |
| Feb 15 | 359 |
| Feb 22 | 476 |
What in the world are the editors of Bloomberg talking about?
In late January, the World Health Organization said that for the first time in seven months there were fewer than 100 new confirmed cases of Ebola in a week in the hardest hit countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Even if the epidemic ends, it will continue to inflict pain. More than 23,000 people have been infected since December 2013, according to the official count. About 9,600 have died, leaving behind an estimated 30,000 orphans. More will perish, given a fatality rate of 70 percent in this outbreak. The economic disruption caused by Ebola cost the three countries more than half a billion dollars in 2014, almost five percent of their combined GDPs, according to the World Bank. Aversion to medical facilities has wrecked malaria-control efforts, raising concerns about a malaria surge. Coping even with mundane medical needs is a challenge given the 490 health-care workers killed by Ebola so far. With better medical systems, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali contained Ebola when it spread there, and the Democratic Republic of Congo controlled an outbreak of a different strain of the virus. Two medical workers in the U.S. and one in Spain were infected after caring for people who had contracted Ebola in Africa; all three recovered.
Do you see a trend there? If there is one, the only interpretation I can is that Ebola has become endemic in West Africa. What a happy thought.
Basically, there are three ways an epidemic can end. Everyone can have died. No new cases may emerge. Or the disease becomes endemic which certainly looks like what has happened in this instance.
They also appear to have missed the news that Ebola may have a limited ability to be transmitted through the air. Other than that the article is correct.
American reality is a product of media coverage. If a subject is no longer covered by mass media services it can’t possibly be a problem, hence the disaster of ebola must be over.
I don’t think that’s an exaggeration of how enclosed in Happy Thought our elites have become.
Ben, if you were part of the American elite, wouldn’t you feel pretty good about life, too?
In January WHO did report a week with only 99 cases. Either that number has been revised since then and Bloomberg did check the revisions, or their are competing sets of numbers out there.
I remember seeing a half week report with 99 cases that has since been revised to a whole week and more cases. The point is that it takes more than one sample to detect a trend.
Yeah, I know that, but tell that to any graduate from J-school.
Keeping this in context, there were predictions that we were seeing exponential growth and the number of new cases per week would now be in the tens of thousands. The response to get this under control has been pretty remarkable. Given the animal reservoir that exists, I think it is likely to remain in West Africa until/if we get an effective vaccine.
On the plus side, it looks like most of the gains have been made by instituting major cultural changes. This has been done very quickly but it is clear that we do not have 100% change. If we can achieve that, rates should go down even further.
Steve
Aside from the mechanics of the situation, there seems to be moral concern or judgment at work in the bloomberg piece and in comments. I’d like to know how concerns over Ebola mortality and morbidity square with the meh “no existential threat to us” “it’s their problem” stance wrt ISIS/ISIL/DAESH rape, slavery and slaughter of innocents in the ME.
I can only think of pure utility.
I would point out that steve is making a lot of assumptions in just two brief paragraphs while I am making exactly one: that we can determine the directionality (whether the number of cases is going up, down, or staying the same) from what’s being reported even if the numbers are not completely accurate.