

Hell in the Hot Zone - fossuser
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/10/ebola-virus-epidemic-containment

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dredmorbius
This really is a tremendously good article illuminating many of the challenges
posed by the Ebola outbreak. Among the points.

Determining that you've got a problem.

Determining specifically what that problem is, especially in an environment in
which the threat may be confused with numerous other conditions.

Recognizing the _severity_ of that problem.

Mobilizing resources to deal with it.

Communicating the severity to others, particularly a population that's highly
illiterate, has virtually no scientific understanding, a considerable (and,
given history, highly justifiable) distrust of outsiders. As well as
deliberate or incidental disinformation arising from various concerns.

The impacts of cultural practices on a situation.

How poverty, crowding, and other conditions influence circumstances,
particularly those of infectious disease. Both lack of and access to
technology are contributing causes. Lack of resources, medical technology,
isolation measures, and information generally contribute to the spread. But so
do mechanized transportation (in highly crowded conditions in the case of
buses, in rapid distribution in the form of aircraft), and just enough medical
services to provide effective means of concentrating and distributing the
virus. "Nature finds a way", as Jeff Goldblum's character in _Jurassic Park_
noted, and what we've got here is the coevolution of a virus and a specific
ecological niche such that the key fits. It's agnostic as to whether or not
the specific pins it pushes are high-tech or low, and considering technology
and modernity as unalloyed friends _or_ foes is invalid.

And the counterintuitive dark patterns and responses which can emerge: the
_apparent_ success of early interventions in addressing the nascent epidemic,
an apparent effect actually masking the conterproductive response of the local
population shunning medical treatment and assistance out of fear, resulting in
the hidden development and spread of the epidemic.

