Pissin' On The Roses: The plausible catastrophic risks from EBOLA are real and way different than the Public has been told

Scenario 1

Rating: Medium Risk, High Impact

Trigger: A limited number of randomly dispersed 1st World Ebola cases

Result: Hospitals shut down or limit activity

Infected Ambulances pulled from service

Urgent Care facilities shut down / limit activity

Impact: People with "routine" medical conditions who are dependent on 1st World medical systems to remain alive may die. (ie dialysis, etc)

Scenario 2

Rating: Low to Medium Risk, Insane Impact

Trigger: Per Department of Defense experimentation, Cold Weather facilitates "Flu Like" spread of Ebola

Result: Mass Quarantine

Hurricane recovery type impacts across all segments of society

Impact: Biblical

Discussion

As per the US Military's analysis, There is every biological indication that Ebola can spread just like the Flu via cough and sneezing. There seem to be only two requirements to make the Airborne spread of Ebola common place.

(1) Cold winter weather

(2) A person who was initially infected via the inhalation route.

To date the 1st World has been fortunate in so much as that people infected with Ebola have limited resources to travel outside of their Equatorial hot weather climate. Those Ebola infected who have traveled were not infected via the Airborne Route (think Flu like) and thusly tend not to shed virus until after they are near death, thereby limiting spread to hospice and funerary practices.

However if someone is infected by inhalation Ebola, they will RAPIDLY develop and shed Ebola virus from their lungs. Moreover just as with Flu, they may be infectious VERY early in the onset of the disease. Get enough Ebola victims in one place and Airborne infections become probable, such have supposedly occurred in Africa. But, the hot weather does not sustain transmission outside of highly contaminated areas. Unfortunately, a bio terrorist could cheaply and rapidly create such an environment just by placing the bodily fluids of a deceased Ebola victim into an ultrasonic humidifier.

Vaccines

PFU= Plaque Forming Unit

Prospective Ebola vaccines have been around for some time, but they weren't funded because they could not protect against the 1000 PFU 'challenge dose'. However in light of the previous West Africa Ebola outbreak and the desire to throw funding at manufactures, the 'challenge dose' was watered down by a factor of 100 times to just 10 PFU, For Ebola, the original 1000 PFU 'challenge dose' meant 1000 individual Ebola Virus particles, that number was chosen because it represented what a researcher would be exposed to from a minor needle prick or eye rub from 1 cubic millimeter of blood.

The new watered down 10 PFU 'challenge dose' is just 10 Ebola virus particles; it's a dose so small that you can't even see it, yet it still kills 100% of the monkeys infected by it. The problem with creating effective Ebola vaccines is that the virus just replicates faster than the body's immune system can respond. Rather then attack this problem, the NIH has reduced the amount of virus to which the test monkey is exposed so that it takes longer for the monkey to develop Ebola in hopes that the delay buys enough time for the immune system to kick in. Basically NIH has gamed the system in the belief that even a hopelessly ineffectual vaccine is better than no vaccine, especially if it lines the manufactures' pockets. That logic is akin to believing that handing out faulty condoms helps halt the spread of AIDS by funding the manufactures to create better condoms, while ignoring that those hapless folks using the, unbeknownst to them, faulty condoms may now take exposure risks which they might not otherwise have.

Conclusion

(1) It might be considered wise for people who require any sort of routine medical treatment to keep a close eye on whats happening with Ebola in Africa and to consider what cost effective preparations they might need to stay alive if 1st World medical treatment disappears (akin to a hurricane like scenario hitting multiple cities simultaneously).

(2) Any distributed appearance of EBOLA in a 1st World environment, especially during FLU season, could rapidly turn from media downplaying to biblical.